Of birthdays and culture (March 7 to 20)

For more photos of our recent Ankara activities, see:

http://anatolianphotos.shutterfly.com/

One sad note to add to my previous post is our discovery, while in Kayseri, that Dr. İhsan Doğramacı, the founder of both Bilkent and Hacettepe Universities, passed away at age 94. We discovered this while eating beans and rice in a local café, where a TV behind us was broadcasting a biographical film about Dr. Doğramacı. This week, we were informed that the day after his death, his son, Dr. Ali Doğramacı, Rector of Bilkent, resigned his position. Later, the trustees renamed the University İhsan Doğramacı Bilkent University, although my guess is that it will continue to be referred to as simply Bilkent.

My most vivid memory of the elder Dr. Doğramacı was a discussion in 1995 about pre-husked pistaccio nuts, at his heavily guarded mansion on a hill above Bilkent, as he, Ali Bey and I awaited the arrival of Turkey’s Prime Minister for dinner. (She never came). But most of you have heard that story already, so I won’t repeat it here.

March 7 – Happy Birthday to me. At a Fulbright dinner a few nights ago, I let slip (heh, heh) the fact that today is my birthday. (I like birthdays—especially mine). Meldan looked stricken that she didn’t know, immediately making me feel guilty about mentioning it. Like so many people we’ve met in Turkey, she is very thoughtful and always does her best making people feel at home. So, today, Sunday, she called around 5:00 p.m. asking if she could come over for a visit.

Arriving bearing a nice gift, she also brought a delicious, gooey, chocolate cake, with a Happy Birthday sign that took the local baker a very long time to create. Thank you Meldan! I did succeed in finding out the date of her birthday—April 9. So I’m on the lookout for more chocolate cakes. I prefer not to try baking one. Even under the best of circumstances, I am not a good baker. Here in Turkey, where the flour and sugar are of a coarse consistency, and the altitude is higher than Connecticut, I am likely to fail miserably at the task, as I have before. Lucky for us we live within walking distance of at least a half dozen fancy bakeries.

March 11 – One of the main cultural buildings remaining to be visited was the Ankara Opera House. Ercan, Meldan’s brother, bought us tickets to a ballet performed there, called Harem. Dealing with the intrigues associated with the Seraglio (the Sultan’s mother stooping to murder to place her grandson in power, the chief Eunuch falling in love with a harem inhabitant, etc.), the ballet was terrific. As always, the set was beautiful and very effective, the costumes lush and beautiful (no tutus—yay!), and the dancing superb. The music was based on traditional Ottoman era folk music, very nice.

March 12 – This Friday night concert at Bilkent University (everyone still uses the old name, and probably always will) featured two hours of trombone. Snore. Trombones, like tubas, are, in our opinion, terrific instruments that add depth to nearly any piece of music. But all trombones all the time are a bit of a bore. Only when they played pieces from Gerschwin and other early twentieth century jazz composers did we enjoy the music. No regrets though, we love going to concerts.

March 14 – A few weeks ago, Larry, Meldan and I joined Meldan’s brother, Ercan, for a trip to Kadir Bey’s rug shop to pick out a rug for his new apartment. Late this afternoon, we visited Ercan to see the carpet in place. Two blocks from us, his apartment is less than a year old. It was built on the site where Meldan had owned an apartment in a much smaller building. (She now lives in a different apartment near ours inherited from her parents). The new building and Ercan’s new apartment are beautiful. Outside, it looks like most of the apartments here, although slightly nicer – four or five stories high, cement construction, lots of balconies. Inside it is gorgeous. Ercan selected the top floor, which gives him an extra floor among the roof eaves. The two floors are joined by a floating walnut spiral staircase. This apartment is right out of Architectural Digest, it is so beautiful. Chock full of gorgeous rugs, artifacts collected from Ercan’s extensive travels, and pretty furniture, some inherited from their parents’ lives in Italy (they were diplomats, so Meldan and Ercan grew up in Italy and Lebanon), this large apartment – about eight rooms – is amazing. The building even has an elevator, a rarity in our neighborhood. After a snack of spinach borek (pastry) and chocolate mousse cake, we returned home with visions of beautiful rugs in our heads.

