New blog address

Thanks for visiting my blog. Inside Out In Istanbul has now moved. If you want to find out more about my life and learn what it's like to live in Turkey, please click on the link below.

New address for "Inside Out In Istanbul"

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! 

By the water in Istanbul

 There are many beautiful places by the water in Istanbul.

These are some of the places I love.

Sunday in Ortaköy, August 2000

The German designed Haydarpaşa Railway as seen from Kadikoy, May 2011

Drinking tea in Üsküdar, April 2012

Fishmen and boats at Eminönü, November 2000

Lost in the fog at Kadikoy Iskelesi, May 2013

Kadikoy waterfront, March 2001

Young soliders on their day off, Haydarpaşa Railway Station, October 2011

Up Close & Personal: an excerpt

How reassuring to know my local hospital now uses kidneys from both

live and dead donors when performing transplants!

A look at the Turkish public health system
 

Back in 2000 my husband and I worked at an English college on Bağdat Street, run by a money hungry former military man with good connections but bad intentions. Thanks to him we had the dubious pleasure of visiting the Bakırköy public hospital as part of the process of getting a work permit. According to our charmless director we had to go to a public social security hospital, otherwise the bureaucracy in Ankara wouldn’t believe the results of our health tests were above board.

When we arrived and entered the foyer of the hospital, we were confronted by a simply enormous crowd of people. Everywhere I looked I saw people trying to squeeze their way past other people determined to stand their ground outside various doors while yet more people were pushing themselves through the clumps of people stuck on the stairs. I was reluctant to throw myself into the fray, so I looked to Kasım, the person assigned to get us through the day, for guidance. Although he was always referred to as the school driver, he was more like a minder cum stand over man. I often saw him delivering bundles of money wrapped in newspaper to the director, and with his long moustache and hardened features he could look quite frightening. Nonetheless, he was always pleasant to us. Unperturbed by the seething mass of humanity around us he motioned us to follow him through the maze. We inched up a crowded stairway and when I looked back, I saw that every corridor and every waiting area was jam-packed.

The sheet of paper Kasım carefully held on to had about twelve different headings on it. All of them required a trip to a different department and a tick from a different pen. Hours after we first arrived we were each given a white plastic disposable cup with a number written on it. Although it was nearing the lunch break we weren’t being offered tea but we did have to give urine samples. The women’s toilets were full of short round village women in headscarves, who all turned and stared when I walked through the door. Not only was I a foreigner, a yabancı, I had dark blue eyes and was wearing figure hugging, at least by their standards, Western clothes. Their unblinking stares were unnerving so at first I just stood and watched proceedings, all the while clutching my plastic cup. I soon saw that the first hurdle would be getting into a cubicle.  There was no queue to speak of, just lots of women milling around. Then it was first in first served. Even once the cubicles were occupied with the door locked (hopefully) and the red bar showing on the handle, the women would constantly shake the knob and ask was it full. It was survival of the fittest.

As I jockeyed to get closer I could see the toilets were of the traditional Turkish squat style. I pondered the practicalities of peeing into a plastic cup in a crouch position, while holding my handbag and coat above a floor I knew was going to be wet. I wondered how the Turkish women coped with their voluminous baggy pants, long thermal underwear, droopy cardigans and floor length coats. Even though they had friends with them to hold their handbags and bit and pieces, we all shared the same problem as far as aiming accurately was concerned. If you squatted in the normal position you aimed downwards but wouldn’t be able to see the cup. If you shifted so you could see the cup, your flow would be horizontal and hard to capture.

However, before I could work out how to proceed, I had to get into a cubicle. Even though I’d been waiting for ten minutes, almost everyone who entered the room after me had either already bagged one, or was standing in front of me. Putting aside my middle class upbringing I deftly side-stepped a barrel-like woman, gently elbowed another away from the door and thrust aside a third to claim victory. Once the door was tightly locked it was time to put the theory into practice. After some finessing I was able to hang my coat and handbag on the handle of the window. Settling into a comfortable position, I took some tissues from my pocket and did a ‘dry run’ of the procedure. I didn’t know how full the cup should be for the sample, but having no way of learning the answer I just went ahead regardless. Within a few moments I was finished. Still squatting and now holding a half full or half empty, depending on your point of view, cup of urine, I had to work out where to put it while I adjusted my clothes. There were no shelves or ledges that I could use. Looking about the empty space I saw the only solution was to place a tissue on a dirty bit of broken tile, and carefully balance the cup on that.

