Gündoğdu

Yedi ve bir yabancı ( seven and one foreigner) my classmates answer when asked how many kids are in our class, and for all intensive purposes I am a yabancı. I don't have to take tests, fill out the multiple choice exams that they do in all of our classes and I am certainly not preparing to take the big ÖSS exam that they will all be taking at the end of their senior year. That is not to say that I don't make use of my time, I am catching up on all my children's books by reading them in Turkish. I am proud to say that I am now working on a chapter book! I spend a lot of time at Gündoğdu, and I like to think that getting use out of so much free time is a good lesson in time management.

Our classroom, in the basement of the Gündoğdu building, is far too big for the eight of us but it leaves us room to pull our desks into different formations or push them to one corner or another. At the very top of one side of the class room there are a couple of large windows that look out at ground level outside. On the opposite side there is one big window that looks out onto the hallway, but for some reason unknown to me they have made tinted it so it is only possible to see into the class room and not out, hence the nickname aquarium.  On sunny days I stare out wistfully at the little children playing in the big open courtyard and wish to be out of out of my little yellow fish tank and enjoying the wonderful weather of Adana.

As I said there are eight of us which is very small classroom, in Dilşad's there are over 20, but I have really come to like my classmates. I have gone through several stages of comfortableness  with them, but I think we are at a pretty good level. I can talk to any one of them and not feel to awkward, and they in turn have become comfortable with me. One of the girls, Başak, tells me about her boy problems and Can my favorite kid in the class and I have very joking relationship. It has been a gradual process but I think there were two times that I realized that I have actually become friends with them.

Once was at a class dinner, we went with two teachers to a Kebop place and I wasn't really looking forward to it but it turned out to be really fun! My classmates were way more dressed up than me but I felt like part of it, and that was nice. We talked and took tons of pictures and I rarly felt out of the conversation. The only weird part of it was that they were all drinking Raki and insisted I do the same, my teacher actually ordered it for me. It was a little different coming from the States where that wouldn't ever happen since out of my class I am the only one legally old enough to drink here, but hey, this is Turkey.

The second time was a slightly less fun experience. It was a normal school day and we were just milling about moving our desks to another part of the room for like the third time that day. The desks are the kind where the desk part and the chair part are connected by a couple flimsy bars, to make a very un-sturdy desk. The back edges are rounded which makes them prone to tipping backwards, so usually I am careful, though apparently not careful enough. When I went to sit down the entire chair and desk flipped backwards and the next thing I knew I was on my back staring up at my converse. The stuff I had spread across my desk went everywhere, and unfortunately I had decided to wear the school uniform skirt that day. It took me a couple seconds for my class and I to get past the shock and then there is nothing to do but laugh. Nothing but my pride was damaged and the girls in my class immediately told me about the times that they had been victims of the flawed desks, and of course the boys just laughed. Though I was embarrassed it passed relatively quickly and by the next period I though it was hilarious. Because we are so few and I have been able to talk to each student separately I'm not embarrassed around them. My history teacher making me get up and talk in front of them every lesson has helped get me past that.

Sometimes I feel like more of a pet of theirs, I do tricks and play around. They show me off and take credit for my Turksh abilities. It doesn't really bother me though because I really do feel like one of the fish in the aquarium, granted a slightly different colored fish.