Traffic wasn’t usually a problem until we were on the bridge, but one December morning, we came to a complete stop just a few blocks from our apartment.

“What’s going on?” Sankar asked, looking up from his text messages.

Up ahead, we could see a cherry picker truck. It seemed to be blocking a roundabout.. As we inched closer we could see a dense-looking artificial Christmas tree standing sentinel in the middle of the grassy circle. Perhaps fifteen feet in height, it was made of some kind of tufted green substance and blanketed with tiny white twinkling lights. A bright red, eight-pointed star already sat on top.

The tree had only about a third of its ornaments; this project could take awhile. What to do? Noticing a break in the oncoming lane, Ümit backed up a quarter car length. Then, with a snort of exasperation, he swiveled the steering wheel, turned sharply, and headed toward a different O-1 entrance ramp.

As we got into a long line of cars on the First Bridge, I pondered a Christian holiday causing Muslim commuters to be late to work.  I also thought about my job. My one-year contract would end in late January. I was a better teacher now, at least according to survey results I had just received. My students had given me above average ratings, and several had even commented, “She is a good teacher.” I was enjoying my coworkers. Six of us teachers who shared an office had become friends, telling jokes, passing snacks, and occasionally going out for coffee after classes. I was pleased to be included in this group. Everyone else was under thirty-five.

When ÖzU first offered me a teaching contract, I was so grateful that I thought, even if Sankar was transferred in the middle of a school year, I would stay and soldier on, finishing out the year, perhaps living alone in a small apartment on the Asian side. I thought the job would be just the thing for me: absorbing and fulfilling. And it often was. But it was also becoming too much. I was starting to dislike standing in the classroom for four hours each day and spending another three or four hours every day preparing. I was on a treadmill and I wanted off.

But the idea of not re-upping when my contract ended put me in a quandary. First, I had made a major fuss about getting work here in Turkey, and I had received considerable help getting a job. Second, work had carried me away from the boredom and frustration so corrosive to expatriate marriages. I actually believed it had rescued my entire Turkey experience. It had changed my focus from myself to my students. I had allowed me to have a professional experience just like Sankar. It had even boosted my self-worth, fragile after years at home raising kids.

Teaching here had also led to a significant personal discovery. Despite my struggles with unruly students, I loved the interplay of culture and language that teaching English as a Second Language involved. I wanted to pursue ESL teaching back in the States, and I planned take a certificate course when I returned, although I had no idea what my marketability would be at age 57. Now, with a year of experience under my belt, I asked myself: If I taught at ÖzU for another six months or even a year, would that increase my chances of getting a teaching job in Minnesota? I wasn’t sure it would.

I did realize that, if I wasn’t employed here in Turkey, I would certainly experience some unproductive days. But I didn’t think resentment would make a comeback. The decision not to work would be mine; there would be nobody else to blame for it. Still, it was an open question, sort of like, “If I stop taking the medication, will my headaches return?”

My teaching colleagues worked because they needed income. I was different. I didn’t need the money. My $28,000 annual salary wasn’t necessary to keep Sankar and me afloat. So increasingly, a Grinch-like voice in my head whispered: “Why are you giving up five full days each week? Why are you giving up eleven months each year?”

I had thought that, by moving to Turkey, I’d be saying goodbye to Christmas. There hadn’t been any signs of the Nativity in Yemen back in 1979 and ’80, and I didn’t expect any in Istanbul, either. While packing to move, I had, however, tucked a few Christmas ornaments into my suitcase. I thought maybe I’d be able to find the top of an evergreen tree or some potted plant to decorate when the time came. Last year, I had taken off for the States in mid-December to celebrate the holiday back home. This year, Sankar and I would be staying in Turkey. Angela and Greg would join us.

At Istinye Park mall, located in an upscale neighborhood  north of us, a huge cone-shaped Christmas “tree,” laden with gold stars and red garlands, now stood on the main floor. Hundreds upon hundreds of artificial red poinsettia blooms decorated the edges of the mall’s many balconies and arches, with strands of white lights hanging from them. Thousands of Westerners lived in Istanbul and I knew this was a commercial effort, but I felt sentimental during the Christmas season, and a dose of familiarity helped prevent homesickness.