Used to clinics where you could discreetly pass your sample to a nurse who wouldn’t look you in the eye I was very reluctant to go outside, cup in hand. Knowing Kasım would be waiting I felt really embarrassed. He had a well-developed sense of humour and I didn’t want to be the butt of one of his many jokes. The minutes ticked slowly by before I finally steeled myself for the walk back out into the corridor. Luckily Kim exited the men’s at the same time and immediately captured Kasım’s attention. Holding out his cup, he asked if he wanted some tea. Kasım roared with laughter and I used the distraction to slip past him. I headed to the end of the corridor where a doctor was waiting with a trolley to collect our samples. When Kim joined me I asked him how he went. 
      “Well, I didn’t have any problems, but the guy before me must have. He came out trying to clean his cup up with a tissue,” Kim laughed and then added, “Turns out the black marker they use to number the cups isn’t waterproof after all”.

Mosque Life

Looking through to Sultanahmet Camii (the Blue Mosque), Sultanahmet 2007

 

The minber (pulpit) in Çinli Camii, Üsküdar, 2012

Behind Rustem Paşa Camii, Eminönü in 2007

Süleymaniye Camii, Fatih, 2007

                                         

The Şardıvan (ritual ablutions area) at

Eyüp Sultan Camii, Eyüp 2012

 

Women at Eyüp Sultan Camii, Eyüp 2003

Hamam - More Than a Bath

This excerpt is from a longer piece in my book  Inside Out In Istanbul Buy your copy today.

The Turkish Bath (Le Bain Turc) painted in 1862 by the 82-year-old

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres. Currently housed in the Louvre

 

We ducked through a low door and stepped into a marble lined area where there were toilets and through to an antechamber with low marble benches and a few basins around the walls. From there we ducked through another smaller, lower doorway into the internal room of the hamam. The main room was shaped like a cross, with a large hexagonal marble slab in the middle. It sat directly under a dome with a skylight at the very top, and here and there other holes let in light. Around the walls of each arm of the cross there were three basins, and in the space between the arms there were two sauna rooms. At first glance there didn’t seem to be any empty spaces, as every basin was occupied by women and children engaged in washing themselves and each other. Despite the camouflage of the steam and the noise I felt self-conscious standing there in my underpants, clutching my towel and plastic washbag, but as I gazed around feeling a little lost, two old women gestured to us. Next to them two little girls were clearing things away from a basin and everyone shifted a bit to make room. We trod carefully on the wet marble floor and set up under the gaze of the two women who had waved us over. The two were less than five feet tall, and short and squat like most of the local women. They were obviously sisters, with the same slim legs overhung by enormous bellies and long grey hair in single plaits, all the way down their backs. After seeing us safely seated and beginning to set up they went back to their own toilette.

There wasn’t much space for the three of us so I sat and looked around while Susan and Yuki got settled. Opposite us was a tiny old woman, laboriously struggling to get to her feet. She was naked but modestly held a silver washing bowl in front of her genitals. It wasn’t really necessary because she had such a large drooping stomach nothing was visible. She had enormous trouble walking and her legs were grotesquely bowed from years of carrying heavy loads. As I looked around I saw other women of similar stature, and judged from their noses and eyebrows that they were locals. My male students bemoaned the lack of pretty girls in Kayseri, what with their hook noses and mono-brows, and I couldn’t help but sympathise. In another corner a woman was washing her two young children. The girl was tiny and stood covered in soapy water screaming as loudly as she could. Her brother, who looked to be about five, was distinctly uncomfortable at the sight of so many nearly naked women and kept trying to sidle away. His mother just grabbed him by his underpants and threw bowls of water over him at regular intervals.

A huge family group had taken over the central slab. Some were in bikinis, others just in knickers, but a few of the teenage girls were wearing knee length slips. All of them were drenched in sweat and water, so every contour was visible. Back in our corner we discovered that we didn’t have a bowl for pouring water over ourselves. I walked carefully back to the change room and borrowed one from the cashier.

