Gender issues and seating arrangements

Here in Ankara, I will try to avoid sitting next to a man in the bus. Not because anyone would hit me, stone me, fine me or throw me out of the bus – in this big city of a moderately Islamic country, none of that happens. But still, I try to be prudent, and I have noticed that women tend to sit next to women, and men next to men.

In more rural areas, the men-with-men-and-women-with-women-rule is more important. Coming from Beypazarı, my (platonic) male friend and I encountered no problems sitting next to each other. However, the only vacant seat in the bus, next to a Turkish lady, remained empty, even when there were more passengers than seats in the bus. This was because all the ‘extra’ passengers were men. Only when a woman entered the bus, the seat was taken: men sit with men, women with women.

I have read that this rule is even put down in law: apparently, unmarried couples are not allowed to sit next to each other. When my boyfriend came to visit me, I was a bit nervous that this would mean that I had to spend the seven hour bus drive from Ankara’s enormous bus terminal (in size and design comparable to a moderately large airport) to Denizlı next to someone else then him. Luckily, the rule is rarely enforced, so I could spend the journey next to him. It didn’t make the trip more comfortable, but it did make it much more pleasant and fun.

Booking the bus ticket was quite an adventure, though. Because of a miscommunication, my Turkish colleague, who would book the tickets online for me, booked a one-person ticket. When finding this out the day we were supposed to take the bus, I frantically tried to call the only bus company who still had some tickets left. They didn’t answer. In the end, I decided to jump into a taxi and visit their office, in a last, desperate attempt to arrange the tickets. Their ‘office’ was tiny, and had one guy behind one computer, and one phone that wouldn’t stop ringing, but was completely ignored by the guy nevertheless. I wondered how to explain what I wanted to this guy, who of course didn’t speak any English, but he was very cooperative: he invited me to take his seat behind the computer, and let me fill out the form myself. When I really didn’t understand what he was trying to say, I called my colleague, who could translate. ‘What did he say?’, I asked my colleague later on. ‘Oh, nothing. That you are very beautiful, yadiya, bladida’. I wouldn’t qualify that as ‘nothing’!

I did have to indicate whether when booking whether we were male or female. If I would have booked the ticket alone, the seat next to me would be reserved for ‘women only’, to make sure I would not end up next to an unknown man. Quite a service.

The point of going to Denizlı was that it is very close to Pamukkale, which is a lovely town next to natural mineral baths. It also contains the remains of an ancient Byzantine town, including an ancient swimming pool, in which one can still swim. We were keen on taking a refreshing plunge, after walking in the burning heat for hours and hours, but the water was actually very warm: 36 degrees. Swimming wasn’t possible either: because of all the ancient columns that were lying in the water, one could either spend his time climbing over them, or just lying down on one and relax. I choose the latter, obviously.

But, the boyfriend left, and my work started to take up so much of my time, that relaxing trips to cute little towns don’t seem to be an option anymore. Even my evenings are spend either in Turkish class, or having drinks / dinner at some network event. Friday evening, I went to my first work-related dinner. We had lovely food (including tofu, yay!) in a lovely house. It was quite a formal dinner, so, contrary to the seating plan in Turkish buses, we were supposed to sit man-woman-man-woman. After the dinner, when everybody else went home to release their babysitter from duty, a friend and I got into a taxi and hit town. In Ankara’s nightlife, no formalities apply, nor any prudence about man-woman relations.

Saturday, we went for more relaxation, smoking water pipe. I’m fervently anti-smoking, but I did want to try this water pipe once, and it was quite nice. It is much more relaxed (you can just leave it for a while) and much more social (you can smoke it with several people) than smoking cigarettes. It will never really be my thing though.

Saturday night ended in a lovely, atmospheric restaurant called Aylak Madam, in Karanfil sokak. They had paintings featuring women all over the place. I asked and got some of their placemats, which are really arty, to brighten up my white walls. They had flowery, second-hand lounging chairs, where I sat with my friend, drinking tea and discussing gender issues. When I went home again, happily clutching my placemats, I found the bus quite full. There were some vacant seats, but they were all next to men – I decided to continue my prudence, and just stand the whole way.

When I came home, I put up the placemats with paintings of women. Only now I noticed that the poster someone who had stayed in my room before me had left, was a poster announcing a women film festival. Women for women. Women with women. Being in this country for a while now, I am starting to really realize for the first time in my life how blessed I am to have grown up in a country where gender inequality is hardly an issue anymore. Well, hardly… Friday, I talked to a professor, who has specialized in gender and politics. When I talked about the situation in the Netherlands, I felt a bit ashamed. My own country is scoring very badly on women participation in the labour market, and the issue is almost a taboo. But still, I have rarely felt discriminated against in my own country. At least I can just sit down wherever I like in the Netherlands, without thinking. It would be nice if the rest of the world would follow suit.

