Bayram Vacation, Part 2: FOOD!

(Read Part 1.)

As I said in the previous post, the food at Aqua Fantasy was all-you-can-eat-and-drink. The buffets were incredible! Besides traditional Turkish food, they also offered more Western-style food than I had ever seen in Turkey before: things like fried chicken fingers, cheesy garlic bread, Italian pastas, rich desserts, and they even served sweet potatoes one day! This is the buffet room:

The four islands in the center were for Turkish salads, fresh veggies, soups/breads, and hot dishes. Then along the left side was a series of cooks making fresh items (like omelets for breakfast), and along the right side was a ridiculous dessert buffet.

They really worked hard to make the displays both beautiful and tasty!

I took this picture on Friday, the day they celebrated Kurban Bayram (the Sacrifice Holiday), and they had this whole roasted lamb there on the counter, and the guy was serving lamb meat there. I said it looked like "roast beast!"

Justin was exceptionally happy to be able to find foods he loved that I would never cook at home. I took this picture of him with the plate below on Friday, the day they served the Bayram lamb.

On his plate are rice pilaf, roast lamb, fried crab meat, sardines, and fried chicken livers. Hey, he was happy!

Then as if all the savory dishes weren't enough, we discovered a guy making fried ice cream for dessert!!

So in addition to the ridiculous buffets for three meals a day, there were also snack bars near all of the pools that were open in the afternoons. Every day for Elias' afternoon snack, we went to the one right outside our room and he got waffles with honey!

That is one happy, sticky boy. :)

This snack bar also served the best pizza I've ever had in Turkey, so I always enjoyed a slice of that for afternoon snack! So thankful for being provided this complimentary week of great food!!

Click to read more: Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

A Tale of Two Holidays

(Justin) The neat thing about Turkey is the co-existence of religious reverence and secular democracy. We experienced it firsthand this week: 

A local supermarket advertises options for your sacrifice holiday.

The Muslim world was geared up for Eid al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice, where Muslims celebrate Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Ishmael. (FYI-- Abraham's birthplace is located in modern southern Turkey.) Schools, banks, and other institutions were closed last week from Wednesday to Sunday (plus Monday, see below). To celebrate, families typically gather together from all over for a large meal. There is often a live animal slaughtered for the meal and also for ritual sacrifice. For example, there is a large place on the western outskirts of Ankara (and other parts of town) where cattle and sheep are sold for slaughter and you can either take the cow up to the hillside to be sacrificed or pay for someone to do it for you. Other people will simply buy meat for the meals from their local butcher. Families distribute some of the meat to the less-fortunate, and there are charities that collect money for the poor if you aren't distributing anything yourself. Children may get candy and other sweets. Here's a good post by an ex-pat woman who has often taken part in the holiday rituals. Those who don't have family obligations seem to travel to the beach or elsewhere for a nice vacation, which is what we did.

Because Muslim holidays revolve around the lunar calendar, the holiday moves around and this year buttresses October 29th, Turkey's Cumhuriyet Bayramı or "Republic Day," which commemorates Atatürk's declaration in 1923 that Turkey was officially a republic. This is one of the biggest secular holidays in Turkey and an important day for Kemalists, those who want to preserve the legacy of Atatürk and his principles to guide the country. There are typically ceremonies honoring Atatürk at all the schools (even though they are closed, students and faculty attend a ceremony in the morning), a ceremony at his grave with air force flyovers, and banks and such are closed.

Banners of Atatürk like this one and Turkish flags will be flown all over town on Monday.

However, this year there was some clash of political ideologies. The current ruling government is not the party of Atatürk and is more religious conservative. They have made some changes to how Turkish national holidays are celebrated. This has led to some restrictions on marches and other demonstrations were planned for Monday. Ankara's mayor sent out a notice for schools to remain closed on October 29th and not to celebrate Republic Day until October 30th (as part of their normal school day). However, the school I work at is very Kemalist and held Monday's ceremonies as planned (after all, everyone had already made their travel plans around being back at school for the 29th).

In any case, it was interesting to experience two of the biggest holidays in Turkey together over the course of six days.

Bayram Vacation, Part 1: Aqua Fantasy

Justin mentioned in a previous post that although his job is difficult, it also has some amazing perks. Last week we received the ultimate of all perks - the school sent their faculty and families on a 5-day vacation to the Western coast of Turkey (a place called Kuşadası, near the large city of Izmir) over the holiday! All we had to do was purchase our airfare, and EVERYTHING else was covered for us. What a blessing!

Like father like son on the flight from Ankara to Izmir (both reading the in-flight magazine). It was just a 1-hour flight, then there was a 1-hour bus ride to get to the resort. Not bad at all!