March 16 – With those visions still floating in my head, I returned the next day to Kadir Bey’s rug shop, Best Kolleksiyon, for a talk he was giving on kilims, the woven vs. tied rugs traditionally created in Turkish villages and especially by nomadic tribes. First he explained the difference between "good quality" kilims and not so good quality, between vegetable dyes used and chemical dyes (he is a chemist by profession), between hand woven and machine assisted. Rating kilims A, B, C, and C+ he had us feel and observe the differences. Alas, we were stumped many times. One kilim, an "A" kilim, in the same family as one we purchased a few months ago, took approximately four months for the weaver to create. Another kilim, equally beautiful, and three times as big, took one day! The latter was created using the "semi-automatic" method, in other words, a type of loom we are accustomed to in the States. The "traditional" Turkish nomadic loom has only one layer of warp; the weave is applied by hand only (no shuttle) and laboriously patted into place. When asked how Kadir Bey knows how to tell hand woven, high quality rugs from semi-automatic rugs, he admitted that even he can be fooled. In general, though, he knows which workshops and which countries use specific types of dyes and looms and has learned over decades of selling rugs how to distinguish them.

After showing us samples from his shop, he brought out selections from his private collection, which he keeps in a vault in his home. He and Neslihan, his wife, have been collecting both kilims and rugs for decades. Some of the kilims he showed us were two hundred years old and are currently worth about $100,000 each. Yikes! No wonder he doesn’t keep them in his shop, nor offer them for sale. His plan is to open a museum in the future, or perhaps donate or sell them to an existing museum. Alas, my camera batteries ran out of power and so I missed a lot of photos of some of the most beautiful examples from his collection. Darn.

March 17 – Lunch with Barbara at a Chinese restaurant. The food was very good, if a bit expensive. And they sold me three blocks of tofu! This is the first time I’ve been able to find tofu here. Barbara tells me that it is readily available at the Department of Defense Commissary (which surprised me), but otherwise, it has been elusive.

Later this evening, Larry and I attended a lecture at the American Research Institute (ARIT) by James Osborne, a Harvard PhD candidate in archaeology, titled: "Ancient Conceptions of Political Territory: A View from the Iron Age Kingdom of Patina." James’s presentation was brilliantly delivered, with an excellent slide show, using graphics that I wish I knew how to create. His sense of humor and poise helped him past some tough audience questions; he was in the midst of writing his dissertation, and some of his evidence about the structure of geopolitical entities a few thousand years ago seemed skimpy. But he sailed past the questions with flying colors. His talk inspired us to sign up for a trip to the Hatay, the little finger of land jutting out of the southeastern border of Turkey.

March 18 – The Fulbright Office purchased tickets for local Fulbrighters to attend a concert at the Presidential concert hall. Larry and I were the only American Fulbrighters to make it to the concert, but a lot of Turkish grantees and alumni met us there for a night of Latin-inspired music. First a Spanish piece, then a Nino Rota concerto, followed by a variety of Argentinian "tango" type pieces, accordion and all. Nice concert. Last week, at a Fulbright alumni dinner, we had met one of the violinists in the Presidential orchestra. It turns out she is the first violinist, at least for tonight’s concert.

March 19 –How lucky that the rain has finally stopped in time for a cookout at the U.S. Military base, to which we were invited by our friends Barbara and Ray. The base is located in the middle of the large Turkish base across the street from Kadir Bey’s rug shop. This made it easy for Kadir Bey to join us at the picnic. Ray is a guidance counselor at the school on the base, which has about 250 students ranging in grades from first to twelfth grade. The building originally had 2,500 students to accommodate the children of a lot more soldiers and staff formerly based here. The much reduced facilities now focus on support services for U.S. military personnel stationed elsewhere in Turkey. So now it consists of little more than the school, the Commissary, a chapel, a library, a gym, and some other support service buildings, but few active duty soldiers, other than Turkish soldiers surrounding the U.S. facility.

