I fought the law and the law won...for now

I made it for Bulgaria or rather I should say I have successfully been deported to Sofia, Bulgaria and I'm staying with Lily and her family in their fantastic apartment here. The magical bus trip from Istanbul to Sofia was interesting to say the least. I nervously hopped a service bus from Kadikoy, after saying very hasty good-byes to Hazel, Gurkal and Ozlem (which was probably better because if I had taken the time to conceptualize that I was saying good-bye for possible 3 months I would have been a complete basketcase) and after about 45 minutes of driving I was dropped off at some other bus station on the Asian side. I got off the bus and realized that I wasn't actually at the Buyuk Otogar (the main bus station in Istanbul) only as my service bus was driving away and the little old lady who had been sitting behind me was anxiously asking me where the car was. I politely (or rather selfishly as the case may be) smiled and said that I did not know but I was going to go inside and ask someone. I wandered around, what can only be described as a dirt parking lot with a few random shops and a big Metro (the bus company) waiting room, desperately trying to find someone who would know what was going on. I went inside and asked the man behind the counter (of course prefacing my question with the obligatory turkish, I'm going to ask something phrase) what exactly I am supposed to be doing at this lovely roadside stop and why I'm not at the Buyuk Otogar. He gave me the typical 'Oh this foreign girl is speaking Turkish' look and plainly told me that I had to wait a hour and a half and then another service bus would come and take me to the Buyuk Otogar and then wait another half hour and from there we would go to Sofia. How silly of me! I should have known that I would have to take 2 service buses, 3 1/2 hours before my real bus left, and wait at random bus stops throughout Istanbul.

The bus trip itself was relatively smooth. There was no traffic and we made it to Bulgaria in about 6 hours. However when we got to the border we were subject to about 4-5 different security checks, each at which I waited in horror to see what the guards would say about my passport. Thankfully I passed all the checks without any problems and after the last one I practically ran back to the bus anxiously wanted to get to Sofia and get this show on the road.

However I was apparently the only passenger who simply wanted to cross the border...everyone else wanted, no needed, to go to the duty free shop and load up on cigarettes. The Turkish woman behind me asked me if I was going to buy cigarettes. The verb she used also meant to have and to take so I stupidly replied that I did not smoke and I did not have any cigarettes (keep in mind its 2:30 am and all I really want to do is sleep). She repeated her question about 3 more times, each time saying it a little louder because apparently when people say things to foreigners louder its easier for them to understand (?). Eventually she gave up on me and muttered something about annoying foreigners to her friend as they left the bus. Thinking I had dogged a bullet I happily closed my eyes and attempted to go back to sleep. Maybe about 2 minutes later I was josseled awake by the bus driver who was telling me it was time to leave the bus and buy cigarettes. The bus driver was clearly speaking Turkish with a Bulgarian accent and I was hoping that maybe he was just confusing his sentence structure, like I often do. But no, it was definitely time for me to wake up and buy cigarettes. He told me to get my passport and get off of the bus. Ok...? I got by passport and mindlessly began following him to the little duty free shop. The rush of cold air woke me up a little and gave me enough courage to explain to him that I do not smoke and I do not want to buy cigarettes. He simply smiled and said, no you are buying cigarettes for me, for me, with your passport. Having never made the border run by bus I still had no idea what he was talking about but I figured it was probably easier for me to do what he says quickly so I can get back to the bus and go to sleep. He handed me a little shopping basket, which he filled with about 10 10-packs of cigarettes and ushered me to the cashier. He bought about 4 packs first and then told me to hand the cashier my passport while not so stealthly giving me 100 euros under the counter. The woman packed up the bag, gave me change and told me I had to carry the bag out of the store. Way past the point of caring, I took the bag and returned to the bus only to be met by the angry stares of the two women sitting behind me, who I then realized also wanted me to use my American passport to buy cigarettes for them. Apparently a Turkish or EU passport has restrictions on the number of cigarettes (or possibly other goods) one can purchase from duty free. The thing one learns when crossing the Turkish-Bulgarian border...