We heeded the cashier’s instructions and began to wash ourselves in preparation for the kese. As we sat and poured water over ourselves, our nervous chatter gave way to a lazy, dreamlike silence. Our reverie in the steamy, cloudy, warm air was suddenly interrupted when a young girl approached us and said something to me in Turkish. I said pardon and she repeated herself.

“She wants to meet you,” said Yuki.

“Oh, OK. Hello.”

“Hello. Where are you from?”

“I am from Australia.”

“Austria! Do you speak German?” she asked excitedly while calling some other women over.

“No, no, Australia. Sydney.” Seeing her incomprehension, I added, “Kangaroo.”

“Oh, that is very far. I am from Kayseri. This is my aunt and this is my mother-in-law.” I nodded to the two women who immediately started talking to me in German. I’d learnt German at school so I could follow what they were telling me. They had both lived in Germany for thirty years but had now come back to live in their hometown. The girl was a recent bride and they came to the hamam together all the time. Usually the bride’s mother came but she slipped on the ice last week and sprained her ankle. I wished her a speedy recovery and then the questions began.

“Where is she from” asked the mother-in-law, pointing at Susan, “Is she from Germany?”

I laughed and translated for Susan. She too laughed, because with her blonde hair people either thought she was German or Russian. The first meant they thought she was rich and the second meant they thought she was a prostitute.

“America” said Susan. “And you”, they asked Yuki, “Are you from Australia too? Are you sisters?”

“No, I’m from Japan,” Yuki replied. This wasn’t the first time people thought she was related to either Susan or me. A lot of the women came from isolated villages and knew little about the world. Then the women started questioning me more closely. Was I married? Oh good, it is good to be married. How many years have you been married? Do you have children? Whenever women ask me these questions I know I am doomed to tell the truth because I always do. In order to adhere to Turkish tradition though, my partner Kim and I tell everyone we are married. It is the only way people will accept us as a legitimate couple. When I introduce him as my husband I feel vaguely uneasy but far less uncomfortable than if I tried to explain why we aren’t married. Besides, according to the law in our country, we are as good as married.

 “I’ve been married for 13 years. No, I don’t have children.” Before they can comment I continue. “I am the second wife. No, not two wives at the same time. My ‘husband’ had a wife before. One wife before but now they are divorced. They had two sons. The sons are men now. Children are very nice but they are a lot of work. They are a lot of trouble, we had many troubles with his children.” At this last comment their disbelief calms and they launch into a discussion about children, how they are a blessing and a curse. Some of the women seem more cursed than others judging by their expressions. The general consensus, at least to my face, is that I am a wise woman not to have children but I can see in their faces that they think I am rather strange.

They turn and grill Susan. She doesn’t understand their Turkish so Yuki and I translate. We embroider a bit and tell them Susan has a fiancé in America who is waiting for her. She is taking this year to see Turkey and then she will return to him and they will marry. She misses him very much and they speak to each other on the phone every day. Before they ask how many children she is planning to have Yuki gives her biography. The women say something to her in Turkish and they all laugh. She turns and says,

“I didn’t need to tell them I don’t have children. The aunt just told me she can tell from the shape of my nipples that I don’t.”

Once all the personal details have been supplied the conversation turns to our experiences in Kayseri and how we like Turkish food. We all say it is wonderful and the women offer us some of their food. They offer us hot pickles, which I love, so I eagerly take one. Susan looks at them with some disgust and asks what they are.

“They’re pickles, they’re called turşu. Take one. Oh, they’re usually hot, spicy, you don’t like hot food do you?” When she nodded in the negative I urged her to take it anyway. “Go on, just smile, put it in your mouth and when they’re not looking spit it out. There’s a bin over there. Just make them happy.” Despite her reluctance she did as I suggested. The pickles were really hot and just having it in her mouth was too much for her. Luckily the women didn’t see her spit it out, but when she said no to another one they didn’t insist. I loved them and ate what was offered.

