Leaving the village for Ankara

Last night I was awake and counting our good luck in all escaping getting sick in the village. Unfortunately today we all got sick after leaving the village, hopefully it will be quick and relatively painless. We left the village at 6ish in the morning, catching the fantastic sunrise. We drove to Siverek to have breakfast at k's uncles house. I've written before about my general dislike of Siverek, it's very conservative, like a big village of 100,000 people but where the village always feels safe Siverek feels dangerous and looks like news photos of Iraq--they're not so far apart I guess. But this was a new Siverek experience--K's uncles house was a nice 4-story stucco apartment building like others on the street, with, wait for it---cows in the first floor instead of an apartment! So upstairs having breakfast we could hear cattle lowing and bumping and metal clnging. Very strange for me, apparently ver normal for Siverek.
I'm combining a few days worth of posts since we didn't do much in Ankara--K worked but Mina and I stayed in the hotel and appreciated running water and room service. (Room service had delicious and cheap Turkish food!) I've included a photo of the airport in Diyarbakir, which used to be a military base and is not supposed to be photographed. Also a photo of the weapons retrieval counter in Ankara--as you can see there is a line. Currently we are on another plane to Antalya, in the Mediterranean and we will be staying nearby in Alanya for a few days.
This is a photo of the large evil eye charm, called a boncuk, that was imbedded in the front wall if our airplane. I'm pretty sure that our international flight didn't have one of these. I'm not sure if I feel safer that this flight is protected from the evil eye.

Day 5

More bread making today and this time I got photos. Sofia is K's oldest sister, in front, rolling out the dough, particularly wanted to be named in the photo. I helped knead the dough but the rest of it is beyond my skillset, and really hard work. Tuba, youngest sister, 15, is cooking the bread--she turns it with a flat wooden stick. With the last pieces of bread they made gozleme for lunch--sprinkled homemade cheese and butter and folded the bread into a package and toasted the whole thing and we ate outside under the tree. K's mama and Deniz are in the background. Below is the stacked bread.

In the afternoon, the grown-ups and babies walked to the gardens again with the donkey to pick pomegranates and figs. K's sisters were fearless, climbing trees for figs in the heat wearing long skirts and scarves.

That's a field of cotton on the left. Minor fracases with sofias son parking the donkey in the wrong place and then falling off of it or getting bucked off. I missed that last action as I was climbing into a delightfully frigid pool of water with all my hot heavy clothes on, which may have been the highlight of the day. And no, I'm not posting photos of my outfit, suffice to say far too much clothing for a 90 degree walk and fruit picking. K says the ladies get used to wearing so much clothing, I have my doubts. I think they are more long suffering and very strong, physically and mentally.
A truly incredible amount of people and baggage piled into one car to leave when we got back to the village--4 adults, 7 children, luggage for all, 3 sacks of pomegranates, 4 buckets of figs and 2 buckets of fresh yogurt. And the car was a normal sized 4-door sedan.
K's mama unexpectedly asked me to cook dinner which sent me into a complete panic. Limited ingredients, time and facilities combined with cooking for 8 people that are eagerly waiting to see what the strange daughter-in-law can do in the kitchen equals a hectic Becky. I made risotto with onions, garlic, peppers, tomatoes and thyme and k's mama made chicken and eggplant kabobs baked, I think she was worried that my rice might not be eatable. Everyone was pretty concerned that I was putting cheese into the rice and the neighbor lady who walked into the kitchen was openly horrified by the risotto. She also  told me I was serving too much when I dished it out. Everyone said they liked it and most people finished their plates so hopefully they liked it. Next visit, if I ever consent to come to the village again, I will be prepared for this and bring ingredients for something.
With all the children gone it was blissfully quiet and I anticipated a great sleep, which would have happened except for the huge beetle that crawled on my nose and woke me--gah!!! I didn't really sleep much after that.

Day 4

I have some kind of culture shock when I get to the village, maybe it's combined with timezone and language issues, but I always feel like there's no way I can possibly survive however many days we've planned to be here. The past visits I thought this would resolve with knowing everyone or being fluent in Turkish but I'm thinking it may just be 'normal' for being dropped into an alternate universe. Not that I'm fluent or even passable in Turkish, everyone is very disappointed and urges me to study--I tell them I am very lazy, which is true about Turkish. Today I felt a little better.

I didn't take many photos today--a few on Mina and her cousin, chewing on raw eggplants. Mina stole half of Elif's eggplant, as she steals anything the Elif is playing with--fast handed baby. I'm not sure if raw eggplant is the best for babies to eat but there are only so many times I can protest and I figure that it's better for her than chewing on the cell phone.

Day 3 in the village

A calm and relaxing morning followed by complete madness. We didn't do much during the daytime and got enough sleep so we are all feeling halfway to normal. Kahraman's grandmother is still visiting--in this photo Mina chews on her cane.