Rows of blue and white lights now twinkled high above historic Istiklal Avenue. When I entered a men’s shop to look for a gift for Sankar, the middle-aged woman waiting on me confided, “Ever since I was a child, I loved Christmas!” At grocery stores in Kuruçesme and Levent, I stared in amazement at entire aisles devoted entirely to Santa hats, wrapping paper and ornaments.

It was a delight to observe creative and sometimes quirky Turkish efforts to commemorate the holiday. One shop window displayed a Christmas tree made of pale wooden dowels, with red and white wooden balls on their ends. A shoe store had a tree made entirely of overlapping red leather slippers. Santa Clauses of all sizes, made of ceramic, wood and felt, were everywhere. Several malls even had life-size mechanical versions that moved their lips and tilted their shoulders. Beside them, shoppers—mostly adults and mostly Turks—posed for pictures.

Perhaps all of this shouldn’t have surprised me. Turkey had been Christian for a millennium and the original St. Nicholas was the fourth-century bishop of Myra, a town in southern Turkey. And Turkey was secure in its identity, unlike neighboring countries bitter about Western colonization.

Christmas tunes burst forth in shopping centers and at Atatürk International Airport. Most were secular, but some lyrics were apparently not well understood. Over and over, we heard Loreena McKennitt’s devout “The Seven Rejoices of Mary,” with its verse about “the Holy Baby.”

We needed to find a Christmas tree. From what I understood, the city of Istanbul prohibited the cutting down of any kind of tree. And, although artificial trees were available, I wanted something real. So Sankar and Ümit, two good sports, neither of whom grew up observing Christmas, went to a nearby nursery and bought a four-foot-tall potted pine. It took some effort for them to lug it up to our apartment. When it reached there, I decided it needed as much light as possible, so I placed it out on our balcony. After Christmas, we would give it to Ümit’s mother to plant in her garden.

Earnest about helping me observe a major religious holiday, Ümit accompanied me to the mall to buy decorations. He quickly found a string of hot pink lights and held them up, declaring, “These are the best ones.”  I ended up buying them along with a matching set of ornaments.

The drive to the mall took Ümit and me through a tunnel. Now, the inside of that tunnel glowed with tiny white lights. “What are these for?” I asked Ümit.

“New Year’s,” he replied.

The New Year was already looking busy. It was possible we’d be transferred home in June. And in the early months, we had three groups of visitors arriving. Each would stay for over a week, a nice diversion from work. I was already feeling distracted, however, by something I wasn’t able to participate in. Waverley had gathered a group of expatriates—mothers from the international school—who went out each week to explore Old Istanbul. They called themselves The Monday Ladies.

A year before I would probably have dismissed a group like this as a bunch of bored wives trying to kill time. But I now wished I could go with them. I longed to wander the narrow passages of the Bazaar Quarter, poking into obscure mosques and defunct Byzantine churches. I longed to have the time to soak up the atmosphere of Constantinople.

With this allure and a feeling that my time in Turkey was growing short, I broached the topic of leaving my job with Sankar. He was surprised. The job meant a lot to me. He understood my desire to delve into Istanbul, but was wary of old patterns reemerging. “Don’t assume we’re leaving here in June,” he warned. “You might be sitting around here all year.”

He was right. But now that I’d opened the door to leaving, little things at work began to annoy me. Management tended toward severity. After I received eighteen positive and two negative ratings from my students, my boss said she wanted my reaction in writing. I  pretended I didn’t understand, murmuring that I was flattered my students thought so highly of me, but I knew which ratings I was being asked to address.

And then my Turkish colleagues. They sometimes acted as if we foreigners were just a necessary evil. Although formal meetings were conducted in English, occasional department discussions in Turkish excluded us. And how was it that they almost never asked us native speakers for English help? (A rare and admirable exception was the deputy director, who stopped me in the corridor one day with, “Sue, is it better to say ‘I am in the Internet’ or ‘I am on the Internet?’”)

There was an administrative assistant to whom we teachers had to go for office supplies, copier assistance, and other support. Friendly to the Turkish teachers, this person managed to “help” us foreigners as little and as grudgingly as possible.

“It’s because we’re needy,” Caitlin explained. Yes, we foreigners did have extra needs. We were clueless about department minutiae and we periodically needed help with paperwork for our work permits. It was very rare to meet unfriendly Turks, and now came the enticement: if I quit, I won’t have to deal with this anymore.