When I arrived in Sofia I was super anxious to get to the Turkish Embassy but it was only 6 am and I knew there was no way the Embassy would be open before 8. I went inside the bus station, bought something that looked like a cheese filled roll and attempted to order a coffe but ended up with a plastic water cup with probably the most disgusting espresso I have ever tasted. At 8:30 I took a taxi to the Embassy, which was a pretty unappealing building that was covered in huge metal grates/gates/I don't know what to call them. It looked like a former military office that hadn't been used since the fall of Communism and I began to worry that I had been taken to the wrong place. Luckily a man walked out of the building and I was able to talk to him in Turkish and find out that I was in fact at the right place and it would open at 9:30.

I had a good hour to kill so I wandered around a little and found a pretty park to sit in and watch the people as they went about their morning routine, walking the dog, going to work, one man was going for a run and collecting leaves (in leather shoes, a sweater and slacks). I went back to the Embassy at 9:30, which of course was still closed, and waited outside with a number of other Turks until 10ish. Some man walked up as they were openning the doors and tried to cut me in line but I yelled at him in Turkish (probably more forcefully than necessary) and told him we had all been waiting a long time and he had to do that same. We were ushered into a tiny room that resembled a ticket office and I presented my case to the one and only open window. The man smiled at me and told me that I had to talk to his friend (who was sitting in the other window drinking tea and looking disinterested). He didn't really want to deal with my broken Turkish and called in a woman who spoke English, who was unsuprisingly terribly unhelpful. I won't trouble you with the details of my conversation, as ridiculous as it was, but basically they would not give me a visa because I did not have a Bulgarian residence permit. Blah.

So now I'm here in Sofia. I don't really know what I'm going to do with my life. I may be stuck here for 3 months. I'm trying to get the Embassy in DC to issue me a new visa but goodness only knows what they are going to say. My boss in Istanbul gave me a number of a Turkish man who a friend of a friend and is the principal of a school here in Sofia and said that he would help me. I haven't called him yet but there is a good chance I might be taking a 3 month vacation from my Istanbul wonderworld and living in Sofia. I'm trying to keep positive but I'm really just annoyed. Annoyed at the school for not doing what they were supposed to, annoyed with myself for standing by at letting this happen, annoyed that Hazel gets to stay in Istanbul comparatively problem-free, ugh just annoyed. Ok I've been on Lily's computer for a long time so it's probably time to venture out and face my Bulgarian reality.

My Life as an Illegal Alien

Life lesson #1: No matter how meticulously one plans out their life they must always prepare themselves for disaster.

Case and point: Before I came to Turkey I mapped out everything very carefully. My plane ticket was provided for me by the lovely people at the State Department, I had housing for the summer, I had signed a contract and had a job and free housing and/or a housing stipend waiting for me in Istanbul. However, surprise surprise when I got to Turkey things were not quite as simple as I thought they would be. My contact at the school had mysteriously gone missing and only resurfaced about 3 weeks before I was supposed to start work to tell me that she was no longer working with my school and she was sorry for the inconvenience...oh and I should probably contact the school because she was not sure whether or not they had secured my spot. That first speed bump was actually very quickly resolved after I went to the headquarters, demanded a job and then signed a new contract. At that time I made it very clear that I had arrived in Turkey in June on a tourist visa and would need them to get me a residence permit before September (when my visa expired). They casually assured me that I need not worry, they deal with these things all the time and it would not be a problem.

Naively I waited. My beloved little Hazel decided to stay in Istanbul and take a job at another school so we started to make our little Istanbul fantasy a reality and feather our lovenest. I emailed the school a few times before classes started and tried to arrange a time to go and get my permit but they kept telling me not to worry falan falan (and so on). Classes started, they were a total mess but they slowly slowly got better. I kept emailing and calling the school but no one seemed concerned about my quickly expiring visa except me. Turns out the reason no one was concerned was not because my situation did not merit concern but rather because the person who usually handles these matters had left the school and the remaining employees had absolutely no idea what they were doing.

So let´s skip the tedious details and flash forward to today. My visa expired a month ago. Turkish immigration regulations say that I must leave the country and I am not permitted to return for 3 months. However I went to the police station (a monstrous fortress of bureaucratic hell) and filed for a declaration for a visa, which basically says that I have acknowledge that I need to file for a new permit, I may legally stay in Turkey until November 3rd after which I must leave the country for one month before I can return. Yes, it is an improvement from 3 months but still one month is a long bloody time. I have been told that if I go and file for a new trouist visa in a country other than Turkey then there is a chance that they will be able to grant me that visa faster than one month and I would be able to come back. However no one really seems to know exactly what I should do. I have had a lot of people tell me that it really depends on the mood of the people I speak with. For example, there is a chance that the border guard could just let me back in if he felt like it but there is also a chance that he could be a complete (insert fervent bad word here) and make me stay the month.