Mina has somehow switched her schedule so she takes 4 short naps a day and goes to bed at 10:30pm. Bizarre, but it actually works for the village as the festivities run late. Especially since 4 of K's brothers and sisters showed up with 6 more kids and we gathered about 5 more from the neighbors. I'm not sure how anything gets done but everything gets done, in spite of much yelling and playing and incidents like the exploding-lighter-that-was-left-on-top-of-the-oven.
This photo shows about half the kids--I think dinner was served to around 20-24 people. Mina is in the back looking out the window.
K and his brothers had a quick snack in the kitchen--Deniz, the one who is a school principal was horrified that I took this photo because he said they look like savages.
Mina finally got to meet her cousin Elif who is 1 or 2 weeks younger than Mina. I discovered today what I suspected which is that most babies move less than Mina. Elif sits quietly on the floor and plays or gets fed. Mina crawls into the vegetables and immediately bites the melons and eggplants or crawls off to chew on the electric cord if not completely restrained. All babies do not do this apparently.
One more note, since K likes to get my reaction I haven't been paying very much attention but he has pointing out when f16s fly over, apparently on their way to bomb Iraq. He also noted that a big pkk guy was on our plane and that this was good as it meant the plane was unlikely to blow up. Luckily he waited until we landed to tell me. The f16s flew low over the airport right after we landed, apparently this is a tactic to intimidate the local pkk. Mildly horrifying.

Day 2, village style.

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Another night discovering the intricacies of baby jet lag. K's mother brought peppermint tea for Mina but she wasn't having any part of it, then they swung her in a blanket but she thought it was a game and started laughing, which was much better than all the screaming. Eventually everyone slept.

Mina enjoys playing with her grandfather...
In the afternoon, we walked to the garden and ate more figs,gathered fresh almonds and pomegranates. Maybe everyone already knows this but fresh nuts taste completely different, yum.

When we got back k's grandmother was visiting along with a bunch of aunties. Luckily his sister Sofia came too so I stayed in the kitchen and helped with the dishes as much as I could. Guests are not my favorite as they involve a lot of sitting around with the women while everyone discusses me in Zaza. It's actually better when I don't know what they're saying. Kahraman was explaining the earth spinning and rotating the sun causing day and night, everyone listened attentively but I'm not sure that they believed him.

Mina loves being played with and held and everyone in the village is expert at playing with babies. I'm sure they think I'm a complete nut because I've added a whole bunch of things to the list of things Mina can't chew on: candy, chicken bones and cell phones--for some reason phones are a very typical thing to give the babies to chew on? If you're reading this than I've survived without having a heart attack but it seems the chances are slim.
And grandmother (yes, that is one cookie in each hand and I have it on video)

First day in the village

We arrived in Istanbul at 3 in the morning New York time but the sun is up and it's 9am--Mina handled it well although I'm sure she was pretty confused about it all. From Istanbul we flew to Ankara and then one last flight to Diyarbakir where Deniz, K's brother, picked us up. Then we drove another 3 hours to the village. I already missed the photo of the trip--a guy on a motorbike carrying a load of 40 foot long black plastic pipes, they were hanging down almost to the ground on both ends. Mina and I slept sporadically in the car, heads wobbling around. We stopped to buy 5 huge melons that went in the trunk--they were so fragrant we could smell them in the car.
We were all way too tired by the time we got to the village. Baby jet-lag set in with a vengeance--lots of middle of the night screaming. We rolled with it somewhat and woke up this morning feeling somewhat normal although filthy.
As always the village is gorgeous and quiet--chickens and geese running around and the trees are loaded with fresh figs and pomegranates. The sunlight is so beautiful here. Mina is a bit stunned by it all. I am busy experiencing how different the village is with a baby--very, very different.
Ks mother knitted me these fantastic little booties, bright dark green with what appear to be little red bugs on them.

In the evening, Dede, (Turkish for grandfather) posed with Mina on the donkey. Mina enjoyed meeting the donkey and looking at the figs at sunset.

 

hairnets for lemons

We came across this fantastic shiny yellow building, it looked like it could be a garage or something utilitarian but it was so cute--especially bright yellow. I'm into the shiny bright buildings.

I tried to catch this tea seller as I've been trying the whole trip to catch a tea seller. Thousands of men run around istanbul every day carrying tea trays full of little glasses of tea, however they move fast...apparently.

I am still gorging myself on the delicious cherries, they are around $2 for 2lbs so I'm not kidding about the gorging. These cherries are being sold out of the back of a horse-drawn cart! in a city of 14 million people! a horse drawn cart!

Here is the horse! and his cart! also notice in the shot above this one that the cherries are being weighed with a balance scale. 2010--horse drawn cart with balance scale! obviously exciting for this tourist.

fantastic carved marble fountains for getting drinking water everywhere...most are pretty derelict and unused. this one was in a very manicured garden.

As usual I am endlessly fascinated with the wonderful carved wood trimmings that are also pretty derelict. At least this trip I haven't taken all photos of the gorgeous falling down buildings--I think some of them have actually fallen down and are replaced or perhaps I'm just used to seeing them everywhere.

I kept forgetting to photo during dinner as I was really hungry and dinner was really delicious--this is a wonderful soft eggplant thing--I wish I knew how to cook it. It was cold and served in a vinaigrette. Behind it is the Hamsi which I didn't think to photo until after I gobbled half of it. But the best thing about dinner was:

lemons with hair nets! (I may have exceeded my exclamation point limit with this post but I am feeling enthusiatic) I've never seen this before but they cover each half of the lemon in a little blue net with a little purple tie so that the lemon seeds don't fall into your fish...truly amazing! Martha Stewart is totally going to copy this idea.
We are moving out of our cute but stinky apartment today and into K's friends house(the ones with the amazing garden) for our last few days in Istanbul. So lots of cleaning and then hopefully a trip to the spice market as I want to sample all 39 kinds of dates. K is less excited about this.