And the Wind Blows

I went to a funeral today. I go into my work trips prepared to give teacher training workshops, observe classes, check out potential ELF housing options and drink a lot of tea while talking to directors of English departments. This trip was going to be a bit different because one objective was to scout out potential sites for future camps. I was prepared with everything from work clothes and heels to hiking boots, ski jacket and gloves ready to venture into the mountains and experience the outdoors of Turkey. A funeral just wasn’t on the program.

The English faculty in Erzincan, like the city it's in, is small, so I was able to meet most of them on my first day. Young and new with energy and ideas, this is a group with great vision for the future of their fledgling school. After a few cups of tea, training and a couple of meals, I already felt like I had known them for months.

After only 24 hours of knowing the director, I noticed that he carried an extra weight on his shoulders when he joined us for lunch on the second day. I had seen it since the night before while, actually, having dinner with his family. The natural warm smile that made him so approachable the second I met him had morphed into something strained and forced in the past couple of hours for some reason I was oblivious to. Then he got the phone call. Something about health, something apparently serious that required he give it immediate attention. Five minutes later the phone of another colleague eating with us rang, having the same effect. More phone calls followed filling in some holes to a horrible tragedy. A very close colleague and friend from the university, a man loved by faculty and students and known as simply a friend to all, had died.

Erzincan is a town that, when most Ankara Turks hear it mentioned, is sort of disregarded as a mountain village that is known because it was severely damaged in an earthquake exactly 18 years ago. Looking at it from the airplane, it is located smack dab in the middle of a powder sugar covered mountain bowl. Walking its streets, every direction you look are peaks thousands of meters high. Since I landed, I’ve wanted nothing more than to walk in any direction and head straight into this amazing scene. The wind tends to blow strong here and it seems as though every time I try to move in a direction here, a massive gust of wind swirls up and blows me in an unexpected direction, toward places and people that make me like it even more here.

Our hosts obviously had more pressing things to deal with now than Aycan, my Embassy colleague, and me. We took the afternoon to find an art museum, maybe do some shopping, take a nap and have dinner in the hotel restaurant – simple. The crazy winds blew us to an art gallery that was closed, a café where we obviously didn’t fit in and a jewelry shop where we spent more money than we had planned. Wanting to get out of the wind by late afternoon and have a rest, we headed back to the hotel where a gust came up and shifted the trajectory of the rest of the evening. After the news of the death that shoot the entire town, our plans to check out campsites with a local guide we thought were on hold . . . and then . . . there was a man with the tour company waiting for us at the hotel, ready to keep the appointment and take us into the hills and show us some videos. So much for the rest. They wanted to take us out to dinner too, which would make the night that much longer. UGH.

The wind kept blowing though, and what started as something I was not at all excited about had been blown around enough to become a surprisingly perfect evening of amazing food, nargile, photographs, videos and stories of a man that had explored every corner of the mountainous land around this city. Rock and ice climbing, skiing, water skiing, camping trips with groups of 200 kids at altitudes of 2000 meters sleeping in tents and seeing sights and landscapes you forget really exist on this planet were all presented to us as possabilities available to students and even to us, whenever we wanted. I felt like this man knew something about me that I didn't share, like he was answering my questions and reading my mind without me having to say a word. I could see myself in just about every picture he took and being a part of his incredible lifestyle and adventure.

When the wind blew me back to my hotel room, I knew that it would bring me back to this place in the near future and experience these mountains for myself. Unfortunately, this time the wind was in charge and mountain exploration wasn't going to happen. This time was about the heavy hearts of these strangers I wanted to call friends. I watched them support each other at the funeral, creating a net to hold each other up. They even opened themselves up to include us a bit in their net, making me feel again like I knew them before.

Seeing the pain and confusion in their minds made me want to take people who were, in all ways, strangers to me and somehow comfort them. Seeing the land around here and what it has to offer left me with a sense of comfort knowing that enjoying nature and its beauty can be found in the most unlikely places. As I leave, even though the experience didn't include all that was planned, a different plan played out. I know that I will be back here to see these people and this place that I blew into a few days ago.

