Becoming Family

I’ve been spending a lot of time with the E family. A typical day with them ranges from about 6-12 hours. This seems like a lot but they really feel so much like family that it is really quite an enjoyable time. One day J and I went to their grandma’s home. 

We went there because her home has a bit of a garden which feels like a small escape from this big city. We spent the day doing a variety of things. One of those was picking mulberries. We had to stand on the roof of the shed to do so.

They also taught us a game called 5 stones. I think it is similar to the game, Jacks, we played as kids. In this game, someone drops the stones and then chooses a stone to pick up. That stone is tossed in the air while the person tries to grab a single rock and catch the falling rock. If the person is successful, she tries to toss the stone up in the air and tries to grab another rock. If unsuccessful, the turn passes to the next player. The goal is to see who can get the most stones.

In the second round, a person tosses the stone up in the air and tries to grab 2 stones. The third and fourth rounds involve grabbing 3 and 4 stones. In the final round, a person places their thumb and forefinger on the ground and tries to sweep a single stone through the goal of the thumb and finger while tossing a stone into the air and catching it. I was not very good at this game. 

After playing the game, they asked if we would like to take a nap. I jumped on the offer knowing it would be a long day. I’ve learned how to pace myself on these long language and culture days. I also think it is sweet that I feel comfortable enough around them to nap. After that, I called my family to talk to them for a few minutes. Then I skyped into a friend’s wedding. The wedding ended just as the sun was setting allowing them to break their fast. After dinner, we ended our day at the park drinking hot chocolate and tea.

On another day, J and I went back to the grandma’s house. They picked us up at our house around 10:30. When we got in the car, Little E said they had a surprise for me. Mrs. E was holding a shoe box with a white pigeon. They know my disdain for the winged creatures. Naturally I was was figuring out quick escape routes from the crowded car. They promised me the bird couldn’t fly because it’s wings had been cut. I told them to keep the thing away from me.

We had breakfast together. They had bought fresh bread from a bakery. It was a little warm, fluffy, crispy and delicious. After breakfast, I brought out some card games I had brought from home to see if they wanted to learn to play them. Mr. E told me I was too old to play games because most adults here don’t play games. I told him in America, lots of adults love to play games. We played Dutch Blitz together (or Nertz) and he joined in. In fact, the whole family loved playing the game and asked to play for hours. We eventually went inside because it was getting hot outside. The bird was just wandering around the living room but they kept it away from me. 

After a couple of hours, Mrs. E suggested we gather some more mulberries before the rain came in. We did this but between my headache, the heat, and some ongoing stomach issues, I started to feel bad. She asked if I wanted to take a nap so I did. It took a while for me to fall asleep and I only slept for 5-10 minutes. Nonetheless, I had some down time. I decided to get up and take some more medicine but I had to pass by the bird to do so. I debated on what to do for about a minute. Lucky for me, Little E came in and I asked her to hold the bird while I grabbed my medicine from the other room. Have I mentioned how the girls would hold the bird and hug and kiss on it? Gross. Don't those things carry diseases? Anyway as I stepped out into the living room where the bird had been, I stepped into something wet. I knew what I would find before I turned my foot over. Bird poop. Have I mentioned how much I despise birds?

After the nap, we played some more games and then got ready for dinner. They cooked on a barbecue for us and the food was delicious. After dinner, they let J and I take care of the dishes. This means we really are part of the family. We then sat out and talked for a while. The girls tried to teach their grandma how to say “my husband” in English. She could never get it right but their grandpa, who was mindlessly playing a game on his phone, memorized it in no time. 

We eventually made it home and discussed how the day had been a good one. J commented that we had passed the day pretty similar to how we would have passed a lazy day with family. I agreed.

Village Fun

One day Kadie invited me to go to the village for a picnic. The purpose of the picnic was for her parents to slaughter a goat as a thanks for Allah providing her with a teaching job. They invited all of their relatives as well as me since I am an honorary member now. I thought the goat slaughtering was anti-climatic. Her dad and 2 uncles helped to hold the goat’s legs while the slaughterer took care of business. No one else watched. The slaughterer then spent several hours processing the meat so we could eat it. 