We weren't sure exactly what to expect, but it turns out that this place was called Aqua Fantasy, and that is an apt name for it. This place really was beyond our wildest dreams! It's an all-inclusive resort where you wear a wristband that enables you access to everything the resort offers: hotel room, all-you-can-eat-and-drink buffet for all three meals and snacks, 10 pools (indoor, outdoor, kiddie, etc.) with water slides, one of the largest waterparks in Europe, a beach (on the Mediterranean Sea), live entertainment, and much more. This resort is obviously geared toward foreigners - all the signage was in English, and almost all of the staff there spoke English as well.

There will be a long series of blog posts showing our vacation, so I thought I'd start with the accommodations.

Our hotel. (Image borrowed from here.) We actually never swam in this pool because the water was COLD and there were plenty of other options.

The place was just massive. It was a fair hike to get from one end to the other, and you can see in the photo above that there was a handy bridge across the center of the pool that took us from our building into the dining hall.

Justin & Elias on the bridge

We were given a Family Room, which means there was an extra bed for Elias, and his part of the room had rolling screens that could close and give privacy between the two sections. That was great!

View from the hall door. You can see the brown sliding doors in the middle.

Elias' section of the room also had a little couch that could've folded out to make another bed to accommodate more people. He just enjoyed playing on it. And there was a little table and cabinet that were perfect for his toys!

You can't see it in the photo, but the bathroom had a full tub, which is actually kind of rare in Turkey. A lot of places (our apartment included) only have showers. So this was a huge treat for Elias to get full baths!

They even had a complimentary fruit plate waiting for us! That's the kind of place this was!

Click to read more: Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Kid Project: Cheese Fondue

(Joni) I thought that since some of our blogging audience is people who live in Turkey (or other international places), I would post things like recipes and fun kid projects - things that might be helpful for other expat mamas like me! So I'll include not only what we did, but also the Turkish names of things in order to help other mamas that might be trying to reproduce the activity here. Even if you don't live in Turkey, though, it might still be an idea for you!

My 4-year-old son doesn't like crafts, so it's sometimes a challenge to find fun projects to do with him. However, one thing he and I share is a love for cooking! So I try to do things in the kitchen that he can help with, and we have fun together. One kids' magazine we subscribe to and love is Highlights High Five (Huge thanks to my in-laws for receiving it and mailing it to us over here!), and each month they have a kid-friendly recipe. Elias and I have made a few of these (see one here), which are always fun and tasty too!

This Cheese Fondue recipe is actually from the September 2011 issue. Elias has been asking for months if we could make it, but we can't buy apple cider here, so I didn't think we could. However, the inspiration struck me that I bet we could make something from apple juice that would work, so I searched for a recipe. I took my inspiration from this recipe (by an expat in Germany!), but ended up pretty much making it up. I only needed 3/4 c. of cider, so I ended up just using 1 cup of apple juice and 1/2 tsp. of pumpkin pie spice (which I had brought from the US). I didn't want the cider to be grainy from the spices, so I emptied out a tea bag, put the spice in, and then folded and sealed it with a staple.

That ended up working VERY well to let the flavor of the spice into the cider without the spice chunks. (A coffee filter would work as well, but we use a French press for coffee and therefore don't have coffee filters on hand.) I simmered it with the lid on for only about 10 minutes, but it still evaporated quite a bit. I ended up adding more juice to have enough to make the fondue with. It was tasty, though!

So now that we have our "cider," here is the recipe. My comments are in italics:

Ingredients

• bread (I used 4 slices whole wheat bread. We also used some little cracker sticks - kepekli çıtır çubuk - for dipping too, which ended up being Elias' favorite part.)
• vegetables (I used 1 large cucumber, 2 small green peppers, and about 1/4 small head of cauliflower.)
• fruit (I used 2 large apples)
• apple cider
• grated cheese (This would be stellar with mild cheddar cheese, but we can't get that here. I used 1 c./2 slices Turkish Cheddar and 2 c. kaşar. The melted texture was a little weird, but it tasted great. If any of you Turkish folks try this recipe and find a cheese that works well, let me know!)
• cornstarch (mısır nişastası)

Directions
Before you begin: Adult: Make some toast.
1. Cut the toast, vegetables, and fruit into long, thin pieces. (We had brought with us Elias' Pampered Chef My Safe Cutter, and this was the first time he used it! He helped me slice the toast, cucumbers, and cauliflower with his own cutter!)
2. Pour 3/4 c. apple cider into a pot.

Elias mixing the cheese and cornstarch. You can see our beautiful plates of chopped items ready for dipping!

