Language barriers

I was going to title this post 'To clean or not to clean' but 1) it isn't that I don't clean, and 2) this is really about more than cleaning.  Let me begin again...

It was suggested that I get a cleaning lady.  I dont think this was said with any knowledge or reference to my personal cleanliness habits, although the suggestion might have been stronger if they had known.  I thnk the suggestion was given to help out an Armenian woman, Maria, who was looking for more work and I was a likely sucker.  The cost would be 50 TL or about $30 every two weeks for a half day.  Maria was said to do ironing and cleaning.  While I may be persuaded to clean from time to time, I dont iron and I am ok with that since I dont have many clothes that should be ironed even if I wanted to.  My apartment isn't big but it has no carpeting: hardwood floor (living room), pergo (bed room), marble (entry way) or tile (kitchen and bathroom) and I do have a fur generating beast roaming around.  I am just off a big street and I do have my windows open 24/7 so the floor gets dusty.  Maybe it would be nice to stimulate the Turkish economy and hire Maria to clean for me. 

I have never had someone clean for me before, I dont really feel comfortable with it and I have a very high tolerance for dust, so I dont know why I thought this would be a good idea.  Tania talked me into it and Aylin helped me arrange it and I guess it was just made so easy that I let it happen.  This morning I left an envelope with my house key, 35 TL and 10USD (this comes out to about 53 lira) along with a note that I had translated into Turkish with google translator.  Just for fun, I have taken the Turkish I got and put it back through the bing translator and this is what I got:

Maria,

Thank you for cleaning my apartment today.

I'm sorry you are not enough: I am paying $ today. pound

Please wash the sheets and bed again when cleaning?

I am writing these lines, so a translator program may be incorrect.

Thank you, Heather

 

Clearly, this ^ is not what I meant...

 

Maria,
Thank you for cleaning my apartment today.
I am sorry I don't have enough lira, so I am paying part in dollars today.
Will you please wash my sheets and remake the bed while you are cleaning?
I used a translator program to write this, so it might be wrong.
Thank you, Heather

I hope I got points for trying. I stripped the bed, put the linens in a baskedt, opened the cabinet with the cleaning supplies and took my envelope down to the guard.  He took it, read it and I used one of my new Turkish vocabulary words to say thank you: Tesekkurlar.  I got on the bus and went to 'school.' 

 

At lunch Aylin came up to me to say that I didn't have any towels for Maria to clean with and that the Turkish translation was awful, but that paying part in dollars was ok, and she borrowed towels from someone else she was cleaning for.  Ok, so far so good. 

 

I got home about 2:15 but had no way of getting into my apartment (next foray into Arnovotkoy: duplicate my key) so I dropped off my bag and went down to the laundry.  The bed linens weren't there, but the loaner towels (not for cleaning, but that I had asked to be washed) were there.  So she has been there, but since she didn't open the door when I rang, she wasn't still there (it didnt' occur to me that she would still be in the builiding working on Janelle's apartment).  I went down to the guard to see if she left my key there.  My pantomime was good enough to get a key, but not my key, instead I borrowed the spare which I had to return right away. 

 

By this time the group that was going to walk up to the Tuesday market in Arnovotkoy was gathering.  Jake went back to the guards with me to ask if they had my real key from the cleaning lady, but they did not.  Fortunately, Janelle was there and she said that Maria was still in her apartment, great!  I went up there to ask for the key.  She gave me the key, but starts talking about towels.  I am not sure if she means that I need to get her some rags, or if she wants me to know that my towels are in the dryer.  Both of these things I already knew, but I had no way to communicate this.  Eventually she calls Aylin, speaks to her and then hands the phone to me.  Yes, I know the towels are in the dryer, I had already gotten them out, yes, I know I need to get rags, Aylin had already told me.  The group was getting impatient and I was frustrated, after talking to Aylin, I haded the phone back to Maria and left.  I trust it was all sorted out. 

 

From there a group of 8 of us went to 'our' downtown: Arnovutkoy - Albanian-town.  I will talk more about the very cute town later, but again language is such a bridge or a barrier depending on if you share it or if you dont.  In the Tuesday market, in the hardware store, with the barber, at the pet shop.  I feel so very vulnerable and dependant since I dont know the language and I am finding it so difficult to even hold on to the few words I have been taught.  I know if I had been able to communicate with Maria directly I could have asked what she needed, I could have asked the guard what happened to my key.  Even after years of studying other languages I dont feel like I can hold a conversation, and yet I am going to need to be able to very soon if I want to really enjoy my time here.