October 16th, 2009

Hello all!
Well, it has been a great second week here in Istanbul. As I know I keep on saying, the TEFL class has been incredibly hard but I am feeling much better about it tonight. I remember Don Cochran telling me very early on in my archaeology career that fieldschools always follow a predictable pattern (at least for the director) and I find the TEFL class here doing the same thing. The first week is all fresh and new and, “yes this will absolutely work” and then the second week is, “oh no, this is going to be a complete disaster and we’ll never get finished.” The beginning of this week was very much like that for me. As you can tell from my previous letter, Tuesday night I was feeling very overwhelmed by the enormity of this career change and not at all sure if I could really be successful at it. But now I feel as if I have passed through a fire and come out better on the other side. Yes, the hardest part of the course is still ahead of us (we have four more teaching practices of 40 minutes each to complete plus two intensive in-class exams to pass, a group project and a four-week personal assessment portfolio to finish) but I feel now as if I finally have my feet planted firmly under me once again. Of course, by my next letter this could all have changed but for now, tonight, I am feeling really good.
As I mentioned before, I am just about down to a size 10 and the size 12 jeans I bought just a few weeks before coming out here are now very loose. They were tight when I bought them and I did that on purpose knowing I would be losing more weight. That I lost it more quickly than I had anticipated is certainly not something I’m going to complain about, but it did prompt a little shopping trip tonight on my way home after school. Besides, what woman wouldn’t want to take advantage of all of the great shops around here? But truth be told, shopping here in Istanbul is a very different experience from what we are used to in the West. I guess the word relationship sums it up best. You don’t just walk into a shop, pick something out, buy it and leave (well, I guess you could but you would really be selling yourself short…minimal pun intended). Instead, the experience begins with a pleasant greeting and the question, “Would you like coffee or tea?” Then you chat and enjoy your beverage and afterwards you discuss what it is you want.
I wanted to go shopping for jeans so on my way home I wandered about a bit, looking in the different stores and rejecting the ones that just felt too much like The Gap: Turkish style. Eventually I found a series of clothing shops tucked inside a larger building and went through the main entrance to get a closer look. I walked by all of the shops on the main level and then went downstairs. In the corner I saw a small shop with racks and racks of the kind of jeans I was looking for so I went inside. A man was sitting inside talking amicably with two other female customers and they all smiled at me as I walked in. I looked around for a few moments, making sure that this was a place that looked like it would have what I wanted and then waited. The proprietor, a young Turkish man in his early 30s, soon came over and asked me how I was doing and was I having a pleasant evening. I said that I was and asked him the same thing. He could tell I was a foreigner and asked where I was from. He was very excited when I told him America and immediately began talking to me in broken but still quite understandable English. He offered the usual beverage choices and I opted for the apple tea which is extraordinarily delicious here in Turkey. He asked me about America and what brought me here and was delighted to learn that I was an English teacher. Eventually we got around to the subject of why I was in his shop and he helped me find exactly what I wanted. With his assistance for the size (they number them differently here), I picked out two pairs of jeans that when I saw myself wearing them in the mirror I could not believe it was really me. When I commented that they were too long, however, he told me “no problem” and after asking permission to get that close (I just love the manners here) knelt down and hemmed them to a height perfect to wear with flats or my heeled boots. He did the same for the second pair. After I said I would take both (how could I not…they make my butt look awesome!) we had some more tea and much to my surprise he sent both pairs of jeans next door to another shop for immediate and free hemming. So within the span of about 30 minutes I was treated to a complete shopping experience that included the purchase of two pairs of levis, on-the-spot custom tailoring at no extra charge, plus a very pleasant social experience and impromptu language exchange, all for the budget cost of around $60. I just love this country.