Egypt part 1: superlatives

The most interesting thing I have learned since I have been in Egypt is that my subject was named after it.  I never knew I taught Egypt, but I do.  If you look up chemistry at dictionary.com it will tell you that it comes from alchemy, but I know better...My guide Dr. Zak had told me this when he found out I was a chemistry teacher, but then I found it again at the science museum in Alexandria; and I quote, " According to English Egyptologis Wallis Budge, the Arabic word al-kimiya actually means "the Egpytian science," borrowing form the Coptic word for Egypt: keme, which is in turn derived from the ancient Egyptian kmt.  The word refered to both the country and the color black, as Egypt was calle the 'Black land.'"  So there you go.

The most beautiful thing I have seen so far has been the sunset from my hotel balony in Aswan.  I arrived in Aswan today at 4:30, after all the sites closed, but about an hour before the sun set.  I already like Aswan better than Cairo or Alexandria because 1) there is very little traffic (meaning it didn't take forever to get to the hotel from the airport) and 2) the air is less polluted (meaning I can breathe without feeling like the air is full of knives.) I am not excited about getting up at 3am tomorrow to get to Abu Simbel but I didn't do anything today, so I am excited to do something tomorrow.

The Nile River as seen from my hotel room balcony in Aswan.  It certainly looks much better than it did in Cairo.

The sunset over the Nile from my balcony in Aswan.  The air is so much cleaner here than in Cairo, I am not sure I want to go back. 

The scariest thing I did was get onto a camel and ride from the back of the pyramids to the front.  Camels are incredibly tall and they walk funny.  Going down hill is not something to be taken lightly.  Of course this was also the most incredible thing I have done so far.  There are very few tourists in Egypt right now, which has good and bad points, but one of the perks for me, was being the only one on a camel at the pyramids at sunset the other day.  Even my guide, who says he has taken a thousand camel rides, said that this one was the best. 

I am on the back camel.  Notice there are no other tourists around.  The other camels in the distance are being led home by thier owners for the day.

The Great Pyramid of Giza is actually the one farthest away.  The sun came out just in time to set, but it had been rather chilly.

They told me my camel's name was Casanova.  I cant say he was all that charming, but I am glad I did it and with this picture I will even get a free breakfast!

What I thought was going to be the scariest was going into the Great pyramid.  I am a bit claustrophobic, but Dr. Zak talked me into going in saying that they might close it soon and don't I want to be able to say that I went in before it was closed?  I am a sucker for being able to tell the good story, so I did it.  I am sure that if it had been any warmer, or if there had been anyone else in the passage way with me, I wouldn't have handled it as well, but I am glad that I did it.

The farthest north I went was at the citidel in Alexandria, where I steped out onto some sea slime covered concrete blocks to touch the Medeteranian, again just so I could say that I did.  My guide at the time, Randa, was freaked out, afraid I was going to slip and fall to my death, but I didn't. 

The Mediteranean Sea as it meets Alexandria.

The Citadel of Alexandria was built on the location of the great lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the wonders of the ancient world which is no longer standing. 

The grossest thing I saw were the mummies in the Egyptian musuem.  These dead bodies are thousands of years old and look pretty good for it.  Of course I dont have any pictures as no cameras are allowed in the musuem at all, let alone the mummy room. 

The most frustrating thing I have done is sit in traffic for hours in Alexandria. People say that since the revolution the police dont want to come to work and so the rules of the road are not inforced the way they should be and may be this is true.  I do agree that Americans may have degenerated further into chaos after a year with no police, but I dont think all the traffic issues can be blamed on their lack.  The white lines that separate lanes are really just guidelines, and why stick to your lane if there is clearly space for another car in the width of the road.  You can certainly turn left from the middle lane, hopefully the person in the left lane is turning left too.  The light turned red? great! that means there wont be anyone in front of you when you run it.  Need to cross several lanes of traffic, do it one lane at a time, nosing your way out until the other cars have to stop or run into you.  Who cares if this creates gridlock and it takes an hour to go 2 km? 

Traffic in Alexandria

It looks like we are merging since we are right on the lane line, but no, this is where we drove most of the time.  In China, chess is played on the lines instead of in the squares, I guess the same is true for driving in Egypt. 

The traffic may have been made worse by the gasoline shortage.  Many of the stations we stopped at were out, and others had long lines of cars and truck waiting to get fuel. 

