I have had several requests from family members to write another blog entry. I was thinking and thinking about what I should write and I decided to write about the differences in this country from all of our observations in the last six months. FYI- No photos in this blog.
Winter in Turkey has brought with it many interesting observations and stories. So this is where I will start. To summarize the winter weather so far; Rain, snow, and then loads of snow. Weather has been around the high 20s to low 30s. When snow accumulates, a warm spell follows where it warms up to 40/50 with sun. This melts most of the snow....and then we repeat the same pattern of rain, snow and then more snow. BUT this winter, from what we are told, it is a rare winter with a lot more cold weather and much more snow than Turkey normaly has at winter time.
Turkey not having a lot of snow may explain why plowing is not a common thing. Minnesota has plowing down right! When it starts to snow, trucks are applying salt/solution to the roads and plow throughout till the snow is done. Turkey is a very different story. It starts snowing and there are no plow trucks to be seen. Only when it is about done snowing may you see a plow truck AND even then you can flip a coin as to whether you see a plow truck or not. Not sure what causes or dictates when the plows trucks come out to plow. THEREFORE, we have had three snow days from school due to the weather and the inability to drive in the snow.
Shoveling is also a pretty rare thing. I am sure that everyone in our neighborhood knows where the foreigners live, because we shovel. Turkish people do not typically shovel their sidewalk or the walkway to their residence. If you ever see someone shoveling it is so they can back out of their driveway or to dig out their vehicle. The shovels that they use are usually spade shovels, something for digging (interesting). At restaurants or stores, tiling/marble is used as the walkway to their facility and it is common for an employee to use a very large squeegie to push the snow off of the walkway when it is snowing. Shoveling is so uncommon that our neighbors noticed us shoveling and came over to see who the strange people were shoveling. The neighbor then noticed our shovel and said (in broken English), "That must be from America, because I have never seen such a shovel." It is true. The shovel was brought over from American. We have looked in Turkey for the kids to have a snow shovel and there are no such shovels.
Driving in the snow, since it is not plowed, makes getting up hills very difficult. And Ankara is verrrry hilly! Many times I watch people spinning wheels or getting stuck trying to make it up a hill. And that is the start of my next story. The school bus. During snowy times the bus can barely make it up to our block, but no farther. One day it snowed overnight a lot. The bus apparently had an issue picking up a student at a dead-end cul de sac, at the bottom of a hill. The driver made it down the hill, but the bus was sliding and could not drive back up the hill. The bus slid and got stuck. The kids (15 kids- yes... Sam was one of the kids until his brothers told the driver that it was too dangerous for Sam to be pushing the bus) got out to push/rock the bus. The kids said that they were able to get the bus unstuck and then described how they were covered in snow from the spinning tires. They all then got back on the bus. The bus eventually got enough momentum to barely make it back up the hill. Kids pushing a bus?!? Hmm- never in America, but yes in Turkey. Interesting, funny and scary.
Speaking of driving, I have posted past blogs about the driving issues so we all have an idea how dangerous and crazy it is to drive in Turkey. In the morning I drive to my Turkish language course. The traffic is so heavy and slow. Heavy traffic causes a parking lot on the highway with cars surrounding you... and they don't stay in their lane. If there is enough room to barely squish another car in-between, even though there is no driving lane, the vehicle squishes in and drives that way for miles. The story is not about the traffic but a bread man who defies the traffic nightmare to sell bread. This bread man during the heaviest traffic rush hour literally carries his bread and his stand, a small foldable wooden table, through the highway in between lanes of traffic to set up it up right in the middle of the highway. He sells bread to the barely driving cars on the highway. AND I have seen that he sells a lot of bread. I watched him hand the bread off to the driver/passenger in one car, get his money and then look to the next lane to see if they wish to buy a bread pastry from him. Witnessing that blew my mind away. A man in the middle of the highway, with heavy traffic, crazy drivers, walks aroung to set up his stand and sell bread. Now that takes guts.
Talking about cars; well.... parking and driving are pretty similar. Parking is not what we consider as normal according to the states- orderly, law dictating, and organized. In Turkey, parking is like driving because if there is room to squeeze in then you do. So it is very common to see cars double and triple parked blocking traffic flow or making it so that you can barely drive. I have driven down a street with only inches between my car and the parked vehicles on both sides of me as I drove. There have been times when a person just parks where they want; on the highway blocking a lane, on the curb blocking the sidwalk, blocking driveways or on the wrong side of the road parked. It is odd to see and at times frustrating. But that is normal here.
