Turkish Muse

Kaffeeklatsch, and The Brownies That Went With It

So remember last month when I returned home from pilates class one morning to find that a neighbor had invited me over for coffee? Except it wasn't just one neighbor, it was all the women in the building sitting in a well-appointed salon wearing nylons and heels? And I had rocked up still in my sweatpants thinking I could gracefully defer the offer for coffee and come back another time?

No? Well, you can read that story here.

Since then, I have joined the ladies in my building every other Friday for coffee and sweets, swapping my usual work attire -- which, because I work at home, consists of the above-mentioned sweatpants or pajamas -- for dressy pants and a blouse. I sit and listen, they sit and muhabbet sohbet (chit chat) while I try to keep up and say something useful every now and again.

Last Friday, it was my turn to host, an event I have been nervous about for over a month. I decided to make my Pumpkin Spice Bread, which was specifically requested after I had given some as a gift to a few neighbors.

But just in case someone didn't like the combination of nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves, I also decided to go for something chocolatey, so I turned to my need-dessert-in-a-hurry recipe: brownies.

These are the simplest brownies to make. All you have to do is combine this, stir that, plop it in the pan and bake. The ease of making them, though, belies the chewy and light wonderfulness that they become.

Walnut Brownies
Adapted from Hershey's

113 grams (1 cup) butter, melted and cooled
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup cocoa
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Heat oven to 350 F or 175 C. Butter a 9-inch (22 cm) square baking pan.

Stir together butter, sugar and vanilla in a bowl. Add eggs, beat well. Stir together the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl. Gradually add this dry mixture to the egg mixture, beating until well blended. Stir in chopped nuts. Spread batter evenly into prepared pan.

Bake about 20-25 minutes, or until the sides of the brownie begin to pull away from the pan. Cool completely on a wire rack. Makes about 9 big brownies or 16 small ones.

Afiyet olsun!

I apologize for only posting recipes with cup and teaspoon measurements. Next month we are going to the states and I plan to buy a scale so that I can actually measure out the weight of all these ingredients, which will make it so much easier to convert, for example, a cup of sugar into grams. Until then, you can use a Turkish water glass (which holds about 6-8 oz) as a cup and a cay spoon as a teaspoon.

A Story in Which I am Invited to the Ladies Coffee Club

They were dressed impeccably, in black velvet pants and nylons and shiny patent leather high heels. Their hair was done up, curled just so and their lips painted in various shades of rose.

Immediately, I flushed. Having just come from Pilates class, I was wearing grey sweats and a purple t-shirt with a red cardigan over it. I was also wearing furry brown slippers. In no way was I prepared for whatever this was.

Hesitantly, I stepped into the salon, waving feebly. I sat down next to one of the women and looked around. Everyone was looking at me, smiling politely.

My neighbor brought me a coffee and I took it eagerly, grateful for something to do, something to look at other than my fuzzy slippers next to my neighbor's sparkly black pumps.

Just 10 minutes earlier I had arrived home from my early morning workout when Hanife Hanim, the cleaning woman, (yes, I debated and decided to hire one) told me that my neighbor across the hall had dropped by to invite me for coffee.

Really? I said. How interesting. I've only seen her a few times and I don't even know her name. How lovely of her to invite me over.

I had to start work soon, though, so decided to stop by and say thank you for the invitation but could we please have coffee another time?

I knocked hesitantly on my neighbor's door and prepared for what I would say. When she opened the door, I was greeted with a hearty "Hosgeldin!" and a heartwarming smile. She ushered me inside with a "gel, gel".

I had just opened my mouth to speak when she put her hand on my shoulder and extended an arm towards the salon. I turned to look and saw three of my female neighbors sitting there sipping coffee.

It turns out that I had just been invited to the bi-weekly coffee club for the housewives in my building. Unbeknownst to me, they meet every other week for coffee and sweets and gossip, switching houses each time. Yesterday was the first day that I was invited.

Over the next hour, we chatted about how to make homemade facial creams -- rose water keeps away crows feet, apparently -- and how much one woman's husband loves to sleep.

