Progress!

We have our own apartment and what a blessing this is for us! For the first ten days in Istanbul we were living in the dormitories of our school; while we were glad to have the school providing food for us at the cafeteria for each meal we have more fun exploring our neighborhood for local eateries and grocery stores. Of course, it’s not all food that we appreciate. It’s nice to have a room to call my own, a kitchen to store and make food, and our washing machine is now hooked up as well. I can’t believe that we have this place! The IKEA is only a few stops away on the metro, which is about a ten-minute walk from our place—if your hands are free! Our first night here we walked to the shopping center and got a load of cleaning supplies, lampshades, water, and other things to get us started. We are still trying to figure out a few things; among them are one of the sinks that doesn’t drain and the wires coming out of the ceiling where there could be a fixture. It’s small potatoes though; it’ll work out. Really, having a place is awesome.

In Turkey, a home is a place to invite guests and have real connection and serve the people who come to your home. In fact, our homes came with teacups and a teapot but not toilet paper! Now that says something about the culture. Tea is not a drink but a way of communication. Having tea means being interested in somebody else’s life, it means being hospitable, so we drink often. Going to work was particularly challenging at first. My boss told me we would have a meeting the next day after breakfast. When I saw him at the school cafeteria at breakfast he reminded me and I told him I’d see him upstairs five minutes later. Upon getting to the meeting however he wasn’t there so I called him only to discover he had left and said that I should return in an hour. An hour later I came back, and he was watching the news in the lounge. We ordered tea; we talked about traveling and what was going on in the world. After twenty minutes he said he was leaving for a couple hours and I wouldn’t see him until after the weekend. While some might like this idea of “work” the lack of efficiency and value for personal time is driving me bananas.

This past week has been significantly better compared to last week but still seems quite unproductive. I now know that I’m teaching high school. The classes get shuffled around and thus I may not be teaching the same grades two weeks from now. At this point I have one freshman class, several sophomore classes, and one class of juniors. I’ve been given a program that I installed on my computer that contains all the books I will teach from and all the info I’ll need to teach the lessons, which certainly lightens my load! Preparing lessons is still somewhat futile, as I don’t know these students’ level. The one lesson I did write is for a class that I don’t have anymore so I’ve decided to wait until I meet the students and see their needs first. School begins on Monday; I’m not nervous but ready to finally jump in—let’s just hope they figure out a schedule soon.