Pictures of Zeyrek

Here are some pictures from our neighborhood, Zeyrek. They are to go along with Hayden's post.

The view as we headed up the hill.

A family we tried to speak to.. (they didn't know English.)

Continuing up the hill to Zeyrek.

Two of the many children that wanted their photo taken. (Dr. Mallery in the background).

Me with the mothers who were knitting.

Andy with our "tour guides."

Hayden with one of the more lively boys.

Leading us around..

Entering the tomb area.

One of the wooden houses as seen from the tomb area.

One of the more decayed wooden houses.

Another wooden house that was falling apart.

Tombstones in the graveyard. (Note the fez!)
One of the boys soon to be circumcised.

"Money! MONEY!" (The part where they demanded payment.)

Zeyrek Neighborhood Project

8/27/09
Nilmini, Nolan, Andy, and I, were assigned to an old neighborhood which had some wooden houses. These are in great disrepair and are crumbling as the government waits to decide what to do with them. We were supposed to explore the area and talk to the locals about life in their neighborhood. Particularly, we were looking for the boundaries of where they call home. It was a good thing that Dr. Mallery came with us because we did not find anyone who spoke English. After eating lunch at Zeyrek cafe, we walked up the hill in our neighborhood, and we immediately met a large group of kids. They were sitting around their mothers who were knitting. They were all so friendly and wanted us to take pictures of and with them. They agreed to show us around their neighborhood, and excitedly grabbed our hands. We at first asked them to take us to the local mosque, Zeyrek camii, and so they pointed in the direction and started running toward it. They took us past some tombs where some locals had gathered for a picnic. We then saw a group of Sunnet boys who were preparing for their circumcision ceremony later that day by praying at the tombs for courage. Most of the tombs either had a fez or turban on them, left over from the old Ottoman empire. The boys had bright gold capes on that were trimmed with white, as well as scepters. Next our small tour guides agreed to show us to the mosque, only it was closed for restoration. On the way we passed through a small market, with booths that sold scarves. One of the boys pulled a stake out of one of the booth’s tents and the vendor scolded him. We resumed going up the hill to the mosque, and passed a tomb of a holy man. The kids stopped with arms outstretched to say a prayer. They motioned to Dr. Mallery and Nilmini to be sure to cover their heads as we went back up the hill in the neighborhood. As we re-entered the community, a loud firecracker went off in someone’s yard that made a very startling sound. The kids were all shouting and leading us on. They led us into another tomb of some holy men, and told us to be quiet. Finally they decided they had come to the end of their definition of the neighborhood, and they had to go home. They suddenly surrounded us, asking for money, and we took out a few lira to give them. As soon as we had done that, they swarmed us and wanted even more. They would not let us go until they had gotten some. They would pass coins off to their friends to make it look like they had not gotten any. They mobbed us and grabbed our arms hoping to grasp a coin. Finally I had to throw the coins above their heads into the street so that we could get away. We continued in the neighborhood and stopped for a drink at a man’s shop. He told us he considered the border of the neighborhood to be close, and so we decided to follow the streets around. We had essentially arrived at the edge of the neighborhood, and decided to continue up the hill to the Camii Fatih. We now considered the boundaries of the neighborhood and planned how we would eventually map it out.
(Hayden Cale)

Nisantasi Neighborhood Report

NEIGHBORHOOD DAY – 28 August 2009

Today was our day to do the neighborhood project. We went with Dr. Mallery to Nisantasi, a wealthy part of Istanbul. We had to take a tram, then a Funiculer, then the Metro to get to it from Sultanahmet. On the way there, we also happened to lose our purple folder with instructions for what to do today. So it was a great start! We had no idea what to do. So Dr. Mallery briefed us on what to do when we got there and showed us around a little bit so we can get a rough picture of the area. Good thing we still had the map.

After arriving at Nisantasi, we stopped to get a cup of coffee at the Starbucks at City’s, a high-end neighborhood mall. After a cup of coffee, we started on our assignment right away. We talked to different people, inside and outside City’s. Inside, we talked to 2 ladies selling stuff toys. One was a student working in her summer vacation and the other one was the regular employee looking over this particular store. Their company was located by the Grand Bazaar. She told us that a lot of people here spoke English because it was where the rich Turks lived and where the rich tourists shopped. The majority of the workers of this mall did not live in Nisantasi but commuted from adjacent neighborhoods.

Outside the mall, we talked to a couple of musicians who played outside the stores on the street. One played a tenor saxophone and the other one trumpet. They were part of a band. They said that they were from the Asian side of Istanbul and they commute here two or three days a week to play. After talking to them they played some jazz for us.

From our observations, there were a lot of businessmen on the streets and a lot of people on their phones. It seemed a lot busier and more money-oriented. People don’t sit around in front of their stores just relaxing or talking to a friend. We also noticed that very few women here wore headscarves. Nasantasi was basically a fancy shopping neighborhood. Where the brand name shops stopped, that was the borders of Nisantasi. We found that out after asking a dozen people everywhere we went. When the person did not speak English, we would try to use body language to help. When the person we approach did not speak English, we would point to the ground and say “Nisantasi?” If we got an affirmative answer, we would continue by pointing up or down the street saying “Nisantasi?” It was quite successful to find out the borders of neighborhood. However, people were less likely to converse with us extensively because they were on their way to some place or busy doing something. The people who seemed not too busy did not speak much English.

As we continued looking for people to talk to, we walked by a mosque during its Friday afternoon service. There were several things that we found strange. First, they all sat outdoors on mats facing the Imam and Mecca. All the other mosques we visited the prayer services were inside. Another thing that struck us as odd was that, all the visible worshippers were male. That made sense; women don’t prayer in the same area as men. But when the service ended and the worshippers filed out of the gates, we couldn’t spot any women. Our final observation was that all the worshippers coming from the mosque were walking away from Nisantasi.