After some of this lovely chit chat, I poked my head into the kitchen to tell the host that I ought to be getting back to my computer.

She waved her hand away. Just have one slice of cake, she said.

Well, I really shouldn't -- wait, is that lemon? Well, I suppose a few more minutes wouldn't hurt...

This led to a spirited discussion of where to get the best slivered almonds in Izmir, an item of concern for me as I need to find slivered almonds for a French chocolate cake I plan on making this month.

Eventually, I did slip away, with promises to see them all again in two weeks at another neighbor's house. I came home and told Hanife Hanim about how I had really just planned to be gone for 2 minutes but...

Have you never been invited to one of these things? she asked.

No, I said. I have lived in Turkey for more than two years and I've never been invited. Of course, I've always been in an office during the day....

As she turned away, I asked if she and her friends did something similar.

No, she said. We're always working.

Cleaning considerations

Raise your hand if you enjoy mopping the kitchen floor.

How about scouring the bathtub?

Dusting the television?

No? Nobody? Yeah, I kinda figured.

Okay, even if you don't like it (or maybe you do, I'm not judging), do you still do it? Do you resign yourself to the fact that the kitchen floor simply needs to be mopped and, as the saying goes, just do it?

Because I am increasingly feeling like just not doing it altogether.

The first time Jeff and I hired a cleaning lady in Istanbul, I was thrilled. We came home from a garden party to find our floors swept and mopped, the windows washed and the dishes done. It was magical, just like being Samantha in "Bewitched" when she would snap her fingers and TA-DA! the house would be spic and span. Except without the snapping of fingers or twitching of noses.

I find myself torn yet again about hiring a cleaning woman to do what I am perfectly capable of doing myself but don't have -- or simply won't make -- the time for.

Though several Turkish friends of mine have pointed out to me that hiring a cleaning woman is simply a fact of life for many Turkish families and it provides much-needed income for the cleaning woman's family, I still cannot shake a small sense of guilt over paying someone to clean my toilet.

It seems so....so....upper-class, don't you think? Like, well, if we're going to have a weekly cleaning woman, why don't we also hire a butler too? Someone to hang my fur coat when I come in and hand me my gloves when I'm ready to go out. Because that's about where I put cleaning women, right up there with butlers and cooks and nannies and gardeners and all manner of domestic servants that I am by no means rich enough to hire.

And really, we both know what I'm going to be doing with the extra time allotted to me because I didn't need to wash the windows. Work on a cure for AIDS? Run an amazing non-profit that is ending hunger in Africa? Write the next great American novel?

Alas, I wouldn't be doing any of those things. I'd probably spend more time working and writing blog posts. Which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

And maybe having someone come in once a week would help keep my anxiety down, along with daily exercise and chamomile tea, of course. After all, I do get pretty high strung about the mess my cats make every. single. day.

All of this is to say: can anyone recommend a cleaning woman here in Izmir?

Number 129

Iceland (1) has claimed the top spot of the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index 2009 from Norway (3) which slipped to third position behind Finland (2). Sweden (4) completed the Nordic countries’ continued dominance of the top four. The report’s Index assesses countries on how well they are dividing their resources and opportunities among their male and female populations, regardless of the overall levels of these resources and opportunities. South Africa and Lesotho made great strides in closing their gender gaps to enter the top 10, at sixth and 10th position respectively. The Philippines (9) lost ground for the first time in four years but remains the leading Asian country in the rankings.

via www.weforum.org

The World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2009 (say that 10 times fast) is out and yikes. The results for Turkey? Not good. Not good at all.

Not that it is entirely surprising that Turkey's spot is 129 out of 134 countries in terms of gender equality, but seriously? Turkey's only one ranking higher than Saudi Arabia (130) and just three better than Pakistan (132)? Guess which country is one better than Turkey? IRAN.

Uffff....we got a looooong way to go, baby.