Luckily I actually have a friend who lives in Sofia, Bulgaria and has very very generously offered to let me stay with her while I sort this mess out. My plan as of right now is to finish out the week, take a bus to Bulgaria on Sunday or Monday and the second I cross that border go to the Turkish Embassy in Sofia and submit my visa application.

However another big headache to add to my already body numbing Turkish migrane is, what will my school do without for one month or even 2 weeks? I have been assured that when I return I will have a job with the umbrella company that runs my school, possibly working at one of the other campuses but I dont want to have to start all over again. I really like the people I work with and I have really started to build a relationship with my students. Every Thursday and Friday after school I run this program called VIP Fun Club (I didnt pick the name) and we do little projects, read plays or sing songs as extra English practice. Only 16 students can come each week and they have to come and ask me permission to be in the club or be choosen by their teacher, hence the VIP, its very exclusive. Anyway its been going really well and we actually have a lot of fun together. Its a nice chance to get to know the kids and I feel like each week we are actually accomplishing things because the students who come all want to be there and are all very eager to participate. I have another student who rides the afternoon bus with me who speaks almost perfect English because she used to live in America and has become my little buddy. Sometimes I sit with her and her class during lunch (teachers do that here, its not just me being super cool). I met her Mom the other day and they have invited me over for breakfast or lunch one weekend. This whole process is most frustrating because I want to be able to continue to build relationships with my students and really become a part of the community here but I cant do that if I am uprooted and placed in a different school.

Its all pretty much out of my hands so I all I can really do is wait and see what happens. I wrote the headquarters yet another angry email yesterday basically demanding that I be compensated for my time in Bulgaria because this whole issue is their fault and NOT mine. I have not heard anything back from them and honestly I dont really expect to. I have a feeling that I will have to make the hour and a half bus ride to the office and yell at someone in person, most likely in broken Turkish. They are already paying for my round-trip bus tickets but I am really going to push as hard as I can to be paid all of my salary...keep your fingers crossed.

The Misadventures of Boncuk Patlıcan (and Savaş)

Hazel and I took a major step in our relationship and got a cat this weekend. Well that cat was given to us by a friend whose cat had 2 kittens, but as of Sunday October 12, 2008 (12 Ekim) our lovenest has grown to an occupancy of 3. The decision to get a cat started out as me desperately trying to convince Hazel that it would be the perfect solution to our (ahem...my) loneliness. But seeing as Hazel does not believe in domesticated animals she was not exactly thrilled about it. Luckily the day we went to go visit the kittens for the first time was a particularly fantastic Saturday, which we had spent wandering around Taksim with Gürkal and Alper and by the time we got to Alper`s apartment our spirits were high and we were in an I love living in this amazing city mood. Sometimes I forget that Im living in one of the most amazing cities in the world because my life has settled down and started to feel very normal. On weekends when we go explore or have little outings that require me to take a ferry or bus to the European side, I am reminded where I am and immediately get this rush of excitment. A couple weekends ago we (the collective Hazel and Sarah unit) met a bunch of friends on the European side and went to go see a Dali exhibit at a small gallery, sat by the Bosphorus and had tea and basically relished how fantastic our lives were/are.

Back to the point, our kitten is the tiniest little marmalade stripped dream, who loves to cuddle on people`s shoulders and sleep in the nook around your neck. After a great amount of discussion we decided to name him Boncuk Patlıcan (Bon-juk Patla-jan), Boncuk is apparently the name Turks give cats because everytime we would ask someone what we should name our cat they would immediately offer up Boncuk. Patlıcan means eggplant but Hazel and I like to call each other patlıcanım, literally meaning my eggplant but canım is a term of endearment like my dear or darling (although it actually means my soul) so we put extra emphasis on canım when we call each other patlıcanım. Boncuk Patlıcan is still getting used his new apartment and refuses to sleep in the snazzy bed I splurged and bought him but he has already brought new warmth and fun into our apartment and I am actually feeling a little bit of separaton anxiety being at work while he is home by himself probably going nuts and peeing on everything. Actually that is not true, bless his heart, Alper house trained him before he gave him to us.

