Trivia.

It is hard to know what to write this week. If you aren't aware of what is happening in Turkey google it. It makes everything else seem less important. Fethiye remains peaceful and safe. You are as safe as you ever are to travel here.

We are starting to gear up for summer - the children finish school next Friday for three long months of holidays. I'm pretty happy about this. I genuinely like having the boys at home. Hero is heading off on this camp it looks like an amazing experience. And by amazing I mean he will enjoy the tree climbing and rafting no end, and I am so so glad I don't have to watch! We also have to make a decision on whether Rafey is ready to progress to the first class. He is not an academically minded kid, and proper school is really hard work. He has also had some speech difficulties. After one year in the pre-school he is much improved, but not perfect. It might be better to give him another year doing easy things than push him to go further when he is not really ready-ready. This summer I will be trying to help him learn to read, if he manages we will let him go into year one. If not we will have a big palaver on our hands trying to stop him.

This made me laugh a lot. Screen shots of amusing captions on TV

Thinking About Headscarves.

This morning a friend posted this link to a blog post about living as a headscarf wearer in Izmit, Turkey. Basically she feels marginalised in Turkey because she is unable to go into some places while wearing a headscarf (some restaurants don't allow people wearing them to eat there, you can't enrol in university, work in parliament and other government organisations with one.) She has experienced people being deliberately rude to her - flicking her headscarf and asking if she would wear it in Britain (she is a UK national, Muslim convert.)

A fair few people commented on my friends link to this post - everyone hated the rudeness, but people also brought up legitimate concerns about security where burka wearers (the full shebang, with face covered too) are concerned. I don't mean 'they could have a bomb under there!' sure they could, but just as easily you could wear a bomb like a fake pregnancy. It's more stuff like schools being unable to identify exactly who is collecting a child from a school gate, or women using someone else's passport to go to another country and trusting in their anonymity not to be discovered.

Nobody commented on the headscarf ban in government buildings, other than to say - if you want a democratic country the religious need to be free to wear what they want. In theory I agree with this. I am very pro democracy, very pro human rights, but I am not sure lifting the headscarf ban would be pro human rights. In the West of Turkey, yes. Women are freer. They make real choices. The ones I have spoken to wear them because they believe it is part of their religion and it makes them feel closer to God to do so. It is their own free choice to do so. In the East of Turkey however, the government actively has to make parents send their daughters to school. There is a culture of thought that there is very little point in educating a girl. Some people even go so far as not to register their female children so they will never be in the system and not have to go to school. Would women like that really be free to choose whether or not to wear a headscarf? Having said that they are probably not really free to choose now - at least if you were allowed to wear a headscarf anywhere you wanted they would have a slightly higher chance of further education and better jobs.

I am not really sure what I think. I dislike seeing young girls (anyone under 15 or 16, but you see them as young as 9) wearing headscarves. [Brief pause while I digress] I don't think you are born as part of a religion (whether or not a particular religion claims you, as is the case with Judaism.) I think you are born a baby. Your parents may or may not have religious beliefs, that a child may or may not follow. My husband and I are different. We teach the boys about religion in the third person: Muslims believe this, Christians believe that, Jews believe, Buddhists believe, Sikhs believe etc. We do actually both have beliefs. When the kids are older we both hope they will decide to follow a religion, but that they will do it out of a sense of personal conviction. I in particular never want my children to have to wonder if they believe something because they have always been taught it, or if they believe something because it is true. I don't think science can conclusively prove or disprove the existence of God. I think you can only prove it to yourself as an individual though experience. You can not brainwash a person into faith and I don't want to try. Anyway, the point of this digression, I think children are too young to choose their religion, wearing a headscarf is most certainly a sign of religious affiliation. Not only that but it is a sign of womanhood. A nine year old is not a woman and should not be looked at as one, in any way ever.

The area we live in probably has a 50-50 split of women wearing (or not) a headscarf. You see groups of teens hanging out some with their heads covered some not. I have never felt discriminated against because of my lack of headscarf. I think all the locals, both expat and native share a common sense of shocked amusement at the tourists who wander around town either in bikinis or shirtless - as an aside I was more shocked by the shirted guy with just speedos underneath than the ones with shorts but no shirts, good to know! Yesterday I was in town and it was about 35 degrees (95f) - women wearing headscarves and full long sleeved coats kept walking past me. They were melting. Their husbands were standing next to them in shorts and t-shirts. And that irritated me. Why would a religion dictate you have to wear such weather inappropriate clothing? I find it equally dumb in the UK when you see women in mid-winter out for the night in strappy tops and mini-skirts. A choice dictated by peer-pressure and culture.

