A Few Things I Love About Life in Turkey

A Few Things I Love About Life in Turkey

The Bazaars: The Bazaar is a large, open area yet covered area filled with vendors of every variety. The abundance of fresh fruits and veggies is incredible and it is always an interesting experience. First of all, all the vendors are yelling at the top of their voices proclaiming the how much more excellent their cucumbers are then the cucumbers in the stall next to him that look exactly the same. It is so crowded you can hardly walk and I quickly learned to stop wasting time saying "pardon" and being a nice, considerate person. It is survival of the fittest and everyone else is pushing, shoving and stepping on each other. "When in Rome do as the Romans", right? Okay, I did feel a little bad when I totally walked into and tripped over a crippled old man in an wheelchair. That's when I run away as fast as possible to escape the wife who starts waving her cane and yelling Turkish at me before a cabbage hits me square on the head.

Teaching Speech Club: Once a week, I lead out in a speech club for the foreign kids ages 10-12 in the area. We actually have a blast.  "Speech club" and "blast" sounds like two major oxymorons. I should know, I was in Gavel Club for three years... haha just kidding. Kind of... Anyway, We play fun games and do all kinds of creative stuff that has anything to do with public speaking and then the kids all blow me away with their excellent speeches, Table Topics and evaluations. It's been very rewarding to see them do their best and improve every week.

The Old, Historical Sites EVERYWHERE: Obviously, I come from America. America is pretty awesome and but our old, historical sites are not. Pretty much all we have are some lame Indian mounds out in Arkansas or Oklahoma or something. Over here in this part of the world, ancient ruins are almost a dime a dozen. The other day while we were out visiting in a relatively small town/city, we drove about 5 minutes out of the town and lo and behold there were Roman ruins. Tile mosaics, an acropolis and ampitheatre all graced the side of the hillside. I climbed to the top of the wall and had a lovely view of the town and surrounding farmland. There were seriously chunks of stone with ancient Greek inscriptions just lying around, anyone could of taken in home if they wanted. (I already have limited space in my suitcase, unfortunately) From on top of my ancient stone arch I could see excavations going on in a nearby field. Sticking out of a farmers field, old, roman pillars were being unearthed. No biggie.

NO MATH. I don't even need to explain my reasoning behind this statement. This is Chloe speaking. Almost anything that means I can leave math behind for a couple months MUST be awesome, right? My logic and reasoning is impeccable. Don't you math-lovers dare question it.

Hospitable People: The Turks have the art of hospitality down pat. I love how they make guests feel so special. I feel almost ashamed as I think back on my form of hospitality at home, "Hey y'all just come on it," and if I'm being really good and on top of things, "Can I get y'all something to drink?" Yeah, that would be considered pretty insufficient here. I am convinced, you could visit at Turk in the middle of the night and they would say, "Welcome! Sit down and here is some tea and wait just a minute while I go make you an entire meal." It would be okay though if the sweet people didn't feel the need to feed us for the entire duration of the visit...I am sitting there thinking, "I will have to do 400 hours of crunches to burn off the calories I have amassed during this 3 hour visit..."

I really could continue going on and on...

Acclimated

So last time I wrote I was in a totally different mindset. Let me explain: My first 5 weeks in Turkey were filled excitement, wonder, homesickness, chagrin and just bouts of culture shock. Just in the past 2 weeks that has totally changed. Life here feels normal and Turkey feels like home. I don't really know what brought about that change, but I am enjoying the new normalcy. Hearing a language all the time I can hardly understand seems standard. So do the headscarves, the call to prayer, the crowded buses, the lira, markets within walking distance and the absence of Ford F-150's, 250's, 350's, 450's ect.
I'll miss all of it a ton (except for the absence of big trucks) but at the same time I am counting down the weeks till I get home and see everyone I miss so much.
I know if I stayed here for a longer, extended period of time I'd probably experience culture shock all over again but as of right now I am nice and adjusted.
Since I am hungry and there is warm "gozleme"(fried bread filled with cheese and spinach) on the table I'm going to start wrapping this post up. First of all, I am pretty excited because I went downtown and shopped all by myself today and navigated the transportation system alone and purchased multiple items without any disasters.
Second of all, I spent Saturday evening hanging out at an old fortress built by Alexander the Great. I illegally climbed to the top of the walls walked around the top. I could see a panoramic view of Izmir the harbor and even a big carving of Atturk's face in rock. (Go figure. Side note: 80% of all men I have met have the name "Mustafa Kemal")
Food is calling....I must go.

