Happy Ramadan Holiday

Or, Ramazan Bayraminiz kutlu olsun! (as they say here). Ramadan officially ended last night, and today was the first of the 3 day holiday celebrated after Ramadan ends. You heard about my iftar experience during Ramadan. Well, I wanted to include a brief picture of another way to do iftar:
That's right, our neighbors had their friends and family over for an iftar in honor of our neighbor who passed away a month or so ago. They couldn't all fit in their apartment, so the caterer came to our parking lot and they set up a sort of backyard barbecue-style iftar. The pictures were taken from our usual "spying location," our balcony.

Anyways, back to today's holiday. It's kinda like a cross between Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Halloween. The other name for the holiday is Sugar Holiday. People visit family, friends, and neighbors for 3 days. Guests are served coffee, candy, and dessert. Children stop at your door, and wish you "Bayraminiz kutlu olsun," and in return you give them a piece of candy (I love trick-or-treaters!) Today is the biggest day. Ninety percent of the shops are closed. We went out today, and everyone we saw was dressed up. If they can afford it, they usually buy a new outfit just for today. Today is primarily for spending time with family, and then the next 2 days you see friends and neighbors. So, it's been a quiet day for us, but the next 2 days should be busy.

A Little Taste of America

I guess it's kind of strange to say I went to a Mexican restaurant to get a taste of America. But it's owned by 2 Americans, the menu's entirely in English, and the waiters spoke English. The food was more of an approximation of what you get at Mexican restaurants at home, and to be honest, I can make better Mexican rice (then again, I don't like my rice spicy). Although the chips and salsa were great (you can't buy salsa here). Plus, they even had MTV on a big screen on the wall. Not that I love MTV. And our Turkish teacher was kind enough to speak entirely in English with us during dinner. I guess the plethora of English was enough to make a Mexican restaurant feel like America. I'll take what I can get occasionally.

Sahur

A couple weekends ago, we went to my Turkish teacher's house for a quick overnight trip. We were going to have dinner with her Fri night, and while we were making our plans late that afternoon, her family kept calling. Her aunt from out of town begged her to bring the foreigners so she could meet us, since she had never met a foreigner before. Finally, our teacher said to us "why don't we surprise my family and go to my house tonight, and you can have sahur tomorrow." Now, her family lives 2 hours away by public transportation, and none of us had a car, and my roommate had to be back by lunch time the next day. But we didn't want to pass up an opportunity to meet her family and have sahur (the before-dark breakfast they eat during Ramadan). So we through our things together and headed out the door at about 6:30 pm. On the way to the train, we stopped at a bakery and grabbed a large cheese-filled roll-type-thing for a snack. When we got to her house at 8:30, her family had leftovers waiting for us--beans, rice, bread, and salad. Then all the ladies gathered to watch a Turkish soap opera (which my roommate is now hooked on). After more chit chat (and lots of questions from her curious family), we headed to bed at the reasonable hour of 11. At 3:30 am, we woke up for sahur. All us ladies (our teacher, her mother, aunt, grandmother, older sister, my roommate and I) crowded around a kitchen table for breakfast. It was mostly quiet, since none of us were fully awake, except perhaps the mother who had prepared everything. Here's a picture we took of the leftovers at our second breakfast that day:


As with every meal, we drank tea with breakfast. I think I only had 1 glass, maybe 2 (they're small glasses). At 4:30, as with everyone else, I tried to go back to bed. It was futile. I didn't sleep again until we got on the train at 9 am. I enjoyed the morning immensely though. As the like slowly increased, I could hear the sounds of roosters crowing, then dogs barking, and later birds joined in chirping. When I went to the window, I could smell sheep. To the right were mountains, to the left was the Mediterranean. Finally, I saw the sheep. Not too long after, I heard their shepherd. Now, coming from suburban America, my images of sheep always came from these peaceful paintings in books. The shepherd I saw that morning was anything from peaceful. He was a cranky old man who spent most of his time yelling at his sheep and throwing rocks at them to get them to move! I almost laughed aloud, but I didn't want him to hear me. I didn't understand any words he was saying, but from the context it sounded like "Hey you stupid sheep, get away from that! No, no, stop that, go over there! Why do you keep walking over to that &%$! patch of dirt!" In the light of dawn, I couldn't get a good picture of the shepherd, but here's his sheep:


I couldn't help but think of the Good Shepherd that morning. As a pet owner, I always imagined that shepherds have this sweet natural loving bond with their sheep. In reality, shepherds are humans who get really fed up with having to lead such stupid animals to make a living. There is nothing naturally lovable about sheep (they're not cute and fluffy usually, either). The Good Shepherd doesn't care for us because we're lovable. But we can give thanks that He's a lot nicer to us than we deserve, and a lot nicer than human shepherds usually are.

Iftar

Last week one of our friends invited us to her home (she lives with her parents) for iftar. During the month of Ramadan, people fast during the day, but every night after dark they eat a big dinner called iftar. Fortunately, her mother is a wonderful cook. I came an hour or so before dinner to spend time with my friend while she helped her mother cook dinner. Above is the picture of the table. When I took the picture, they still weren't done putting all the food out! The round things in a bowl in the middle that look like rolls are called ichli kofte. The outside is a bulgur mixture to form the shell, and the inside is usually ground lamb with parsley and onions. This time it was made with ground chicken--delicious! We also had salad, bread, soup, dates, manti (like ravioli w/ lamb inside), chicken, rice, and an eggplant-lamb stew. Wanting to get into my Turkish experience, I also opted to drink ayran with dinner. Ayran is a drink made by mixing yogurt and water until you get a milk-like consistency. I actually like it in small quantities, since my mom taught me to eat plain yogurt as a child. It's very filling, though. Dinner was followed by tea, and then later baklava and chocolate cake. They know how to eat!

After dinner, my roommate and I went with our friend, her parents, and her little brother to a sort of ramazan festival they were having at the big park nearby. We enjoyed shopping at some of the booths, but the main attraction we were there to see was the Turkish folk dancing. Each region of Turkey has its own traditional dance with traditional costumes, and several of them were showcased that night. For your viewing pleasure, I've added a video! Don't forget to turn your sound on. To finish up the night, just in case we were still hungry, they took us to get ice cream.