Lazy day

I got a little lazy in general about writing, I guess that's good
since it means that I'm sleeping! Photos from today below--breakfast
is really the best time of day. We wake up really early, like 5-6am
and it's cool outside and the light is beautiful on the hills. And
breakfast involves various combinations of home made dairy products;
the fresh butter, yogurt and cheese made me think maybe I could live
here on monday but by Wednesday(when I'm actually writing this!) I'm
quite sure that I couldn't live here. The dairy products are
convincing though--the butter is bright yellow in the photo below and
I doubt I will ever have such delicious butter again. I used the bread
solely as a vehicle to eat the butter. K's mother made special
turnover-like things this morning with cheese and lots of parsley
inside. I got to put the stuffing in and seal the edges. I know I
complained about how as a sister-in-law I would have to do lots of
dishwashing but I actually enjoy it, even the cold water as it's
refreshing. My knees are not loving how we do so much sitting on the
floor however.

 

We planted a tree today too, a pomegranate tree on the edge of the
yard. Then we slept alot since sleeping is the best way to kill a hot
afternoon and then had tons of aunties visit again at night.

Donkeys are really hilarious. I'm like the tourist in NY who stops to
watch the fire trucks--no one here notices the donkey and rooster
noises but they completely crack me up.

So far, theme of trip = not sleeping

 

I am awake at all the wrong moments and half-asleep when everyone asks
me questions in Turkish--I guess this is jet lag? Discovered today
that my Turkish is completely inadequate for communicating, noted.
Some of the younger aunties were very frustrated with this, the older
aunties don't care since they only speak Zaza and they sit and laugh
and tell lots of jokes. Today might have been the longest day of my
life, family came to visit, lots of family and consequently I spent
alot of time with the women. Kahraman's mother is incredibly kind and
has made me very welcome. And his little sister, Tuba and I exchange
Turkish-English lessons-she is very cute. I took lots of photos of
thistles and aunties and donkeys, much to everyones general amusement.
I had a melt-down at one point over my lacking Turkish but nothing
that couldn't be fixed by dinner. We had a cold yogurt soup with
barley in it that completely blew my mind, I begged to be taught to
make it--hopefully before we leave. Pastoral photos of the country
around the village--I can only post photos from the iPhone until we
get to Istanbul so no thistles and donkeys today.

Action packed day

It's 4:40am and the birdies are madly singing outside so I'm writing in hopes of sleeping. Yesterday was another long day--we were up by 6am, yes, 6am, I know this is shocking--and we left by car for Nemrut. Nemrut is a collection of huge stone heads and bodies built on top of a mountain across the Euphrates river from k's village. We took a long and bumpy dirt road to the car ferry and the car broke down on the ferry so everyone pushed it off on the other side of the river. I was having issues with the long pants which are under my skirt, the drawstring broke and they were falling down, which inexplicably was apparently very embarassing and I was told not to speak about it, some things here are very confusing. We had tea at a table near the ferry while the brothers fixed the car.

Nemrut was very high (I'm not sure how far above sea level but I think I had some oxygen depletion,) and had views all around--it was very beautiful. I didn't realize until we got there that only one of k's brothers had been to nemrut even though it's fairly close to the village. I have to look it up but apparently the heads were built by a somewhat nutty king and took 50,000 slaves to build. One row faces east and another to faces west so we walked around the mountain to see both. 

K particularly liked the eagle which I think he is imitating.

On the way back we waited forever for the ferry, but we saw the wonderful plastic truck, pictured, which goes around collecting plastic and hopefully, selling it to be recycled.

Next we saw some shepard boys carrying a small bird tied upside down by it's legs so mehmet jumped out and in his scary teacher voice told them that he was from the wild bird protection agency--we drove off with the bird and I untied the knot and we freed the bird, non-stop excitement and drama!

We got back and another brother Yakub was here and cooked a huge and delicious fish coated in spices over the fire. We ate it wrapped in thin papery bread with tomatoes, mint, parsley and scallions. I ended the evening by falling in the mud in the dark on the way to the outdoor toilet. Lots of action.

Early morning

We had a wild ride down many bumpy roads last night to get to the
village. Kahraman's brothers, Deniz and Mahmet picked us up at the
airport--the car was overheating so we got to stop and see a lot of
Diyarbakir on the way. K's parents were waiting for us when we got
here at midnight, they normally sleep around 8pm so everyone is
probably tired today. I think food really does taste better here or
maybe I was just ridiculously hungry and delirious--we had a delicious
post-midnite snack of chicken and rice and salad with pomegranate
dressing, yum.

We woke up this morning with the roosters,
unfortunately, as I could have used a few more weeks of sleep. For
breakfast we had fresh butter, home made yogurt, olives cured in oil
by Emine, K's sister, home made soft cheese with bread and lentil
soup. I am now an official yenge (brothers wife,) so I helped with the
dishes and cleaning.

I carry around my little dictionaries and we can
talk some, however right now even my English is suffering a bit. It's
very quiet and lovely, except for the chickens who are cute but loud.
Baby chicks, called jiv-jiv are everywhere.

A long and beautiful day in Istanbul

After a torturous journey with Delta(never again!) we have arrived to
a gorgeous and sunny day here. We sat in a cafe drinking just enough
tea to be somewhat conscious and then met the lovely woman we are
subletting from and toured the hood. The apartment is very cute and
it's in a great walkable (very important!) neighborhood. We had some
delicious artichoke thing--K had a fit as he thought they overcharged
us because we were speaking English.We are now at the cafe drinking
more tea and waiting to catch our plane to the east, we anticipate
getting to the village by midnight at which point I will have to be
carried from the car.

tacky beach town nicaragua style

another no photo day! Our last night in Omatepe was beautiful, we returned the bikes we rented in the dark to a shack down the road and walked back by moonlight. Omatepe is filled with wandering livestock, everywhere, on the beaches and roads. so last night we saw someone hearding horses by motorcycle in the dark which was amazing--a huge cloud of backlit dust with 6 or so galloping horses coming stright at us.

In the morning we got up very early and repeated the crazy commute that we took to get here..highpoint being that on the boat back we drove around a huge cloud of newly hatched flies and when we landed there was another cloud. yes, I did inhale flies.

We moved to San Juan Del Sur which is kind of a really tacky dirty beach town except nicaraguan style. We wanted to leave immediately but stayed as we had planned to hike and see petroglyphs which we couldn't find, our directions being ridiculously vague. so a somewhat disappointing day but we hope to move on tomorrow morning to a nicer beach town.

Omatepe update with no photos

So yesterday we got up ridiculously early (for me,) and took the crazy
schoolbus to the crazy taxi to the crazy ferry, where I burned the
crap out of all my exposed skin, to the crazy falling apart old car to
the beautiful, beautiful island made of 2 volcanos in the huge
freshwater lake with the only fresh water sharks in the world in it
and the beautiful little hotel on a lagoon with monkeys.
We are both thrilled in spite of the fact that I look like a crazy
bright pink foreigner covered from head to toe and walking like a
bound foot chinese lady because of climbing the volcano 2 days ago. No
photo on this post as we had to walk down the beach to another hotel
to use the internet.

We watched monkeys for a long time yesterday and K convinced the baby
to come down right over our heads. I think he speaks monkey as well as
all the other languages and he definitely speaks dog, he says a few
words to all the circling strays and they run away immediately. It´s
very strange.