Integration

Well, life has really started again. On Monday, I suddenly found myself in a traffic jam; something I hadn’t experienced yet in Ankara. The embassy is suddenly filled with people again, and also the rooms in the institute I’m staying in, are filling up. To celebrate this boom of liveliness, I’ve decided to organize a social drink. Many people complain that Ankara is not an interesting city, because there is not much to do here, so I figured it would be better to create my own events. I’ve invited about everyone I’ve met so far. So, tomorrow in the Golden pub: be there or be square.

And finally, Turkish language course started. The teacher is a nice, rather severe young woman, who speaks Turkish and only Turkish. I couldn’t help laughing when she made us repeat every letter of the alphabet at least three times aloud: “lè! Lè! Lè! - Mè! Mè! Mè! – Nè! Nè! nè!” We had a hard time practicing the difference between the c and the ç. “Tsè! Dzjè! Dchè! Tchè!”, we tried, but she was not easily pleased. After three hours, she let us go.

It’s good to start learning Turkish, because, despite my last blog, life would get a lot easier if I would just be able to communicate with the average Turk in the street. For example, I tried to get from the embassy to my language course with public transport today. Now, most public transport companies in large, modern cities (what Ankara definitely is) have WEBSITES on the IN-TER-NET. Such a spiffy gadget helps citizens to find there way around town with public transport, because it indicates which bus goes where, and/or offers an online plan-your-travel tool. Not in Ankara though. So, trying to get around by bus means hoping you made a lucky guess, and writing down bus numbers everywhere you go, to remember for next time.

I had never been from the embassy to this particular point in town, but I thought it shouldn’t be too difficult. I clearly thought wrong. Asking people for information is hard if you don’t speak Turkish, because nobody here speaks English. They are very kind and patient though, so I was quickly adopted by two Turkish ladies, who did their best asking bus drivers, but apparently none of the buses which came went to the place where I wanted to be. After twenty minutes, I suggested to the ladies that I would take a taxi, but they looked unhappy with that plan. After thirty minutes, I was afraid I would miss my language course, so I tried again: “I, taksi”, and this time they seemed to agree. They had given up on the bus as well.

On my way back from the language course, I actually found the bus to my house not far from the language center. I had beaten the bus company once more. It drove off just as I reached it, and I had to wait for 15 minutes for the next one. When I entered the bus, the ticket man, instead of silently taking my money and giving me a ticket, asked me something in Turkish. Once again, I didn’t understand. Normally, I would smile and look helplessly, but now I had had enough of the combination Turkish bus + Turkish language. So I just pointed to his ticket booklet indicating I wanted him to give me a ticket, and sat down. Integration: it takes two steps forward and one step back to get there.

Single words

I believe the use of full sentences is overrated. I manage perfectly with just shouting out a few words.

This last week has been Bayram holiday: the holiday to celebrate the end of Ramadan. All government buildings were closed in Turkey, but our embassy opened again on Wednesday. We were with a handful of people, which made the atmosphere quiet, but also nice and informal. Due to the fact that the receptionist and every logical replacement for him were on holiday, I managed the reception desk for a day. Of course, I don’t speak Turkish, but a friendly colleague had learned me to say ‘call tomorrow’ in Turkish. So, if all else failed, I just shouted ‘yarın ayarın’ through the phone, and hoped they would understand.

The Bayram holiday offered a good opportunity to finally see some more of the city. With a German friend who studies (and thus speaks!) Turkish, I went sightseeing: we visited the museum for Paintings and Sculptures, which has a nice collection and no logic at all behind the order of the paintings; we went to the ethnography museum, which shows nice costumes and pottery, and a lot of pictures of Atatürks funeral (his tomb used to be in this museum); we went to the Parliamentary museum, which lacked information on vital politically-historical events in Turkey, but did display the shoes and pens Atatürk used to wear and use; and we went to see the ruins of a big Roman bath, diplaying the ingenious system of floor heating in Roman times.

And when Ankara started to feel too small for us, we decided to take a minibus (dolmus) and look ahead. Finding a minibus to Beypazarı, a nice small town with Ottoman houses, reminded me of how I once decided to go from Tbilisi to Gori in Georgia. It was 2009 and I was alone, and curious to see Stalin’s birth town. Georgian is not written with Latin letters, so next to not speaking the language, I was also not able to read it. I knew three things: 1) the name of the busstation from where minibuses to Gori would leave; 2) the Georgian word for minibus and 3) the name of the town I wanted to go to: Gori. So, I got into a taxi, said the name of the busstation, and viola: I was dropped off there. It was big and hectic. Then I started walking around, in this place where really no one spoke English, and all I did was repeat all the time: ‘Gori. Minibus’. People pointed at all directions, and at some point someone tried to get me into the big (and expensive) bus for Gori. So I shook my head and said: ‘minibus. Gori’. Believe it or not, but I found the right minibus, and spent an agreeable day in the only town in the world where they believe Stalin was a really cool guy. So again, you see: a few words can bring you a long way.

