Diary of a Foreigner Living in Turkey (Part 2)
24 March 1994
Living in Ankara [2/2]
Copyright © 1994 Pierre Flener. All rights reserved.
Do not duplicate or redistribute in any form without written permission.
DolmuS
All over the Middle East (and probably all over the non-Western world) you
will soon discover the concept of "collective taxi": it's usually a
spacious car, if not actually a minibus, that operates on a fixed route
within a city, or between two adjacent cities, just like a bus, and often
on the same route as buses. The differences with a bus are, besides the
slightly higher fares, that a collective taxi leaves its terminal as soon
as it is filled (rather than on some schedule), and that you can stop it
literally anywhere in order to board (the driver only stops if space is
available) or leave, rather than just at designated stops. Moreover, on a
given route, you'll usually see about one collective taxi per minute! They
are called "collectivo" in Central- and South-America, "servis" in certain
Arabic countries, but I prefer the Turkish designation, "dolmuS"
(pronounced dolmush), because of its extreme accuracy: it means, yes!,
"stuffed"! Indeed, "dolmuS" drivers are independent, and like to set
Guiness records for number_of_passengers_per_seat on every ride. Figuring
out "dolmuS" routes is not easy to newcomers, but just asking the locals
will make you familiar with the routes you will need. A "dolmuS" is a
one-person enterprise, so rides become a very social event: a passenger up
front acts as volunteer cashier when new passengers board and reach their
money through to him with the mention of their destination; a lookup table
indicates the fare, and he uses the driver's cash-box to obtain the change
and reach it back to these new passengers! Everybody cooperates in these
money transfers, and Turks are quite amused to see a foreigner (a) board a
"dolmuS" (upper-class Turks don't take a "dolmuS") and (b) know what to do,
and do it well. All this now means that the driver can actually
concentrate on the driving (makes sense, no?), and usually he will hate to
use his brakes except for picking up or dropping off new passengers:
"dolmuS" drivers are infamous for their reckless driving... But this only
implementation disadvantage notwithstanding, I believe that collective
taxis are a very reasonable and ecological solution to traffic-congested
cities, and that they could/should be implemented in Western countries as
well.
My Girl Students
I was asked to comment on my girl students: they probably amount to 15% of
our student body, and are highly respected, from an intellectual viewpoint,
by the boy students, who know that these girls had to earn their seats here
by being ranked among the national top-200 highschool students. My girl
students are all very friendly to me, just like the boys. Many even tutor
me in Turkish now, during "elevator conversations" and at other smalltalk
opportunities! I took a dictionary to find out the meanings of Turkish
girls' names: wouldn't you want to teach a class where the girls are
called Moonlight (Aynur), Lively (AySe), Eternal (Bengi), Wise (Bilge),
Fragrance (Burcu), Wish (Dilek), Marbling (Ebru), Gracious (Eda), Tulip
(Lale), Joy (NeSe), Waterlily (NilUfer), Ideal (UlkU), Hope (Umit), and so
on?! (Some of these names are actually Arabic names.)
Hamam
I have formed, with a few other "yabancI"s (foreigners), a group of "hamam"
fans. A "hamam" is a Turkish steam-bath, like the Roman baths, where you
can sweat out all your toxins and get a massage. Going to a "hamam" is
nowadays being dismissed as unhygienic (!) by many middle/upper-class
Turks, hence our foreigners-only club and the need to seek a hamam in the
poorer sections of the city. We go there about every 5 weeks, and here's
what usually happens. Upon payment of the entrance fee (~$1.8 each), we
are shown to a locker-room where we undress completely (men and women are
strictly separated throughout the events) and tie a sarong-like cloth
around our waist. Then we go to the bath itself, a marble-plated hot room
with a lot of individual cubicles around, as well as a few other rooms with
a higher temperature. We enter the latter, and sit/lie down to relax,
chat, and sweat. Somebody usually comes and asks if we want sth to drink
right now, but it is preferable to delay this to the end of the session.