What Happens When You Try to Cram One Busy Month into a Blog Mere Post....

I have now been gone from the US of A for over a month now, and according to Mom it is high time I write a blog post to update all those lovely people back in the Land of the Free.
So without further adieu, I shall attempt to do just that.

Greetings from Turkey! Right now I am sitting in the Bowers' apartment on the edge of Izmir surrounded by olive, fig and pine trees all around, more apartment buildings out front and big mountains and national forest out back. Needless to say, the view out back is my favorite.
City life is different, but not the extreme torture I always imagined it to be since the day I realized not all people lived way out in Bethel with plenty of space, grass, trees and just personal air for breathing. Since community, family, hospitality and socializing are all very important to the Turks, living so close together only makes those values easier to maintain. Although I understand their viewpoint and appreciate it, I'm still a big advocate for country life.

A few days after arriving in, we set out on a journey that would take us all around Turkey. I feel so blessed to be able to see so much of country during my relatively short stay here. People kept telling me I saw more of Turkey than most Turks! The geography of Turkey is very diverse which makes for fascinating traveling. We camped almost the entire trip, save a few days where the weather didn't permit. We camped in a field dotted with wild saffron flowers surrounded by dark, looming fir trees located off a sketchy logging road wayy up in the mountains, we camped on the Black Sea and woke up with the sun for an invigorating swim, we camped in a campground with such terrible bathrooms that is all that comes to mind when I think of the place, ect. ect. One of our most memorable camping adventures took place in a very small cow-herding village in mountains that equaled the Tetons and Rockies. We had hiked from the village to a glacial lake earlier that day and planned on camping in the area. But during our descent thick fog and rain rolled in and squelched our camping plans. We started to head out of the village when a group of old village ladies came and crowded around the car talking to us. Jack decided to ask if there was an empty house or somewhere dry in the village we could just put down our sleeping bags and spent the night. We were soon hooked up with the village "cafe" that resembled a good sized shack. We found out the next morning the place had been partially destroyed by an avalanche the year before and I'm pretty sure it didn't quite get put back together right. Although this turned out to be one of my favorite memories, I was kinda grumpy about the whole situation at first. I will post a couple journal entries to finish the story.
September 4th
"Jack inquired about a place to stay in this mountain village we are in today and we are staying in some cafe. 20 lira a night ($10) to bed down in this random shelter. (Side note, this old guy just took a bunch of pictures of me and announced in turkish he was putting them on the internet, great...) So here I am in a cowherding village surrounded by curious people loudly speaking a language I can't understand. The only bathrooms are pit toilets in a shed a walk around back. There are also 5 young guys who won't leave so I am sitting in the corner trying not to make eye contact. This crazy old lady keeps stealing my Dutch Blitz cards too.. The Turks are extremely hospitable though, you have to give them that. Well, it just started pouring rain so I'm glad I'm in this primitive shack. It is sooo cold though, our makeshift wood stove fire keeps dying..."
September 5th
"Back to the end of our adventure last night. Our sleeping place continued to be invaded by locals and I embraced the saying, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." I quit trying to be the invisible girl and played a rowdy series of Dutch Blitz with all the guys. They tried to teach me Turkish words and told me different meanings for the same work which was pretty suspicious...Later, we told everyone to go home and crawled into our sleeping bags along the cushions around these bench lie chairs all around the "cafe". The rain was pelting on the leaky, tin roof and blowing through the cracks of the walls (and onto my face) CLUNK, Lydia fell of her makeshift bed onto the hard concrete floor. The noise woke us all up. The room was freezing cold. Our fire that was supposed to "last all night" had long since died. Katie, Lydia and I all headed to the pit toilets glad we were al awake since we didn't want to go alone in a strange village in the dead of night. Jack was outside searching for wood (to no avail) and we were shocked by the cold. Katie shined the flashlight towards the path and we all said, "That looks like....snow!?" Sure enough, the entire village was blanketed in about an inch of fluffy snow. I had on chaco's and capris...There was nothing left to do but laugh at the craziness of it all and crawl back in out sleeping bags; trying to ignore the snow blowing through the cracks..."
As I mentioned briefly in my journal, Turks are so hospitable. We met so many giving, loving people along the journey. One family we met at a roadside fruit/veggie stand totally took us home with them and adopted us for a day, feeding us delicious food and putting us up for the night in their house.
One of my favorite places we traveled to was Cappadocia. People 1000+ years ago carved dwellings and churches in the soft-rock cliffs. Many Christians lived there during the time of persecution in the Roman Empire and later the Byzantine. In fact, Cappadocia is mentioned in 1 Peter 1:1, and the book of Peter was written to the people there. We read Peter while were were there and it was amazing reading a message written for the inhabitants of that very place so long ago.