This weekend I started my second job at an English language center in Kadıköy. I am teaching 2 different classes there, 3 times a week (Sat 9:30-1:20 and Tues/Thurs 7:00-9:00). My classes are supposed to have 15 students ages 16-30 but not everyone showed up for the first class and a lot of them left half way through or came late, but I guess they are paying for the course so they can come and go as they please. I think it will be a nice opportunity to meet new people and make some extra money with minimal effort. The other people who work there are all about my age or a little older and seem fun and interesting. I feel like a complete fraud though because most of my students are older than I am and definitely view me as this silly little girl who is only their teacher because she is an American living in Istanbul, which of course is completely true. The institute also uses books that teach British English, which I am slowly discovering is quite different than American English. For example, instead of saying I have a book they say I have got a book. There are other stupid grammatical differences but I am drawing a blank.

It is amazing how much we (Americans) take the English language for granted. I just happened to be born in the US and learned English as my native language but for the rest of the world English is a highly prized commodity that can open all sorts of social, political and most importantly economic doors. My friends who work at the hotel where I lived in this summer are a good example of the value of English. They are all from Eastern Turkey and migrated to Istanbul at a very young age, many without completing high school, in search of better employment opportunities. For some families it is better for their child to quit high and go find work in a big city rather than wait to finish school and miss 2-4 years in which the child could bring in an additional income. My friend Mehmet is 23 and works the late night-morning shift at the hotel almost everynight. He is learning English but is not fluent enough to work during the day. When he learns enough he will be able to work during the day and subsequently earn more money. From what I understand he finished high school but he did not attend college. He desperately wants to go to college but he cannot pass the very rigorous entrance exam that all Turkish students must take to gain college acceptance. I thought I had it bad with the SATs but really they were cake. Every student in Turkey takes this exam and their score not only determines which university they will attend but also what field they will be able to study. The highest scores study engineering and I know a number of kids who got high scores, dont want to be engineers but still study engineering because it is just what you do. In Turkey you also do not apply for different schools, you are selected by the university according to your score. Everyone takes the exam process very seriously and many kids spend an entire year just studying.

Because this university entrance process is so competitive there are a great number of kids who do not even consider college as an option and drop out of high school without regret because they know that continuing their education is not only costly but unrealisitic. My friend Savaş is the perfect example of a bright and dilligent kid who dropped out of high school for financial reasons. Savaş is a 16 year old kid from a small town in Northeastern Turkey. He speaks Kurdish (Kırmancı) and Turkish and is trying to learn English but doesnt really know much besides what would you like to drink. He is living in the basement of the hotel and working as a waiter but because the cook was fired, he is now working as the cook. We became good friends over the summer because at night when I would be sitting down in the lobby studying he would always bring me tea and help me with my Turkish. He actually helped me move into my first apartment in Kadıköy and carried my ridiculously large bag for me from the hotel, to the ferry and all the way up the hill to the apartment, it was pretty epic. I dont know if it is just because I miss my own brothers (which I obviously do so dont worry) but I feel a real closeness to him and a maternal(ish) compulsion to help and protect him. I mean I work with children all day and I am 23 now so I guess that old clock has started ticking. I really want to teach him English and Ive given him little practice sheets with basic conversations on them and vocabulary that are relative to the hotel business.

Yesterday he met me in Kadıköy for brunch and we wandered around, had some coffee, some breakfast and chatted. I cant imagine what it must be like to be a 16 year old kid living alone in a city like Istanbul. Savaş and Mehmet are actually cousins and come from the same village. They have this mini community here, mainly boys, who have migrated from their village to live and work in Istanbul. I used to be really fixated on finding a way for Savaş to finish high school but I am slowly beginning to understand that a high school degree in the US and in Turkey do not hold the same value. He has been a really great friend to me so far and I know its a little strange that one of my best friends here is 16 but it is what it is and I really hope that I can find a way to help him break out of this work cycle that seems to trap people into food services.

I am really struggling with what I perceive to be good and what others believe to be the best thing for them. I have been very fortunate to grow up in an environment where I was always completely and utterly provided for (probably even spoiled), whether that be food, shelter, clothing or education. I actually took that trite expression you can be whatever you want to be seriously and thus far I have been able to live pretty much exactly the way I want to live. But how do you tell someone who moved from an impossibly small village in Northeastern Turkey to Istanbul to work that you think they could be doing more? That there are greater opportunities out there but they have to give up what they have now, go back to school and work hard for another couple of years before they can take advantage of them. So far, Ive decided that for now the best thing I can do is just be their friend, remind myself that I am no one´s mother and help them with English.