Eventually, enter the masseurs: by now, we know them all, and each has his
favorite masseur. So we return to the big room, in the center of which is
a huge circular marble dais, at the edge of which we lie down, heads on
cushions. Now, a Turkish massage has nothing to do with (as my guidebook
puts it) "Californian touchie- feelie methods", but is more akin to
"medieval rack-and-wheel torture techniques"... This is barely a
euphemism, but boy!, it feels good afterwards! The masseur will knead your
skin and muscles, enumerate your every bone, walk over you (if you don't
mind), twist and bend your arms/legs into every direction and shape, do
dropkicks on your chests and necks, etc, while you try not to scream out
loud or faint... After this bone-cracking concert, each of us withdraws to
one of the cubicles with his masseur for the actual washing. The masseurs
start scrubbing our skins with special gloves that feel like glasspaper,
the objective being to scrub away the layers of dead skin: it's
embarrassing to see how much dead skin one accumulates over 5 weeks but
can't wash away with an ordinary shower... Then come a thorough rinse, the
shampoo and the soap, and finally another rinse. The masseurs leave us in
the cubicles, and close the curtains, so that we can take our sarongs off
and wash our private parts: hamams are very prudish institutions, and,
contrary to persistent myths, none of us ever had proposals for "more than
a massage or bath". Usually, we linger around a little bit more, and
"close" our now wide-open pores with a few buckets of icecold water
(otherwise, the polluted air outside would have easy game to enter our
bodies). Eventually, we head out. The towelman comes and drapes us in
towels, including a turban-like wrapping around our heads. Back in the
locker-room, we lie down on stretchers, and wait for the "CaycI" (tea-man)
to bring our "Cay" (tea), because steam- baths dehydrate. Hmmm, it's great
to feel so clean and relaxed! Eventually, we dress up again, pay the
masseurs (~$2 each, including tips) and the "CaycI" (~10c per glass), and
tip the towel-man (~50c total), who first offers some eau-de-cologne for
hands and faces. After a merry round of handshaking and "see you again"s,
we leave the hamam and head for the "Barok Bar" in a romantic side-street
with old Ottoman houses, where we are to meet the women of our group. This
area is a popular hangout for the students of the nearby Hacettepe
University Hospital, and after some more teas at that bar, we have dinner
in one of the small restaurants nearby.
Religion
Many of you were worried, or just confused, about whether I had some form
of Christmas celebration last December 25. The answer is "yes" and "no".
Turks are predominantly Muslims, and the modern Republic of Turkey, though
secular in its foundations, only includes Islamic holidays (see the
appendix) as religious holidays in its otherwise secular and solar
calendar. Islam does recognize Jesus (isa, a first name still in use in
Turkic and Arabic countries) as a prophet, but doesn't celebrate his birth
and death. But we foreigners at my university did get organized and had
Christmas parties. And if you see Turkish kilims with Santa Claus on it,
it's not (as I said in my first "Diary") because the shop-owners want to
please foreigners, but because Santa Claus lived and died in Turkey
(although, technically, a carpet or kilim should not display any living
being, according to Islamic teaching; so there you have a good heuristic to
decide whether a carpet/kilim was made for tourists or not, respectively
whether it's old or not). Interestingly, (middle/upper-class) Turks nowadays
increasingly have "Christmas" trees, but for New Year's Day rather than for
Christmas Day! According to some, such trees are a pre-Christian,
pre-Islamic, pre-Turkish-arrival, Anatolian tradition that had simply
been adopted by Christians and brought into connection with Christmas Day,
because of the temporal proximity (though I'd rather reckon that Christmas
Day was chosen so as to be close to some pagan celebrations, such as on
December 21, which is the shortest day of the year). According to others
(and far more likely), the current "tradition" of "New Year's trees" is just
a recent, deliberate, imitiational, secularised version of Christmas trees,
no matter what their origin, just like the recent increase in Halloween
celebrations all over the world, due to commercial interests.
