When
I first moved to Turkey nearly six years ago now--and I won't go into the
reasons why I left a very well-paid job, penthouse flat and company car, or
we'll be here all day--the first thing I had to come to terms with was the
culture difference. Living in a tourist
resort also means I meet Turks from all over this vast country and with
different cultural and social influences.
It sure makes life interesting! I
live in a two bed apartment in a coastal village popular with British tourists
called Altınkum, which means golden sand.
On a map it's about half way down the Aegean coast of Turkey and the
nearest big cities are Aydın and Izmir; the latter has an international airport,
as does Bodrum, which is about an hour and a half away by car to the south.
Although
I do miss the UK sometimes and friends and family, obviously, I love my
lifestyle here despite the fact that you sometimes feel as if you've gone back
20 years. The power goes off here more
often than it should, which is hugely frustrating, nearly every time it rains
or there is a thunderstorm. Also Turkish
people are not hardwired to be punctual for anything and are painfully slow at
all things bureaucratic, so it can take a while to sort anything out. If I arrange to meet anyone Turkish and they
give a time, I always ask, is that English time or Turkish time, because the
two can differ by at least two hours.
And there's no point losing your rag with them as they don't understand
what your problem is--I'm here now, aren't I?
When
I was packing my stuff away for storage before I moved out here I remember
thinking, you'll be unpacking all this again in six months' time, girl. Well, nearly six years later I'm still here
and whilst I'm not as well off financially as I was back home, I wouldn't swap
with my former work colleagues for anything.
I don't envy them sitting on the M62 in traffic jams for hours every day
and as I've got used to the slower pace of life here I'm not sure I'd cope with
the frenetic lives people seem to lead in the UK any more. Here's hoping I'm still here in another six
years, still enjoying life and still plonking away for Way With Words!
In
general and in my experience Turkish people are very friendly and
hospitable. I learnt very early on that
if I was visiting a neighbour's house for whatever reason, not to eat for about
six hours beforehand. The first thing
they do when you arrive is turn the hob on and fill the çaydanlık [Turkish
teapot] to make çay, which is always served in delicate little glasses, without
milk but sweetened with sugar to taste, and is an essential part of life
here. Next, the lady of the house will
start baking or cooking if she hasn't anything already prepared and you will
not be allowed to leave until you have stuffed yourself senseless. It's considered a slight on the host's cooking
skills to refuse seconds here so you have to keep going until you turn green.
Turkish
people are also very garrulous--the men more so than the women--and Lord help
you if you bump into someone you know when you're in a rush. They seem to have all the time in the world,
while I'm usually dashing over the road to the shop for a carton of milk while
downloading a file and haven't time to stop for 20 minutes to discuss the
weather, what I've been up to or granny's hernia operation. I had to learn the Turkish for 'sorry, but
I'm in a bit of a hurry' very early on!
That
brings me on to the next learning curve--the language. Turkish is a beautiful language and I find it
rather melodic, due in the most part to something called ‘vowel harmony’. There are eight vowels in Turkish as opposed
to our five and as it's an agglutinating language suffixes for everything from
personal pronouns to prepositions of place are added to the stem of the word. The vowels in them have to match up, which
does make it sound almost musical.
Whilst
my basic Turkish is now quite good and is my default language when I'm up in
town, I'm far from fluent and still learning.
The way Turkish works when translated into English can also be quite
hilarious. In Turkish you don't switch
things on and off, you open and close them.
This leads to friends saying things like, ‘I went home last night and
opened the television’. I had visions of
him there with a screwdriver until I twigged what he meant. Or, ‘I tried to ring you last night but your
phone was closed’. I've got used to it
now but the strange thing is I find myself saying things like that to my English
friends--go figure!
I
always keep my eyes open for shop signs as well, where some enterprising
merchant has decided to advertise whatever he's selling in English as well as
Turkish. You read it and think, I sort
of get what you mean, but it's not quite right and sometimes comically so. My all-time favourite was the one outside one
of the banks here: ‘due to renovations the entrance is now up the backside of
the bank’. I was on the floor, but
that's just the way Turkish works sometimes when it's translated into English. In Turkish the bank 'owns' its front, back
and sides. A friend of mine was stopped
in her tracks by a man she thought she recognised and who then went on to say, ‘you
don't recognise me, do you? I am the
barber from your behind’. What he meant
was his barber shop is behind her apartment building.
I've
been working for Way With Words now for about three years and it's an ideal way
to earn my living, as working here is illegal for foreigners without a permit--and
those are nigh on impossible to obtain. For
those who do choose the risk of a heavy fine or deportation-- and it must be
said many a blind eye is turned here by the local authority--the hours are long
and the pay is poor, although lots of English people here do work and I have
done so myself in the past. I really
enjoy transcription work--most of the time!
Well, we all get those files every now and then that have you ripping
your hair out. And it never fails to
amaze me how much I've learnt about a vast array of different subjects, some
more useful than others! My all time favourite
was an interview I transcribed where a quantum physics professor was being
interviewed about his subject. I may not
have understood everything he was talking about--Schrödinger's cat, anyone? –
but it was fascinating all the same.
During
the summer season here in Altinkum the weather is hot and sunny for nigh on
eight months, so hordes of tourists--British, other European, Turkish--descend
and the place is party town from May until the end of October. We're into November now and the season is
officially over for another year--less people, less traffic on the roads, less
noise in general-- but as there is still an expat community here (although
sadly diminishing, for a multitude of reasons) some of the bars and restaurants stay open all
year round now. Winters can be quite
mild, although often very wet, and on a lovely sunny day even in January and
February on a walk down the seafront promenade you will see people sitting at
tables in the sun enjoying an Efes--the local beer--or a coffee. You can't beat it.
The
cost of living here is still way less than in Europe. I can do my weekly shop for around £12, the
evil weed still costs around £2 for a packet of 20 and a bottle of local beer
is about the same. There are two markets
in town, a farmers' one on a Wednesday and the bigger one on Saturdays and many
a bargain can be had for the enterprising shopper. The fruit and vegetables are so cheap I'm
only limited by the weight I'm able to carry home on the dolmuş. The dolmuş are the local minibuses that zip
up and down from town to Altınkum and back and to and from the surrounding
villages and are so cheap to use it's unreal.
The word dolmuş actually means stuffed, and believe me, they are. They will cram as many people on them as is
humanly possible and travelling on them in the height of summer can be a rather
unpleasant experience, but they're still the best and easiest way to travel
short distances and being sans car, I use them all the time.
I
have no plans to return to the UK other than for holidays for the foreseeable
future and still have many places in this country I'd love to visit--time and
finances permitting. I've driven up to
Ankara and then across to the west coast and back down to Altınkum and spent five
days in Istanbul Christmas before last--what an amazing city that is. The architecture there is breathtaking. There are plenty more places on my list, not
least the eastern part of Turkey which looks beautiful on film and is home to
the country's Kurdish population.
Apparently Europeans are still very much a novelty in that part of the
world, so it would make an interesting trip.
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