Below, her uncle is “mowing the grass” with a scythe. 

One of my favorite foods here is eggplant salad. They roast the ingredients over the coals before peeling the veggies and mixing them with some seasonings. 

Village House

This is a portion of the upstairs at the house. The floor is concrete but it was quite shaky as people walked around. 

I went downstairs to see about the structural makeup of the floor. No wonder the floor is a little shaky. The beams are made of logs stuck into a type of concrete. The columns are made of small tree trunks. 

Here are the shaky stairs leading to the 2nd level. 

A view of the outside

After a long day, Kadie’s aunt and uncle took me home. On the way home, we went on the normal road by a wedding salon. A wedding was going on so cars were parked on both sides of the street, leaving a single lane open for traffic. Yes, this is allowed and yes, you can imagine what problems occur from have a single lane of traffic. We sat behind several cars as a giant truck tried to bully his way in our direction. Everyone was getting mad until some men got out of the giant truck and said there were another 25 cars behind the big truck. Kadie’s uncle had to back his way out while other cars tried to come in behind him. It was an interesting way to end the day. 

A Picture Post - Episode 2

Our city has a really tasty bakery with some smaller branches around the city. The main branch recently erected this giant bread statue. It even lights up. I think it is tacky but I also secretly love it. In case you’re wondering, this is what a normal loaf of bread looks like here in my country. 

Sometimes, I find foods here that we don’t have in the states. One of these examples are green chickpeas, or chickpeas that have not fully ripened. I thought they were strange at first but they are growing on me. The green chickpeas come in these bundles and are inside the green pods.

Our city opened a 3rd Burger King recently. We now have 3 Burger Kings and 2 Dominos. We passed by the new Burger King recently and saw signs for breakfast. I love their ingenuity for serving an english muffin, turn the bun upside down.

During the recent holiday, I left my house one day around 11am. I found a quiet and empty street. It was delightful in this city of noise.

I made holiday visits with Kadie and her mom. I figured I would eat dinner with them so I didn’t eat before going to their house. They had eaten dinner. Instead I had 2 helpings of baklava and ice cream for the unhealthiest dinner to date. 

Have I ever mentioned that if you want a drink of water at someone’s house you must drink out of the communal cup. They bring out a pitcher of water and a single glass for everyone to share. One night I drank from the same glass as about 6 other people. And for some reason they think it’s the cold water that’s making them ill. 

This place has the largest dandelions I have ever seen. This one is bigger than a fist. 

I saw this baby drinking tea at 10pm one night. 

Sometimes I forget I live in a foreign country. Everything seems so normal. Occasionally  I see a view like the one below and I’m jolted back to the reality that I’m not in Kansas anymore. 

We went to IKEA one day to let our new friend buy some furniture for her home. The van already had a few items and our friend bought enough by herself to fill up the van. L and myself also had some stuff of our own. Two workers offered to help us and stated matter of factly that they would fit it all in the van. I told them it would be a miracle. I saw a miracle that day because they did it. We couldn’t see out of the back of the van but they did it. 

Travels - Days 7-10

I didn’t sleep well in the night because I felt really unsettled about when I would get to leave. It also seemed like Aunt Jamie was leaning toward the 17 hour bus option because it was half the cost. The thought of 17 hours on a bus after a long intensive was enough to make me cry. I also really hoped Aunt Jamie would decide to stay which meant I could handle travel preparations how I wanted and not have to deal with the awkwardness of trying to tag along with an inexperienced traveler. I also had an awful nightmare about my mom where she turned into a person with demon eyes. 

Kadie was at school until around 3 so Aunt Jamie and I had a slow, relaxing morning. We had good conversations over breakfast. Afterwards, we both took a nap. I was glad too since I hadn’t slept well the night before. When Kadie came home, we talked about the elephant in the room and tried to figure out a plan for our return. Aunt Jamie said she couldn’t navigate airports on her own so she thought we should probably go back together on Thursday. Although I was a bit disappointed to not be going solo, I was ever grateful that we weren’t returning by the bus. 

