A Life in Turkey? [WU XXXI]

I was just sending a reply to an email I got from my cousin Annika in Sweden. She asked about life in Turkey. Part way through it occurred to me that I should really be typing here and letting you all know so here it is.


I'm not sure about you but I tend to summarise life in terms of: home, work and friends. So let me update you on those things.


Home
I live two Metro stops away from the centre of Istanbul. Which considering it has a population circa 12 million is pretty good going.


The bottom floor flat is owned by Mevlude (32). She has one son called Boran who is 9 years old. Then there is Emrah (29) and me. Mevlude is a student at a performing arts school and Emrah as you can tell from his site is a designer.


Mevlude speaks a few simple words in English and Emrah is pretty darn good. Most of the time we do our own things and our hours prevent us seeing a lot of each other anyways.


The flat is a "3" which means there are 3 rooms (which are now bedrooms). The hallway/entrance doubles as the dining area but really only seats two. There is a kitchen and bathroom.


My room was the lounge and has been converted. For the first week it served two roles as my bedroom and the lounge. We entertained Mevludes friends in it.


Although it's on the ground floor it's pretty secure. I'm not sure how to explain this but I guess a good term might be "triple bolted" for the doors. They are very heavy and you turn the key three times to push the bolt further into the door stud.


Then there is the external door for all tenants. On top of this the windows have bars in front of them so even if the window was left open you couldn't get in. This is standard for homes here.


We've had a couple of blow-ups at home. Poor Emrah is left to translate as well as participate so he tends to look pretty spaced out afterwards.


Work
I can't say how much I'm enjoying work. Wall Street Institute is known for holding onto staff and whilst it's administration sucks the staff are great. I'm very happy to be here. Things turned out well given that I turned down my first job offer elsewhere that was at a higher rate.


Our manager Gavin is from England. Then there are the "native teachers" which means native in terms of spoken English as opposed to native to Turkey.


I'm the only staff member who works in two locations. Essentially I gap fill. Across the two centres the native mix is something like this:

• United States: Anna, Sally
• New Zealand: Mark, Simon, Veronica
• England: Tim

They have been here between 3 weeks (me) and 3 years.

The natives are such a great bunch. They've been very kind to me in terms of observing and providing great feedback. That's largely finished now and I'm on my own.

Whilst I learnt to teach large classes of school children in Thailand this is probably the complete opposite in format. At Wall Street the students use multi-media and workbooks for two weeks and then come and see us for an Encounter. At the encounter it's the job of the natives to assess if they have learnt enough to be able to pass onto the next level.

There is still a large teaching component at the encounters but the emphasis is testing the students learning. The students themselves are either funded by workplaces or with their own money. By and large though we are dealing with wealthy people. 

There is a large number of university students. Extending your opportunities by learning English is popular. This being said and Turkey not being a member of the European Union I wonder at what opportunities there are outside of Turkey for them. Although most say that's where they would like to head.

Friends

This is a sore point too although for different reasons. I've still not really mentally settled here. I don't mean that I've not succumbed to being here for a period. Rather it's an unsettled home and I'm still adjusting to the massive change in daily routine (see WU XXX).

Even though I have free time during the week it tends to be after work and until 2am. So there's not much opportunity to be out in the weather which at present isn't such a bad thing. So I mentally consider Sunday - my one day off - as my only free time.

Last Sunday I spent a wee while outside in the sunshine with my new toy - MacBook Pro. I haven't done any business work on it yet so haven't been able to assess that side versus the PC. However in terms of feel and use it is much more fun than a Windows environment.

Apart from the short stint in the sun I felt I largely wasted the day. I didn't go out because I didn't fancy it on my own. And there's the rub. I'm rather short on the friend front. Which when you look at it isn't that different from my life in New Zealand but ....

Illusion

It's easy to pretend I'm not in Turkey. I talk English at home. And I talk English at work. Unless I try to buy something there's little need for Turkish.

It's a double-edged sword. Let me explain.

On the pro side of learning Turkish is the obvious being able to communicate. I'd love to know what people are talking about and believe me - the Turks love to talk!

On the con side is the almost permanent bliss of not being able to understand people. Whether I'm on the Metro, on a bus or just walking in the street. I don't process one single word of conversation which is heaven. It's like being in a spring meadow just watching the flowers blow in the wind. If you believe that you'll believe anything.

But you get the idea. The "silence" is heaven.

Silly to think of it like that as to have friends is to listen and talk!

Be well...