Our friendship established, the three women went to join the rest of their family eating lunch on the central slab. They were really well prepared, with huge jars of homemade pickles, stacks of flat bread, olives and cheese. All of them sat or lay back on the marble, leaning companionably against one another looking for all the world as though they were at a picnic. However they weren’t in a park, but a hamam, and were taking up the space meant for kese and massage. When the masseuse came she tried to move them but they refused, so my first kese took place on a low marble slab by the wall. First she washed the area well and then indicated I should lie down. I lay on my stomach and she began to scrub my thighs. The pressure was strong and almost painful, but just as it became too much she softened her scrubbing. With an abrupt movement she spread my legs and scrubbed my inner thighs and I had to grit my teeth as she did so. Then she pulled my underpants up my buttocks and proceeded to scrub there. After she finished my legs she moved on to my back, pulling my pants down, making sure she didn’t miss anywhere. After a while, under the pressure of her hands and the rhythmic movements I was lulled into a trancelike state, punctuated by water dripping on my head from the walls above and the sounds of water elsewhere in the hamam.

A tap on my back was the signal to turn on my side so she could continue. She continued working around my thighs and calves, and then moved up to do my ribs and the sides of my breasts. These are areas I wash every day in the shower but having them scrubbed was different. It doesn’t exactly hurt but the feeling of the mitt on your ribs and breasts is odd. It’s not unpleasant, but it is something you want finished quickly. Soon enough it was over and I was lying on my back. I was pleasantly drowsy and not paying much attention to my surroundings. Suddenly the bride came over and before I could protest, popped a piece of pickled cucumber in my mouth. It was so unexpected that I started to laugh but the pickle was so hot I couldn’t. I swallowed it quickly and turned to nod my thanks. Catching my movement the masseuse followed my glance and commented about the group on the marble. She was annoyed with them for taking her workspace, but indulgently so.

By this time she’d finished my torso and was working her way down my body. My underpants were still pushed down at the back and wedged up my bottom, and now she pulled them down past my hip bones as low as was possible without being indecent. I didn’t have time to react to the discomfort because she was scrubbing away at my hips and lower belly and it was hard not to squirm. Then she plunged to my inner thighs again and I had to ask her to scrub more softly. It was excruciating but exhilarating as she scrubbed the dead skin off parts of my body, which rarely if ever saw the light of the sun. 

Grabbing my arm and tapping my leg again I realised it was time for me to sit up. This was the first time in the whole experience that we’d actually looked each other in the eye…

Gallivanting around Galata

Imagine the time - more than twenty years ago. Imagine the place – Istanbul, Eminönü and the old Galata Bridge over the Golden Horn.

Fishermen in Karaköy, the new Galata Bridge in the background

 “Up on the terrace of the hostel, the six of us ploughed our way through three bottles of reasonable red wine and one or two bottles of remarkably cheap Black Sea cognac, before taking off on an inebriated wander through the city. After following the tram tracks from Sultanahmet all the way down past the now closed and silent buildings to the water’s edge, we kept Jane company as she waited for a dark skinned young boy to carefully pick out the plumpest of the rice stuffed mussels from his round tray. He handed them to her only after he had solemnly drowned them in freshly squeezed lemon juice. He, along with a growing number of Turkish men, dressed much like the touts I’d seen in Marmaris, watched attentively as she downed mussel after mussel.

After farewelling the large crowd that had gathered, we somehow ended up in a tiny Turkish bar under the Galata Bridge. The bar was only about twelve feet by twelve feet, with an incredibly low wooden ceiling and walls that made it look like a sauna. Even I could only just stand upright in the small space, and it was like being Alice and we were now in Wonderland. This feeling was reinforced by the tiny stools we had to sit on and the way the bar appeared to sway. Given the amount we had already drunk, it would have been natural to assume this was a side effect, but after a while I realised that wasn’t the case. The bar, like the bridge it was attached to, was suspended over the Golden Horn, and it really was swaying. Every time the water moved, so did we. The bizarre atmosphere became even more so when four enormous and frankly frightening looking Turkish men drinking beer at the table next to us decided to engage us in conversation. The lack of common language was no deterrent, and as time and more of the terrible watered-down beer passed, we discovered they were Turkish wrestlers. We spent hours playing a tortured form of charades as they mimed tales of their wrestling triumphs.

The next morning I was very hung over…”

That was an excerpt from my new manuscript ‘Where the Tulips Dance: Finding the Heart of Istanbul’. If you like what you read and you know a publisher who’d be interested, please put us in touch with one another. 