"Bliss"

You read about it in newspapers every so often. Maybe you catch a glimpse of a short segment on the news about it. Most of what you hear about it is through the prism of international news outlets, not local ones based in Turkey, or Jordan, or Pakistan, where so-called "honor killings" actually happen.

A 2007 Turkish film now in theatres in the US attempts to tackle the issue, which is often swept under the rug here in Turkey. So when a few weeks ago I received an email from Gigantic Digital asking if I would like to preview "Mutluluk" ("Bliss" in English) for Turkish Muse before its US release, I jumped at the chance. (Here I must apologize; I intended to publish this post before the movie's US release, but in the hubbub of our move, I never got to it.)

"Bliss", directed by Abdullah Oğuz and based on the novel by Zülfü Livaneli of the same name*, is billed as "one of the first narrative films to tackle the highly charged subject of honor killings". When Meryem is found unconscious by the side of the lake, disheveled and unable to remember what happened, her family assumes that her chastity has been lost and that she has brought shame to the family. They condemn her to death, but when Meryem refuses to take her own life, the task falls to her cousin Cemal who takes her away to Istanbul to complete the deed.

So far, so good, right? Then things get murky. I must disagree with the simple statement that the film talks openly about honor killings: "Bliss" does not deal with the reality of the subject of honor killings, or the custom of murdering a woman for dirtying her family's honor. Instead, it deals with the fantasy of what the director would like them to be.

The movie disregards the other, far more common instances that provoke honor killings: when a woman stays out too late at night, when she is seen walking with a man other than a close family member, when she receives a text message from a boy at school, when she is seen talking to a boy on the street.

The film, set against some of Turkey's most beautiful vistas with admittedly raw and convincing acting, is not real. At best, it is a fantasy; at worst, it is a joke. Women threatened with honor killings usually don't make it out of their situations alive, nor do they sail off into the sunset with rich benefactors and the love of their lives.

In this sense, "Bliss" is a great movie to export to foreign audiences; it paints a glossy picture over the harsh truth about honor killings. The movie disregards, almost trivializes, every other woman's experience of being told she must kill herself because she has "sinned."

Please don't take my word for this. See the movie for yourself, then come back here and let me know what you think.

To find out where the film will play in the US, click here. The film opened in New York City on Aug. 7 and will play in San Francisco, Portland and LA, among other cities. You can also "rent" the movie online for 2.99 at Gigantic Digital.

*Please note that this review is a critique of the movie, NOT the novel, which I have not read.

Bending it like Beckham, or trying to, anyway

When I was a kid, maybe around 12, 13 or 14, I spent a miserable two years playing municipal soccer. I can't remember why I decided to play soccer. I was already taking dance classes at the time, had been for years, and loved them. It wasn't as if I needed something else to do. But like most teenage girls in the suburban central Pennsylvania township where I grew up, I got roped into playing municipal soccer because, you know, I wasn't good enough to play for the school team. Soccer, and field hockey of course, are almost like rite of passages for middle-class teenage girls in the United States. They are the only girl-friendly sports you can play and girls are, in fact, applauded for doing so.

But I turned out to be a terrible soccer player. I played a position called halfback – is that what it was called? – and basically I ran up and down the field for an hour and a half. I couldn't play defense on account of having a peculiar knack for getting smacked in the face with the ball. I swear, that happened to me three times before the coach realized I SUCKED AND SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED ANYWHERE NEAR THE GOAL. Incidentally, this is the same reason I never played forward.

It took two years for me to finally quit soccer, at which point I happily returned to ballet and tap classes as my sole after-school diversion.

Despite my sorry experience with soccer, I am nevertheless delighted that Turkish women are beginning to play. It has always seemed odd to me that in a country full of futbol fanatics that girls didn't play. But now there's a new women's soccer league in town. Problem is, it hasn't been easy to get this thing up and running.

A recent article in the New York Times by Yigal Schleifer points out that though Turks are "soccer mad," "there is a deep ambivalence in this socially conservative, predominantly Muslim society about women playing the game."