We stopped for lunch at a Chicago Pizza place (the neighborhood did not have Turkish food, only international food). Here, we got to talk to the owners of the restaurant. The wife of the owner spoke sufficient English to communicate with us. She grew up in Nisantasi. Later in life she moved to another town to live there for 10 years. Then she moved back to Nasantasi with her husband and they've been living here for 15 years. She said that she liked Nisantasi because of the shopping. It seemed to us that this family was pretty well off because they own another house in the outskirts of Istanbul. They go that house for vacation and such.

After lunch we walked around a little more, we ended up in a park on the Nisantasi border. In the park was a semi-circle of busts of past sultans and of course Ataturk. Facing the semi-circle was a 25 foot statue of Ataturk. There were a couple of old guys just hanging out, there were a few mothers with their children, an older woman feeding birds. It was a pretty peaceful place on the border of one of the city’s busier districts.

As we walked back towards the metro we thought about how it seemed like we had stepped out of the Turkey we’d experienced over the past few days and stepped into 5^th Ave. in New York. The honking of taxis, the businessmen on their phones, and fast paced, goal oriented people were such a contrast from the friendly shop owners offering us “good prices” and the stray cats longing to be petted we experienced in Sultanahmet.

-Nikki, David, and Sterling

Yes, we arrived home safely

Someone asked me today whether the trip is done and everyone is home, so I figured I had better post one more update. Fifteen of the sixteen students returned to the US and are moving on to their next projects (most are getting ready for the new school year to begin). The sixteenth student will be studying in Europe this fall, and arrived safely at the host university. Two of the three trip chaperons are also home in the US. Dr. Clark went directly to Jordan to work with some of his archaeology colleagues there for a week, but will be home soon.

We would like to thank all of our readers for your support and encouragement during the trip. It's nice to know that people at home care about what we're doing. I will probably make one more post to the blog later this week if I can figure out an exact version of the recipe for the bread that Amanda and I learned to bake. Unfortunately the recipe we got was along these lines, "Well, you put in some flour and yogurt and a bit of water ...." It ended with baking the bread for five minutes in the oven, but no one could tell me how hot the oven should be other than that they could let me look in and feel how hot it was. So this will take some experimentation. I think the idea of having an exact recipe for something was quite foreign to the people we talked with, so I'm going to try to create something that Americans would find a little more user-friendly. If I'm able to replicate what they made (and that's definitely not a "sure thing") I'll pass it on to all of you. We've already tried searching on the internet and haven't come up with anything.

FINAL DAY

So it’s the last day and I finally get to blog. I must admit that this is a very emotional moment for me… we’ve had so many beautiful moments here in Turkey. My keyboard is damp with tears as I write. My only regret is Dr. Mallery leaving us without any warning. Why would she leave us?! As we students have wrestled with this issue, I’ve been thinking about how she always told us to look for the hidden curriculum. With this is mind, David, Alex, and I decided that the only possible explanation is that she is a super hero. Perhaps Wonder Woman? But where would she stash her invisible plane? She must have been called away to save innocent people at the last minute and didn’t have time to warn us. If this be the case, God Speed Dr. Mallery, God Speed.

*

BUS TRIP!!!!! We drove from Cappadocia to Ankara today... on a bus. The landscape looked like Central California, flat and baron with a few hills. I’m sorry if you live in Central California, but seriously there’s nothing there. You should move. The Bay Area is nice this time of year.

*

Our first stop, once we’d reached Ankara, was the Mustafa Kemal Ataturk Mausoleum. If you don’t know who Ataturk is, he’s basically the father of Turkey and a mix between George Clooney, Superman, and Chuck Norris. If that one doesn’t work for you, he’s like Lennon mixed with the Savior sprinkled with John Wayne. He’s respected like a religious figure. On November 10^th at the exact hour of his death, the whole country stops, buses pull over, business stops, and five minutes of silence is observed. He’s a war hero, politician, and legend. Turkish Superman wears Ataturk pajamas.

His burial sight looks like a huge Roman temple complete with a courtyard and underground museum. The path to the mausoleum is lined with stone lions and guarded by color guard from the Turkish Army, Navy, and Air Force. Like I said, he’s the man. His museum contains his stuffed dog, shaving set, medals, and paintings of famous battles during Turkish war for independence. My favorite of these depicted an epic battle where Ataturk stands at the highest point on the field calmly smoking a cigarette while cannons and rifles go off around him. When I grow up I want to be just like Ataturk.

*

Turkish Fanta tastes funny.

*

Next we went to the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations. There where lots of nice broken pots and sculptures but no labels to be found. This forced me to make my own conclusions on what things might be. For instance, this sculpture depicts Eros the god of love. The hole through his middle however was inflicted by a Nazi bullet aimed at Indiana Jones as he swung to safety on his whip yelling, “THIS BELONGS IN A MUSEUM!!!” I love archeology.

*

Well now I think I’ll rest my imagination and get some sleep. Tomorrow we wake up at five o’clock in order to leave at five thirty so we can catch a plane to Istanbul. From there we fly to Munich then L.A. Everyone here is doing well except for a few feeling a bit sick, but we’ll see you all tomorrow night.

Konya photos

Nikki's post described the group's time in Konya. Here are some photos of Konya. The first photo is of the tomb of the Mevlana. The interesting thing about this mosque/tomb is that it is officially a museum, but it's also a site of pilgrimage and worship for many sufis. So visitors mingle with worshippers, who are technically not supposed to be worshipping in a museum. The green tower is directly above the tomb of the Mevlana (Rumi).

This is a street scene of Konya. The atmosphere is very different from Istanbul.


This is a picture of the inside of the Alaattin mosque, that Nikki described in her post about Konya.

Nikki also mentioned the "forest of pillars" on the inside of the mosque. Here's a photo of that:
Wish I had some photos with this group in them. Photos of the group, anyone?

Pictures of Cappadocia

Here are some photos of Cappadocia to illustrate some of what Nolan described in his post. Note that I'm not with the group, so these are photos I took last year. Maybe one of the group members will be able to post some photos from this year, but at least you'll have an idea of what they are seeing from these pictures.
This is what Nolan is calling a "fairy chimney." He described the geology in his post, so I won't reiterate it here, but this will give you a good idea of what they look like. This one hasn't been carved to make a home or other building in it.