I let them handle buying tickets. They called a local guy in our city and he made a reservation but we didn’t have a way to pay him. He said he would send his company’s bank information and we could transfer money into that account. The problem was that Kadie’s town didn’t have that particular bank so we couldn’t make the transfer that way. I could have transferred money online from my bank account but my account didn’t have enough for both tickets and the town did not have my bank either. Finally Aunt Jamie called her best friend and asked if she could take some money by the office and we would pay her when we returned. And that was the complex way they took care of buying plane tickets.   

The next morning, Kadie didn’t have to go to school until noon so we had breakfast with her. I was excited about some time with her hoping for some good conversations. Instead, she brought her laptop into the kitchen and put on a movie for us to watch. It took me about 5 minutes before I figured out we were watching Sister Act. I’m not sure why that particular movie was picked but I was glad it was at least something I was familiar with. I was a little disappointed that again I was missing out on conversations. 

After that movie, Kadie left for school and Aunt Jamie said she wanted to watch Sister Act 2. So we did. After that movie, she suggested we go wait at the school for Kadie to get off or else we would just end up sleeping. We waited but again, there was next to no conversation. This started to grate on me. I had come here hoping to get lots of practice in my second language and have some good, deep conversations. I began to wonder why I had come in the first place. It felt like such a waste of time. 

In the midst of this frustration, I found out my really good friend Di was moving to another city. This was a big loss for me and I wished I was back in my city soaking up some last days with her. We walked around a bit with Kadie and then made it back to their house. I called my dad to try to Skype in to my nephew’s kindergarten graduation. It wasn’t working very well. So I was dealing with culture shock, disappointment, loss of Di, and grief that I couldn’t be there with my nephew. After the graduation, I talked to my mom for a few and just vented a bit. Then we had dinner and watched, guess what, Sister Act again. Yep, that was about 7 hours of Sister Act in one day for me. After the movie, I took a shower and checked Facebook. I learned that a friend from back home had passed a way. I journaled for a while processing all of those emotions. 

I finally made it to my last full day with them. I woke up with a different attitude and decided I would make the most out of this last day. I woke up before Aunt Jamie so had some time to listen to a sermon. Over breakfast, we actually had some really good conversations and that helped me feel like my time wasn’t wasted. 

By the end, they finally were letting me wash dishes. Aunt Jamie said that for the first 3 days, I’m supposed to be a guest and do nothing to help out. After the 3rd day, it’s expected that I do my part. I put on some chill music and enjoyed even that. I also decided to use the down time to do some productive stuff like write about life. When Kadie got off work, we went to the pazar one last time. I bought some watermelon seeds to take back for others to try. 

That evening we had a dinner together with Aunt Jamie, Kadie, her boyfriend Marty, her roommate, and roommate’s boyfriend. Afterward we had a fun time talking about what all is entailed in a local wedding. It was a good ending to my time there. 

The next morning, we woke up at 6am in order for Aunt Jamie and I to make it to our flight leaving at 8:30. Our driver picked us up around 6:30. My sister texted while we were making the almost hour trek to the airport. I told her how I wasn’t worried that we would make it to the airport only an hour before our flight leaves. This is how they do it here. Sure enough we made it to our gate with enough time to use the bathroom and grab a bite of breakfast. 

On the plane, Aunt Jamie was nervous as we were taking off. Once in the air, she told me she didn’t think we were actually moving. I told her we were actually moving really really fast. As we were descending, she took out her camera phone and videoed the whole entire landing. So much for the “turn off all electronic devices.” It was sweet that she was enthralled with the novelty of flying. We landed and went to baggage claim to get our bags. As we were leaving, some ladies stopped us asking which belt had the bags for our flight. I forget that not everyone has spent as much time in an airport as I have and don’t know these basic travel protocols. 

We exited the airport and found a shuttle that would leave for the bus station in about 20 minutes. That would mean we would get to the bus station with about 45 minutes before our bus took off. I gave her money for our plane and bus tickets. She scolded me and told her I had given too much. I insisted it was not enough. When we got to the bus station, she insisted on buying my food and giving me some cash back. Whatever, I was done with the arguing. 