The Islamic fasting month of Ramadan ("Ramazan" in Turkish) finished on
March 13th this year, with the 3-day-holiday of "Seker BayramI" (sugar
fest) (see the third "Diary" to find out how I spent that long weekend),
where you are offered candy in stores and by relatives and friends.
Ramadan was actually much easier on us "infidels" than I feared: many
restaurants were open (though people would tactfully not eat at the window
tables), and so were most shops. Tolerance was high, and in many parts of
town (including our campuses), one could barely notice that this was
Ramadan! A special Ramadan bread (hmmm!) was on sale at sunset, i.e.
when believers could start eating and drinking again. TV channels with
provocative material on weekend nights suspended such broadcasts.
From my apartment, or anywhere on the campuses of my university, usually
no "muezzin" (prayer caller) is audible at the 5 daily prayer times (I have
yet to actually see a muezzin climb on a minaret and call from its balcony:
loud-speakers are nowadays attached to the minarets...; everything goes
down the drain), except if the wind blows in the right direction, when I
can barely hear the muezzin from the village on the other side of the hill.
Too bad, because in my apartment and office, I tend to forget where I am,
and prayer calls can be a very mystical experience that I would like to
hear more often.
A Typical Saturday
So what do I do on weekends? Well, let me relate a spectacularly
successful weekend day that includes most things I have discovered so far.
I catch a morning bus from my East Campus residential area to the 12km
distant city, and more precisely to the SIhhiye Bridge. This is where the
east-west railway line cuts Ankara roughly into a northern and southern
half, the former being old Ankara and the "gecekondu" villages (see the
first issue of my "Diary"), the latter comprising modern Ankara and the
middle/upper-class districts. I like to view the space under this bridge
as a strange membrane: only expatriate residents will cross it from south
to north (many middle/upper-class Turks wouldn't be caught dead north of
the railway line, except in some of the fine restaurants (see below) on
that side of town), whereas lower-class Turks will occasionally cross it
from north to south (for certain shopping missions, or just out of
curiosity to see how the "wealthy" are doing: it's like having a real-life
version of the Dallas TV series).
Anyway, as you can guess by now, I of course head north, on the mighty
AtatUrk Boulevard, that separates east-Ankara from west- Ankara (my
university is in the south-west quadrant). People are dressed differently,
headscarves and full chadors become more and more numerous(, and so do
moustaches). There is even more roadside selling, more life, oriental
music coming from the shops, more audible muezzins calling at prayer-times,
different items in the shops, well, in a way it becomes more like our
prejudiced view of Turkey: a definite hint of Middle-Eastern life!
OK, let's leave AtatUrk Boulevard now, and climb up the hill on our
right: we enter old Ankara. Streets become narrower and more crooked, old
Ottoman architecture peeks through everywhere (although often in a pitiful
condition), and the whole area is just one big bazaar (shopping area). In
good old Ottoman fashion, every street is specialized in some item:
clothes, hardware, copper, carpets and kilims, second-hand furniture,
spices (hmmmmmmm!), fruit and veggies, and so on. Every now and then a
"kebapCI" (small restaurant offering "kebap" or "kOfte", i.e. grilled
meat), or a "pastane" (shop selling gorgeous Turkish pastry, such as
"baklava", "kadayIf", "Sobiyet", "lokum", puddings, etc.), or a "Cayhane"
(a tea-house; it's usually an all-male preserve, full of smoke, where men
meet to discuss politics and football). This bazar is not made for
tourists or expatriates, and is probably one of the cheapest in Turkey,
although the very best quality can hardly be found here.