Here's a scene of some homes carved out of the rock. Many of these are still inhabited, though the government has been making people move out of them as part of an effort to preserve them.

This is a fresco in one of the churches in Goreme. The churches in this area are carved out of the soft rock, and many of the frescoes are still in fairly decent shape (except that the eyes are scratched out of many of them - depiction of people is forbidden in Islam).

More photos from our time in Istanbul

One of the things we did in Istanbul was to go to a carpet shop to learn about how carpets are made. Last year we met Cemal, who owns a shop in Sultanahmet. They have recently expanded their business and brought in a loom to make pestemals. Pestemals are thin towels made of silk and cotton and used in the Turkish bath (hamam). When you go into a Turkish bath they give you a pestemal to wrap around yourself for some modesty. Cemal has taught all of his staff to weave, and they have been weaving pestemals in the shop for sale in addition to their carpet business. Any time any of them don't have customers they go to the loom and weave. Turkey was traditionally a big stop on the silk road, but there isn't a lot of silk spinning and weaving there now, so this is part of an effort to maintain traditional handicrafts (though weaving is not traditionally done by male shopkeepers!) The loom is a large traditional one, but also quite functional, and the sight of someone weaving in the front of the shop tends to draw a crowd. Cemal also has a small spindle for spinning silk for demonstration (they don't actually spin the silk in the store. He says there are a very small number of villages where silk is still spun, and he contracts with women in those villages to spin and dye the silk for him). Here's a photo of Cemal at the loom
The yellow, blue, and white circle on the top of the loom is an evil eye. The evil eye is based on the idea of envy as a force that has power to cause damage or injury. The idea is that if someone envies something you have (your loom, your child, your success, etc), this envy is itself a strong enough force to bring ill luck on you. The evil eye repels the force of the envy. If the evil eye breaks, this means that it has repelled a particularly strong evil force, and you should consider that you have narrowly escaped something horrible.

Behind Cemal on the bottom shelf are stacks of striped pestemals that he and his staff have made on the loom over the past year or so.

Cappadocia

Well after finally reading everyone else's blogs and securing a computer and converter (thanks Ivan, Brandon and Ariel) I can relate to you today's events albeit probably out of order and how I remember them.

This morning began like every other under the Anatolian sun for me. Which means waking up, showering and then a morning dose of turkish music on Turkey's version of MTV. At 9 AM we boarded the bus and headed out to see the underground city. With its long tunnels, cool in the summer and hot in the winter, we were in for a journey. Labyrintine in structure it's hard now to imagine that people lived, cooked and pressed their wine down there. Don't worry while it may been deep underground it was well-ventilated.

After the underground city we visted some more Fairy Chimneys that make Cappadocia famous. Some with religious frescos dating back to when Turkey was prominently Christian. We learned from Dr. Clark, in his "Heaven Earth/ Theology Geology" talk that this region's fairy chimneys are created from compressed volcanic material produces by Anatolia's now inactive volcanoes. They gain they conical shape though from the presence of basalt stone on their caps. Tosun, our guide, further elaborated by explaining that this soft material is easily chiseled into and whole cities (mentioned above) can be carved into them. Dr. Clark further explained that Christianity it Turkey was largely ascetic in nature, with monks denying themselves any form of physical pleasure, allowing the body's to waste away in order to focus on the spiritual rather than material world. This monastic movement he explained is very different from Adventism which is more Old Testament in it's outlook (that physical pleasure isn't always bad), with our church's focus on health and nutrition it can be seen we favor a more holistic form of worship.

Another intersting event to mention was our visit to some of Tosun's friends who actually live inside one of the cones. While to many of us a rock cone may sound uninhabiatble their house was very beautiful. The owners had painted the inside rock white and even carved out windows and a fireplace. Not a bad way to live! Also there had an amazing terrace with a portico with white grapes dangling from above. After some grapes and Lunch we headed out to our last stop of the day Goreme Open Air Musuem where we saw some carved Christian churchs, complete with caverns and Nilmini's expressed favourite, graves!

The very last thing on the agenda tonight was Hayden and Sterling's presentations on Classical Ottamen and Arabesque music respectativly. It was informative, Hayden noting how Eastern instruments our more flexible able to do half and quater notes between Western notes and also utilize more "moods" than traditional Western music. Sterling explained how Arabesque music was created to address the nostalgia for folk music and sounds during Turkey's westernization.

Now I hope I've relayed everything as succinctly as possible, if not pray forgive as I am tired and using I borrowed computer (thanks again Ivan sorry you have to wait up for it)

-Nolan Hollis von Esch

Some photos

One of the days when we were in Istanbul we went out to a restaurant where I know many of the staff. Last year my mother-in-law really enjoyed the bread there, so her sole request when she knew I was going back to Istanbul was that I learn how to make the bread so I could teach her. Before the students arrived I had arranged with Yunus, one of the waiters at the restaurant, that I would come back some day and he would teach me to make the bread. So ... one evening when we'd eaten dinner there, Amanda and I stayed behind browsing in a store for cherry tea. After we were done we ran into Yunus who told us this was a good time for him to teach us to make the bread. Amanda was game, so we went into the kitchen of the restaurant and he and the cook proceeded to teach us the finer points of making "puffy bread." The cook was quite insistent that there was an art to rolling out the dough, and Amanda was putting too much muscle into it - it's a smooth, light twisting motion without much pressure (umm hmm ... obviously it takes practice). The dough needs to be thin before it goes into the oven. The idea of oven temperature or proportions of ingredients seemed foreign to them, so we got a list of ingredients and the idea that the oven needs to be hot (our closest comparison to the oven is something like a wood-fired pizza oven, which apparently many people in Turkey have in their homes). My mother-in-law and I will play around with the recipe and see if we can come up with something that approximates this bread. I'm going to try broiling it to see if it works (failing that, perhaps a metal box over a campfire?) One of the ingredients you might not expect to find in bread is yogurt (yogurt shows up in a lot of things in Turkey). There's also a coating of egg yolk and carbonated water and black sesame that goes on top right before it goes into the oven.

