instant close ups

said bye to my tuesday ab initio class yesterday night. they are an outstanding, unusual bunch and i loved teaching them. first of all because - especially if compared to the rather "quiet" mix of students you get on average here in turkey...these people were rather unique, if not eccentric.

i usually do not enjoy taking up ab initio classes - mainly as they are scared stiff of being taught by someone who cannot explain the lesson in their native language. they react sheepishly and sometimes retaliate with long faces, long silences and long, unhappy stares at their watches. (cannot blame them 100%!).

this class was however different from the very start and over the past two or three months i have loved noticing how their english was actually improving significantly. but what i enjoyed the most was listening to them and getting to know them better.

interestingly, they would always sit in the same places every tuesday. to my left there would be a very smiley financial consultant, a girl with a rather horsey face and lovely manners; next to her a nurse with a peroxide blonde bob and incredibly deep (and deep set) eyes; then a lad who works as an opera singer; then the ladies man of the pack, an economics student who plays "underwater rugby" (and - unsurprisingly - loves to say it). then mr. o, an accountant with a bald head, very shiny olive skin and very shiny, olive eyes (i have never met anyone with a monochrome face, but was it not for his lashes - you would think his eyes and skin are blended together)...

mr. o - a lovely human version of shrek, if you ask me to describe him...- "loves to help around the house: ironing, cleaning, doing the dishes" and once treated his girlfriend to a surprise weekend in paris (in short: not your typical turkish bloke!). next to him, two girls attending the course because they dream of making it as air hostesses for turkish airlines -

peculiarly when they would speak, they would take the initiative together...their smiles and voices following a rather fascinating synchronised pattern.

and then the sweetheart of the group - a very trendy and soft spoken girl with huge, cartoon-like blue eyes. and then finally (and sitting to my left) the intellectual of the class - a boy with a mousey voice and slightly camp ways who is trying to become an academic in his history faculty at university.

needless to say - given such a diverse and bubbly concoction of personalities and backgrounds - i was never bored and i was never tired of answering questions and working with them.

i am always curious about people - where they come from, what they expect from life, how they project themselves, when and why they get short, how they tell about their lives and families... and to be honest - interacting with eccentric tales or peculiar hobbies, or puzzling resemblances to shrek... is actually amazing.

a fab source of "salt" in life.

a juke box filled with catchy tunes.

a collection of short stories.

an album putting together unalterable polaroid instant close ups.

in turkey.

and anywhere else on this planet too.