A Week in the Life Episode 13

This week, the days have been long and full. In just 3 days, I averaged about 10 hours a day with locals. Sometimes I invite them over and they stay all day long!

One day I wanted to go to a birthday party for an acquaintance but I had already made plans with DG that evening. Trying to make time for both, I sent a text to DG asking if we could get together at 8pm. Unfortunately she could not. What to do? Then she replied back that she could come at 10pm. Imagine starting a visit with a guest at 10 at night! She asked me to make sushi for her. So J and I had second dinner around 10:30pm. She left around 12:30 in the morning. I think she would have stayed longer but I was exhausted and wasn’t being a good host. I felt myself feeling selfish towards her and wishing she would leave rather than doing the culturally appropriate thing and begging her to stay. I realized I needed some extra alone time with the Father to work on my cranky and sinful heart. I did spend the following day doing just that. 

Steaming tea from the birthday party.

No Turkish home is complete without an
assortment of house slippers. These
were extra awesome.

I stopped by to see CFS one day. In her usual crazy way, she told me to leave my coat on because she was going to take me somewhere. We hopped in the car and rode to two of her customers’ homes to oversee deliveries. She told me to take a picture and send it to my mom. Little did she know I had already done so.

A few days later, I invited Evi over for breakfast. She stayed until 4 in the afternoon. After “breakfast” I visited another friend until about 8:30 that night. 

The following day I went to watch the volleyball team, that Shanna is coaching, play a game. This was their second match and I later learned their final one. They attend a village school and there are only enough funds for them to play 2-3 games. I was glad I didn’t skip this one. I was surprised to see Moses, the immigration director, refereeing the match. Our paths cross frequently these days. Shanna’s girls won the first match easily. In the second match, they fell way behind and at a score of 21-7, it seemed inevitable they would lose this match. Miracle of miracles they pulled a comeback and won the game! I was so happy for them as they had only been playing volleyball for 3 months. 

The principal of the school took the girls out to eat to celebrate their 2 game season. It was also Shanna’s birthday and she invited me to go as well. Shanna, another teacher, myself, and 5 preteen girls piled into a 5 passenger car and rode to the mall to eat at Burger King. For some of these girls, this was their first time ever eating a hamburger or at a fast food place. Some of the girls went around and collected all the leftover fries on the trays to save them for later. It was precious to be a part of that. 

After the burgers we went to Shanna’s school to have some cake. She showed me around the school afterwards. Some of the students were without a teacher so they essentially had unmonitored free time in their classroom. Everyone in the school kept telling her to show me their library. They were so proud of it. A local tractor company has donated all of the books and shelves to the library. It is about a 225 sq ft room with books for ages from kindergarten to 8th grade. It didn’t seem like much to me but she said some of the public schools in the city center did not have such a great library.  

When I was at my American friends’ house this week, I noticed that they had almost as many books for their family as the library had for a whole school of 250 students. We take for granted small privileges like having books. I feel like seeing these things makes me realize how much I took for granted growing up where I did. It made me stop and think about the ways our countries are different. Most Americans have a car or transportation. Most Turks do not. For this reason, everything in America is spread out but everything in Turkey is repeated amongst neighborhoods and villages. My hometown had 1 elementary school, 1 middle school, and 1 high school. Everyone pooled their resources together so we could have a nice gym and library in each school. With over a hundred small schools in this city of course each wouldn’t be able to have all of these nice things. 

After spending the bulk of the day with Shanna, I visited another friend and got home again around 8:30 at night. The following morning, my roommate and I hosted a sweet teenager who is trying to learn English. She came over around 9:30 for breakfast and stayed until 7 at night! We were exhausted after this. While she was there, she insisted we try a delicacy local dish otherwise known as intestines. We put our brave faces on and did it. I was able to eat mine but I didn’t particularly like mine. J didn’t finish her half and our friend was overjoyed at being able to finish J’s part.