So, after the bread was rolled out thin, we baked it for five minutes and here Amanda is removing it from the oven:


Then Yunus brought it out to us and we ate it with feta and spiced butter (and tea on the side) as a sort of post-dinner snack. Yumm!

If anyone is interested, we'll let you know if we can replicate it.

Clearly apologies are owed ...

After a long flight home exhausted and nearly delirious I arrived at the Los Angeles airport to greet my husband and kids. The kids kept going on and on about a bag of bad tennis rackets and Pokemon and Alex and asking if I'd brought Turkish delight and chocolate eggs I figured I must be more delirious than I thought. Finally we got it all sorted out. They had read the blog that I couldn't access while I was on the plane, and they were very happy that I had Turkish delight for them (not so happy that I hadn't been able to locate any Kinder Surprise Eggs in Istanbul, but they seem to be getting over that).

So to clarify: no I did not drop you all. Let's reframe this: through nine days in Istanbul I helped you learn how to explore Turkey for yourselves, initially providing frameworks to help you understand your experiences and showing you how to get around, and then backing off some so you could do your own explorations. For this last part of the trip I passed you off to Tosun, a Turkish tour guide who is very competent and helpful, and I hope you are making use of his presence to talk with him about his opinions on some of the things we've already discussed.

I do apologize, though, if it wasn't clear to all of you that I was going home early. My kids are still little and for them having me gone for 11 days felt like "a year" (in their own words). I thought I'd made it clear to all of you that I was headed home at the end of the Istanbul portion of the trip, but apparently not (though I might have thought the 2 hour debriefing and overview of what to look for during the rest of the trip should have tipped off some of you if you were unclear on this!)

In any case, I have been very pleased to catch up on your travels and hear about your experiences through the blog. Do take some time to talk with Tosun and Şayeste about their views on modern Turkey. Try to set up a time to talk with them as a group about how they understand the "Kurdish problem," what they think of the current government, what they think should be the role of the army in Turkish society, and what they see as the problems and opportunities for Turkey at this point in time.

I know some of you have a hard time posting photos on the blog. I'll post more tomorrow.

Cappadocia, Turkey

Happy Sabbath everyone!

Today we had our second and last Sabbath here in Turkey. However, this time we spent the Lord’s Day traveling around Anatolia and checking out amazing new sites.

After having breakfast in hour hotel in Konya, we all got our luggage ready and boarded the bus that would take us to Cappadocia, our next destination. We left the hotel at around 9:30 and traveled east for about an hour until we arrived at Sultanhani. In this small town we visited the largest and best-preserved caravanserai in Turkey. Once inside the fortress, Nolan gave out a very useful presentation about the history of caravanserais in general, and the one in Sultanhani in particular. Apparently the Seljuks built this fortress in the 13th century and used it to provide shelter to the merchants that used to travel in the Anatolian region to trade or sell their goods.

By the time we finished taking photographs of the caravanserai, and drank a cup of tea in a teahouse across the street from the fortress, it was almost lunchtime. That had been planned ahead, however, and after heading east for about another half an hour, we stopped at a restaurant to eat. After about an hour, we were back on the road and we drove non-stop for another hour and a half until we finally arrived at Cappadocia. However, a short distance away from our hotel, we stopped one last time to check out Ushisar Castle. This place was unbelievable! The castle, along with other small houses and tombs, where carved out of huge rocks. The castle is situated up a high and steep hill, and the houses stand at the skirts of the hill and beyond it. The top of the castle provides a magnificent view of the city and other small towns and cities around it. It was particularly interesting to observe the contrast between the modern brick and cement houses and those that had been carved out of the stone that stood near them. It was a breathtaking experience!

After another short drive through the city, we finally arrived at the final destination of this day: Perissia Hotel. We all had a couple hours of free time and then it was dinnertime. A few delicious plates of food later, we all met in the lobby of the hotel for our last experience of the day: the Semâ ceremony (Whirling Dervishes ceremony).

As we approached the entrance of the caravanserai were the ceremony was about to take place, we all noticed the geometrical figures that were carved on the stone doorframes– part of the characteristic Seljuk decoration. We all walked past the entrance and into the courtyard. Past this courtyard, straight ahead of us, was the entrance to the hall where the Whirling Dervishes ceremony was about to take place. The whole group sat on the first three rows of the small and short bleachers, and from there we were able to watch first hand the magnificent ceremony. The instrumental music, the dervishes’ greetings, the reciting of the Qur’an, and of course, the whirling, all composed an exciting and interesting ceremony.

Experiences like the ones we had today are making this cultural trip evermore interesting and fun. Every day we’ve spent here in Turkey has been fascinating; however, now that we are traveling a lot more, days are now passing by faster and faster. We are getting closer to the end of the trip and pretty soon we’ll be back home. Nonetheless, I’m sure that we will keep enjoying and learning from this wonderful experience until the very end.

4 September 2009 - Konya

I was awoken by the rattling noises and the sunlight seeping through the window. It took me a few seconds to realize that the rattling noises were from the train and that I’m on it. I looked at my watch and felt the train slow down. I jumped because I thought that we were already in Ankara and I would have to leave the train right now. But I’m still in my pajamas!

Since Amanda (my roommate) was still in bed, I felt a little relief. The rest of the morning was quite uneventful. We all got dressed, ate a small breakfast and got really to leave. We arrived at Ankara at 8:00am. We got onto a big tour bus and drove towards Konya. After an hour, we stopped for breakfast on the way.

The breakfast was not too bad. They even had chocolate and cornflakes cereal and I think most of group had some of those. I’m not a vegetarian but I’ve been missing vegetable dishes a lot lately. Turkish food doesn’t have that much vegetables. Vegetarian dishes usually come with lots of carbs, maybe a little bit of beans and a small portion of greens. I wish there were more vegetables options apart from salads. Anyway, I’ll stop complaining now.