Now scroll down to see some of my latest photos from a walk starting in Karaköy and on through Galata before heading back to the Galata Bridge.

The über cool Julian Meinl cafe in Karaköy, where...

... fashion meets coffee.

     Continuing on with the trend of stylish inner city living, we come to the wonderful Doğan Apartments on Serdar-ı Ekrem Street. Built in 1895 in an Italian architectural style, the original owner was a man called Kazim Taskent. Today they stand as a reminder of Istanbul's long cosmopolitan history, but tragically they are named after his son Doğan, who died while skiing in Switzerland. 

     There are  51 apartments and two shops in the apartment complex. The blocks are built around a large internal courtyard, and they once boasted their own tennis court. Now the area where the tennis court stood is used as a carpark. Major restoration work was carried out in 2001 and the apartment block is now a popular location for film shoots.

 The Crimean Memorial Christ Church tucked away in a side street. This is a poignant reminder of the losses sustained by the English, Russians and many other countries in the 1850s. If you want to know more visit the Crimean War Cemetery on the Asian side of Istanbul just near Haydarpaşa Railway Station.

   

Back to everyone's favourite - Galata tower

 

Back at Galata Bridge where the same fishermen stood. We feasted on a dinner of calamari and sea bream. Sadly, the incredibly cheap Black Sea Cognac doesn't seem to be available any more so we had to make do with beer and raki.

How To Improve Your Turkish

If you want to know how to improve your Turkish, I have one word for you. Bureaucracy. Forget expensive courses and fancy textbooks. Just spend one day (or maybe a lifetime) trying to get anything of a bureaucratic nature completed, and you’ll be as fluent as any native born Turk. By the time you’ve asked the same person the same thing on yedi separate occasions (and received sekiz different cevap) or the same thing seven times to eight different people (and received numerous different answers) you might need psychiatric treatment, but your Turkish will be better. I guarantee it.

I recently started a new job at a government university. Uni jobs in Turkey come with a lot of perks, like discounted transport, cheap holiday accommodation and subsidised lunches. This being the 21^st century, the days of giving a man at a desk at the entrance to the personel yekekhane your staff number before tucking into a hearty meal have long passed. Now you need to have a university kimlik card, which not only acts as an identity card, it also works as a sort of credit card you can use to buy food and stuff on campus.

Now, getting the card is a great example of Turkish bureaucracy in action. The first place you get to practice your Turkish is in the office of the nice little man who does all the paperwork for your department. You carefully explain you want to get your university card and he writes down the name of the person you need to talk on a very small piece of paper. As he explains the location of the personel dairesi, you realise that learning prepositions really isn’t that difficult if you use mime at the same time.

After you track down the building and the right floor, you ask every one you meet as you wander up and down the corridors of officialdom, where you can find so and so’s office. By the time you locate it, using one of those pesky prepositions you didn’t know before, you can ask the question perfectly. Once you enter the office you practice saying Kolay gelsin, hoping your good wishes to the clerks in the room will make them want to help you. Maalesef, that is, unfortunately the only person who doesn’t smile back at you is the person whose help you need. After an unbearable 10 minutes of making your request over and over in the hopes she might say something to tell you she understands what you’re saying, the woman grunts at you and tells you to come back in 10 to 15 days. It’s not until you’re back out in the corridor again trying to find the exit that you realise the one word you didn’t really hear was iş. Adding this to what you did understand means you have to wait 10 to15 working days.

In Turkey, it’s better to think of 10 to 15 working days as closer to 20, just in case. When the 20 days have passed (give or take a bayram, that is a holiday day or two) you go back to the first little man who likes you now because you always say kolay gelsin and ask him about his tatil/hafta sonu/gece (holiday/weekend/evening). He rings the woman who doesn’t smile and you desperately (and obviously) eavesdrop on his end of the conversation. He speaks too quickly for you to understand much, but when he says the word çikmiş you initially panic. Luckily you realise he’s only using reported speech because although the card has been issued, he hasn’t seen it for himself. Thankfully he’s not using the miş tense because he isn’t sure that what he’s being told isn’t true.

