As Life in Turkey Continues

*Side note- this blog was written about a week and a half ago and a new update is on its way!

           I am now more or less a month into school so my routine has become pretty set, though last week we did change Turkish courses. Our new course is in roughly the same area of the city, the busy center of Adana, and our teacher is a very sweet younger woman who’s English is really good. We now have lessons every Tuesday and Thursday from 5-8:00 and on Friday from 5-7:00. The three hour classes feel pretty long since I go there straight after school and don’t get home till about nine but I do feel like I am learning a lot more with her. I still look forward to the lessons just because it is so great to talk to the other NSLI students. As a group of nine girls we are remarkably compatible and count on each other to relate out experiences and what not. Though we probably speak too much English, right now it is necessary for my sanity.

            At school I have begun to get a sense of my teachers, and I know which ones will have me participate by writing on the board or testing my knowledge. My history teacher is a special advocate of for having the exchange students make fools out of them themselves. Almost every class he has me stand in front of my peers and try to decipher what he is saying. It usually take me a long time to understand him and my class laughs at me, but I don’t really mind because honestly it is pretty funny and if I get an answer right I usually receive some sort of praise. At lunch I have been spared from that awkward “where do I sit” thing because a couple of the girls in my class have taken me under their wing. I also spend some time with my sisters friend and this girl I met on the school bus who happens to be a three years younger than me but I can see becoming good friends with. Sometimes I feel a lot older than the kids in my class especially when they are chasing each other around the room and throwing chalk, but I think that is just something I will have to get used to. Breaks are by far the most awkward time of my day because between each class we have about 10-15 minutes, and I am never really sure what I should do in that time. One of my AFS friends pointed out that the reason for the long break is probably so that teachers can have time to smoke between classes. And boy do people smoke here. It seems that there are very few people between the ages of 20-60 that missed the smoking craze. Though recently a law was passed and smoking is banned in closed public areas, which is pretty impressive for Turkey.

            Though I spend some time with my classmates and more time with my NSLI friends I spend most with my family. Dilşad has course Saturday and Sunday so my host mom and I eat breakfast together and usually  run some sort of errands. We eat dinner a couple nights a week as my host mom’s friend’s houses which creates a sort of extended family feel and is pretty fun plus the food is always great! Last week we went to the Turkish baths and I need to download a picture because an explanation will not do it justice, but I will try. The haman we went to is located in Old Adana, an area I have not spent that much time in, but would like to soon because it is beautiful. Lots of little winding streets and shops all crammed together. Drastically different from the apartment-y New Adana that I live in. Even the door to the haman is beautiful. The big, very old looking, arched marble doorway is almost a promise of what you will find inside. The corridor into the bath does not seem long enough for the two separate worlds it connects-the bustling outside streets to the serene quiet of the first chamber. The atmosphere of the baths are almost holy, women quietly talking beneath the big arched ceilings also all made of white marble. The steps that line the wall going to a sort of platform where women chat, drink tea, and change before actually entering the bath. The inner baths are also arched ceilings and are made up of two main chambers with little open arches leading to smaller chambers with big basin sinks for women to bathe in. The second room is hotter than the first and is mostly taken up by a big, round, low table that is heated from underneath for women to lay on. The baths put the heat of Adana to shame and after minutes in them nobody is sure what is water and what is sweat. Some people go to the baths with scrub brushes and scrub themselves and I saw some women getting what looked like a massage, though ours was not that comfortable. Basically a big breasted Turkish woman scrubbed my entire body with a coarse brush. Though it was not particularly enjoyable but I did feel extremely clean afterwards. All in all a cool experience and I can’t wait to go back.

More soon, I promise!