The Lodos

Dear Family, Friends, and Interested Observers,

Welcome to my fourth entry. The heat is on. The winds have turned, and now the south wind (lodos) is piping in the stickies. As August approaches, the tourists are coming in droves, and the hotel pool is thick with frolickers. Laps in the midday sun are next to impossible. That’s okay – the hotel management plays the same five or six inane Turkish pop songs all afternoon long. I spend more and more of my time elsewhere.

My last week of coursework was intense. By Friday afternoon all I could think to do was to come home and take a nap. This weekend I have spent a lot of time memorizing this conferral of property (temlikname) which dates to 1417 and the reign Çelebi Mehmet. The subject of the manuscript is the reassignment of the village of Suri in Saruhan to one Pasha Ali Bey as a private domain (mülklük) in perpetuity . . . the poor villagers:

I did recover enough from the week by Saturday night to join Professor Thackston and some other students from the course for some patlıcan mezeleri (eggplant appetizers) and some delicious kuzu gerdani (stewed neck of lamb) at the Lâl Girit Lokantası. Yummy, Jim.

Bill, I met the new Ottoman professor at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Gian Carlo Casale. He was very friendly, and he will be offering a seventeen-day-long module course in Turkey in spring 2007 to University of Minnesota undergrads. There will be scholarship possibilities for those who study Turkish during the prior academic year! I also may be subletting his apartment in Istanbul in the spring. Bob, I should mention that he is a native of Madison and the son of Wisconsin Public Radio personality Jean Feraca.

There’s the call to prayer (ezan). I should probably be signing off now. Write you later.

jkbinturkey

P.S. By the way, Jim, I found a playmate for Bucky. I hope you won't be angry, but I plan to adopt it and take it back with me in August. We can name her Becky if she's a girl or Bucky Junior if he's a boy.

What do you think?

Just kidding.

It's half-time ... for the course.

Dear Family, Friends, and Interested Observers,

It is time for my third installment of jkbinturkey. I am in the midst of a blissful and sunny three-day weekend. On Friday we celebrated the foundation of the Turkish Republic by not having class. Most of the other students took a day trip somewhere, but I was a good boy and did homework all weekend [with frequent excursions to the pool area for swimming and backgammon, of course].

I did go to the market yesterday for the week’s veggies. My proudest purchases were some giant şeftali (peaches) and a pouch of fesleğen (basil). Basil is not commonly used as a spice here.

Last Wednesday night all the students in the program assembled to celebrate Dr. Selim Kuru’s birthday with birthday cake and beer. Selim Bey is my main Ottoman Turkish professor and a very affable fellow. The other student in the picture is named Sibel, who is one of only two native Turkish speakers in the program. The festivities were interrupted by strong gusts of the north wind (poyraz), but that was probably good thing, as we all had class the next day.

Last night I hosted an impromptu dinner party for several of the students who had remained in Cunda over the weekend. Professor Thackston also came along, and we had a nice, long sohbet (chat) over lentil soup and veggie curry and rice. However, we all were saddened to see that a little black kitten had been flattened by a car in front of the hotel some time that night. See what can happen if you try to escape, Bucky? There are drawbacks to being a downtown alley cat.

This week’s Ottoman selection is an intriguing little document. It is written in rık'a script, which is the type of script in which most of my sources should be written. The manuscript, dated 1870, is a positive response to the Grant administration’s reappointment of U.S. Ambassador MacVeigh. The script may look a little scrawlier than previous selections of divani script, but rık'a penmanship is more consistent in its idiosyncrasies, as handwriting education becomes more standardized by the mid - 19th century.

I should also mention that I will be returning to the States on Saturday, August 19 for a two-week stay in Madison. I will also try to reach Rhinelander some time during my stay. Between the end of the program on Friday, August 11, and my return to the U.S., I will be looking for an apartment in Ankara. Over and out.

Görüşmek Üzere, jkbinturkey

A Weekend of Turkish Delights

Dear Family, Friends, and Interested Observers,

Welcome to the second edition of jkbinturkey blogsite. This week’s entry will have to be a shorter one, because I am exhausted from a weekend of homework and fun. I will tell you only about my weekend in this entry, because nothing much happened during the week apart from school.

Friday afternoon I boarded the ferry boat to Ayvalık to DHL a parcel to the states. I had no idea of where to go. Then, I met Ömer. This nice gentleman [on the right], a retired machinist and proud life-long resident of Ayvalık, took half an hour of his time to escort me to the DHL office after we landed. He also insisted on paying my one-and-a-half lira fare for the ferry ticket, a very generous gift.

I spent Friday night and Saturday morning in "relax mode." Friday evening I went for a swim in the pool [below-- left], came home and showered, and then I cranked up the air conditioner and listened to some CDs. Later on I met my friend Andrew in the back area by the pool for a couple of spirited games of tavla (backgammon) and some beers.