This area also comprises two of Turkey's best museums: the world-class
"Museum of Anatolian Civilizations" (a mind-boggling time-warp that will
take you back about 10,000 years, to the Hitite kingdom, Lykia, Lydia,
etc., and will actually stop with the Romans, i.e. where most Western
museums start!), and the excellent, complementary "Ethnographic Museum"
(displays of Islamic, Seldjuk, and Ottoman handicraft, i.e. the last 1,500
years). A few months ago, after years of painstaking negotiations, the
Turkish government finally succeeded in repatriating the fabled "Lydian
Hoard", which had been literally stolen by US-archeologists. It's on
display now in a new wing of the "Museum of Anatolian Civilizations", and
features quite spectacular silver ornaments of the richest man of his time,
Cresus (from Lykia, the peninsula into the Mediterranean Sea, west of
Antalya). So this is worth an N-th visit of this museum.
After an hour or two among breathtaking jewelry, Assyrian clay-tablets,
Hitite stone lions, etc, I head out and hear some real (tm) Anatolian
music, the kind of which they almost never play on the audio-visual media.
Following the sounds, I get to the Clock-Tower Gate, where some politician
seems to be running for mayorship of the local municipality: he had the
brilliant idea of first attracting the crowds by hiring some musicians and
dancers, and I strongly regret having forgotten my camera. After the
performance and the applause, the politician gets down to business and
promises schools, sewers, and more trees to the electorate.
So I cross the gate, and am now in the age-old Citadel of Ankara.
Surrounded by mighty walls, on top of the hill, its residents have
miraculously preserved a rural life-style, in the middle of a nowadays huge
city (Ankara had 3,000 citizens 70 years ago, probably 4 million today).
It's like stepping back a century, except that some of the old Ottoman
wooden mansions are now being gentrified and turned into middle-class
restaurants with fine views over the city. No signs of yuppification
(yet?), as the shopping and driving conditions are really bad here. Kids
play football in the streets, and fly kites off the rampart walls. And
see!, over there are three traditionally dressed women standing on a wall
and wave a huge carpet up and down, so as to get the dust out. They stop
while I'm passing, out of courtesy (but maybe also modesty?), but, damn
again, where's my camera? I walk around, trying not to get lost this time
in the maze of narrow streets, but do every now and then have to backtrack
because I entered private backyards.
Eventually, I head out of the Citadel and back to the bazar area, for
lunch at one of the "kebapCI"s. A great soup + iskender Kebap (with
yogurt, hmmm!) + salad + ayran (Turkish drink made of water and yogurt) +
Cay (tea) later (make that ~$2), I set out for the nearest "pastane", so as
to feast on baklava for desert... Outdoors again, in the first sunshine of
this spring, I again hear some great music, and think it must be some other
politician, but it turns out to be some private party (maybe a
circumcision?) that is spilling out on the street, with the loud-speakers
being hung up on the trees. Rhythmic handclapping, dancing, singing. Very
nice. There is a "Cay hane" nearby, and I ask the owner whether I can take
a table and chair outside to enjoy the sunshine. Sure. So there I am,
sipping yet another tea from a tulip-shaped glass, warmed up by the
sun-rays, listening to great music and watching the dancers, having
smalltalk with some curious passersby who wonder what this blond "yabancI"
(foreigner) is doing in their midst, trying to decipher articles in a
Turkish daily I just bought, contentedly watching people passing by and
going after their businesses, etc. Hey, this is real life!!! Eventually
another prayer time comes up, and my situation turns out to be perfect: 3
muezzins from 3 nearby mosques start calling/singing in a well-timed relay,
a highly mystical moment, and I finally have the picture-book Middle-East
that I miss so much on campus and that makes me come back to this area time
and time again...
Trivia
Did you know that Gordion (where Alexander the Great cut the famous Gordion
knot, and was thus destined to reign over Asia) is just a few miles west of
Ankara? (Nowadays, it's a pretty unimpressive archeological site, though.)
Did you know that the famous Angora wool was won from the sheep of
Ankara? (Unfortunately, it's "was won", as there are only very few
shepherds here in Ankara anymore.)
Did you know that the famous Angora cats are the native cats of Ankara?
They are not to mixed up with the equally famous Van cats (from the Kurdish
part of Turkey). (Again, unfortunately, the Angora cat is almost extinct
here in Ankara.)
HoscakalIn,
Pierre Flener