The bus ride back to our city was extremely long. When we finally arrived, she said she needed to go pay for our bus tickets. I told her I was going to run to the restroom really fast. I knew we would wait on shuttles and I couldn’t wait that long. In the two minutes I was in the restroom, I think I caused us to miss the shuttles. We ended up having to wait another almost half an hour to leave. I felt a little bad for her but not so much. We ended up on different shuttles and I was glad to be back home and to be on my own again. It had been over a month since I had just been in my city doing normal life. 

I always take American candies on intensives to help me
have a buffer for the culture shock. This time around, I had
to ration out the candies. This was my last night leftovers
and I ate them all.

At the airport heading back. 

This was my reaction when I got stuck on
the shuttle an extra 30 minutes. If I had been
on my own I would have paid the extra cash
for the taxi. 

Travels - Day 6

After our day in the old city, we decided to take it easy. I was glad too because I was so very tired. After a lazy breakfast, Kadie decided she wasn’t being a good host if we didn’t do something outside the house. Her roommate suggested a quaint little place about 20 minutes down the road. This meant it was actually twice that far. She said there was an old tomb, a  fish restaurant, and a zoo type place. 

We got off the minibus on the side of the highway. Kadie called her roommate to clarify where we needed to go. We walked for about 15 minutes before coming to a hopping picnic place. There were people everywhere. We wandered around for a bit but never made it to the tomb. We did go into a random market in the middle of the village. It was so packed with people you would have thought it was Black Friday. The other thing I noticed was that the place had trash everywhere. There were obviously trashcans but no one bothered to find one. 

After we walked around that area, we walked back the 15 minutes to the highway and crossed the road to go to the fish restaurant. They had bungalow type seating areas which I found charming. I typically like fish and I imagined the fish here would taste excellent. However, I’ve learned that fish here almost always still has the bones inside and I just can’t handle that. I was glad to hear there were other options. I ended up choosing the stir-fry type dish. Kadie chose the fish and it looked delicious but in order to eat the meat and not the bones, most of the seasoning was lost in the shuffle. I’m glad I didn’t go with the fish. 

We got back to Kadie’s house and had some tea. Aunt Jamie and I had still not bought return tickets and the not knowing when I would be going home was wearing on me. During tea time, we found out that Kadie’s roommate would be leaving on Thursday which was when Aunt Jamie and I had loosely decided to head back home. If we left, it would leave Kadie at the apartment alone. Aunt Jamie asked if I could stay until Sunday. That was an extra FOUR days from what I had psyched myself up to staying. Luckily I had some friends planning to come to my city on Wednesday or Thursday. I felt bad about saying no to Kadie and Aunt Jamie but said I really needed to head home either Wednesday or Thursday. I told them that if Aunt Jamie wanted to stay longer, I was fine to leave on my own. They said they would discuss it. 

After that, Kadie’s roommate, who is a musician, found out I play the piano. We ended up having a jam session together. She played violin and I tickled the plastic ivories. It was good for my soul. After that, Aunt Jamie turned on her Indian tv series again. I decided if this was going to be a regular occurrence, I might as well join her. I started asking questions about who was who and we bonded over this Indian tv series. 

Travels - Day 5 M-City

I was starting to feel the weight of culture shock and getting tired of always being on someone else's turf, schedule, meals, entertainment, and culture. We were sightseeing again and I was dreading another day of wandering around. I spent the minibus ride reading the Word and praying which helped me have a better attitude.

Our first stop was breakfast. Kadie and her mom had already did some sightseeing here so they had a plan for where to go and what to do. They knew of a good open buffet breakfast place. They were right, it was fantastic. Aunt Jamie was so happy to start the day off so well. 

After breakfast, we rode a minibus up to the Old City. The trip was smooth and dropped us off right at the entrance. Already the day was faring better than the previous one. We had had a really nice breakfast and hadn’t spent an hour and a half trying to find a shopping center. We wandered the back streets of the Old City first. I loved being there. It was as beautiful as I had imagined. I was surprised to find that people still live in those old stone homes. I loved the narrow streets. I learned later that the streets were built that way in order to provide shade on the hot summer days. There were also tunnels that cut under houses to connect the streets. 

