May 30th

Nothing much happened today. I wrote some letters and postcards and made a couple of trips to the post office. Yep that is about it.

Oh but a fun thing about Turkey, I also used this today, is that they have exercise parks spread throughout the city. These parks have all the basic workout equipment but it is set up to use your body weight as the weight… I will have to take pictures to better explain. But they are everywhere! There are two of these parks within a three minute walk from my place.

May 29th

I went to the International Church today. They normally meet in the St. Paul Cultural Center. It has been closed for the last year and they have been renting the upper room of a café. The room is built kind of like a cross, so that you can’t see the people in the other area because of a wall. It was a good service.

Afterwards we had lunch and I met a ton of people. They had been passing around a birthday card for me so when I was meeting people they kept saying, “Oh, you're Krista with the birthday card.”

I then came home and chilled for the rest of the day.

I have a lot more I would like to say but well now is not the most appropriate time.

May 28th

Tayla and I started the day off my going to the produce bazaar and buying produce to last us till Wed. The produce here is rather cheap. You can buy a kilo of lemons for 1 Lira and a kilo of Strawberries for 4 Liras. That is about 2lb of lemons for $0.60 and 2lb of strawberries for $2.50.

Tayla then went to spend the night with a friend and I went over to the Eldridge’s house. Tressa and I walked to the Tele (ATM) and then to Macro (small Wal Mart). Then we went back to the Eldridge played some card games and had dinner.

We took the ottobus for the first time back to the Bultema’s. It rained rather hard off and on all day and it was difficult to see out the windows to see where we were suppose to get off. I eventually saw our stop and we signaled we needed off and went to stand by the door. Most bus doors open outward; these opened inward. Tressa had been standing next to the door and her leg got pinned. It was hilarious and everyone was trying to help us get unstuck and off before the ottobus took off again.

May 27th

I started out the day thinking I had until 2:15 p.m. before I had to be anywhere. I took care of some chores, started my laundry, read some Proverbs and letter from Paul, and then sat down to update the blog. I received a phone call shortly later saying I was going to be picked up in 15 minutes to go see the village. We are going to be having an English speaking camp in one of the villages in this area. I raced to hang my laundry up to dry and get shoes. I made it with a few minutes to spare. I am a little more time oriented than the rest of this society.

First we went to the airport and picked Gloria up. She is 72 and has been here for the last 12 years. We went to her place in the village and had a pleasant talk about her life and work. Nancy was also with us. She is visiting this lovely country for a few weeks. She has worked abroad for the last 30 odd years. We went to “Gloria’s” restaurant for lunch, it is not actually her place but she has been eating there ever since she first arrived. It was beautiful, right at the base of a small waterfall. Our table hung over the river and you could feel the mist from the water. It was great food.

I thought we had our first Turkish lesson today. We plan to take some lessons and learn at least some basic Turkish while here, but it was cancelled. We ran an errand for camp and then were shown around the old city. We saw many Roman and Ottoman walls and towers and unique shops. I will write more about this on a later date.

I then went home and Talya and I decided to make cookies. It would have been too easy to do this the normal way. So I was blindfolded and her hands were tied behind her back, we switched half way through. It was a lot of fun and all things considered, we did not make much of a mess. Also the cookies were superb!

We ended the evening with some card games and a movie.

May 26th

I started the day by going to a ladies study. We discussed Esther and did other things you do at these studies :-). After the study Mrs. Eldred suggested that Tressa and I go hang out. We decided to go to the swimming hole. It took us about two hours to walk to both our places and get swimming suits. But it was worth it! The Mediterranean is beautiful. There must be a lot of salt in the water because we were quite buoyant.

The swimming hole is on the back side of a big resort and on the way back we took their outside elevator instead of walking up all the stairs. I started to drop my towel, went to adjust it, and the house keys that were around my finger fell off. As I mentioned a few posts ago there is no inner door in these elevators. You can drag your finger along the wall, so there is an inch gap between the elevator and the wall. The keys fell through this gap.

We went back to the bottom and discovered a way to get under the elevator. I tried asking a gentleman that worked there to help get the keys, but he did not understand my English and I don’t speak Turkish. A gentleman that was a guest at the resort interpreted for me, he asked if I was from Europe. When I said, "America," he said, “that explains the funny accent, he (Turkish man) could not understand your accent.”

Tressa headed back to my place to meet Talya when she got home from school and let her know what was going on, she does not keep house keys on her. While I waited, I think the first Turkish gentleman was hoping I would leave. Eventually he telephoned for help and told me to come with him. I followed and through signs showed him the problem. I had to explain it was not a room key to the resort but a house key.