We have been back from traveling for about a week and half now and it is nice to be in one place for awhile. I traveled for 5 weeks straight.... Now I am staying pretty busy teaching public speaking and doing organized PE with the foreign kids, teaching Primary, babysitting and hopefully starting English conversation classes soon. I am loving this opportunity to be in a foreign country and loving spending time with the Bowers. They have quickly become my second family!

Please keep in touch, I DO miss home and really love hearing from you all!

-Chloe May

Returning to the Land of the Living (or the Land of the Bloggers?)

I've been extremely negligent in keeping up with this blog. The school year sapped all of my creative writing energy. If I posted articles the content would of been "The Concept of Hierarchy in Paradise Lost" or "Don Quixote as a Satire in Romance Form." So basically, y'all can thank me I did not post unless you wanted  something to read before bed to make you sleepy. Now school is slowing down and therefore my creative writing is speeding up. It's an inversely proportional relationship.
Spring is finally arriving and today marked the great event in the Curtis home called, "First Toad of the Year Discovery." The award went to William. To ensure that we all got to share in the momentous occasion, he released the toad in all of our rooms so we could enjoy chasing it around therefore truly experiencing the essence of spring. The leaves are still absent and frosts still popping up in the forecast but folks, springtime his here! The toad has spoken. It's kind of like Groundhog Day (but really not)
With that said, I want to wish you all a "Happy Spring!" (unless you live in North Dakota where it's still snowing hahahahah) and wish myself a "Welcome back!" from completely drowning in academia.
Thank you for giving me a moment of your time.
~CMC

Life in a Big Family (Humor speech)

I wrote this as a humorous speech for a public speaking club, and thought I'd share it on my blog.