Saturday morning I roused myself to find a blistering hot day. I walked down to the market and bought the week’s supply of produce and dry goods. After a noon swim and a call to Jim, the rest of the day was spent finishing my transliteration of an Ottoman patent (berat) and memorizing this Ottoman imperial decree (hüccet, below) for class on Monday. It dates from c. 1470-1487 and speaks about a governor's payment of his taxes to the sultan. The imperial insignia (tuğra) on the top of the document is that of Sultan Mehmed Fatih, the conqueror of Constantinople:

Today, however, was all about fun in the sun. Some of my professors and classmates and I rented a tekne, a type of wooden boat, [Bob, are you paying attention?] for a day-long tour around Cunda. Cunda and the Bay of Ayvalık are surrounded by 23 small islets, which vary greatly in their vegetation, from sun-parched, rock-strewn grassy knolls to lush woodlands of olive and pine.

We stopped at five or six inlets to jump of the boat into the brisk waters of the Aegean. At one point in our trip the skipper and first mate put on their snorkels and fins and gather some delicious raw clams for us. Yummy, Jim.

At another bay, the first mate dove in the deep waters for octopus. When he surfaced, the octopus was writhing, and it spit out a vivid stream of black ink. They threw it back though – too small. The captain later showed us a video on his mobile phone of a large octopus that covered the back end of his boat. Sorry, no pictures.

I feel tired and sun burned – so I am signing off for the week. Special thanks to those of you who posted comments on my blog. Until next week …

Görüşmek Üzere, John

My Journey to Cunda

Dear Family, Friends, and Interested Observers,
Welcome to my JKB in Turkey blog site! On this blog I hope to explain my experiences as I do coursework and research in Turkey from July 2006 to June 2007. I left all of you on the first of July with a heavy heart, but this is a major and necessary step toward the completion of my doctoral degree. I plan to update my blog site every weekend.

Jim took me to Mitchell Field in Milwaukee on the first of July. I had booked my ticket on multiple carriers through Orbitz, and the first leg of my trip took me to Philadelphia. I had a wonderful view of downtown Philly as the plane touched down. On landing, I rushed immediately (or tried to -- with about 50 book-filled pounds of carry-on baggage) to correct a booking error on my return ticket. The resolution of my ticket crisis lasted about an hour and a half, and I almost missed my next flight. When I boarded the plane to Munich, I found that another person had the same seat assignment. As annoyed passengers jostled by, I had to juggle my carry-ons above me like some pot-bellied Atlas. Then, a flight attendant whispered, “This is your lucky day.” I got a seat in first class and relished the leg room and wine. Dad, if you come over to Turkey in the spring, you should look into a first class ticket.

In Munich, I managed to change terminals through an elaborate maze of misinformation and shuttle buses. Fatigued and sweaty, one checked bag lost, I landed in Izmir, Turkey’s third largest city, 16 hours after leaving Milwaukee. From there I took a cross town taxi to the bus terminal. The bus ride to Ayvalik lasted about three hours. After being dropped off in the square of the city, I caught a twenty-minute-long ferry to Cunda Island, where I dragged my luggage into my hotel room. I took a shower and went out for a bowl of my favorite mantı, a garlicky meat-filled tortellini smothered in sour yoghurt, mint, and mild Aleppo pepper flakes, and a soothing glass of rakı.

Classes began the next morning. We split up into two groups. My group was to study printed Ottoman texts for five weeks of the six-week course. The other group would begin immediately with hand-written manuscripts. As I will be working mostly with manuscripts during my research, I asked to switch into this group the following day. I was lucky to get in. The class sizes are capped at ten, and I was the tenth student to make it into the manuscript course. Here is an example of the kind of manuscripts we are reading in class. This instructional text, the subject of which is the proper manner of composing official documents, dates to c. 1420:

The first week of classes was very intense. We read Ottoman scripts from 9:00 am to 11 am with Selim Bey, an affable young professor with a wry wit and an infectious rolling laugh. From 11:30 am to 12:30 pm, all students study with the director of the program, Harvard professor Wheeler Thackston. He teaches two different courses every other day at this time, “Persian Script” and “Arabic and Ottoman Words in Ottoman Turkish.” On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I have a much more relaxed modern Turkish conversation course with Müge Hanım.

My impression of the course so far has been positive. I have already learned a lot. The faculty and students (16 in total) have been very friendly and the atmosphere is relaxed. Our hotel room is clean, comfortable, and modern, and there is a wonderful pool in the back. Here is a picture of my roommate Tahir, who is an Englishman of Pakistani descent:

My impression of the island and Ayvalik on the mainland is also very good. Ayvalik and Cunda are tourist destinations for well heeled Istanbullers, and its seaside restaurants and cafes specialize in Turkish cuisine. The weather is quite variable. From Monday to Thursday a cool zephyr ( poyraz in Turkish) blew in from the Aegean, rustling dust and chilling bones. I actually had to wear my classes and put on a long-sleeved shirt and jeans. The weather has since moderated and the July heat is on.

Well, I am tired and I think I’ve had enough of this for the week. I should pass on that my lost luggage did arrive after all. Keep me in your thoughts and prayers. Miss you.

Görüşmek Üzere, JKB