Back in the (side)saddle again!

24 Eylül 2004

When I arrived in Istanbul this time, what struck me is that it is not new to me. That is, if you read travel books, they are based upon the premise that one is "discovering" a place for the first time—that one is a a Discoverer, in fact, and hence the link of travel literature with colonizers, conquistadores and other rather unpleasant types. Ah, the power! You, in the person of the Visiting Sage, the Englightened Conqueror, step down off your barque. Seashells crunch under your feet. You encounter fascintating "natives." They build, eat, even fornicate a little differently and these things are of note—notable, indeed, in your journal, soon to be published by the day's equivalent of WW Norton or FSG. You are a self-styled celebrity. The country so visited fades into a fuzzy memory, you become a hit at home, at parties: "Oh that's the person who made a million when they discovered...who lived with the cannibals..., who actually took a lover among the Whoozee-whoozies..." etc., etc. People who keep count of their travels for family and friends, in handwritten journals or little blogs like these, are steeped in this kind of crap.

For me, the difference here is the "back-ness" of it all, I have not just arrived for the first unsullied, virginal time. Even in two months, some things have changed—and not. Ö. mysteriously manages to be standing outside the house just as my cab pulls up with five enormous bags full of books and the detritus of closing up the New York apartment, with Emma the cat in her carrier on top, and my backpack with computer pulling hard on my shoulders as I crawl out knees creaking and said back screaming. (The knees hadn't started hurting the first time.) The hibiscus "trees" are in full bloom, Findikzade is dusty, dusty, as always, full of children just going or getting out of school, the yogurt maker even busier with an expanded store where he sells baklava, Nescafe, and, apparently, ice cream. The electric shop owner's "bruder"—his dog--still guards the street, but he is strangely absent—in the clinker? on a bachelor "vacation"? working in Germany to make some more moeny for the family?

Abdurrahman runs out to help and it is a joy to see him. But the worst news is that Abdurrahman is leaving—he says he is retiring and that the building is hiring a new super. This is terrible, terrible news!

26 Eylül

Emma the cat has not traveled well. She hides under the bed in my room, then flees to the single bed/divan in the living room and hides under that. Finalment, with much petting and stroking, she settles in her old basket under my study table.

My Greek Canadian friend is still at the horrible university where I first taught. Depressed. Wondering why he hasn't done better. Well. The nature of traveling well under conditions of adversity—after all, is not life itself (not to be too hackneyed) a journey? One can complain about the injustice of it all; and it IS unjust. One can point the finger at the perpetrators of injustice (and how DO those bastards at _____ manage anyhow?) But one has to survive. One has to survive by retaining whatever humanity one can scrape up. Otherwise that is not survival. Just endurance.

So we talk, chat sometimes. We have coffee. A veiled woman walks into the cafe with her boyfriend—sunglasses and a scarf pulled tighty around her face. Her piety seems odd in such a worldly setting, if that is what the message of her attire is. In the time of Ataturk, she would be turned away.

We eat at our favorite vegetarian restaurant. we hear that Turkey has dug in its heels under the present regime and is actually yet to make a decision regarding the criminalization of adultery. Of course, it does not apply to men; rather, it is a response to the "honor" killings. Instead of punishing men who kill their wives, their daughters, their sisters for what they deem inappropriate (sexual) behavior, will the present regime backs it up by saying, "Adultery is a crime—let us, the courts, punish it so you don't have to take the law into your own hands"? The EU is up in arms and will not accept Turkey into the Union if they pass such a law. If we were in the time of Ataturk, there would be no question; but we are not. I wonder how the Turks will resolve this one?

30 Eylül

On my first day at the new university, I am reassured that the adultery law was only a sop thrown at the conservatives. It did not pass; rather the legislature passed a whole pro-EU package. Good. I am reassured by the ultimate common sense of ordinary Turks.

Compared to the previous school, my work at this new university is absolute heaven! The students lack the insufferable arrogance of the students at the former locale; they ask questions, they try to attend to what I am saying. They try to help out. My graduate students—all women—are wonderful! Though I loved my old ones, I will love these too, and the fact that this is a seminar with all women has a particular flavor I have not experienced here in Turkey. I get to experience what educated Turkish women are asking here. They do read, they certainly enquire—

My undergraduate classroom looks out on the Golden Horn—the little ferry boats moored at the water's edge; the Galata tower peering over it from the opposite side, the dusty red-roofed houses and reminants of the original city walls. One student, coming in early, is looking out over the Horn—"I like looking at the boats," he says.

"Yes, I used to have a daydream of living on a houseboat," I answer.

This is the same student who says that his favorite work is the Decameron.

My office space—shared—looks out over Balat, the oldest part of the city and the oldest of the Jewish quarters. Down a dusty street, behind what will be the university owner's wife's Byzantine archaoelogy museum, onto cracked red roofs, more dust, as many little plants, hibiscus trees as can be planted in constrained circumstance, the piling up of new upon old... My graduate classroom repeats the view as the sun sets and the call to prayer sounds from nearby mosques.

Comments

[Hersones]

YBpwqc Hi Rabzebuddy! Google.