I guess in a way I am lucky, I experience very little peer, cultural, or religious pressure (although enough to occasionally tie me up in knots.) If you do live in a society with these thing present, is it possible to make choices without those pressures dictating your choices and still be accepted? I'm not sure, but that is the type of democracy and freedom I am in favour of.

Image credit to the cartoonist Malcom Evans via the society pages

Note. in my town plenty of people wear headscarves, they do not wear burkas (as pictured above,) the only people I have seen wearing a burka were tourists.

You Know You've been in Turkey a Long Time When...

How to know when you have passed the point of no return and 'gone native.'


You actually feel more comfortable with slippers than without

You find 'animals in the home' a surprising concept

You get mad if people ask "are you from Russia?" rather than "where are you from?"

You keep un-opened milk in the cupboard not the refrigerator.

On holidays abroad, the colour and size of courgettes and cucumbers are so different from what you are used to you struggle to be sure if they are labelled correctly.

You still wear a sweater when it's 25 degrees celsius  (80f)

Chickens wandering around in urban areas no longer surprise you.

Just the word bacon is exciting, as are packet spice mixes, and cadbury chocolate.

You plan sentences in your head before you say them.

You think minced meat (ground beef) is "ready food."

You automatically remove your shoes when entering a home.

You start to view cars as a luxury item.

You notice people who do not have Mediterranean colouring.

You return to your country of origin and have to remind yourself to make eye contact with the opposite sex.

An unknown man saying good morning to you on the street is confusing, mildly threatening, something to think about.

You find "tourist clothes" both culturally and weather inappropriate.

The words "son fiyat" fill you with excitement.

You know what to do with pekmez.

You can find a passable substitute for just about any unobtainable ingredient in any Western recipe.

Squat toilets make you groan but not run.

When you visit family, you find the price of everything unbelievably expensive.

You stop buying chocolate in green wrappers and expecting it to be minty.

On trips abroad you are surprised how few people smoke.

If someone brings you a plate of food, you never return the plate empty.

As a parent, you are thrown into confusion on holidays because the kid shouting "Mummy!" is not yours.

You are surprised when people understand you on the first time of asking.

You cook 'Turklish' food.

When in a foreign supermarket you are weirded out a) because the fruit department has no smell, b) because none of the available fruit is in season, c) because pork is not in a special section labelled with giant warning signs / very very very expensive.

You stop thinking men holding hands is an indication of their sexuality.

You don't hear the mosque-man singing any more.

If you go to a restaurant and order fish, you are surprised if it turns up and doesn't actually look like a fish.

The people abroad you feel closest to are those who update their status on facebook most frequently.

You think the supplements in a Sunday newspaper are the best bit.

You stop being surprised when people consider yogurt a condiment.

Two men fighting in the middle of the main road? maneouver around them and keep on driving. Don't bother looking back.

If you live in the south - sunny weather and hot water become inextricably linked in your mind.

When new arrivals complain about Turkey you a) can give them a positive for each of their negatives, b) wish they would go back to where they came from.

When the adverts come on TV the remote is already in your hand to turn the volume down.

You have stopped wondering why people keep a small chair in their shower.

Pasta served with a basket of bread? why not!

You are unsurprised when it takes twenty forms and visits to five different government departments to do anything official. You have a stash of at least twenty passport photos.

Lawns are something remarkable.

Whether from a builder, a doctor, or a dentist you never trust the first diagnoses.

You accept dust balls appearing one day after vacuuming as a fact of life.

You are deeply shocked if you see underwear in full view on a washing line.

You realise that not being able to understand loud speaker announcements from the village intercom and from passing vans is in no way a reflection on your ability to speak Turkish. The locals can't understand them either.

You tell new Turkish friends you are "waiting for them" to come over. You know you will never see them again.

The idea of mixing water, salt, and yogurt to make a bubbly drink, no longer seems unfathomably weird.

You stop calling somewhere other than where you live 'home.'

If you really thought about it, you'd describe yourself as an immigrant not an expat.

Note: I wrote an article in a similar vein a few years back for the newspaper Today's Zaman. If you want to read it, click here.

The village school.