Outback Steakhouse, in a gesture to "Support Our Troops," donated hundreds of steaks to the base; hence the picnic. Since neither we nor Barbara and Ray eat red meat, we satisfied ourselves with the accompanying veggie ravioli, which was terrific, and salad. Then a tour of the school, which contained some Ottoman type furniture supplied by Kadir Bey, then the gym, where I challenged Kadir Bey to a quick basketball competition (we both were terrible), and home. Even though the air was cold, the sun stayed out the entire time. Yay!

The evening was spent with the Nelsons, where they threw yet another party in honor of visiting academic colleagues from southern Florida. Remember my mention of weight loss since arriving in Turkey? Well . . . no more. (see also below)

March 20 – Invited to yet another Saturday lunch at the rug shop, we joined several others for another of Ince Hanim’s delicious feasts. Larry admitted he is planning to run away with Ince, her cooking is so good. (But she doesn’t have tofu in the freezer, like I do!). We weren’t sure why we were invited on this particular day; normally there is a specific reason to invite us. We should have known better. One of Kadir Bey’s kilim suppliers brought a new shipment of kilims (grade B) to the shop and joined us for lunch. Guess who bought some more kilims?

Seslerle Anadolu, Kayseri, and a social/educational whirlwind

February 25 - March 6

For photos of our trip to Kayseri, and some local cultural events, see: http://anatolianphotos.shutterfly.com/

Seslerle Anadolu

Ercan, Meldan’s brother, thought we would be interested in attending a Turkish production called Seslerle Anadolu, or "Voice of Anadolu" at the Painting and Sculpture Museum in downtown Ankara. This production features traditional songs, dances, and stories, with, as always, exquisite costumes. As it was introduced and performed in Turkish, I did not always understand the significance of each piece, but nonetheless, we thoroughly enjoyed the performances of the dozen or so troupe members.

Some favorite pieces include: two live dancers/actors depicting the duo Karagoz and Hacivat (see above). Dressed like the traditional story tellers, the actors/dancers moved exactly like the popular shadow puppets of the two characters. Traditional folk dances, with, it seemed, a contemporary modern dance interpretation, were intriguing. And songs sung by professionals were very moving. Again, since they were performed in Turkish, I did not understand their significance, but they were beautiful nonetheless. Throughout the performances, the "Greek chorus" on the side made comments and often sang along as well. Additionally, each performer was also projected on a large screen at the back of the stage, but in a very creative way. The anchor to all the performances was a traditional story teller, who commented, for example, that, before TV, the Internet, and other recent technological wonders, these performances represent the country’s traditional ways of entertaining the populace.

After the show, as we were crossing the street, a taxi nearly backed into us. Oddly, Meldan and Ercan got into the cab, leaving Larry and me little choice but to get into a cab that came close to knocking us down. We should have known better. The taxi ride home was wild. And I sure wish these taxis had functioning seat belts. They generally don’t.

Kayseri

Larry was invited to give another lecture, courtesy of the U.S. State Department, this time at Erciyes Univerity in Kayseri, about a five hour bus ride Southeast of Ankara. The topic was on the significance of Obama’s election as U.S. President, and his first year in office. His talk was excellent, and well received by the students and faculty in the audience.

The Hilton Hotel, where we stayed, is located smack in the middle of the old part of the city. Walking out the hotel door, we wandered among the largest group of Seljuk architecture we’ve seen so far. Chief among the remaining Seljuk buildings were many medreses, or theological seminaries, generally associated with a specific mosque. All were in excellent shape, although all but one of those we visited were no longer in use as religious educational centers. One is currently used for the sale of books and/or educational supplies. Another once housed retail stores; it looks as though it is currently being either renovated or dismantled, we couldn’t tell which. Two former medreses were later used as a hospital and medical center; they sit next to each other in a beautiful urban park. They are listed in our guide book as a medical museum, but, alas, it is closed for many more months of renovations.