Life in a big family can only be described as entertaining, terrifying, bizarre, ridiculous, boisterous, humorous, lively, unique, whimsical, frightening, stupefying, magnificent, horrible and wonderful. Most of you here know just what I’m talking about. After all, we live in Boone...where people have really taken that “Be fruitful and multiply” command seriously. Boone is the only place I know of where you can say, ‘Yeah, we ONLY have five kids in our family...”
Do y’all ever feel like the human counterpart for “Make Way for the Ducklings when you take a trip into town?”
Do you have to triple every recipe you make and just the thought of making food for only two people completely is overwhelming because you don’t even know how to go about that?
And of course, you’re never done doing laundry. Ever. Ever. Ever. That used to be my singular birthday wish when blowing out candles as a small, overworked child, “I wish I would never have to fold laundry again!” I think it was opposite day or something when I wished that... ‘cause it sure seemed to backfire on me.
Another big family indicator is you also can’t even count on 4 hands how many accidents and injuries your family has had. OK...well maybe that’s just us... It was always terrifying being the child who was chosen to go tell Mom that one of the kids got hurt. We avoided it as much as possible. Emma and even learned how to put Hannah’s elbow back in socket when she dislocated it when we were only 6 and 8 years old. The real skill was being able to pop it back in before Mom heard all the screaming and came outside. But our very best 7 year old paramedic trick was, “It’s fine, be calm. Shh stop hollering like a dying cow or Mom will hear you and come out!!  I’ll just pinch your arm realllyyyy hard then you’ll forget about that huge gash on your foot because your arm hurts worse! Okay??” Even with all of these efforts to keep Mom blissfully ignorant, She still found out about Emma’s broken wrist, Hannah falling out of a two story window, my cracked pinkie, Hannah’s broken clavicle, the deep cut on Ava’s face, my broken rib, Will’s broken nose x2...and I could go on and on. Yeah, we know most of the staff at Watauga Medical center on a first name basis.  
Also, living in a big family you learn fast that you have to quickly, loudly and threateningly claim any items that belong to you to prevent them being taken, broken, or eaten. Even then, your personal belongings are not safe. When Will gets up from the table for a minute,
he stands on his chair and proclaims, “EVERYONE! This is my food. I claim it!!! OK? So nobody eat it. Chloe will you make sure nobody eats my food? And nobody hide it somewhere. Um actually, Mom, will you come watch my plate?”
Traveling anywhere is a huge ordeal. Due to time restraints, I won’t even go into the horrors that accompany being crammed in the back of the Suburban... When we go visit Nannie up in the DC area, the neighbors come over and ask if a new family moved in from the looks of all the luggage being unloaded. “Nope, we’re just the crazy Curtis’s from NC, and we’re only here for 2 days...” Actually, just the other day, my Nannie’s neighbor in the townhouse adjacent to hers was moving and came over to say goodbye. He thanked her for being a nice, quiet neighbor. “In fact,” he told her, “I never heard a thing from you. Well....except for when all those kids came to visit a couple times. Then it got a little rowdy...” Of course, “All those little kids” were us.
Food acquisition and production in a larger family is not only an ordeal, but it is also a fine art attempting to make the monthly food bill less than the mortgage. To prevent that from happening, we wake up at before the crack of dawn and travel down to the warmer lands to pick 30 gallons of strawberries for only $4 a gallon, order flour in 50 lb bags, buy milk from the local dairy and visit sketchy produce shacks in odd places with wholesale prices. You know the “Thou shalt not covet” commandment? Most normal people would think about coveting a nice car or something. Nope, not here. If there is any coveting going on, it’s coveting thy neighbor's efficient canning system or super fast-super-quiet wheat berry grinder or the sweet deal the so-and-so family got on apples this year.
As many of you know, hard work is essential to keep any family running smoothly, large or small. One of the biggest compliments we can give each other is, “You were so efficient and productive today!” Mom likes to jokingly tell us, “If you can’t work and think at the same time, then BY ALL MEANS, DON’T THINK!” As soon as we stand still for just a moment, not doing anything, guilt washes over us and we begin to search frantically for something to clean, someone to spank....anything to escape the extreme mortification of being labeled “inefficient.” In Mom’s defense, we do have a lot of fun times together, and she has taught us that hard work can be very rewarding.
Speaking of having fun times,  it’s an enigma to me how almost every game we play turns “extreme” very quickly. “Extreme Boggle tournaments” “Extreme go-fish competition 101 with a side game of tackle football and other terrifying elements”...you know what I mean.
Not a day goes by where I’m not thankful for my big-ish, wonderful family. Of course, being the oldest child and getting all the new clothes was nice too...

Nicaragua! Part Two ~First Days in Matagalpa~

Nicaragua! Part Two ~First Days in Matagalpa ~

After two days of constant travel, we were ready to get going with our work. Wake up time was a little early for me personally, since I am NOT a morning person. At all. Ever. I actually got pretty used to waking up early, and within a couple days it felt totally normal. I really shouldn't of titled my post "First few days in Matagalpa" instead I should of called it 'First few days using Matagalpa as our home base". (But that's too long and drawn out for a title!) Our first destination was the town of Muy Muy, about an hours bus ride from where we were staying. The landscape we passed looked like something out of an animated movie. The mountains looked unrealistic in their unique beauty. After winding (or should I say zooming and falling out of our bus seats)  through the countryside, we reached the town. It happened to be Nicaragua's equivalent of Independence Day, and tons of people were out on the streets havin' and good ole time, and lighting off fireworks. (We never did understand the point of lighting off fireworks in broad daylight, and their celebrations got nothin' on 4th of July back home)   The roads were very muddy and narrow, but of course our bus driver didn't have any trouble navigating them. Everyone split up into 3 groups: Outreach, Vacation Bible School and Construction. I choose construction. Our first church was a little slow going since most of us didn't know the drill yet, but people caught on pretty quickly. The one-day churches are very simple and easy to construct. It was the rainy season, and torrents of rain would randomly come, but disappear in a few moments. The rain wasn't really a problem, but it made the work site very muddy. By the end of the day, I was a couple inches taller 'cause of all the mud stuck on the bottom of my boots. Little kids would crowd around, and some invited us into their homes. My second day in Muy Muy, I went into this one little girl's home, and sat in there for about 30 minutes with her and her Mom and brother. They didn't know a lick of English, and my Spanish is pretty limited. We still communicated the bare minimum and did a lot of smiling and pantomiming. It was very sweet, because the little girl brought out one of her only toys and tried to give it to me. I didn't take it, but was touched by her generosity, and really saw a glimpse of God in her. I wished I had something to give her, so I left her with one of my bracelets. I came to Nicaragua with an armful of bracelets, and returned with only one. Meanwhile, in these first few days, our group started to become really close. I have to say, I miss all of them (most of them) a ton. 