After breakfast, we continued to drive to Konya. We arrived at our hotel at 12:30pm to check in. Then we went out for lunch close by. It was pretty good. They served sweet rice with a side. After lunch, we visited three places. We first visited the Mevlana Museum. Mevlana was an important philosopher. Most of the artifacts did not have English captions so it was hard to tell why some of the things were important. I found the different Qurans from different time periods very interesting. The oldest one there was from the 11^th century. They usually contain a small space for text and a lot of decorations and designs around the text. After this, we went to the Inceminare Museums. We saw Ottoman tiles, domes, and beautiful Arabic calligraphy. I especially like calligraphies because they are so intricate and beautiful. We also got to visit Alaattin Mosque. The unique thing about this Mosque is that it is very long width-wise and it is full of rows and rows of pillars. So people call it a forest.

It was then 5pm so we stopped for a drink and then we had free-time. Ivan, Hayden, Brandon, and I started to head back to the hotel by going through the Bazaar. But we were really tired after a while so we decided to back to the hotel. I planned to catch up on my journal-writing but Brandon used the computer for a whole 2 hours while I watched Czech MTV at our hotel. By dinner time, I had a headache. We ate a buffet dinner at the hotel and had our little vespers in the meeting room of the hotel. It was very interesting because we talked about the connections between Turkey and the Bible. Unfortunately, I found it difficult to follow because of the increasing headache.

Last Day in Istanbul

Two things:

One – Unfortunately I was on a train at the time I originally wrote this and there was no WiFi access, so I apologize for the lateness but it was sort of unavoidable.

Two – I want to say Happy Birthday to Nolan whose birthday was actually yesterday but I couldn’t post this for the above reason.

Today was the last day that we were in Istanbul, so I decided that it was necessary to do some last minute shopping at the bazaar before we left. I came across these guys who I’d seen before at their store just outside the bazaar. They called me Obama, and they really wanted to sell me a pair of jeans. I told them that I was looking for a shirt, and they conveniently were selling just the ones I wanted. So they showed me the shirts, I chose one, and they of course asked me to try on some jeans. Since they were kind enough to show me, I reluctantly complied. The jeans were actually pretty nice, and they did say Giorgio Armani. I asked how much and he picked up his calculator and began furiously punching in numbers. While he was typing away, I was wondering what exactly he could be adding up, price per fiber? So he flipped the calculator around to show me a three-digit figure: 243 TL (lyra). At that point, those jeans didn’t really look that amazing, and I started calculating how I was going to get out of the situation without offending him too much. But as soon as they realized this, the price miraculously began to drop. “120 lyra”, he says. I shook my head as I started getting up, and the price kept dropping. “100 lyra… Ok, 90 lyra… 80 lyra?” Now that I think about it, if I had stayed longer maybe he would have just given me the jeans. But the real problem was that I realized how much of a huge price range he’d gone through. There’s also a point where you feel kind of bad for the guy because he’s dropping so low, and I mean he does have to make a living. Maybe I’m too compassionate; maybe I buy into these cons to easily. Whatever the reason, I finally agreed to get the jeans and two t-shirts for 80 TL. I walked away prideful about the great deal I had made. It wasn’t until later that I realized the tag said Giorgio Armani, and the jeans said Emporio Armani. What the heck? Oh well. I finished the shopping with just enough time to make it back to the hotel by noon.

After we were all done packing, we set off to take a tour of the Bosphorus. You know, it’s so weird writing what happened during the day because so much walking and talking and trams and sightseeing goes on that by the end of the day the morning feels like it happened a week ago. But the Bosphorus was very relaxing. It was sunny with a nice breeze, and we just chilled and talked about how we used to love Pokémon. I was a little surprised that the 10 lyra Bosphorus Tour didn’t come with a free tour guide, but I kind of preferred to see it for myself anyway. The tour didn’t last too long, and after it was over I wished it had been longer. But the next event on our list was the mosque that we’d been talking about going to for the last three days. Prayer time was going on, and I felt a little self-conscious since I was wearing shorts which aren’t the best thing to wear in a mosque. But I think going to that service and talking with the imam (via translator) was very helpful and gave me some good insight into the minds of Muslims. The thing about people who grow up with a set religion is that they become close-minded about other religions. I know it’s true because I’m one of those people. I was taught that Christianity is the right way and the only way. If you’re of any other religion then you need to convert to Christianity or you’ll go to hell. But from seeing these Turkish Muslims who have likely been Muslim for their whole lives has changed my perspective, because they think exactly like me. They believe that Islam is the right way to get to heaven (or paradise) and probably the only way (not sure on that one). They just aren’t as forthright with their judgment of other religions like Christians are. But our religions are so far ingrained inside our minds that the possibility of any other religion holding more truth than our own is unfathomable to us. That’s why I can’t imagine how people can change religions. It’s like your whole life (views, motivations, actions) has to shift to adjust to the new religion. By the way my mind is set right now, I know there is no way I could depart from Christianity in the near future. It would just feel so wrong to do that and I’m not sure if these feelings are coming from the part of me that has attached and rooted itself inseparably to my religion or if it’s the Holy Spirit who is urging me to stay close to the Truth. All I know is that God is just and merciful at the same time, and if we’re trying to follow Him to the best of our knowledge and abilities then we can’t go wrong. So this mosque experience was very eye-opening for me and I’m really glad we finally got to sit through a Muslim prayer service. Because of it, I now have a more objective view of different religions instead of a close-minded one stuck on Christianity.