Only 28 hours and 140 YTL to revisit a past life and remind you how happy you are to be living your new one

For the Şeker Bayram Hazel and I hopped a bus (a 14 hour bus) down to Alanya to escape rainy cold Istanbul and our hot waterless apartment for a week. Our brilliant plan to drink wine and a beer before the trip and lull ourselves to sleep completely backfired and instead of waking up well rested in Alanya, I probably slept a solid hour and arrived in Alanya cranky, queasy, and maybe even a little hung over. However when we passed Antalya (2 hours away from Alanya) and began to drive along the very familiar road with the Mediterranean to our right and the Taurus Mountains to our left, I knew it was totally worth it. The second we got off the bus we were enveloped by 26°C of beautiful Alanya sun (a vast difference from the 6°C not so lovely Istanbul sun). We were met at the bus stop by Hazel’s old host brothers and driven to their house through the strangely familiar neighborhoods of Alanya. Hazel’s host family is completely lovely basically the only one in the McGhee program who interacts with their allotted student, which meant that thanks to Hazel we not only had a place to stay for a week but we were also feed and carted to the beach for free.

It’s funny because I am so used to being perceived as a foreigner in Turkey but because Alanya is chalk full of, as Hazel so eloquently put it, “some really strange looking” blonde Scandinavian, Russian and German types, people barely gave me a second glance. Dr. Kay (one of my Georgetown professors) had once mentioned that Turks pick up on the way people walk and the longer you spend in Turkey, regardless of what you look like, the less you will be ostracized. I definitely did a fair amount of tourist BAKing (bakmak = to look, BAKing = turklish; looking) and did not withhold my distain for their lack of clothing and overall entirely inappropriate appearance. Although Alanya is in fact a tourist beach town, it has a really interesting conglomeration of tourists, young male seasonal workers (waiters, bar tenders, etc) and locals, who for the most part are relatively socially and religiously conservative. You can walk down the street and see both half naked blonde girls with bikini tops and just barely there shorts and Tesettür (the term used to describe a new wave of Muslim fashion where women where long overcoats and silk scarves) head scarf wearing women.

The waiter/bar tender population of Alanya is really fascinating. All of these young men, probably starting at age 14, travel to Alanya from the East, looking for work and the opportunity to mingle with the hordes of blonde women that frequent the Alanya’s beaches seriously looking for a good time. So Alanya is teeming with these uber-eager and over gelled young men who basically spend all day having fun with their buddies and hitting on beautiful women. I can’t decide if I am jaded because I’m secretly jealous that I’m not an adolescent boy who gets to basically live in a hormonal paradise or if it is really outrageous…I’m thinking it’s probably a combination of the two but a little bit more of the later.

When I lived in Alanya I frequented this bar called SkyBar because we were friends with all the guys who worked there and it was one of the few places in Alanya that I could be 100% sure that what I ordered would be the same thing that was placed in my drink. I kind of left on bad terms with some of the guys there and really did not want to go back but then I saw one of them ride past us on their scooter and decided that the potential for a fantastically awkward situation was just too great to pass up. Hazel and I went with her 2 host brothers and were basically greeted with dropped jaws by all of the guys there. It was totally strange and awesome. It was also one of the first times I actually had a real conversation with these guys in Turkish because goodness knows my Turkish 2 years ago was complete fluff.

Another place we frequented was this Türko (traditional Turkish music) Bar called Çello, which we of course returned to and had a lovely drink there with Dr. Kay. All of the wait staff remembered us and were super excited that we came back. Cello is great because it’s not the strobe light, clothing optional, pounding bass bar typically found in Alanya but rather usually frequented by local young and old Turks alike. There is a band that plays and people sit around sipping on a drink, eating nuts, and jump up and break out into traditional dances when the mood strikes them. The dancing is usually a line of people holding hands dancing around the room and the two people on the end usually hold napkins and flag them up and down as the group makes its moves. I don’t really know how to do it justice but it’s just fantastic, good clean fun. It’s something that all ages of Turks love and have no qualms about doing together and calling it a raging Saturday night.

I think I’m going to add more to this later but I want to cut it short so it doesn’t become too overwhelming…to the 4 people that read this that is…Char and Sammy.