I love my children's school. It is a local, government (i.e. free,) village school. Last year there was a big upheaval in how the education system is structured in Turkey - there were a lot of pros and cons and a lot of debate (you can read about some of that here if you are interested,) but unsurprisingly enough (so far as I can see public opinion never does more than soften the blow of the inevitable here ) it happened and everyone is managing just fine. For us it meant that our current school changed from providing eight years of continuous education, to four. The middle school the boys would have then attended was one we would have liked to avoid. This certainly wasn't the end of the world but it gave us the push we needed to make the decision to change schools. Not only did we change schools, but we bought a house in the same area as the new school - when I look back at the decision making process it has all become a bit chicken-and-eggish in my mind, did we choose the house because of the school, or the school because of the house, I'm not sure but either way it has worked out very well. When we lived in Ankara there was no way on earth my husband would have let the boys go to a government school. The class sizes were massive (up to sixty kids,) and the children who went were the ones who couldn't afford to go to private school. I have no problem with people being poor - but we found that the other children refused to accept my oldest, his foreignness was just wrong to them. Anyway, happily we moved to Fethiye. Our oldest was due to start school that September so we started looking. First stop was the local private school in Çaliş. I was unimpressed. Not that the school seemed bad, but the days were long 8.30 to 4.30 which seemed unreasonable like a full time job to me and not what I wanted my hen six year old to do. The class sizes were ok at a maximum of twenty two, but it just wasn't special enough for its very high price tag. I have always been opposed to paying for primary education - why should I pay for my kid to finger paint? I wanted to look at some government schools. My husband hated the idea, but like me he is fairly thrifty and paying the equivalent of two houses over the next eight years appealed to him as little as it appealed to me. We asked around and were told again and again Yunus Nadi, Yunus Nadi, everyone wants to get there kid in there... So we went to see it and we loved it. It has the most beautiful location - the playground literally ends with the sea, the outside walls are covered in child drawn paintings, and child-made tiles. It ticked a lot of boxes. It was a little tricky to get in as we were not in the catchment zone, but my husband is very used to getting his own way and managed to circumvent things so our son could be enrolled (in fact a couple of months later we moved into the catchment zone so this was no longer an issue.) It didn't quite live up to it's glowing reports. The teachers seemed to believe that the children needed three hours of homework every night. Three hours! That's a lot of homework. When there is that much work to do, quality goes out the window and it is just about finishing. I asked around, worried that it was just us struggling as my son was stronger in English than Turkish, but everyone was telling the same story. The other main disappointment was the lack of community. Almost every child at the school came from somewhere else and they all came on the bus. I'd hoped by moving close to the school that I'd get to know the other parents, but I didn't. Because they didn't come to the school. Ever. Unless the teacher had demanded a parent teacher conference they weren't there. The children who didn't come on the bus walked home alone - I was the crazy Brit walking my six year old home, because I didn't trust him to go alone. We left on a good note, they put on a fabulous (though expensive) school show. The kind of thing that any non-family member would be bored by, but made me burst with pride at every turn. But ultimately there was nothing I would miss when we moved away.   It's funny how I can not realise how much I dislike a place until I have left it. We lived in Ankara for six years. Six year where I felt supremely indifferent about my life. I neither loved nor hated the place, it was simply somewhere to be to allow the children a chance to learn Turkish before we moved somewhere (anywhere) else. When we moved to Fethiye I fell in love - with the sea, with the vibrant community, with the relaxed and accepting way of life. It was months before I stopped having nightmares about going back to Ankara. When my oldest left his first school, I was again filled with indifference. I was proud of all that he had achieved - making friends, learning to write, learning to read in Turkish, but I was not sad to be leaving. In the end the misery of trying to coerce a six year old to sit still and do homework for three hours after a day at school, and the somewhat standoffish nature of the other parents had outweighed the schools other good points.   The new school is just lovely. It is very much a village school.  My youngest is in the anaokul (kindergarten) and in the six months he has been attending he hasn't once said he doesn't want to go - when he walks into the classroom he is swamped by other kids wanting his attention. It is a pleasure to me to see him in the playground hustling the other kids into playing different ball games with him - his speech development has been very slow and he still can't pronounce some letters yet somehow it doesn't matter. My oldest has a stream of kids knocking on our door to ask "can Hero come out and play...?" he has a vastly reduced amount of homework (only one hour if he sets his mind to it) - he has time to be a kid again. The really draw to the school though is how unspoilt the people are. We are ever so slightly outside the tourist zone of the main town. The people here still farm their small holdings - and rely on their produce. I was waiting in the playground the other day when a kid turned up with five litres of milk in an old plastic water bottle, he delivered it to another mother - fresh from their cow that morning. In fact I think the village has a higher population of chickens than people. And yet almost all of them seem to have a family member or two married to someone foreign - they have welcomed me. I love walking through the village and having people smile and wave at me. Note. On Friday my oldest came home and told me he'd been punched, he didn't seem in the least bothered by this, apparently he was protecting one of his friends. I don't really have anything to say about this, so far as I can say it was more just a case of kids fighting rather than bullying, but I thought I would mention it after my rave review of the school just to temper it a little. Nothing ever fits neatly in a box, however much I want it to!