And finally, there was the upcoming Christmas season during which, regardless of whether or not I signed a contract for 2012, I’d have to work straight through. While Angela and Greg were here, I wouldn’t have much time to spend with them, nor would I have much time to shop, bake or decorate. I did understand that Big Nergis couldn’t give us five or six Christian teachers days off without looking unfair. We had taken advantage of all of Turkey’s Muslim and secular holidays. But still, I found the situation irritating.

Caitlin also felt squeezed by the holidays, and she and I discussed this dilemma. Finally, we decided to ask Big Nergis if we could work on Friday morning before the Sunday holiday (thank goodness we didn’t have to work on Christmas Day itself) instead of our usual Friday afternoon. That would extend our holiday weekend a half day. We’d have to make special arrangement, however, as classrooms would be full of regularly-scheduled students. After Big Nergis agreed, we decided to combine our two classes and meet in the auditorium.

“I know—we’ll show a movie! The Grinch who Stole Christmas,” Caitlin suggested.

“Huh? A Christmas movie?”

“We did it at Bilkent and it went over just fine.”

She was right.

As the holiday approached, Neslihan, a colleague who occasionally asked me for help with her American Studies doctorate papers, presented me with a pretty music box that played “Deck the Halls.” The elegant Çirağan hotel, formerly an Ottoman palace, hosted Christmas carolers from the British School, including one of Waverley’s daughters. Turks sitting in the lobby applauded. Adjacent to the carolers stood a gingerbread house of such dimensions that it looked like the Houses of Parliament. Next to it, customers could buy little Christmas trees made of white chocolate and adorned with the words, “Mary Christmas.”

Angela and Greg arrived the week before Christmas, and our gifts for each other began forming a line on the living room ledge overlooking the Bosphorus. They admired Istanbul’s decorations and enjoyed the balmy weather that allowed us to stroll comfortably outside.

We ate a huge Turkish meal that week at Gokhan and Burcu’s apartment alongside their small artificial Christmas tree. On Christmas Eve we went to St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church on Istiklal for late afternoon meditation. Christmas Day dawned sunny and 55 degrees and, after gift-giving, Angela and I walked with some sense of irony to the seaside Rumeli Hisar fortress that Mehmet the Conqueror had put up in four months in 1453 prior to conquering Constantinople. We climbed its ramparts and composed photos that included the European fort’s stone crenelations, ships gliding back and forth on the Bosphorus, and the distant hills of Asia. Two continents in a single frame. I would never forget this unusual family Christmas.

Back at work on the 26^th, I was still hearing “Merry Christmas” from my Turkish colleagues.

“It’s over,” I told them, “but thank you.” The wishes, oddly, kept coming. Was it because Turkey’s religious holidays generally involved multiple days? On December 29, several large boxes appeared near the office photocopier. The next day, an artificial tree had been assembled next to it, and the doorways in our suite of offices were adorned with shiny red garlands. Two cute little Santa dolls were rappeling up a ladder made of string on one doorframe. They had almost made it to the top.

I stood and stared. How had my colleagues gotten the date of our holiday so wrong? How had they not known?

But it turned out I was wrong. On New Year’s Eve, Noel Baba (Father Noel), a secular character long promoted to commemorate St. Nicholas, makes his rounds (I am not sure if chimneys or sleighs are involved), leaving gifts for Turkish adults and children. Preparations were right on time.

I would miss my friendly colleagues and our camaraderie, borne out of a kind of shared suffering. I knew that once I left ÖzU, I wouldn’t see them much again, and that pained me. And I felt guilty choosing leisure when they had to work. My array of economic choices was surely undeserved. But then I reminded myself that I hadn’t missed one day of work, not even one hour of teaching during the entire year. I had tried my hardest every class period, and although I hadn’t been a very effective teacher at first, I had listened to advice and I had improved.

I had earned my $28,000.

Finally, one morning as I struggled with an inattentive class, my decision crystallized. Teaching is above all a dance between teacher and students, and students can make or break the experience. Unfortunately mine were disrespectful, inconsiderate, and even disruptive. I would never quite understand why this was the case in such an otherwise courteous country, but I guessed their family wealth made them feel entitled.  I no longer wanted to teach spoiled kids.

Of course some of my students came from humble families and some of them were appreciative. But the image of Deniz strutting across the classroom in thigh-high suede boots trumped that of shy, simply dressed Yildiz. And the sight of Nilgun and Hamza roaring down Kuşbakışı Caddesi in a late-model SUV overpowered that of Recep trudging out of class with a worn backpack slung over his shoulders. I was painting in broad strokes, kind of like the hot pink holiday decorations around me. Kind of like a Grinch.

