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.