3. Mix together 3 c. of grated cheese and 1 tbsp. cornstarch. Adult: Bring the cider to a boil. Add the cheese mixture and stir over medium-low heat until the cheese melts. Pour the mixture into a small slow-cooker or fondue pot.(We don't have a slow cooker or fondue pot, so I just poured it into individual bowls and that worked fine. It ended up being the perfect amount for the 3 of us to have for lunch.)

Dip in!

Halloween Party at Elias' School

(Joni) Although Halloween isn't celebrated in Turkey, Elias' school teaches American holidays. So they'll celebrate Christmas, Easter, Valentine's Day, Columbus Day, etc., and they've also been learning about Halloween - things like pumpkins, ghosts, bats, and saying "Boo!" Next week is a huge Muslim holiday, and Elias' school will be closed all week, so they chose to celebrate Halloween a little early with a party on Friday. The parents were invited to come see the kiddos dressed in costume and having a little presentation. It was fun! Each class had their own party, so this is just Elias' Pre-K class.

First the kids paraded out and showed off their costumes (Elias borrowed a Thomas costume from some friends.), and then their teacher, Ms. Janet (an American), made a little introduction.

Ms. Janet is the one in green. The other lady in the witch hat is Ms. Olga, the school psychologist and phonics teacher. Elias really likes both of these ladies! Elias is seated on the far right.

Then each child came up to the microphone and introduced themselves in English by saying "Hello, my name is ____. I am __ years old." Only a couple of the kids actually seemed to know what they were saying. My child is the only native English speaker in the class - I think the rest are Turkish - and he didn't speak clearly into the microphone either!

Standing on the far left is Ms. Ebru, the school principal/owner. Also notice the father in front using his iPad as a camera. I laughed at the number of smartphones and tablets being used as cameras there! I was the dinosaur using a real camera!

Then they sang a few songs in English, some about Halloween and some just kids' songs. Below you'll hear parts of a song about feelings - I make a happy face, I make a grumpy face, etc. - and Farmer in the Dell. Elias doesn't like to sing along, but he obviously enjoyed watching his friends' performance! Some of them were quite enthusiastic! You can hear the parents laughing. :)

School Halloween party from Joni Tapp on Vimeo.

Then there was a big spread of snacks and treats, which was enjoyed by all.

Elias loved the marshmallow pops on a stick! He also loved wearing the Thomas costume - he didn't want to take it off to go home! (But I insisted - no way I'm taking him on public transportation wearing that costume.)

And they sent each child home with a great bag of Halloween-themed crafts they had made at school and lots of candy.

Counter-clockwise from top: Monster bag, bat, and jack-o-lantern crafts made at school; Hershey bar ghost from Ms. Janet & Ms. Olga; Pumpkin cookie on a stick; Pumpkin bag of candy from Ms. Ebru; Fruit by the Foot

Fun!

More lessons from Turkish education

(Justin) I just finished my 4th week of teaching. I'm slowly learning classroom management; it's a real challenge to keep kids engaged and come up with fun and short activities. Discipline is an issue because kids are still deciding whether to take me seriously. As mentioned in my previous post, some classes have significant challenges. Here are some stories from school so far:

Attendance is somewhat arbitrary. Next week the country will be on holiday from Wednesday to the following Monday, but some parents are leaving for overseas trips early, meaning some kids are going to miss almost two weeks of school. I had one student show up in the 3rd week of school because his family was still on vacation at the beach. No worries, it's allowed.

Last Friday as I was getting ready to start my last class, a parent walked in with a large birthday cake, drinks, cups, and utensils. She announced that we were having a birthday party for her son that hour. (The homeroom teacher of this class is long gone by my lesson time.) So...I guess I have to cancel class, and now I have to help manage 17 rowdy kids with a party. One of my colleagues, the native Turkish teacher who teaches English reading and writing came running in and graciously helped. She later explained to me that this mother is crazy and when she saw her in the hallway she helped stave off a confrontation between the mother and the principal, who didn't give permission for the party much to the mother's fury. The kids enjoyed the party but later demanded more treats. (Grrr.)

I have one group of 3rd graders that makes their homeroom teacher cry; she says it's the worst class she's seen in 25 years. Their previous teacher quit halfway through last year, and apparently never instilled much discipline when she had the class. (Sometimes kids will have the same teacher 1st through 4th grades, meaning the teacher makes a lasting impact good or bad.) I've seen teachers and principals chew this class up and down with little result. I've seen one-on-one pep talks with kids with little result. There is no such thing as detention or suspension that I can tell.

Speaking of crying, I see a lot of it in all my grades. Some kids cry when they are made fun of. Others cry after they've been punched by someone whom they made fun of. Others cry when I start to drag them to the principal's office after repeated warnings. One 4th grade boy started crying just because one of his friends was crying, kind of like that scene from Kindergarten Cop. Boys and girls alike. Whenever one is crying, rest assured 10 kids will raise their hands and say "So-and-so is crying," until I deal with it...again.