“And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the Noise! Noise! Noise! Noise!

That’s one thing SHE hated! The NOISE! NOISE! NOISE! NOISE!”

Yes! That was the truest true of all. Above all, it was the noise that was driving me away from Ozyegin. The noise from my students, who talked while I talked, and whom I had never been able to quiet nor tame.

And so, feeling as sour as the infamous Seuss villain—and just as eager to force a change—I pressed the GONDER button on a email to big Nergis late one December evening, informing her I wouldn’t be returning for a second year. But first, I called Sankar’s secretary, Didem, who had been of such great help ferreting out job contacts, writing letters, and setting up interviews for me. I wasn’t very eloquent in giving her my reasons, but I did thank her sincerely for her help. And I told her how deeply I had appreciated having the job. I meant it.

As I packed ornaments and bows away, I felt lighthearted. In less than a month I’d be out of the classroom, the Work Caravan to Asia disbanded. Then I could begin the rest of my life in Istanbul.

The post A Grinch-y Christmas appeared first on Sue's Turkish Adventures.

Bugra Akçay. Duygu Ikibüdük. Piril Kücükçolak. Erden Öz. Ceyhun Uyanik. I sat in my office reading my class list. Nineteen students. I had no idea which names were male or female. How was I ever going to get to know them all?

More importantly, how I was going to perform as an ESL teacher? Although I loved words and enjoyed writing and editing, my formal knowledge of grammar was weak at best. I couldn’t identify predicates or dependent clauses, and the act of diagramming a sentence was foreign to me. True, I could learn these concepts before teaching them, but I worried my understanding would be superficial. If questioned, I feared I would find myself in deep water.

How quickly one set of insecurities is replaced by another.

I had started work Özyeğin University in January of 2011. My first hurdle had been getting there each day. Sankar and I lived on Istanbul’s European side but he, and now I, worked on its Asian side. We only had one car, and using public transport would be complicated, involving buses and ferries as well as mini-buses called dolmuşes.

We decided to double up, starting out for work together each morning. Ümit would drop me off first, and then Sankar. We set our alarms for 6:30 and rose just as the sun was peeking from behind the hills across the Bosphorus. Ümit arrived to pick us up at 7:15.

Between 7:30 and 8:00, traffic on The First Bridge (thus called because it was the first built to span the Bosphorus; before 1973, crossing was only by boat) would become fierce. We tried to get on its entrance ramp before the rush. It had three lanes of traffic going each way, with extra right-hand lanes on each side reserved (on pain of fine) for police cars or emergency vehicles. Each day I was impressed with the Turks’ forbearance: nobody veered into this empty lane even during the most intense traffic. I recalled Costa Rican roads, where even the hint of a jam up had everyone crowding onto the shoulders. Not in controlled, obedient Turkey.

There we sat, Ümit in the front seat, dressed in a suit and tie, his jacket folded neatly on the seat next to him. Sankar and I in back, he on his phone talking to Poland or South Africa, his enthusiastic voice precluding any conversation between Umit and me. I generally looked out the window, marveling at the wide, misty stretch of water we were crossing and checking out progress on the tiny Ortakoy mosque, so concealed by restoration scaffolding that I called it “mosque in a box.”

Once we got across the First Bridge, Özyeğin was just two exits away, past a steep grassy hillside on which, in the spring, landscapers would portray the Turkish flag and the enormous word, Turkiye, in begonias.

Ümit would drop me off at the university’s entrance, a wide expanse of smooth marble always slippery with dew, which made me think of a big, fat American lawsuit. Then Sankar and Ümit would head north along the Asian shoreline, slowing down through quaint old seaside towns like Cengilköy and Küzgüncük, and continuing past The Second Bridge (completed in 1988) to the 3M offices. In the late afternoon, we’d reverse this process.

Relieved I had something to occupy my time, Sankar never complained about this new routine, which required him to sit in the car for an extra half hour or more each morning and afternoon—and get up earlier to do so. And I never apologized.

On my first day, I reported to Director Nergis, who led me to a desk in an office with floor to ceiling windows. “This is Susan,” she announced to the other teachers I would share the room with. “She is from the States.” Nine faces swiveled toward me.