The other thing we have seen and feel is very different then America is street workers. The garbage men; I watched the garbage men collect the trash the other day. There are three men to a truck. One man is the driver and the other two collect the garbage. The two men don't dump the garbage bin into the truck, but grab the garbage out of the container and throw it into the back of the truck. Therefore, most of the time the garbage container is not emptied and has remaining garbage at the bottom of the container (can you say smelly). Odd to see, and where are the mechanics that can grab the container and empty it into the truck? Other street workers like public works; while driving we have seen men gardening the public boulevard with a man's sole job of watering the grass. He walks around with a hose and waters the boulevard...really? Where are the sprinkler systems? That man's full day of work is to stand in the sun and water the boulevard's grass, plants, and flowers. Side NOTE; we do enjoy seeing these men at break time. They usually build some fire on the street in order to heat up their water to have tea. Now that is funny; an open small fire pit on the side of the road/highway with the men sitting down in the shade to socialize and have tea. Again, that is normal here.
Speaking of garbage....I don't think that Turkey has littering fines, because when you drive around you commonly see people littering. People throw garbage out of their vehicle as they drive or people walking just drop the container that they just ate from or drank from to the ground. Also at dead ends of non-developed areas large garbage piles are just dumped there out in the open. We are not used to littering and we commonly pick up the garbage around our house. SO, again the neighbors know where the foreigners live due to our picking up all the stray garbage near and around the house. But we will continue to clean up the garbage, because we are not accustom to the stray garbage and don't like it. BUT that is normal here.
I have posted past blogs about the plumbing here. I have written about the toilet hole in the middle of the floor and the flooding in our basement from the plumbing issues. But there is one thing that still is odd to me. When you flush a toilet, let the water out of the tub, take a shower, run the dishwasher, or washing machine; should you be able to hear the water draining in the plumbing system in the house? Should you be able to hear it in the sink, a different bathroom floor drain or even on a different floor? Yet here we do. It is a rather loud echoing sound in the pipes throughout the house and its facilities..... AND the plumbing here can smell bad at times. We are not sure why, but at different times a foul smell come up from the drains. No one is able to explain what causes the smell. So we had to cover most floor drain holes in all bathrooms in order to prevent the bad smells from permeating the house when it happens. So my question is; how is the plumbing constructed/connected with all the sounds and the smells that come from it. When I think about it....YUK! AGAIN, it is different.
OK so now I have grossed you out. Here are some sweeter funny sides to Turkey. Turkey's customs and people lack the idea of personal space; therefore, they are very close to one another when talking. It is also common for groups of men or groups of women to walk arm and arm or hand and hand down the street conversing. It is a sign of friendship and loyalty. People, not being friends, will kiss one another on each other's cheek as a sign of greeting. This is sweet, but I am still getting use to this idea because I am used to handshakes. SO now when I meet someone new that person leans in to kiss each side of my face on my cheeks. Instead of thinking how sweet it is.... I am thinking; do they have a cold, who is the last person that they kissed and do they have a cold. Just kidding..it is sweet and I am working on getting use to people being such close proximity of one another.
Speaking of sweet things; well our water service guy is very sweet. In Turkey people do not drink out of their tap water system, so most people have a big jug of water that is like a water cooler system. Our delivery guy has gotten use to us being foreigners. He knows that we don't speak Turkish. We have used charades in order to communicate with one another. But now I can speak a bit of Turkish and he is patient for me to speak the language. He is such a happy friendly man. He gets excited when we are baking, because he loves to try our cookies/brownies and baked goods. The other day he came by and proudly spoke a couple of English phrases (Have a great day and Thank you very much). It is fun the relationship that we are building with him.
These are some examples of the cultural differences that we have seen since we moved here. Again, I am not saying that it is wrong but different. We were accustom to our perception of normal and customary concepts, so moving here to a new culture has opened our eyes to what we once thought as normal is not always normal.
So Mitch..this blogs for you. Not trying to throw you under the bus, but you are the one who bugged me the most to post this blog. Love you!!