The story goes on to quote Nurper Ozbar, the coach of Marmara Universitesispor, who says, "Football is seen as a man’s game in Turkey. We’ve had men come to watch our practices and yell at our players: ‘What are you doing here? You should be at home, cooking!’ It’s going to take time to change this.”

There are signs of hope though, particularly in a place called Sakarya outside Istanbul where some 3000 people attend games. It's a good start, but more work needs to be done to change people's perception of the effect playing soccer has on girls, the article points out.

Take, for example, Selin Odabas, who has been named to Turkey's national women's team. Selin's mother said she was afraid playing soccer would make her daughter a lesbian.

“In the beginning, we didn’t want our daughter to play,” Odabas [Selin's mother] said. “We were worried that it would affect her posture, her character, even her sexual orientation. We put her in volleyball, in track, but nothing could stop her.”

Right on, Selin.

Cüzdanı çalındı

One of the exercises in our Turkish 2 class a while back included a dialogue exercise of a foreigner in Bodrum who had lost her wallet. In the dialogue she goes to the police and answers a bunch of questions such as What color is the wallet?, Where do you think it was stolen? and When did you discover it missing?

At the time I remember thinking, wow, how calm everyone is being in this dialogue. The woman isn't noticeably worried or crying, the police are professional and helpful. Huh. I know, I know. It's just an exercise in a book meant to teach you about the words for colors and directions. But still I wondered if maybe I should rethink my generally wary and cautious attitude of Turkish police officers.

It's not that I don't respect Turkish police officers -- quite the contrary, in fact. I certainly do fear them; how can you not fear someone who struts around Taksim with a machine gun strapped to his belt? But I never really thought of them as particularly professional, given all the stories I've heard of people paying them off or bribing their way out of sticky situations.

Regardless, when my best friend discovered that her wallet, with her passport in it, was likely stolen Friday night, I knew we had to go to the police station. It's the American in us. First, you retrace your steps, scouring the ground for where someone might have flung the passport after taking the cash from her wallet. No luck there. Then we went to the police station in Taksim off Istiklal Caddesi.

As we approached the station where about half a dozen young police officers stood, I braced myself. I had no idea what to expect, but I imagined it might take a bit more finesse than I normally possess.

"Hello, my friend's wallet has been stolen. Can I make a report?" I asked the first man at the door.

"Is that your friend?" he asked, pointing to her. "Why doesn't she talk?"

"She doesn't speak Turkish," I said.

He waved us through inside the door where a plain-clothes police officer (I assume he was a police officer) grinned at both of us. I explained our predicament again and asked if we could make a report in case someone turned in the passport.

I've never lost my wallet or my passport -- knock on wood -- but I imagined that the police officer would immediately whip out a piece of paper and a pen and start asking me the questions I remembered from the dialogue in Turkish class. Not quite.

Instead, his first question was, did my friend cancel her bank cards? I explained that there was only one bank card in the wallet, and it was an ATM card, so it's unlikely anyone could figure out the code so soon. Anyway, I explained, we were more worried about the passport. My friend was supposed to leave on a flight to the US on Saturday morning. That didn't look likely.

The plain-clothes officer didn't make any effort at this point to take a statement or even our names. I wondered when we might be able to fill out a form with our information.

His next questions to us included: What jobs do you do in Turkey? Where do you live? Are you married? I hemmed and hawed my way through the jobs question, told him that I was married and my husband worked and that my friend, well ... she was traveling. The experience seemed kind of surreal in a way. Everyone was joking and grinning and I sort of kept wondering when we would get to the serious part. Finally, a police officer gave me a piece of paper told me to write down all of my friend's information, including her father and mother's name and her address.

All the while, they kept asking us if we were spies, or FBI agents, or no, wait, CIA AGENTS! I laughed and tried to explain that if we were, do you think losing our passport would be a problem? We'd get another one in an hour. I don't think they got the joke though.