To make a big mark on an already full day, something really unexpected happened. After a quick dinner, we dragged our luggage out of the hotel’s storage and loaded up the bus to go to the train station. We were all in the bus except Dr. Clark and Dr. Mallery. Then the bus started pulling out. We called to the driver to let him know that we were still missing a couple of people. He pulled over to the side, and it turned out that another bus had needed to pass through the narrow, cobblestone road and he’d just moved out of the way. So Dr. Clark got on the bus, and we asked him where our instructor was. The next three words that left his mouth left us confused for a second. “She’s not coming”, he explained. Since Dr. Mallery had periodically left the group throughout the trip (to go on secret missions?), we could only assume that she would eventually be meeting us in Ankara, so we began interrogating Dr. Clark for answers. When he told us again that she wasn’t coming with us for the rest of the trip, I couldn’t help but laugh. I realized that it was some kind of bad joke that maybe Dr. Clark or even Dr. Mallery had conjured up. It wasn’t until minutes later as evidence piled up that the truth became quite clear… We had lost our leader. The knife of reality plunged deep into our hearts as we rode away in our bus of grief. Well, maybe I’m being a little overdramatic here. But it really did come as a shock to most of us (*cough* Amanda and Nolan *cough*). I’m also sure that Dr. Mallery didn’t mean to cause us to feel the way we did. She had a perfectly good reason to drop us like a bag of old tennis racquets to see her kids. I, too, may have even probably had the possible thought of thinking about doing the same thing if it had somehow in another life been my kids. But despite this minor setback, we will press forward into the unknown. Despite our inability to communicate with the natives now, we will press on! Despite our inability to navigate through unknown territory or locate local contacts now, we will press on! Despite the loss of our goal-oriented, experienced leader, we will press on! On to Ankara!

Istanbul: Cosmopolitan City of Things New and Old

La Sierra University Honors students are all about asking questions, embodying curiosity, exploring what surrounds them. Today was no different from previous days in this remarkable city of contrasts and cosmopolitan people groups, but this time we crossed astounding time zones in our visits and conversations, from the new stone age to yesterday’s news, from the earliest known settlement in Istanbul to unsettling issues from the latest papers, from the old to the new.

We began the day with a remarkable concession to me, the archaeologist, perhaps to humor me so that we could get back to modern Istanbul and all the cultural, political, and economic issues with which we are dealing each day we are here. We traveled on one of the oldest rail systems in the country on our way to the oldest settlement of Istanbul and one of the most exciting excavation projects currently underway in the world.

In order to create a transportation hub for the city, including a new tunnel beneath the Bospherus Straight which would be the deepest such tunnel anywhere, construction teams in 2004 encountered archaeological remains of a massive harbor serving international marine trade primarily from the fourth to the tenth centuries AD.

Archaeological finds are important to Turkey, and after tense (this is my rather tame substitution for what the excavators said) negotiations, the preservation of ancient history trumped immediate transportation needs if the archaeology could be completed quickly.

Excavations began immediately, for the most part running year round 24 hours per day, employing several hundred participants, many of them university students. It quickly became apparent that they had happened upon the largest known harbor anywhere in the world for the Byzantine period. The excavations stretch some 500 meters parallel with, but inland a couple hundred meters from the present Marmara Sea shoreline.

The photos show the size of the project and the mostly happy integration of a search for evidence of ancient maritime travel with a search for solutions to modern transportation problems.

Construction has already begun, and will likely take another two to three years. The archaeologists will be done with their work fairly soon.

The director of the shipwreck excavations, Prof. Ufuk Kocabas (Kojabash), kindly took time from a frenetic schedule to introduce us to the site and send us with two of his graduate students for a full two-hour tour. This included an hour for us to become acquainted first hand with the latest of 34 ships to be excavated from this ancient harbor, and the major onsite lab where wooden ship fragments were undergoing study, 3-D virtual digital reconstruction, and a multiple-year restoration process which will turn wood the consistency of wet cardboard into relatively stable and sturdy planks and beams.

Excavations also revealed a Neolithic (New Stone Age) settlement from around 6500 BC. This is the time most archaeologists and anthropologists agree saw the domestication of agriculture and animals and the invention of pottery. Thus, a period of major transitions in the way human beings adapted to their surroundings and survived with their families.

Two websites might prove helpful to those wishing to pursue this amazing project further: www.divingintopast.com and www.yenikapiwrecks.com. We were more than fortunate to visit the site and learn firsthand about shipping in the past.

Following a splendid lunch on the sidewalk of Khorasani Restaurant in the old part of Istanbul, we then visited the historical and archaeological museums of Istanbul. The archaeology section includes an exhibit on the Yenikapi harbor, a fitting conclusion to our visit to the site earlier in the day. Also to be found here are Hittite political treaties, including the earliest one known which provides historical background for the way the Ten Commandments and parts of the book of Deuteronomy are presented in the Bible, in which God is the sovereign making the treaty; the famous “Gezer Calendar,” a small stone inscription from the tenth-century city of Gezer, Israel, one of the early examples of Hebrew writing; and the late eighth-century Hebrew inscription from Hezekiah’s tunnel, marking the successful completion of the 1800-foot tunnel beneath the City of David which the king chiseled from stone to ensure a water supply within the city in the face of the Assyrian assault on Jerusalem in 701 BC. In addition, there is a cuneiform Hittite text from the 14^th century BC about how to care for horses which I photographed for my granddaughter, Sara, who is big into horses (and yes, of course I have photos of my three grandchildren).

We then repaired to the quietness of an artists medresse, or school where we often go for tea and discussions, to talk about our impressions of Turkey and the various stories we have been told here to represent the country. This was a serious exercise in critical thinking, processing input from all kinds of people in various settings of this huge cosmopolitan center which reaches across the east and west, Europe and Asia.

Carmen and I, leaving the rest to forage for dinner on their own (it wasn’t hard when our good new friend Josh called a friend of his who owns a restaurant), went back to Sultanamet Square which rests over the ancient Hippodrome (horse and chariot racing track), and adjoins the famous Blue Mosque at one end, to experience once again the Iftar (break-fast) following the day-long fast of Ramadan. Thousands of people, thousands on the square and throughout the park, all waiting with families and music and dancing and noise for the 7:50 pm call to prayer from the Blue Mosque, signaling all of these thousands to break the fast together. The music ends, the call to prayer is over, children and their families are at picnic tables and on lawn blankets, and everyone begins at the same moment … to eat. Summertime Ramadan devotion makes for long days without food or water, and the transformation at sunset from fast to feast is sudden, simultaneous, and sumptuous.