“Where in the States?” someone asked.

“Minnesota,” I replied.

“I’m from Bloomington!” This from a skinny young woman with bright red hair, whose desk was directly across the aisle. We smiled at each other in surprise. Minnesotan Caitlin Shea, would become a trusted colleague and friend in my new workplace.

Others in this office (there were two office, thirty teachers in all) included Halime, a brainy, golden-haired young woman from Gumuşhane (gumuş=silver; han=caravanserai) in northeastern Turkey; Selin, petite and pretty, from industrial Zonguldak near the Black Sea; Erim, a talented photographer from Balikesir not far from the Aegean; and Nurgul, a bundle of cheer with dark hair and eyes, also from western Turkey.

A new eight-week teaching module—and my classroom teaching duties—wouldn’t start until late January, so Nergis asked me to spend the interim perusing the textbooks used by Ozyegin’s School of English Language Instruction (SELI). In addition, nearly every day I accompanied one or another new colleague into their classroom.

I loved watching others teach and discovering what exercises might help convey my language to learners. Petek, a pretty young woman wearing a red and black print dress and slim black boots, had her Upper Level students playing a language game that involved walking around in two concentric circles. Whenever they needed to stop or change directions, she blew a whistle and they immediately obeyed. I was impressed with her authority.

Giti, originally from Iran, had a magical effect on her beginning students. With huge eyes and an equally big smile, she flew around the room, encouraging and cajoling. When a student got the right answer, she exclaimed, “I love you!” Giti’s class was all smiles.

Caitlin had a relaxed approach with her Pre-Intermediate students, kidding and laughing with them. They clearly liked her. But I noticed a some side conversations going on while she was trying to teach. She responded again and again with “shhh,” but it did little good. I vowed to have more control over my class.

Selin, though young and slight, seemed to be able to silence her Advanced class with a stern look. I was beginning to see the force of the Turkish personality. She was busy conducting a speaking test by calling students in groups of two up to her desk. While this went on, to my surprise, a male and female student canoodled—quietly—in the back of the classroom.

Selin’s students were filing out of class when one of them, a young man, tapped my shoulder and asked where I was from. When I said Minnesota, he exclaimed, “I lived there!” He went on to tell me that he had been an AFS student in Deer River, MN, located, he informed me, between Duluth and Bemidji. He described how surprised he had felt as an Istanbulu landing in an American town of only 800 people and settling on a farm, where he was expected to help take care of livestock. The Deer River community, he also told me, was “freaked out” about a lone Muslim in their midst, even more so when he told them his grandparents had moved to Turkey from Iraq.

I thought of all of the emotions and adjustments his move had undoubtedly catalyzed—in the good citizens of Deer River and in this traveling Turk. “You had a big effect on a small place,” I said. “Good for you!”

There is apparently no age limit on the fear of eating lunch alone on the first day of work. Would anybody ask me to join their table? I didn’t need to worry. Just before noon, Selin scooped me up and guided me to the cafeteria. I would never forget this considerate gesture.

In the hours I wasn’t observing, I sat with the stack of Pearson English textbooks Nergis had given me. Each book was organized around units: Personality, Architecture, Transportation, etc, but I was unsure what I was supposed to get out of them, and I felt like an imposter flipping through pages. Could others tell I didn’t know what I was doing? Later, with more experience, I would know to examine each unit and try to think of supplemental exercises and discussion topics, but I didn’t know that then, and simply proceeded woodenly in an attempt to look busy.

Also in front of me was a packet of forms and goodies the department secretary had given me. I received a loaded cash card that covered lunch in the cafeteria each noon and also refreshments at the snack bar. Sankar also got a free lunch at work; nationwide, Turkish policy seemed to be: use food to keep your workers close at hand. I was given a health insurance card that would supplement coverage I had through Sankar.

I received automatic deposit forms for my monthly paycheck. My salary would be deposited in FinansBank. Since Sankar used GarantiBank (Turkish is considered an “agglutinative” language and tends to run together words that in English would be separate) for his paycheck, I asked if my salary could instead be deposited at Garanti. No, came the answer. Hüsnü Özyeğin, the man after whom Özyeğin University was named, owned FinansBank. All teachers would bank with Hüsnü.