Before we left, my friend asked how often they find missing wallets. Sometimes, was the answer. The plain-clothes police officer then said, If we find your passport before 9 am tomorrow morning, you have to take us to a meyhane (Turkish fish and raki house). We agreed enthusiastically, that if indeed they found the passport with enough time for my friend to get to the airport to go home for Christmas, we'd buy them a fish dinner and several bottles of raki at a local meyhane.

Funny thing was, nobody was joking.

Well, the passport was not found by 9 am Saturday, so no raki dinner for them, but I've just gotten word from my friend that she'll be picking up her new passport from the American consulate around 3 pm today. She'll still be home for Christmas.

Kina Gecesi

Saturday night I went to my friend's kina gecesi (henna night party). A friend I made in high school when I was an exchange student here is getting married this Saturday (yippee!) and last night I attended what I like to call the Turkish version of the bachelorette party.

I had NO idea what to expect, really. I read on the internet that we'd be going to the groom's house late at night and then banging on drums in front of his house while singing and dancing. Yeah, that didn't happen. My guess is that only happens in villages.

The party started much like any other, with the pouring of drinks (mostly cola, although one girl did bring her own bottle of vodka, which was weird) and snacks. We chatted -- well, they chatted while I tried my best to keep up with the conversation. It was VERY difficult. I understood about 50% of the conversations, enough to know the general topic, but not enough to get the details. By the time I did figure out what was going on and was ready to say something, they'd be talking about something else! Thank goodness I'm taking Turkish lessons again!

There was dancing, of course, and then finally all the girls, led by my friend Muge, trooped upstairs while she put on her kaftan, an elaborate costume of deep purple velvet with gold thread hand-made in Macedonia, which is where her fiance's family is originally from.

Each girl, including myself, was given a small red candle to hold. We formed a line with Muge, dressed in her kaftan and covered in a red, bejewled veil, in the middle and shouted to the women downstairs to turn off all the lights. Suddenly, we were bathed in darkness and I heard music coming from downstairs, a song called "Yuksek Yuksek Tepelere" by Candan Ercetin, which I highly recommend you listen to (for free) on YouTube.

Slowly, we descended the staircase into the living room. Muge sat in a chair in the middle of the room while we circled around her singing the song. Since I didn't know the words, I had a hard time following along, but I did my best: it's supposed to bring the bride good luck if all her friends sing along. And it's bad luck, I suppose, if your crazy yabanci friend doesn't!

The song, which I am listening to as I write this, is incredibly sad. With lines like, "Houses should not be built on hills..." and "I miss my mother, my father, and my village..." it's enough to make even me cry. Which is exactly what it is supposed to do, in fact. Making the bride cry at her henna party is supposed to bring her good luck. Don't ask me why.

With the lights off and about a dozen young women, myself included, holding candles and singing as we circled Muge, it felt to me like a seance, like a spiritual ritual. I was trying to absorb everything all at once: the words to the song, Muge's facial expression through her veil, all while trying my damnedest not to get hot wax on my hand, which I was afraid would make me drop the candle and set the carpet ablaze. (Which, ahem, I have been known to do before.)

When the song ended, the lights came back on and Muge's future mother-in-law decorated her left hand with the henna.

 

 

Then several of the girls lifted Muge up in her chair. To be honest, I'm not exactly sure what is happening here.

 

Burak, Muge's fiance, then got decorated with henna by his future mother-in-law.

 

Burak told me later on the car ride home, when he so graciously agreed to drive several of us halfway across creation, that the henna, which is green but turns to a burnt orange color on your hand, is supposed represent the sacrifice you make for your god, your country and your bride or groom. "I'd say 99% of Turks don't know that," he said, "but that's why we do the henna."

Preparations for Muge and Burak's wedding are nothing like what I went through two years ago. Jeff and I had already been living together for two years before we got married, so all we had to do was plan a simple ceremony and a big celebratory party. It was, relatively, quite easy. But Muge and Burak are literally moving into their new home the night of their wedding so they've been spending the last few months getting their new home in order, buying curtains, pots and pans and choosing furniture. So, as you can probably guess, they're both a little stressed and overwhelmed right now. But as I told Burak on Saturday night, despite the stress of planning, choosing, purchasing, accomodating family and working, he is going to marry his best friend, the one woman in the world who makes him happier than anything else. And that's worth all of it.

