Meet me and buy my book

Hi Everyone,

If you've been enjoying my stories you can meet me and buy a copy of my book Inside Out In Istanbul. I will be at Molly's cafe between 2-4.30pm on Thursday the 17th of October. My book is only 12 Euros (30tl). I'd love to hear your feedback in person so come along. You can also try Molly's great coffee and yummy cakes.

See you there,

Lisa Morrow

How to get to Molly's Cafe

Excerpt from "Lisa's Little Men"

Republic Square in Kayseri,, Turkey 2002

      ...I am short. I’ve spent most of my life being short except for one brief moment when I was 12 and was the tallest girl in the class. Had I been a boy I would have been the tallest boy then too. Over the years I’ve come to accept that I’ll never wake up with legs up to my ears and am used to most things being just out of my reach. I know I’ll always miss out on knowing what’s going on if I’m standing in a crowd.

When I first came to Turkey I could almost console myself to being short because Turkish women are short too. Initially I felt at home because eye level for them was the same for me and I didn’t feel so hampered by my lack of height in kitchens here. I say almost, however, because while we share a vertical similarity, their horizontals are so much smaller and slimmer than mine. Once again I was prepared to resign myself to the fact that I am short, when I met the first of my little men.

At that time I was living in Kayseri in central Turkey. I was working at a government university and living on campus. From there it was a very fast and frightening three minute bus ride the four kilometers into town with a driver who thought he was competing in a Formula One Grand Prix. Red lights and speeding trucks were never any deterrent to them. When we screeched to a halt at Republican Square it was always a relief to get off the bus, even though it did mean leaping several feet onto the ground from the curiously high set buses.

The old town centre was originally completely enclosed in a towering granite wall. By the time I arrived the crumbling façade had been clumsily and controversially rebuilt with poorly mixed concrete. The final result might not have been aesthetically pleasing but it was practical. Along its base an assortment of men had carefully set themselves up to ply their trades. The shoe shiners lined up next to one another, each sitting behind an even more elaborate brass plated, boat-shaped cleaning kit. They were lavishly decorated with postcards featuring portraits of luscious female Turkish singers and impressively masculine Turkish performers proudly showing off bristling moustaches. Their ranks were supplemented by five men sitting at ancient tabletop treadle sewing machine with the original glistening gold lettering, repairing shoes. All of them displayed coloured shoe laces by draping them over a piece of string suspended the length of the table. When the wind blew and the call to prayer sounded they seemed like Hawaiian dancers undulating in time to the music.

All of the trees in the row planted in line with the wall had been claimed. At each stood a man with a cart, usually made by a converting an old-fashioned baby carriage, offering a startling range of goods and services. I still smoked back then, and I went to the third tree from the left, where a little man, dressed winter and summer in a long-sleeved shirt covered by a hairy jumper, would refill my lighter. After being caught out by a burst of gas the first time I went to him, I always stood upwind when he inserted the nozzle of a bottle of butane into my lighter and refilled it. At other times I waited as he started up his portable generator and turned on his laminating machine to cover a new identity card or travel pass with plastic. Along with the men at the other trees he sold mobile phone cases, pens, worry beads and an assortment of other small things...

 
This is an excerpt from my new collection of short essays about life in Istanbul available next year. I have more stories available in my current collection called Inside Out In Istanbul. Click on the book title today to buy your copy in paperback or as an ebook.

San Francisco Radio - Orient Express show no. 2

Want to learn more about Turkish weddings and köçek dancers? Listen to me on the KKUP Orient Express show on San Francisco Turkish Radio (24.9.2013). Listen to the complete show or tune in at 54 minutes 20 seconds just to hear me. Click Lisa Morrow on Orient Express to start. I hope you enjoy it! 

My local parks

Istanbul is a densely populated city sprawling over both banks of the Bosphorus Strait. It is a metropolis full of highrise apartments and office blocks. Nonetheless, Istanbullu (people who live in Istanbul) value their green spaces and make good use of them. In the event of an earthquake, these open spaces would be the only safe places to go.

Fenerbahce Park in the 1950s. From the Yapi Kredi collection of photographs taken by Selahattin Giz, exhibited at the Caddebostan Kultur Merkezi, September 2012.

 Late afternoon swimming in the Sea of Marmara off Fenerbahce Park.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cooling down with a refreshing drink at Romantika Cafe

 

Smile for the camera

 

Göztepe Park. These are real fish.

