Turkish Passion, Education, and Tattoos

After strolling in from dinner last night loud music begins to just sweep over the entire hotel.  From the pool area (which all rooms have a balcony that face the pool) a wedding begins to break out in dancing with a live band on a stage.  Holy moly, I wasn’t expecting that—and they were JUST starting at 10:00 p.m.  Who knew what time all of this was going to end.  Thankfully, it was only until midnight, but many of us in the group were tired enough to sleep through the bass bumping that resonated the hotel into vibrations.  This honestly didn’t seem very out of place for my understanding of the Turks so far—they’re just passionate and do what Turks do.  It takes a lot to endure overlapping dynasties, empires, and wars to come out to where they are today—which this is why the protests are a big deal for current Turkish society.  The protest is not over the potential bulldozing of a relatively small city park with a few trees.  It’s a stand against imposing tyrannical governance from the conservative religious party amid a society that was founded less than 100 years ago under a sweeping reform of secularism and freedom.  Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was, by agreed upon standards, a dictator—but was different than a Stalin, Mussolini, or even Hitler because his strong handed political reforms established economic stability, successful educational reform, higher literacy, and freedoms which the Turks hadn’t been granted before under the Ottoman Empire.  Its for this reason that Atatürk is framed in LITERALLY every classroom we visited earlier this week, from review mirrors, and even in restaurant bathrooms creepily inspiring you to pee freely.  The Turks are not ashamed of who they are, and embrace their history with pride and patriotism.

So, I’ve been passionate-less enough to hide myself away in my hotel room at every chance because I’ve needed time to just think and be.  Sorry if this caused any worry among you, but I didn’t have anything else to give except energy for my own needs.  This week was full of lectures from some of the most intelligent and globally connected people I will probably ever meet.  This goes from scholars of environmental issues, women’s issues, international relations, and even people who served in the parliament or advise officials such as THE Prime Minister of Turkey and to NATO.  I am a mere Spanish teacher.  What the baklava am I doing being privy to such world changers?  These people have their hands in how countries relate to each other through keeping peace and prosperity while I’m back at home teaching “¿Cómo estás?” to children who poop their pants.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love my poopie-pant kindergartners like there is no tomorrow, but I am on a whole other level, as in subterranean, compared to these geniuses who think in the clouds.  As I sit-and-get through the lectures I keep sketching in my notebook just so I can contain my mind a little bit.  It helps me focus on their words if I can do something with my hands—Maybe its adult onset ADD…I don’t know.  Anyway…I use my pen to outline the shapes of the speakers’ eyes, ears, ties, and crooked glasses.  I’m realizing that this is my place in the world—to take the great ideas of other people and to let others see it.  That’s what a teacher is—a learner along with the students who can lead them to finding out more about the geniuses’ discoveries in the world.  I’m content with being a non-genius, but I wish I could take a shot of their enthusiasm and motivation at times when all I can do is just be self-centered. 

We’re always doing a lot—lets just get that out of the way.  The past week has involved us visiting two private schools that are providing examples to the country for more successful student achievement both in examinations and university completion.  The schools were, of course, phenomenal and had facilities and educational philosophies that offered incredible opportunities even for American standards.  I sincerely appreciate being able to visit these schools—we were treated like honored guests.  However, I work in a public school system and wanted to observe what is going on in that sector.  When Americans visit another country, in my experience, the locals want to show you the best they have to offer because of some perception that we’ll be disappointed in seeing anything less.  This is both an honor and yet something a little disappointing.  Its disappointing because there is a huge disparity between the public schools and the private schools especially in the primary years.  Students go to school for 4 hours (either in the morning or the afternoon) during elementary school in a public school compared to twice the amount of time for the private schools we visited.  I get that private schools are an option, but when we look at it through the lens of fairness—it simply ISN’T.  Those with financial means get to learn more than those who are poor.  I take great issue with this no matter the country. To allow those with money to always have greater advantage over the poor in a country should be seen as a great woe.  All brains have the capacity to learn and if privilege is the only difference between passing the exam, which determines one’s destiny, then it is simply injustice.  Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher, posed that “"We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.” I would argue that we could judge the heart of a country by her treatment of her poor citizens.  I don’t know how to fix this issue even on a local level, but I know I want all children to have the same opportunity to live in their calling and to contribute to society in a meaningful way. 

The Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was at our hotel for a conference earlier this week.  There were Turkish secret service agents everywhere and, to be honest, it was a bit off-putting.  The secret service agents would flood certain areas of the hotel and with everything that’s been happening with the protesting of Erdoğan’s leadership it just made me uneasy. 

Many of you have heard of King Midas.  No?—well let me remind you.  He was the King that for a while had the ability to turn things to GOLD with his touch, but it ended up being a curse.  Follow a cartoon to have a better version told to you. Anyway, the ancient Phrygians (who were King Midas’ people) would build tombs made of Juniper trees and then build a mountain above it.  They could be compared to the pyramids in Egypt.  These tombs were preserved nearly perfectly because of a layer of stone outside of the wooden tomb, and tunneling into the man-made mountain has retrieved amazing artifacts.  We had a tour given by the lead archaeologists who have been working on this project for 23 years! Again—amazed!  We went into this man-made mountain and got to see the OLDEST WOODEN BUILDING IN THE WORLD.  It. Is. 3000. Years. Old. Wow. Wow. WOW!

Our time in Ankara is closing.  We leave early Monday morning on a flight to Istanbul.  We’ll be located at Yeditepe University (on the Asian side away from Taksim Square where the protests have been occurring) in dorm rooms for a week.  I’m looking forward to this leg of the trip because we should be able to interact with some college students who are taking summer classes and potentially make some friends.  I have every intention to do the following: sit in a café for hours learning Turkish, exploring the city, and getting a tattoo.  Wait…what? Don’t worry mom and dad I’ll be fine and its just a tattoo of a naked girl on my forearm.  No big deal.

I love you all and I wish you could experience what I’m experiencing.  Shoot, I would love to just have a glass of Rakı with you.  So, instead you’ll have to just enjoy my photographs.  Have you noticed my focus on Turkish textures? Boom.