In need of advice

A old friend of mine from high school when I was an exchange student is getting married next weekend (my first Turkish wedding ever!) and this Saturday night she's hosting a henna party. Since I really have no idea what to expect, I googled "henna party" to get some basic information and was instead confronted with websites with posts like, "I've never really wanted a real tattoo but a henna one is right up on my alley."

Oh. dear. god.

I did find this website with the following photo:

 

Um, I don't have any dresses quite like that so I'm really hoping I don't have to wear one.

Have any of you been to a henna party before? What's it like? Should I bring gifts? Is there anything I should know in advance, a certain color I shouldn't (or should) wear?

I promise to post photos on Sunday!

Generation Faithful: Hard to Believe

"After I covered, I finally knew who I was."

That line comes from an article in today's New York Times spoken by a young Turkish woman named Havva Yilmaz who is altering the meaning of the words "modern" and "free" in Turkish society.

As a young Muslim, and one who is more devout than her parents, Yilmaz and her friends are fighting to express their religious beliefs in a country that is desperately trying to remain secular.

The article offers a different take on how I see the headscarf in Turkey. From where I stand, the headscarf looks to be more of a political symbol, a sign of rebellion against secularism and, I dare to say it, Kemalism.

I'll give you an example: On Saturday I began taking Turkish courses again and in my class is a young Indonesian woman named Fatima, probably in her early to mid-20s, who showed up on Saturday morning wearing a headscarf. As the class chatted during the third hour, getting to know each other and practicing our Turkish, she told us that she is engaged to a Turkish man whose mother and family want her to wear the headscarf.

"In Indonesia," she told us, "the headscarf is not a big deal. You can wear it or you don't. It doesn't matter. In Indonesia, what matters more to being a good Muslim is prayer and fasting. The headscarf doesn't make you more Muslim."

But in Turkey, Fatima said, her soon-to-be female in-laws don't pray five times a day, nor did they fast during Ramadan, but they are all adamant about wearing the headscarf. Fatima said she was shocked.

"They all parade around in their headscarves but they don't pray and they don't fast. Those are more important to being a good Muslim than this thing on my head." She continued that she wears the headscarf out of respect for her in-laws (she currently lives with them) but has trouble understanding why it is so important for them to wear it when they neglect other tenets of their faith.

Perhaps it is the act of wearing the headscarf that makes Fatima's in-laws think they are being Muslim. That is, by wearing the headscarf, they feel they don't have to pray or fast. The headscarf does that for them. This is what Jeff says.

Perhaps. But I think it's more than that. I think the headscarf is a religious symbol, yes, perhaps of how devout you are (as in Yilmaz's case) or how devout you wish you were (as in Fatma's in-laws' case), but I think more and more, the headscarf has become little more for many people than a fashion accessory or a political symbol.

I think in Istanbul the headscarf has come to represent a certain set of beliefs that are sometimes not Islamic or even religious. Perhaps to some women it says, "I believe in the AKP," and to others it says, "Doesn't my headscarf go great with this skirt?" Perhaps some women wear it to ward off unwanted advances from men or to cover up a bad hair day. (Okay, maybe not the last one.) Maybe some women wear it as a sign of personal freedom and are thus enraged to find that they can't wear them to school or university.

Personally, I think wearing anything on my head when it's not cold outside is absolutely ridiculous. The only reason to put anything on my head is to keep my body heat from escaping or to keep the rain off my hair. I don't want to broadcast my political or religious views to the world and I don't wear things that would lead people to assume them.

My view tends to be, to each his own. You wanna wear a head scarf because you think it makes you a better person? Fine. Because you think that your god thinks you're a better person? Ok. Because you want to proclaim your freedom to do so? Cool. Just do it quietly and don't look at me or any other woman like lepers because we choose not to wear headscarves.