Whirling Dervish topiary in Göztepe Park

 

 

Özgürlük park, which means Freedom Park in English, is my favourite park. In summer it plays host to Turkish music nights, traditional puppet shows, theatre performances and other special events. Year round there are weekly organic markets and people exercising, jogging and walking their dogs. At the moment local high school students are holding a three day event to remind us how valuable these green places are, to make it clear they believe the parks belong to the people.

 

The banner reads, “This is our park”.

 

Istanbul: In the Sultan's City

(This story first appeared on the We Said Go Travel website as an entry in the writing competition, "Inspiration: A Place I Love" in 2013.)

Riding an Istanbul ferry as it slowly crosses the Bosphorus is like being suspended in time. While the journey is short, I am instantly taken back to my childhood, to endless days, freedom and adventure. I feel sadly nostalgic for the past but excited too because I feel I am travelling with early explorers to an unknown land. My journey begins from the safety of the European side of Istanbul but we are heading for Asia and the unknown lands beyond. Sitting on a narrow wooden bench seat running along the outside of the boat I hear foreign voices all around me. The faces are unfamiliar too, but now and then someone turns to me with a look that seems to say ‘It’s alright. You’re with us now’. I am slowly lulled into comfort by the sway of the ferry but before I can slip into a daydream a man appears, loudly calling out strange words. One by one the people to my left pull their legs back from where they have been resting on the side of the boat and I do the same. My heart beats faster as the man approaches but calms when I see he is only selling tea, coffee and orange juice. I buy nothing but others do, managing to drink two teas and smoke the same number of cigarettes in the ten minutes left of the journey.

Even now, living permanently in Istanbul, my heart still lifts when I see the minarets of the Haghia Sophia and the Blue Mosque come into view. They stand guard over Saray Burnu, the home of Topkapi Palace and innumerable sultans, scandals and sorrows. Although winter has come to the city, with creeping cold and grey skies, the outside benches are packed with Istanbul residents. They can’t smoke any more so they munch on simit, sour dough rings covered in sesame seeds much beloved by Turks young and old. It is a popular sport to throw stray crumbs into the air, and a signal for the local seagulls, huge ugly white birds with scowling red eyes, to swoop down from the sky and follow in line with the vessel. Teenage boys compete to see who has the better aim while the seagulls fly as close to us as possible to fight for a prize.

 

Boys on an Istanbul ferry, January 2011

These same birds roost in the tree behind my apartment and wake me every morning. Their cries and squawks of discontent are in response to the first call to prayer around five or six o’clock in the morning. I’m too lazy to get out of bed and look, but I like to imagine them moving in unison, a solemn, feathered version of A Chorus Line taking place just outside my window.

There are mosques everywhere in Istanbul, waking up the seagulls. My favourite was designed by Mimar Sinan in 1580 at the request of Şemsi Paşa, a vizier to three Ottoman sultans. The unofficial name of the mosque is Kuşkonmaz Camii, meaning the mosque on which birds do not land. Legend has it they don’t stand or build nests on the mosque out of respect, and I prefer this to the more mundane reason that the wind off the Bosphorus prevents them from landing. There is quite a history to this little place, and the gazi, the former soldier who shows us around tells me most of it. He demonstrates how the marble columns set on either side of the mihrab, or prayer niche, are used to test whether the building has been damaged after an earthquake. If they can’t be turned the foundations have moved. He confirms that the piece of cloth in a picture frame set high on the wall is from the Kaaba in Mecca. Its cloth cover is changed every year and pieces of the old one distributed as much revered gifts. He tells me much more about the mosque, but in the end I learn his history. Along with other young Turkish men he fought in Korea during the Cold War. I hadn’t known Turkey had taken part and I listen to his stories of horror and death with sadness in my heart. Yet he is happy to tell me, and regularly nudges me with an order to “Anlat!”, to translate what he is saying, so my friends can understand too. 

The courtyard of Şemsi Paşa Camii in Uskidar, April 2012

At last I farewell him and watch fondly as he joins his friends sitting in the courtyard. Like many old men in Turkey they spend all day passing judgment over the passing crowds and exchanging memories. Old as they are, when they all smile and wave me on my way, I can see the carefree boys they once were, and imagine them eating simit and feeding the seagulls flying over the Bosphorus, dreaming of their next big adventure.


If you'd like to buy a copy of my book please click here Inside Out In Istanbul