Nergis also presented me with a thick, bound binder outlining the SELI curriculum, which she told me was proprietary to OzU and should not be shared. In the form of a one-hundred-plus page table, the manual outlined all of the concepts we were to teach our students, including reading, writing, listening and speaking, for each of five levels: Beginning, Pre-Intermediate (called PIN), Intermediate, Upper, and Advanced. Wow! A smaller document served as our week-by-week guide.

All of this material seemed daunting, but it did promise a high degree of structure, which was comforting. As an adjunct professor in St. Paul, I had been given free rein over how and what I taught my freshman English class, the sole requirement being that I assign a research paper. That had felt like too little supervision; I’d had to discover too much on my own. That wouldn’t be the case at Özyeğin. At Hamline no one wanted to take the time to standardize what was taught, but at OzU, control and uniformity were vitally important.

One afternoon, a driver took me to the office of employment to get my work permit. My hiring seemed to refute what Monica and Felicia had told me about spouses not being able to work in Turkey. They were correct in a general sense, but I was in a special category: native speakers were considered essential to teaching English to Turks.

Toward the end of my first week, I received some final paperwork: a couple of printed flowcharts anticipating student behavior problems. One outlined steps to follow when assignments were turned in late, and another provided a process for dealing with classroom discipline. Again, organized and structured, but: classroom behavior problems at a university!?

Özyeğin University was growing in leaps and bounds. A baby boom generation born in the 1990s had now come of age with a nearly insatiable demand for higher education. Our department had doubled in size from 250 students in 2010 to close to 500 in 2011, and was expected to double again in 2012. Back in Minnesota the opposite was occurring: Hamline and many other colleges had lost students because of the recession, leading to serious budget crises.

In late January, the teaching module ended and I joined other teachers and supervisors, two in each classroom, to proctor the module’s daylong final exams. It was my first official duty as a teacher.

We teachers read word for word from an English script to instruct our test takers, guide them through the listening phase of the test, and announce breaks between sections. We were also told what to say if a student arrived late; how to accompany a student if they needed to use the bathroom during the exam; and what to do if a student finished early and wanted to leave (forbidden). It was a clear and definitive no-nonsense tutorial on how to proctor an exam. In fact, “no-nonsense,” I was beginning to realize, was not a bad way to describe Turkey as a whole.

After exam day, we convened in groups under the guidance of supervisors to correct the tests. To control for errors, two teachers went over each test paper. A strict protocol existed for marking essays, which involved first agreeing as a group of eight on scores for five sample student essays, an hours-long exercise. After we finished all the marking, scores were entered into a computer program that calculated whether each student had a score of 65% or higher and thus passed the course, or would have to repeat it.

After grades were finalized, we all received two days off while Nergis, taking into account exam results and teacher preferences, determined new teaching assignments. I was assigned Intermediate, supervised by another Nergis—Nergis Enmutlu (en=most; mutlu=happy).

A word here about Turkish last names. Prior to the 1923 formation of the Republic, Turkey was largely rural, its citizens provincial and rarely in need of more than a first name. Despite this, Ataturk asked all Turks to give themselves last names. Some Turks went the time-tested “son of” route, which involved attaching “oğlu” to the end of their father’s first name.  Davutoğlu, Mustafaoğlu, etc. Many named themselves after natural phenomenon:  Gül: Rose; Nergis: Daffodil; Deniz: Sea; Yaprak: Leaf.

Others focused on ideals or characteristics: Dilek: Wish; Özlem: Desire; Keskin: keen or sharp; Kutlutan: lucky; Öz: soul or authentic (this one was either quite frequently chosen or the Öz descendants were highly prolific, one runs into Öz-es all over Turkey).

Other Turks linked their names to fierce animals such as Arslan: lion, or more explicit expressions of strength such as Sert: Hard; Çetin: Tough or Şimşek: Lightning. A former Turkish Prime Minister’s last name was Demirel (demir = iron; el = hand).

Because she was petite, my new supervisor, Nergis Enmutlu was referred to as “Little Nergis,” while the head of SELI, Nergis Akbay, though by no means large, was referred to as “Big Nergis.”

As I observed my colleagues during the several days of planning, I was impressed with their confidence and industriousness, and also with the almost clockwork-like way they proceeded through the day. I felt like I was now part of some kind of teaching factory with hundreds of moving parts, an odd sensation for someone accustomed to spending much of my time alone, writing, and doing freelance editing. Right now, given that teachers had to take time from their schedules to explain procedures such as Moodle, the online classroom management system, to me, I was an errant particle jamming up the works. But once I caught on and understood the multitude of tasks at hand, I, too, would be part of this smoothly-functioning machine.