As I mentioned at the first of this blog, La Sierra University Honors students are all about asking questions, embodying curiosity, exploring what surrounds them. These students are good! So good, that I have established a series of awards, the stiff criteria to which they have risen with style and panache:

--Intrepid Travelers Award for absolutely unabashed, fearless exploration of whatever there is to discover and learn – Ivan, Nikki and Hayden

--Shopping Queen Award for absolutely unfettered exploration of the Grand Bazaar in search of the best deal on tea sets and other sundries, armed with emerging bartering skills – Amanda, Rebecca and Nilmini

--Shopping King Award – could have been Brandon if he would not keep getting lost in the Grand Bazaar

--Animal Lovers Award for uncontrollable attraction to, understanding of, and care for cats – Ariel

--Quiet Sages Award for calm, wise, self-collected behavior and speech – Sterling and Andy

--Best Questions Asked Award (if they have to do with Turkish politics, especially if controversial) – Nolan

--Best Candidate to Flunk this Class Award for a statement made following copious libations of peach nectar (misrepresented, so he says): “The archaeology this morning was rather lame.” – Anonymous (since Alex wanted us to keep it this way)

--Best Good Hair Day Award for frizzly, free-flying, forever growing, carefully coiffed hair style -- David

--Cleanliness Is Next to Godliness Award for using sanitizing lotion after each pet of cats, shake of hands, use of restrooms, and before each meal in one coordinated, wave motion of shared sanitizing lotion bottles raised, upturned, and squeezed into open palms – everyone

--“Like”-ness Award for use, like, of “like” a lot, like in sentences or, like, not complete sentences – everyone of the like current university student generation

It’s been a great day in Istanbul. Tomorrow evening we board an overnight train for Ankara.

Church of St. Savior at Chora

These are some photos from the Church of St. Savior at Chora, an incredible Byzantine-era church we visited
The Anastasis or Resurrection. This particular fresco is the classic Easter symbol in the Eastern church. Jesus is depicted reaching out his hands to Adam and Eve in their graves. The tension in his legs makes him look like he is balanced and stretching as he reaches out to pull them to himself. He is standing on the gates of hell with bones and demons and Satan beneath his feet. Jesus is surrounded by the saints in this depiction, all of whom are looking on eagerly as Adam and Eve emerge from their tombs.

Intricate frescoes on one of the domes of the church

Photos of Sulukule

We visited Sulukule a few days ago. This is the oldest Roma (gypsy) settlement in the world. One of the challenges faced by Istanbullus (residents of Istanbul) is the need to address the problems of modern life while living in an ancient city with many layers of history. This means that any time space is needed and/or there's a demand for housing or business space close to the main part of the city, there's always the dilemma of how to adequately preserve the past while making room for the present. One way this plays out is gentrification. The city has approved a plan to tear down Sulukule and remove its residents in order to build a gated community of new Ottoman-style villas for the wealthy. This has met with significant protest from the international community and UNESCO, but is still ongoing. Over the past year, the residents have been moved out to housing projects and their homes razed. There are still some people holding out, and there are many who congregate in the rubble-littered lots. We also saw people scavenging in the ruined buildings for firewood and other usable items. This is a tragedy for these people, and we tried to find ways to be respectful of what is happening here while at the same time taking photos to document the process and raise awareness around the world. This community is literally being torn apart and in the process historical and cultural treasures are lost. The neighborhood borders the old city walls, and this has also presented concerns, as many historians and archaeologists are concerned that the walls will be damaged in the process. Here are some photos of what we saw.

Rubble remaining after bulldozers destroyed a home. In the background you can see that some inhabited homes are still more or less intact.

Remnants of a life: couch, laundry, and the rubble of a home.

He called Sulukule his home.

Some photos

The students chose to walk along a stretch of the Theodosian Walls, the old city walls that protected the city from invaders. The wall on the left is partially reconstructed (which is why it looks so clean) and the tower on the right is original.

The walls from a different perspective. As you can see, the group has gone as far as they can go safely, so they are turning back. This was partly an exercise in teamwork, since they had to help each other along in spots, but all did a good job of being cautious in their climbing, not getting too close to the edge, and being careful about preserving the old walls.

Sept. 1, 2009

Welcome to the beginning of September dear Readers. Here in Istanbul we welcomed the new month with our favorite activity—sleep.

This morning we were given a more relaxed schedule as we had free time until noon. Most of us slept a few extra hours before finishing the neighborhood assignment that Alex described earlier.In that assignment, we mapped the outlines of the town we visited along with any focal points of that place. So after we all spent a few hours drawing and coloring all while consulting our maps, we took off for the restaurant Doy Doy right around the corner from our hotel. While eating lunch, we discussed what we wanted to do with the last few days we have in Istanbul. One of the most important things we decided was visiting the Bazaars. So after lunch we split up and some of us went to the Spice Bazaar and the others went to the Grand Bazaar.

Amanda, Rebecca, Nolan, Nilmini, Brandon and I went to the Grand Bazaar in search of gifts and just for the fun of it. We enjoyed going around the shops and haggling with the vendors. Nilmini had the chance to really play with prices and she did really well. After she was done bargaining, the shopkeeper gave us all little charms to protect us from evil as gifts.

We soon realized that we had spent quite a bit of time at the Bazaar and needed to get across the Bosphorus for an appointment. At that point, we also realized we lost Brandon (don’t worry we eventually found him). So there we were in the Grand Bazaar running up and down the aisle calling out for him. The shopkeepers found our antics very amusing and tried to “help” by telling us that he was in their store or pointing opposite directions. We finally found him browsing in a shop close to the exit and made our way out to the tram.

Across the Bosphorus, we made our way to a community center in an impoverished neighborhood. The people that ran the center described their mission to us. They teach the people, who are mostly immigrants from rural areas, how to live in an urban society. The children from the area come there after school and get help with their homework and learn musical instruments. The center also offers classes for parents in English and handicrafts as well as a pre-school for toddlers. Their mission was originally supported by the European Union but the provider has changed to a non-profit company in the US.

For dinner we went to a nearby 100% vegetarian restaurant. I was delighted by being able to eat anything on the menu. After dinner, we were free to explore where we wanted. Some of the guys took off for the Spice Bazaar. Amanda, Nilmini, Andy, and I headed to the Grand Bazaar again to purchase that sword that took my attention. We learned that they don’t keep the same hours as we do and had already closed their gates. So we decided to enjoy the night air and take a walk back to the hotel in a direction that led us right past Starbucks. Since the menu changed in every city we decided to try out their selection of drinks. So if you’re ever in Istanbul, just so you know, their pastries are to die for and they have some very good fruit drinks. It was the perfect end to a great day.