A pretty nice house

Typical Nicaraguan home 

Loved the scenery

Church #1!

Holding the trusses! 

Workin' hard. :)

These boys were so cute, they gave me one of their  marbles. 

Kids everywhere!!

Team Matagalpa in front of completed structure #1. Woo!

Nicaragua! Part One (the Journey to Matagalpa)

About 10 days ago, I arrived home from Nicaragua. The trip was incredible. I made countless memories. I want to share on my blog about my experience there, but I have so much to say I'm gonna split it into a few different parts.

Nicaragua! ~Part One~

The Journey to Matagalpa

I left Charlotte, NC sometime in the afternoon on July 17th. After a 3 hour layover in Miami (and some entertaining rides on the SkyTrain) I met up with other Ultimate Workout kids. I instantly made connections with some of them, and we were fast friends. After clearing customs and getting through the passport checks in Managua, Nicaragua, we were greeted very loudly and enthusiastically by other UW's. By now, it's nightime and we were all exhausted and very hungry. Finally, a group of us loaded up on an old school-bus (the favorite Nicaraguan form of transportation) and started the trek to a SDA school, where we spent the night. We had out first taste of Nicaraguan bus driving, which we would all come to love and actually prefer to safe, boring American driving. We arrived at the school, which was off of a crazy dirt road (we ran over a chicken on the way...) and settled in for the night. It was hot as all get out, and huge moths and other large bugs terrorized some of the girls. Screams were heard throughout the building, and the boys tried to heroically kill/catch/destroy the bugs without much success. The next morning, after a dubious breakfast, our group loaded up on a sketchy bus (there were pictures of the Twin Towers blowing up and Osama bin Laden smiling down from heaven on the back...) and got stuck in the driveway for about 20 minutes. The bus was overloaded and bottomed out. Not a good way to start out the trip, but it was pretty indicative of the way it was gonna be the rest of the way. The bus ride was only supposed to be 3 hours long. ("Supposed" to be) Within moments, a heated discussion was under way as we all argued about which was better: USA or Canada. That remained a hot-topic for the entirety of the trip. Anytime there was a moment of silence, somebody would bring up the odd Canadian accents, or the funny southern accents, American ingenuity vs. Canadian ingenuity, Oh Canada vs. Star Spangled Banner. Football vs. Hockey. ect. ect. (All I can say is "I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free!!!")
The bus broke down about 2 hours into the trip. We were stranded at a restaurant in the middle of nowhere for 5 hours. (It was a rather odd place..drug paraphernalia was scattered on the ground) It was a bonding experience! We found ways to entertain ourselves and all got to know each other. Finally, after the bus was fixed we loaded back up and continued on to Matagalpa, our destination. Once again, that's easier said than done. Along the way, we passed beautiful, lush, green countryside. Soon, if began to rain for the second time that day and we all got a little worried. To get to the school where we'd be staying, the bus would have to ford a river. We reached the river, and lo and behold it was too deep for the bus to cross. After and hour of waiting (During that time I traipsed around the woods looking for a place to use the bathroom) our luggage was brought over in a pick-up truck, and a lot got soaking wet. Next, all 30 of us crowded into the same pick-up tuck (at once) and we were all transported up the river to the our final  location. Bonding experience. We all were thankful to God that we made it to Matagalpa in one piece. haha

Getting ready to load up!

As I said, the bus was rather sketchy.

Typical Nicaraguan countryside.

Hangin' out for 4 hours in the while the bus was repaired.

The river our bus couldn't cross and drive up.

The front of our unique bus.

30 people in the back of one pick up? Oh yes. We are MATAGALPA!