The last time I had worked full time was in 1987, almost a quarter century before. Now, I’d be putting in twenty teaching hours each week plus twenty more preparing. Locating materials, adapting them to my class’s needs, coming up with examples to illustrate grammar concepts, figuring out how much material to cover each day, and correcting essays. It occurred to me that I had probably taken on more than I could handle, and I recalled a similar situation three decades before.

Twenty five years old, with a new master’s in international nutrition, I longed to work in a developing country. My father had recently died, however and my mother didn’t want me to leave. Sankar, then my fiancé, also wanted me to stay close by.

Believing that once marriage and family intruded, I’d never again have the chance to live overseas, I put up such a long and vigorous fight that both my family and Sankar threw up their arms in defeat. I accepted one of the first jobs offered me: a position with Catholic Relief Services in The Yemen Arab Republic.

What a shock! My new home, the capital city of Sana’a, was so dusty that I could hardly breathe. And the Yemenis looked alarming: silent, black-shrouded women, men with daggers jammed into belts at their waists. The language sounded guttural and unappealing. Almost nobody spoke English. How was I ever going to adjust?

Other arriving expatriates had similar reactions and many promptly turned tail and went home. The dropout rate for Peace Corps Yemen was reputedly one of their highest in the world. But after all the fuss I’d put up, I knew I had no recourse but to stay and make the best of it.

Now, here I was in a similar situation. (Do patterns like these stalk us?) I had been so intent on getting a job that I hadn’t even begun to consider what that might mean. I would be away from home for nine hours each day, standing in front of students for four of them. And I’d signed a one-year contract. It now became ultra-clear to me why teachers needed to be contracted.

There was absolutely no way I could utter a word of complaint about what I had committed myself to. And just like all those years before in Yemen, I felt like the Fates were chuckling at my obstinacy.

My first day of teaching finally arrived. My Intermediate class would meet from 8:40 am to 12:30 pm on Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays, and from 12:40 pm to 4:30 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. All of the class schedules worked similarly; Nergis had devised them so that students and teachers wouldn’t have to get up early every day.

At 8:30 on Monday morning, wearing black slacks and a cardigan over a white shirt, I walked out of my office and headed down the busy hallway toward what was to be my classroom. I carried a notebook in which I’d carefully scripted my announcements and the sequence of events for my first class period. I also had with me a stack of handouts and my new work laptop, like a pizza delivery box. Draped over my slightly trembling left arm was its long charger cord.

At the end of the hall, standing off to the side in the rush of students stood a diminutive couple, perhaps in their late forties. They were dressed simply, she in a loosely crocheted cardigan over a plain blouse and a mid-calf-length plaid skirt, with a headscarf that covered most, but not all of her hair, he in faded gray dress pants and a neatly ironed white shirt. On their faces were both pride and awe. These were clearly parents from the Turkish countryside, their son or daughter most likely the first in the family to attend college. They stood quietly, looking wistful, seeing their much-loved son or daughter off on the first day.

The couple’s presence pulled me out of my nervous self-absorption, and I found it poignant. I gave them what I hoped was a teacher-ly nod of competent reassurance.

I entered my new classroom, a smallish modern room with chairs lining three walls facing a white board, and a window on the far side. Each chair had a tiny desk attached to its arm. I put down my computer and stack of papers, and smiled at the young woman and two men who were already seated. They looked a bit surprised, and all of a sudden I was not at all sure I should have arrived early. A perennial early bird, I had been propelled out of the teacher office and down the hall by a combination of nerves and American custom. But none of my Turkish colleagues had followed.

My Turkish teachers at EFINST had always arrived late, and now I guessed that was what my current colleagues were planning to do: wait until all students were in place and make a grand entrance to show who was in charge. But I simply couldn’t do this, at least not on the first day. I wanted to welcome my students to class, not have them welcome me. I hoped my behavior wasn’t sending some kind of message of weakness.

As I bent down to connect my computer, my shoulders ached with fatigue. For years my teacher friends had told me of difficulty sleeping the night before the start of a new year. But I hadn’t expected to wake up at 2:30 this morning, unable to get back to sleep at all. The problem was that, the day before, curled up on the couch wondering what in the world I had gotten myself into, I had taken not one, but two naps.