Because of the narrow streets and all of the stairs, vehicles can’t make it to homes. I learned that they use donkeys to haul the trash out of the homes. 

The city is located on a hill and overlooks the Fertile Crescent and is located in what was formerly Mesopotamia.

A view of some of the stone homes.

A gate leading into an institute.

The institute: this is one of my favorite pics
from the day.

We visited an old muslim version of a seminary. Among the complex of buildings, there was a pool that represented life from birth to death and into eternity. The water source is a funnel in the wall that represents birth. The top faucet that drips water represents conception and time in the womb. That water dripping into a tiny pool represents a birth. Childhood is represented in the second small pool. The thin groove between the second pool and the third, longer pool represents puberty leading into youth years. 

The youth pool seems to not flow at all but rather seems to stand still. This represents how humans want time to stay still so they can stay young. The thin and long channel represents adulthood and old age. The water moves fast and is more turbulent which represents how fast adulthood goes by. The second, shorter narrow channel represents death and the Sirat Bridge. 

Muslims believe there is a bridge all people must pass on the day of judgment before entering paradise. Some describe the bridge as being thinner than a hair, sharper than a sword and hotter than fire. They believe true believers will pass over it quickly, some will find difficulty crossing it but will eventually make it and others will slip and fall down in the pits of Hell. There are also 7 stations along the bridge, that examine how a person lived and must be passed. If a person is stopped at a station, and neither a good deed of his nor the mercy of Allah reaches him, he will stumble in his step and be hurled down in the fire of Hell. 

After the death and bridge portion, the water poured into the pool represents where people will spend eternity. I can’t tell in my pictures but apparently there is an upper drain and a lower one. The upper drain represents those who go to heaven. The lower one represents those who end up in Hell. Apparently the water eventually finds it’s way back to the earth and gives life to the vegetation. In other words, with every death, life is given. 

Kadie paid a guy to give us a tour and take some cool pictures for us. I didn't realize until halfway through his spill about the pool that he was explaining the symbolism. I saw a lady holding her cell phone out towards him. At first I thought she was hoping he would talk to the person on the other end. Then I realized she was recording what he was saying, obviously too cheap to hire him for herself. I was distracted so much by her that I missed most of the details and had to do some research online. Anyway, he took this cool reflective picture of me after he explained the symbolism. 

After seeing the pool, we went around the theological campus. The mosque was built with some certain features. One was a wall with eye shape cut outs. It was another photo op.

Another feature was that the portion of the mosque where the leader stands was made with translucent stones so as to provide some natural lighting. It was also built to magnify the voice of the one doing the call to prayer so everyone could hear. I was unsuccessful in posting videos of these features.

Another feature were the 99 tulip shapes throughout the room. These represent the 99 names of Allah in Islam. You can see the black tulip shapes in the pictures below.

One last feature was the main entry door. They told me it was 750 years old. In old times, if a man came to the door, he would knock really hard but a woman would knock really soft. This would let those in the space know if a man or a woman should answer to the door in order to adhere to appropriate male and female interactions. 

In many of the cafes, there were fabric strips hanging up on a trellis like thing on the roofs. My friends said these were placed there to provide extra shape. Someone else mentioned they might have also been wish strips. 

I found this home with a for sale sign. Anyone
want to move here with me?

Kadie and her mom were interested in seeing a church because they have never been somewhere with churches. I spotted a cross on a tower and we walked the winding streets trying to find it. We found 3 churches but they were all closed that particular day. Eventually we found one open. 

We tried some local food. My meal consisted of a spicy meat kebab, a quesadilla type bread, another type of thin bread, a meatball battered and fried, and stuffed lamb rib meat over rice with crunchy almonds. 

Local roof bed for hot summer nights.

There were stairs and stairs and stairs.

I kept seeing a mythical type creature around the city named Sahmeran. The name of this creature is pronounced Shah-meh-ron and means king of the snakes. She has the head of a beautiful woman and the tail of a snake.