Sometimes my classes will also get canceled due to an exam, field trip, or special lesson. I usually find out about it right when the class meets, though you think they'd send an email out or put it on the calendar. (Does this happen for roving teachers in the U.S. too?) We also have after-school meetings or seminars that aren't scheduled more than a few days in advance. I can get out of some of them but not most. People love to give long-winded speeches, and this happens often at gatherings, making them drag on. Apparently a faculty-parent meeting after school last week featured long lectures by the teachers to the attending parents, such that the meeting went for three hours. Fun times!

Thanks for tolerating my education observations. I should say that so far I enjoy my coworkers and bosses, and that there are perks to the job (more on those later). 

My Education in Turkish Education

(Justin) Many of you know that I now teach 2nd-4th grade English "Speaking and Listening" at one of the oldest and most well-known private K-12 schools in Turkey. This may end up being the toughest job I've ever had. My teaching experience is mostly with undergraduates, and while I've done some VBS and other summer activities with kids, I've not worked with young kids in a classroom setting. (And when I was in 2nd-4th grade I was the "mature" angel child that every teacher wanted as a student.)

A couple of the biggest differences between Turkish and American education that I've found most difficult so far (I'll post more later):
1. There is no "recess" hour where kids play on a playground. Instead, after each 40 minute lesson (and lunch) kids are allowed to run free in the hallways, yards, etc. for 10 minutes. This causes some tardiness, sweat, and blood that then has to be dealt with at the start of the next period. Last week, I had a student bust his head open on a door while running through the hallway. Dealing with him and his classmates' reactions were pretty much my entire lesson time. I'm thankful I can speak Turkish to get the help he needs or to at least try to calm the class down.

2. Teachers are required to do hall monitoring in all areas of the school before school and during the 10-minute recess periods and lunch. This means that on my duty days rather than prepping for my next 40 minute class, I have to run downstairs to keep kids from killing each other, then run back to class before the bell rings. I have to eat lunch quickly to get to my monitor position. I also have to make sure to get to school 30 minutes before the first bell rings to make sure the first students arrive okay (this will not be fun in the winter).


3. Special education is rare and offered only at specialized schools. Even if a student has a known learning disability or physical handicap, he will be with his class the entire day. Schools have psychologists on staff for consultation, but they are not special ed. teachers. Some students will have some remedial classes and tutoring in some subjects, particularly English, if they are not yet up to the school's standards. But students all receive the same lessons, so one has a wide range of student ability to teach to and it's hard. (In America, kids with speech or learning disabilities would be pulled out for at least some of their day in specialized small classes.) For example, I have some kids who I suspect are autistic, dyslexic, some with ADD or other disorders, and one who cannot see his book or the whiteboard unless his face is inches away from it. I have to give them the same lesson I give their classmates.

4. Grades are mostly arbitrary, primary students will at least receive a 3 (ie: C) in all subjects and no one is held back, he keeps going forward with his class. I heard some complaints about this from high school teachers during pre-year meetings, so I know it's similar all through 12th grade. It is perhaps worse in private schools because parents threaten to send their child to a competing school if he/she doesn't pass. There are exams and threats but at the end of the year...

5. Teachers typically get half or full-days off a week, depending on the schedule. That means a homeroom teacher gets to absolve responsibility for her class and go home at least once a week. Sometimes they go home if there is a foreign language or other non-homeroom class on the schedule the last couple hours of the day (even if school policy says otherwise). The kids are responsible for walking to another classroom if their schedule requires it and the homeroom teacher isn't there.


6. It's not uncommon to see 3rd-4th graders who only wear velcro or don't know how to tie their own shoes. I've tied a few shoes.

7. All schools begin every Monday with a flag-raising ceremony that features a singing of the national anthem. Primary students also say a vow to respect their elders and nation and such. Friday concludes with a similar ceremony. Since I have a class the last hour of Friday, I am responsible to walk them to the ceremony and lining them up (their homeroom teacher is long gone by then). It's the last hour on Friday so everyone is quite tired. I've memorized the Turkish national anthem so I can sing along. 

8. Our school sells junk food to all students at all hours of the day (while vending machines are common in U.S. high schools, they're not so common at lower grades). Little kids constantly have ice cream, candy, and snacks if their parents give them money. Combine that with the 10 minute free-for-all after every 40 minute class and you get a mess.

9. Most Westerners will tell you that there is little discipline in Turkish homes, so the parents expect the schools to instill discipline (this sounds like plenty of places in America, so I withhold judgment). Parents choose a private school like the one I'm at because discipline tends to be stricter than public schools (also sounds like the West to me). But I find discipline and classroom management to be the single most difficult thing I do.

I'm learning!