As my students filed in, I busied myself with my laptop. Would I be able to successfully project the “First Day PowerPoint,” prepared by my Turkish colleagues, but full of errors I’d had to edit? I had tested it in an empty classroom last Friday and it had worked fine, but what about now? Did I have enough material for four hours of teaching? And most important, would my students be able to detect my nervousness and inexperience? At least my new colleagues would not be observing me!

Duygu, Bugra, Erden, Ceyhan, and all the rest. My students had taken their seats and were staring quizzically at me. I stood up straight, produced a shaky smile, and began to teach.

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                                                                                      Sapanca Lake

The post Goodbye (for now) to Teaching appeared first on Sue's Turkish Adventures.

Most of my students have electronic dictionaries, which they fervently believe will help them become better writers. They look up words to impress me, even though I encourage them to write simply. In one essay, the writer apparently felt that the phrase, “take a walk” was too mundane. With a little online effort he came up with, “The people can go to the park and be ambulatory.”

The other day I had a young woman writing about the benefits of tourism. See if you can find the twenty-five-cent word: “Tourist who come foreign country have foreign exchange to leave. For this economy of country develops. In addition foreign trade develop. For instance, a tourist who come in our country can like anything such as endemic cheese, cream, vegetables. . .”

I like my kids. I felt sad when finished with my first group in late March; we had spent 160 hours together, after all. I wondered if I would like a new group as well. The first day of the spring term, I faced the usual unusual names (Efe, Ece, Gulsah, Muhsin, two Yunuses, Suleyman and Cem, pronounced gem). How could this new batch ever become familiar or dear? But now after Week Three, I am really enjoying them.

Yesterday, Yunus and Suleyman came up to me at a break and said they wanted to celebrate the birthday of classmate and buddy, Fatih, during our last period. I agreed. They headed downstairs to the coffee shop to buy a treat and returned grinning. At about 4:15 they pulled out a huge, American-looking chocolate cookie and placed a cigarette lighter (many, perhaps most of the students smoke) on top of it. They struck the light and Fatih beamed as he blew it out while the class chorused (surprisingly, in English) Happy Birthday.

I am still trying to get used to the amount of talking that occurs in class. Students in our program don’t seem to think it is rude to carry on conversations when the teacher is speaking. And I don’t mean whispering. Remember when you were in school and the teacher would catch you “talking out of turn?” You would stop in the middle of your sentence, right? In the middle of the word, even. Not these kids. They finish the paragraph even as I stand staring at them.

This phenomenon surprises me and I’m trying to understand it. I’ve long been under the impression (true in the other countries in which I’ve lived) that American students are overly casual and that the rest of the world’s students show their teachers a lot more respect. Not here. I know part of the noisiness in my classroom is students checking with each other to make sure they understand what I’m saying.  Another part of it occurs because they are extremely social and group-oriented, and want to work together on every task. But that doesn’t explain all of it.

All of us “team teach,” which means I take another teacher, Nurgul’s class two mornings every week and she takes mine. Nurgul has three male students who constantly converse in voices even louder than the Turkish norm. Last week I lost my temper. “Why don’t you just leave?” I asked the offenders. “If you’re not going to listen, you can go!” But they just sat there. Perhaps they didn’t understand my rapid English. Or maybe they were hoping to see an American teacher meltdown.

The rub is that trying to impose my will in a Turkish classroom goes completely against the rules I’ve set for myself here. I believe in being a pleasant, agreeable visitor. I think it’s rarely appropriate to voice a negative opinion while in a foreign country. I always defer to Turkish ideas. Heck, I even step off the sidewalks to let Turks pass by. Now I feel torn between trying to work effectively and trying to be the ideal expatriate.

Deeper understanding is easier when I’m not standing in a noisy classroom. My students have very little freedom. After taking a national high school graduation test, they are herded into colleges based on their scores. Those without sufficient English spend an intensive twelve to fifteen months preparing for their all-English curriculums.  After college there is a push to find jobs; although currently booming, Turkey is just now coming into prosperity and has long had high unemployment rates.

Although my students will tell you which branch of engineering or business they plan to study, in truth they are as clueless as 18-year olds anywhere. Many sit in class simply to please their parents. When I think of the outdoor adventures and overseas travel—and even the crazy summer jobs—American kids their age have, I feel compassion for these very scheduled, very constrained kids.

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