As expected in a conservative town, we saw many working mosques, including one old Seljuk one. There, the local caretaker took Larry and me on a tour of the simple, elegant mosque. Then he opened up the adjoining, still functioning medrese, or theological seminary. Rugs adorned the side "classrooms," really just side rooms accessed through stone arches opening to the central stone courtyard—all very old. We saw for the first time a steep narrow stairway leading into the minaret. Our unofficial guide, when saying goodbye to us, was very gracious, but, after shaking Larry’s hand, he would not shake mine, but gave me a different type of courteous "goodbye." Yes, this part of the country is very conservative indeed.

It is also not associated with the tourism industry. Mostly it is a bustling industrial and retail city of 600,000; the Hilton guests were primarily businessmen. We stood out like sore thumbs, which made us targets for the local touts desiring to sell us their rugs. As we wandered around the spectacular central fortress, across the street from the Hilton, one young man started talking excellent English with us. Because he was so young (17 he said), and his English was so good, we didn’t brush him off all that quickly. He offered to take us to the covered bazaar, which we hadn’t yet located but wanted to visit. We agreed because we’ve gotten pretty good at saying "no" to more rugs, unless, of course, we are with Kadir Bey in Ankara.

As he led us through the old, impressive, covered bazaar, I saw piles of the exact kind of scarf I have been looking for during the five and a half months I’ve been here. "Slow down!" I asked him and Larry. But they were engrossed in conversation, so I kept up – the alleyways were complex here and I didn’t want to lose them – thinking we could backtrack later and I could pick out some scarves. Eventually we ended up in an even older bedestan, or many centuries old retail center, where (surprise!) his uncle has a rug shop. When we told both of them that we have enough rugs thank you, the uncle, looking a little cross, asked incredulously, "You don’t want any rugs?" and gave his nephew a disapproving look. We were probably the only tourists in a long time to make our way into this maze of old shops. But we didn’t want any rugs, or even to look at any, and found our way back to the Hilton with our young man’s help, who seemed as eager as we were to leave his uncle’s shop. I never did get my scarves.

The one thing I really wanted to see in Kayseri was the huge mountain, Mt. Erciyes (after which the university was named) that looms over the city like Mt. Rainier looms over Seattle. Mt. Erciyes is about the same height as Mt. Rainier (@ 12,000 feet high), and was one of two large volcanic mountains that blew their stacks thousands of years ago, resulting in today’s moonscape, wild landscape that is Cappadoccia, not far from Kayseri. You would think that in 48 hours in Kayseri, I would be able to catch a glimpse of this large mountain so close by. But, no, as with Antalya at first, the clouds effectively hid the mountain, revealing only the lower foothills which were impressive in their own right. But I wanted to see Mt. Erciyes. Sigh. I guess I’ll just have to keep my fifteen year old memory alive. We were here at the time and saw the mountain clearly enough; I just didn’t get a photograph at the time. I know, I know, just because I didn’t capture it on film (or pixels) doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. But I’m still disappointed.

Returning by bus to Ankara from Kayseri, we had our first experience of being stopped by the national Jandarma (military police, I think that means), who gathered everybody’s I.D. and checked them for potential movement of Kurds from the Southeast. Photocopies of our passports were sufficient (we generally don’t travel with the originals, unless we need to board a plane), and were returned to us almost immediately. But all the other Turkish passengers had to wait fifteen or twenty minutes for the return of their I.D.s. Everywhere these days, there seems to be an increase in police and military presence. This is due, I believe, to recent arrests of military personnel for their alleged participation in takeover plans in 2003 (which came to light just recently), and also a long, bitter strike of some municipal workers in Ankara over privatization plans.