But so, we went to Beypazarı. It was a lovely town, with very nice regional specialities, mainly made from carrots. They have carrot lokum (Turkish fruit) and carrot juice. And one of the main roundabouts in town has a really big statue of… a carrot. Gotta love those carrots. We went to a museum there, where they showed us a traditional painting technique, and we were even allowed to make our own painting. Although the expected tip was extravagant, it did provide us with a nice, hand-made souvenir. We ate in a lovely restaurant, where they served home-made baklava (hmm!), gözleme (a pancake with cheese or potato) and ayram (a salty yoghurt drink which Turks, and only Turks, love). Then, we climbed up through the old town, where people stared at us, to the former castle, and endulged in Turkey’s national pastime no. one: eating sunflower seeds.

Another trip with the minibus brought us to Kızılcahamam, another nice town. It is surrounded by mountains, like Ankara, but unlike Ankara, these mountains are actually green. We went to the national park to breath in some fresh mountain air. However, all we breathed in was the smell of barbecue. Apparently, national pastime no. 2 is barbecuing, and a national park is an excellent location for that (risk of fire, anyone?). We had a hard time passing all the picknick benches, where hundreds of families were enjoying their kebap. A lot of them wanted us to join them and taste their food.

But, so much for the fun: Bayram is over and a new political year is about to start. This Sunday I have been to the congress of the Kurdish political party. It was interesting to see a political congress in Turkey. It was huge, warm, and there was a lot of dancing and food involved. After listening for a few hours, my colleagues and I went home again by taxi. I pointed the taxi in the right direction through hand gestures, paid him, and then asked for the receipt: ‘fiche, lütfen’. Yes, 10 words or so. Really all you need.

Getting around

“I’m going home now. I want to do some sports tonight”, I told my colleague the other day. “Oh, are you walking home?”, he asked. I told him not to be ridiculous: my house is a 10 minute drive away from the embassy, but walking, it takes about 45 minutes.

Inspired by this, I actually did walk home the other day. It was a very long walk along a very uninspiring boulevard. Towards the end of the boulevard is some governmental building, which means the road is lined with high fences, warning signs displaying soldiers with weapons (probably saying something like “don’t take pictures here, or this guy will shoot you”), and, behind the fences, real-life soldiers behind concrete walls, eyeing into the world suspiciously from underneath an iron helmet. Then, I took a right, where there is a military compound. Again, the signs with the ready-to-shoot soldiers are there. And some flat buildings which look like they have been imported from the Soviet Union.

Towards the end, it gets better: the walk is now leading along embassies, and views of the bare mountains surrounding Ankara are very pretty, especially towards sunset.

So yes, it is doable, this walk. If you have time and the sun is shining (which it has been consistently doing the past three weeks), it is actually nice. I’m not so sure about the walk from my house to work though. Because that one is up hill. And walking up hill actually means walking at a very steep angle up hill. The hills are so steep here, that cars often don’t make it to the top - so no wonder my legs had a hard time carrying ME to the top at first. But: if you train hard and persistently (and involuntarily, in this case), it will pay off: I can now walk from the supermarket back home without being out of breath at the end.

I have been making quite some long, hilly walks the past few weeks, which was mainly caused by the fact that I had to choose between either walking or taking a taxi. Now, taxis are not very expensive, and taxi drivers are ridiculously reliable here. They always take the shortest way possible, and make lengthy apologies whenever they take a wrong turn, and readily lower the metered price because of that. I have often had to bargain with taxi drivers in other countries, but never because I insisted on paying the price on the meter, and they on me paying less than that.

But even though they are perfectly reliable, I grew tired of taking taxis all the time. But today, I finally, for the first time, managed to take a bus home from the city centre. Yes, it took me a while to figure out the bus system, but it’s not my fault: there are probably hundreds of buses, and nowhere is any information on which one to take. There is no clear website for this, and the only information available about a bus is its destination - and maybe, if you’re lucky, the neighbourhoods it crosses. A neighbourhood here, however, can take hours and hours to cross on foot, so you don’t want to risk ending up at the wrong side of it. Nevertheless, I found a bus from the centre to my home today, and took it. I got out in front of my supermarket, feeling like I had beaten the Turkish bus system; despite trying so hard to discourage me from using it, I had managed to use it in my advantage. And so I walked home, smiling and humming, walking up that hill like I was Julie Andrews in an Alpine setting. Ankara’s roads - they won’t get any prettier, but at least I know how to find my way along them.