After more instructions (and prepositions) you find the little bank kiosk next to (not behind as you first thought) the cafeteria. There a friendly man sits you down, asks for your TC Kimlik numerasi and to look at your ikamet. After showing him your government identity number and retrieving your residence permit from your wallet he has you sign something in four places. Even though your Turkish has improved a lot, it’s not that good yet, so you blithely sign away without reading anything. Then he gives you your lovely new university identity card with your photo on it, the one you had taken after going to the hairdresser. Where you practiced your Turkish. The nice man then goes on to explain a lot of things, in some detail, and at some length. After several goes you realise you need to get a şifre to activate the card. With a pin number you can put money on it and then buy things, like lunch for example, on campus. First he says you can get a şifre by texting the bank. This being Turkey he offers to do it for you and you agree. After thinking of and telling him a pin number not related to any of your existing account (hey, he seems nice but still!) he sends the message but maalesef, unfortunately, the bank won’t give you a pin number via a text message. You have to go to the bank, to a particular branch, for them to güncellenecek your mobile number. It doesn’t seem logical that they can update your mobile phone number when they don’t actually have it on record, but now is not the time to question his use of the word update. Instead you go back to your office to ring the bank for yourself.

By now you have plenty you can say in Turkish about the weather but the most important thing is that it’s stinking hot, and you don’t want to schlep down to the bank if you don’t have to. Instead you ring their central number and decide to take the easy way out by pressing 9 for English. When the nice young man speaks hesitantly to you in slow but correct English, you respond in kind. After all, you are an English teacher and it can’t hurt to be nice. Once more you go through the whole process with him, why you are calling and what he can do for you. First you send a text message (the same as the one the other guy sent) and once again you learn that a pin number can’t be issued over the phone (which you already knew). Then he tells you yes, you do have to go to the bank, and to that particular branch. When you tell him you have your university card, government identity number and residence permit to show at the bank, he tells you that will be enough. Just to make sure you ask him if you need to take your passport with you and he says no. You’re really happy when you hang up. It’s a win-win situation, he gets to practice his English and you get confirmation that you understood the man at the bank office on campus. It’s like taking Turkish lessons but without the hassles (and expense) of registering for a class!

Buoyed by your success you walk for 15 minutes in the heat of the day, trying to find as much shade as possible. You are pleasantly surprised, but hot, when the bank actually turns out to be at the address you were given. This isn’t something you can always count on in Turkey. Once inside you bask in the lovely cold klima, and slowly read the choices on the ticket machine. Finally you press the best option for an individual, bireysel muşteri and use your TC kimlik numerasi to get a number. Luckily you only have to wait a few minutes before you are at the counter, explaining that you’ve started a new job at the university. You show your new uni identity card and explain that you need a pin number. You tell the woman you tried to register by phone but the bank doesn’t have your mobile number on file. When you finish you smile expectantly at her.

She tells you you’re in the wrong queue. You follow her pointing finger and say hello to the five men already waiting to be looked after by one woman sitting at a row of four desks. You practice numbers by establishing who is last in line. By the time it’s your turn again it’s much easier the second time around to explain in Turkish why you’re here. The clerk has you sit and takes your university card from your outstretched hand. Next, she asks to see your passport. You tell her you don’t have it with you, and that the man at the bank’s central office told you it wasn’t necessary. Maalesef she says. She needs to see the actual passport or she can’t register your phone number and then issue you with a pin number. You tell her you know the number of your passport, you can give it to her. Maalesef she says with a sigh. You tell her foreigners can’t be issued with a residence permit unless someone in a government department somewhere has seen their passport. You ask her why not just accept your ikamet as proof of who you are? After all, other banks and departments do, although admittedly not all of them all the time. The same goes for the government identity number, you can’t get that unless you have a residence permit and you can’t get that unless, well you know… But maalasef (by now you have come to hate that word), unfortunately without your passport they can’t güncellenecek your phone number even though they never had it in the first place, you can’t get a pin number, so you can’t put money on your card and buy something, for example, lunch, which you should have eaten hours ago. There is some good news in all this. It turns out you don’t have to come to this particular branch after all. When you get your passport, you can go to any branch, even the branch a minute’s walk away from your home, and get your pin number there.