Social/educational whirlwind

Since returning from Kayseri, we have been on a whirlwind lecture/movie/reception/seminar /cooking class schedule. Here is a brief summary:

Sunday, Feb. 8 – a reception at the U.S. ambassador’s home, and lecture by Ozden Toker, daughter of Ismet Inonu, Ataturk’s right hand man, and second president of the Turkish republic. The 80 year old Mrs. Toker, who looks and sounds like she’s fifty years old, and beautiful, told us stories of growing up in the presence of the two most powerful men in the country, and of her mother’s transition from traditional Turkish women’s role to the modernization of women’s status in the new country. Fascinating. The U.S. Ambassador is a cold fish, just bordering on rude. But his wife is very gracious.

Monday, Mar. 1 – back to the U.S. Ambassador’s residence for the screening of the movie, "Split: a Divided America," a documentary montage of interviews dealing with the "Red State/Blue State" split in our country, and some of the more contentious issues of the day, including religion, campaign finance, and so on. The film was well made and quite interesting but somewhat superficial, failing to address the underlying causes of the deep divides in the U.S. The filmmaker, Kelly Nyks, is planning a sequel to this documentary. Our theory as to why this film is being shown throughout Turkey, with the filmmaker accompanying the showing, is that the tour is sponsored by the U.S. State Dept. and, thus, was selected for its non-controversial or "non-partisan" stance. Kelly Nyks is a superb filmmaker and speaker (and a nice person; we spent lots of time with him at the following reception), but he is no Michael Moore. The Ambassador was not there on this night, but his wife was as pleasant as ever.

Tuesday, Mar. 2 – I return to Hacettepe, Beytepe, for the first time in a long time to attend a morning seminar. The first speaker, Akiba Harper, from Spellman College, spoke on "Turning Jazz Into Literature." Focusing on Langston Hughes’s poetry, she performed, more than read, excerpts from the poet’s works and charmed everybody in the room with her excellent presentation and skill in reciting and even singing the works. She was very convincing in conveying Hughes’s verbal "music" based on the rhythm and form of jazz instruments and vocals.

The second speaker was Bercin Erol, a close friend of Meldan’s and one of our companions at various dinners and events. She gave "A Brief Overview of Black Turks in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey." Excellent! After a long, excellent lunch, the department met with the Spellman College speaker and two of her colleagues, to plan a potential collaboration with Middle East Technical University, Hacettepe, and Spellman, in creating a summer program for up to 20 Spellman students in Ankara in 2011. I was invited to participate in the planning meeting and shared the enthusiasm of nearly everyone in the room. Oddly, the department had been quite unreceptive to this idea as recently as three weeks ago. But now, after meeting the individuals from Spellman, hearing that excellent presentation on poetry and jazz, and sensing the contagious enthusiasm of the Spellman visitors, the department members are now quite happy with the summer project.

Today is Wednesday March 3, as I write this. Tonight we have another lecture (Urartian ivories); so too tomorrow night (the history of Gori, Georgia). Tomorrow I also participate for the first time in an English language conversation club. [editor’s note several days later. I think I have a new vocation, standup comic. The students loved my jokes. Hmmm. Or were they just being polite? Hmmm. Or were they lauging AT me?] The next night a concert at Bilkent. Saturday I attend a Turkish cooking lesson, then in the evening we have a fancy dinner to go to. Sunday, a farewell party for a U.S. embassy staffer [editor's note: we skipped this one--too tired]. Next week a ballet, then another party. Because of all the events to come, I decided to go ahead and describe what we’ve been up to for the past week, rather than waiting until all the events have come and gone. If I wait, I’m likely to get them all mixed up in my mind. Several weeks ago, I was feeling bored and homesick. Today I would welcome a little boredom. I think I’ll go read a little. I’m only on page 11 of the book I started a week ago!