Ain't got no - but I've got so many other things

They say it’s an ugly town. I actually quite like walking home in the evening and seeing the town spread out in the surrounding hills and valleys. Quietly surrounding town are the mountains, bare and desolate. At dusk, the valleys become misty, and while Ankara town becomes darker, the sun puts a last spotlight on the mountains. And yes, local architecture mainly comprises flat buildings, but at least they are all painted in different, bright colours. If you have to live in a building block, better make it a colourful one.

They say it’s a boring town. I have been quite enjoying myself so far. It probably helps that I didn’t expect much. “The key of happiness is low expectations”, as my boss likes to say. I have been walking around on the broad boulevards, I’ve checked out the buzz in Tunali street, I’ve dined in lovely, luxurious, quietly hip and happening Filistin street, and I have taken a stroll through the old citadel with it’s old, lovely, winding, hilly streets and hidden corners.

They say traffic is horrible here. Well, I’ve seen so much worse. True – I don’t actually participate in traffic. I just get into a cab and put my faith in the taxi driver. And alright, the local driving style is rude and self concerned, and waiting in front of a red light is unheard of, but still, it is nothing compared to Istanbul.

Ah yes, that’s another one: they say it ain’t no Istanbul. Well, they are right there. Ankara ain’t no Istanbul. It’s a fully grown town of its own, quiet but lively, with it’s own pretty charm.

The new nobody

A little over 24 hours after being dropped of at my new place of residence, I was being picked up again to go to my first expat party in Ankara.

Diplomats, especially the younger ones, are an interesting sort of people. They have ‘success’ written all over them. They have been picked from among the brightest of people for their jobs, are well educated, well paid and have social skills in abundance. You would hate them for it – if only they wouldn’t be so bloody nice. They take any new person into their midst and take care for him, take him to their parties, advice them on where to go, where to drink, where to dine, where to sport and where to take their holidays, and entertain them with interesting conversation on politics, culture, art – mixed with refreshing anecdotes and jokes.

One can either be intimidated by it, or try to join in the fun. I tried the latter, but was quickly revealed as being only a beginner in this world.
- ‘So, which countries have you lived in then?’, the nice Belgian guy with whom I was having an animated discussion on countries and cultures asked me.
- ‘Ehrm, the Netherlands. I’ve been to Burkina Faso for six months, and I once was in Italy for a while…
He himself, of course, had lived in various countries, amongst them Bosnia during the war. It was rather impressive.
- ‘So, how long will you be staying for?’, was another question. ‘One, two, three years’.
- ‘Ehrm, five months. Well… almost five months. I’ll be home again with Christmas’.
Or how about:
- ‘So you are the new who?’ As people come and go in the diplomatic world, it is normal to introduce oneself as ‘the new…’ to indicate who’s place you took at your embassy. At least I knew the answer to that one:
- ‘I’m the new nobody. I’m just unique’.

Head first

“You have an appointment at 11 tomorrow morning at the embassy”, the head of my department told me yesterday in the car. He had come to pick me up from Ankara airport. “But, so, you’ll officially start tomorrow? Or Monday?”

I had seen this coming. Diplomats, themselves fully accustomed to change of country, climate and culture, often expect the rest of the world to be of the same sort. They can arrive at 3am in a foreign country, and be happily at work already at 8:30am next morning. Of course, I have grown to be more flexible with these kind of changes over time, but I’m still a beginner compared to them. However, I decided it would be good to have a look at the embassy, and that I would start working a week earlier than originally planned.

And well, now I’m here, I better get started as soon as possible. When arriving yesterday, feeling tired, overheated and having a headache, I started wondering why I had gotten myself into this situation again: having to start anew. Digging into a new culture, facing language difficulties and cultural misunderstandings, finding new friends. Looking for a supermarket, a simcard, a means of transport. Finding out about dress and behavioural codes.

But then... Then I had a good night sleep, and I met nice people. Some spoke Turkish, some spoke English, some even Dutch. But they were all nice and smiley and patient. And I realised again the importance of forcing yourself out of your comfort zone every now and then. It does require investing some energy, but it has a big return on investment.

And I found a supermarket, which was good. I hadn’t eaten anything until 2pm today, which was a great display of solidarity with the fasting Muslim community, but not something I was planning to make a habit of. And there is even a Starbucks around the corner: there is nothing like big, capitalistic, global food chains to make one feel perfectly at home.

So. There we go. Head first. Like a real diplomate. Hoşçakal!