When we went to go up in the elevator it locked us in and would not go up. After about a minute he got it to let us out, we tried again with the same results. After another couple of attempts we got it to work and made it to the top. He indicated I was to wait with another Turkish gentleman for the technician. When the technician arrived we all got back in the elevator and eventually made it to the ground floor again. He was able to get my keys back, but the elevator was still not working. After many thank you’s I left and took the stairs…

Something else that made these whole scenario even more interesting is you are not suppose to make eye contact or smile at people here. It would be like saying you're available. Tressa and I had been trying really hard all day not to smile and make eye contact. It was rather difficult not to smile at the irony of being locked in the elevator while trying to get my keys that were stuck at the bottom. Also have you every tried not to make eye contact while stuck in a small place and trying to communicate through gestures? Then I was in a bathing suit and towel! Mom our bathing suit plan works great and I was glad for the extra modesty.

The rest of the evening was less eventful.

I have been reading about Solomon and it has been making me wonder how a man that was so wise could be so foolish. I am thinking he must have thought it was okay he could control that one sin and not let it turn his heart. But he was wrong.

May 25th

Today was a laid back day. Renata, James, and James left for Eastern Turkey to complete the tour with the people from Denver. Talya and I have been holding down the fort. I went and purchased cards and postcards. Apparently these things, especially the postcards, are not common in Turkish culture.

I went to orientation with the Eldred’s and Tressa, an intern from Wisconsin who will be here all summer with us. They taught us the dos and don’ts of working in the Turkish culture.

Something of interest that came out of this orientation was the respect with which you are suppose to treat your Holy Book. If you do not show respect to the Holy Book, then how can you respect the God behind the Holy Book? This is a different way of thinking and I think it is true that we should treat our Holy Book with much more respect.

May 24th

So yesterday was busy!

The couple I am staying with, along with everything else they do, James leads Biblical tours which is a growing source of tourism for Turkey. He has been leading a tour from Denver Seminar the past week or so. Yesterday they were here, so I was able to meet James he had been out of town with the tour group. But the tour was also having lunch at the St. Paul Cultural Center. So we, Renata, Talya (their daughter), James (a friend of the family that was in town from the states), umm Turkish friend (I cant spell the name and I dont want to try), and myself made the lunch.

We made sandwiches or I would call them wraps. They had Leban, it is kind of like a sour cream yogurt mixture, spread throughout then a pepper paste with some cucumbers, green olives, and peppers all wrapped in a tortilla. There was also a carrot salad which the amazing Turkish lady made. It had carrots, yogurt, garlic, and mint it tasted really good. Then there were these really big chocolate chip oatmeal cookies that had been prepared the day before, they are good cookies but not as sweet as the ones I'm used to.

After we served the people there food and ate some food ourselves. Rambosan (this is not correct spelling) shared his journey of faith. This was interesting and he had a lot of insight. One of the things he said that was thought provoking was an analogy, about how weird the thought of Jesus could be. He said it would be like someone growing up knowing someone as your uncle and then later in life that uncle telling you he is really your father. He shared a lot more and I will try to pass the information along through more private channels.

Then a Imam came, he was an important imam in the city an imam of imam. He did not speak English so James and Rambosan interpreted what he shared with the group. It was interesting to hear what he had to say as well. He shared about Abraham and his almost sacrificing Ishmael and how Allah provided a ram. I did not have anyway to take notes which was unfortunate.

When everything at the center was done, Renata, Talya, and I headed home to prepare for a good bye bbq. One of the couples that has been on staff here is moving to Wales. Talya and I swept off the balcony which meant spraying water all over the balcony then using these fan like brooms, between 2 and 3 feet tall, that have about a six inch built in handle to then scrub and sweep the dirty water into the drain. All the while we could not let any water splash over the edge, there apartment is on the thirteenth floor. We had a good time and somehow managed to not let a drop go over the edge, aren't you all so proud!

We then finished all other type preparations for the dinner. The bbq went well, one of the families that came was Russian, the wife and kids did not speak English, the little girl could speak Turkish though. It was fun to watch how all the other little kids would switch into Turkish to talk to her(Jasmine). I played go fish with some of the kids it was fun, I had to use one of the kids to interpret for me so Jasmine could also play. One of the other mothers also joined us for a while and acted as interpreter.

I had a good time and was able to meet the local team here. There are people from all over the world. All the accents were fantastic to listen to.

Something I have been meaning to comment on is the call to Prayer. I am sure most of you are aware that Muslims pray five times a day. So five times a day there is someone that chants verses from the Koran over an intercom system so the whole city can hear and know it is time to pray. This devotion to prayer is something to be admired.

One last random piece of info. I have learned how to break an apple in half with my hands! Yes I know you are all jealous and will go out and work on learning right away ;-)