INTRO
the summer heat seems to make everyone a tad more eccentric here. the fact i now tarzan-like manage to communicate more with the locals - inevitably appears to involve me more in the every day oddities of the micorcosmic turkey i have started to know up close. alongside the usual encounters with my (old and new) students at school, never failing to provide food for thought and genuine sources of bittersweet, amusing, unexpected anectodes and opinions.
hence - the bulletin for the past month could include some of the following quasi-darwinian notes:
(i) the man selling towels in the main street after the mosque where i walk every day has bought a pitbull "for some company". i cannot remember seeing an uglier "pet" in my life.
he named the dog "A N G E L". when i daftly asked why - he replied matter-of-factly "because she is a girl".
(ii) the widow running the newsagent below our house has shaved her hair and now lives with a very hostile looking woman.
(iii) i have a new class on monday morning with a group of university freshmen. one of the student sports a glass eye. i must confess i am fascinated.
(iv) during an evening class a girl told us that on her first day in primary school the headmaster summoned her parents and asked: "under which name did you register your daughter?" to which they replied "cecile" -
"what kind of name is that?" the headmaster questioned them.
"it is a french name...we...liked it" they explained.
"exactly. it is not a turkish name" he blasted " i will register her as SESIM and you should change her name on her other documents too". which they did without any objection.
((to me this anectode tells everything about the come-what-may flippant fatalism that seems to enable local people to accept as "normal" basically anything - starting from the very frequent misuses of any (alleged) form of authority and power)).
(v) most of my students believe that international trade and globalisation are in truth a conspiracy to fund and support israel. i was told: "everybody knows that nestle', coca cola, tesco, nivea (??) and mac donalds are owned by israel". they kind of take it personal and give me very stern and offended looks when i clearly find these comments highly entertaining and funny.
(vi) our neighbour died last weekend aged 47. he died during a volleyball match on the beach after downing two glasses of whisky. he owned a furniture factory, had two young children and a socialite wife. we learnt about his death while reading the daily in the cafe' next to our place, two floors right under his family's pad. interestingly, our surprise - and the usual somber faces that come with news of such kind - were quickly neutralised by the waiter's comment: "he never came to drink our coffee anyway..."
(vii) taught a couple of times a girl who had to go through few years of speech therapy. was i ever to go back to any form of studying i would love to learn more about speech therapy. not for a mere phonetical curiosity, but mainly because speech and language difficulties are often caused by delicate emotional patterns - and i truly think that good speech therapy can make a real (tangible, lasting) difference.
(viii) going through a bit of an (unprecedented!) 80's extravaganza and listening to heaps of revival / oldies music. as part of this craze, i have felt the very sudden urge to take up aerobics and am now totally hooked. this might eventually make up for years of dancefloor awkwardness - but the clumsiness is definitely still all there, so i would not be too optimistic after all.
having said that - my current top three work-out songs are:
pet shop boys' flamboyant /
depeche mode's enjoy the silence
and
new order's thieves like us - an absolute masterpiece.
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