Astronauts in Adana

I may not like the bureaucratic blahblah that comes with my job, but there are some perks that sometimes make up for the rest of it. A couple of weeks ago my English Language Officer at the Embassy told me that Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell and a couple of other aviation legends were going to be in Turkey visiting a military base just south of here in Adana. He said that a talk at the University was also going to be planned and that the Embassy wanted to invite students form our Access program that live nearby. The Embassy would pay for transport, a meal and an overnight for those students and kids traveling too far to make the round trip in one day. Because I work quite closely with Access teachers, I was asked to attend the event and help with logistics and organization of the student group.

I know they’re old, but I got excited. Neil Armstrong I of course knew. This is THE guy that first walked on the moon, only one, and I’d get to see him. Jim Lovell I had to look up, but quickly put Tom Hanks and Apollo 13 together to know why he was a significant character. This was going to be a very cool event.

The organizers of the event were the consulate in Adana plus the university where the event took place. The Americans had their invite list that included our students and teachers. We were given very strict instructions that every person attending needed their name on the invite list and to have a written invitation in hand. We were set. The university opened the doors to its own people, but because it was a campus event, was unable to have a set invite list. Basically, the door was open to anyone.

Before I proceed with the story, I think it’s useful to say that, when one purchases movie tickets in Turkey, they receive assigned seats in the theater. Whether the seats are sold out or they are the only people in the place, the moviegoer has a designated place to sit. I found this to be quirky and funny the first time I went and never really thought twice about it after that. With some people being invited with reserved seats for the astronaut event and a whole lot more that were there for general admission, it should have raised a red flag to at least on organizer that there might be problems. It occurred to me, but I wasn’t organizing the event, so I just sat back and watched.

One hour before the event was meant to start, the line at the door started to form. Seeing the crowds, we herded our Access kids in right away, allowing them to skip the line and go right through security, invitations in hand. No surprise that this did not sit well with the university crowd in line and got the whole thing off to a bad start. The auditorium sat 450 people and once those seats were filled, there was a reserve auditorium next door where people could watch the event live on a big screen. When a crowd of university students saw that a bunch of high school kids had reserved seats and that they would have to go to the overflow room, they were pissed off. Security - one middle-aged mustached university employee – put in an effort and closed the doors, but that didn’t last very long. If the door opened the slightest bit, five people would weasel their way in, until mustached-man simply gave up and allowed them all go in. The aisles and stairs and every piece of carpeting was covered within 3 minutes.

Since university security obviously didn’t have much control, some American Embassy officers stepped in and managed to close the doors and stop people from entering the auditorium that already held at least 300 people more than it was supposed to. One Embassy woman used an obvious reason of, “this is a terrible fire hazard. No more people can be allowed in,” to which a university student responded with seemingly clear logic, “Why would there be a fire?”

On this day I witnessed a textbook example of Turkish and American cultures clashing. All day long I was entertained and disgusted by what seemed to me an irrational reaction and lack of common sense. When seats are full, no more people can get in, period, right? That’s my American culture talking. Turkish culture comes back simply with, “more people can fit” and “Why would there be a fire?” Despite a minimum age of 12 allowed entrance, mothers argued to get their 5 year-old kid in the door saying, “Science doesn’t have an age.” A father proudly presented his chubby-faced 8 year-old son who had memorized a speech by Neil Armstrong in English hoping it would get his kid in the door. Their persistence and refusal to accept what we Americans would naturally accept – there are no more seats – baffled me. It was two cultures looking at the same situation from completely different perspectives at its finest. I now understand with complete clarity the need to assign seats at the movie and will never question it again.

Getting everyone in the door took an hour and a half. The astronauts were eventually shuffled from their armored van to the auditorium, told their stories, the audience loved it for an hour and then the astronauts were shuffled back out to their armored van and taken away. The auditorium was empty in 5 minutes. There was a plan to have a photograph taken of the astronauts with our Access students, but that was simply not possible. The crowds and lack of security would not allow it. The kids were disappointed, but I think they’ll appreciate the alternative we put together for them. An event that was amazing as it was absolutely insane.