Love & Tolerance: Experiencing the Gulen Movement

"If, every day, we are able to increase our love for our surroundings, and, as much as possible, for all of existence, if we are able to minimize our hatred, we will be able to attain a world of human warmth and sympathy that has not yet been realized." --M. Fethullah Gulen

This is the philosophy of Gulen, the Turkish humanitarian and intellectual, that has inspired the recent Gulen Movement in Turkey. Turkey is very socially, ethnically, and religiously diverse, particularly in Istanbul. This causes a lot of natural tension, especially since Turkey is supposed to be a secular state. Gulen would say this is because the world is poor in love. His solution is to spread love by learning to understand and appreciate each other so that we can coexist in peace. Today's events centered around the organizations that have emerged from Gulen's principles and way of thinking.

Our guide, Ibrahim, took us around Istanbul to these different organizations. First, we visited Fetih College. This is a K-12 privately-owned school that resembles the best U.S. prep schools, and then some. It is supported by a Board of wealthy businessmen that freely donate for building expenses as well as tuition costs. With 1,500 students enrolled for this upcoming year, Fetih College is the place where parents want to send their children to school if they wish to continue on to University. Of the students that attend normal schools, only 25% are then accepted into University, wheras at least 90% of the graduating class at Fetih College is accepted into University programs. The curriculum is no different, but the teachers are very dedicated, making sure the students are doing well academically and personally. They even making house calls to see if the environment is one that promotes studying or if some distractions need to be removed. Each student (even at the kindergarten level) is interviewed, tested, and undergoes a personality exam before they are accepted. The building itself is rather new, with marble floors, multiple indoor gymnasiums, a beautiful lap pool, and complete with a high school cafeteria that scans your finger print for identification and entry! In comparisson with our humble Adventist school back home, it was learning in luxury. Reading is very important here, and 20 minutes each morning is devoted to reading. The children are all required to learn English (and Spanish their Freshman and Sophomore years), and the stairs even have English phrases on them to help the kids practice. Even if some, such as "Barking dogs seldom bark!" don't necessarily make sense, it's practice like this that sets these students apart. Their dedication to learning and understanding, paired with their hard-working teachers, is what helps their students do so well in their exit exams and then further on down the road in University.

Next, we went to visit the headquarters of Zaman Newspaper, the #1 newspaper in Turkey. They support democracy, joining the EU, and have complete freedom of speech. The staff is diverse, all coming from different backgrounds, in an attempt to promote an understanding of one another in a setting that fosters discussion and healthy debate. Even stories about the once untouchable Turkish military are becoming acceptible after corruption has become exposed. What was once reported as "Kurdish terrorism" is now being reported as the acts of a secret society of retired military officers who are now on trial. The goal of the paper is to be democratic, family friendly, and to promote a culture of understanding, not conspiracy. As Ibrahim told us, Zaman doesn't want "asparagus news," apparently a new term to describe false or ignorant stories.

After visiting Zaman, we ate a quick lunch at a shop that was famous for its delictible sweets, however the menus were all in Turkish, which posed as a bit of a challenge. Ordering pizza was easy, yet when it came to the pages of desserts to choose from, many of us could not differentiate one item from another and resorted to chosing deserts with names in which we could recognize a familiar ingredient.

The Fener Rum Patriarch was next. When Constantinople was the center of the Orthodox church, this Patriarch was its center. It looked like an old catholic church, with a large number of crystal chandeliers on the inside, and much gold decorating the front of the church. Very pretty.

From Fener, we went to see the Journalist and Writers Foundation. Here we were served juice, pastries, and tea, while discussing Turkish and American cultures and perceptions of each other. The Journalist and Writers Foundation, of which Gulen himself is President, stresses Love and Dialoge over different platforms and projects that aim to increase intercultural awareness and understanding. Many famous religious leaders, such as Pope John Paul II, and non-religious figures, such as the Turkish soccer team, have supported this foundation through dialogue meetings and fundraising events. Upon our departure we were each given "humble gifts" of Gulen literature. Both Dr. Mallery and Dr. Clark were given coffee cups, which are supposed to symbolize 40 years of friendship per cup. With each passing day, I perceive the Turks to be more and more generous.

The last Gulen-inspired organization that we visited was the Kimse Yok mu Foundation. This is a foundation concerned with worldwide humanitarian aid that believes it is the duty of humankind to take care of the less fortunate. If someone does not have food, you feed them. If someone does not have clothes, you clothe them. If children do not have a school, you build them one. This is what a loving person does, according to the Kimse Yok mu Foundation.The name Kimse Yok mu is translated as "is anyone there?" and is the Turkish equivalent of yelling "help!" It is a fitting name, as this is the foundation there when disaster strikes, providing the basic needs for the victims.

This was a very eye-opening and educational day for all of us. After being in Turkey for a week and experiencing some extreme poverty and living conditions as well as racial/religious discrimination, I was starting to feel weighed down. The burden of responsibility when there are so many people in need of help is heavy. It starts to seem like a hopeless position. The Aya Sofya will never be remolded because people cannot agree on Muslim, Christian, or Secular rennovation. The Roma colony will be destroyed to clear out the poor gypsies and make room for rich people and nice buildings. A 10 year-old Kurdish child will get arrested for teaching her friends Kurdish because Kurds are still not accepted or equal here. It becomes a negative bubble of helplessness.

Yet Gulen's philosophy of love and understanding has planted a seed that is growing thanks to the help of organizations such as these. Each of these foundations gives back to the community, provides education, addresses basic needs, and promotes a strong sense of diversity and understanding. The people that donate and support these organizations financially are some of the real heroes. It all comes back to the compassion of the Turkish people (and the Eastern world in general). If America were posed with this same situation, I fear few people would have enough love and generosity to also attempt to "clean up the mess."