The most hopeful thing I saw was the people genuinely excited about the new parlement, the changes that are possible since the revolution and the chance to elect thier own leader for the first time in a very long time (for ever if you listen to Randa). 

On a freeway over pass support on the way into Alexandria.

January 25th was the 1 year anniversary of the revolution.  Many people are still waiting for the effects to settle down. 



I'll post this now, since I have internet today for the first time on my trip.  I am sure I will have more to say next week.

Turkish

I am not good with languages, unless you count chemistry as its own language.  I took four years of Japanese in high school, a year of french at the UW and a quarter of night school Spanish conversation.  It is probably growing up in California more than my hours of study, but my comprehension of these three languages would rank Spanish, French and then Japanese.  Of course there are far more cognates between English and the romance languages which helps a lot too. 

Turkey is in the Turkic language family and it is the most widely spoken of the Turkic languages.  Turkey was never really a colonizing power and so the only people who speak Turkish outside of Turkey reflect the fluctuating boarders of the country over the last 500 years and their closest trading parnters.  There are even parts of Turkey where most people don't speak Turkish, at least not as their first language, but we dont talk about the Armeians, to which, the correct responce is, 'what Armenians?'  Oddly enough, my study of Japanese all those years ago is quite helpful when learning Turkish.  Both languages put the verb at the end of the sentence.  The only thing that comes after the verb is the subject in the form of the verb's suffix.

For example: Amerika'dan geliyorum.  "America from come I" where the -um means I am the subject.

There are some new letters in the Turkish alphabet and some they dont use except for foreign words.
ı - pronounced like uh, I live in Yalı which means seaside house
ğ - silent g it makes other vowels longer like in Oğuz, my deparment head's last name, projounces ooz
ü,ö - I think the Germans have these also, I can't really say them, so I have no comment.
ş - pronounced sh like in Besiktaş a neighborhood near here I have written about before.
ç - pronounced ch like in çay or tea. 
c - While c is not a new letter, it is never pronounced sea  as in celing or or even kuh as in color, it is more like a j sound.  To spell my friend Jack's name, you would use Cak.

They don't use WQ or X except in borrowed words.  W gets mixed up with V, again like the Germans.  If X is needed they use ks, like in taksi, and I assume they do something similar for the Q.  Fortunately the language is very phonetic and evn though the words can be really long, they can all be sounded out.  This is thanks in large part to the conversion of the written language from a form of Arabic to using the Latin letters shared by Europe, done as part of the building of the republic in 1922.  Words could be spelled logically when all the spellings were made up at the same time.

Turkish is worse than German (I listened to an audio course in preparation for my trip to German in 2008) for making monster long words.  You can build entire sentences by modifiying the verb, the stem of which might be only three letters.    My example isn't nearly as long as it could be, but I only know the present tense so far.

Gitmiyorusunuz. "They are not going." where the -mi- negates the verb git-; -yor- makes it present tense and the sufix -usunuz is the subject, they

Many Turkish sentances don't even have verbs, and this is not Tarzan Turkish, but really fine, speak to your grandmother quality, Turkish. 

Toplam var mı? "Meeting exists?"
Toplam yok. "Absence of meeting."

Var and yok are two of my favorite Turkish words, they are very simple and very useful. 
Quiz var mı? "Is there a quiz?"  - when mı is at the end of a sentence it makes it a question.
Var. "There is." or Yok. "There isn't." 
Neither var nor yok are verbs, I learned to my signifigant confusion and surprise.  They act like verbs in sentences but you dont have to conjugate them which is nice. 

One of the most confusing aspects of Turkish that I have encountered so far, is vowel harmony.  The suffixes and prepositions for 'to,' 'from,' 'with,' etc change depending on the last vowel of the word they modify. 
Sütlü - with milk as in milk chocolate
Yaşlı - with years as in old
In both cases it is the -l_ suffix which means with, but the vowel has to match (not exactly, just the position in your mouth that you make it with), harmonize with the noun it modifies. 

This also happens when you make compound nouns like book store (kitpevi) or chemistry classroom (kimya dersi).  To show that two nouns go together you change the ending of the second one, not unlike putting sodium and chlorine together to get sodium chloride. (See chemistry is its own language.)    Understanding this has made decoding signs easier.  I can recognize the noun and disregard the ending since it just links two nouns together.  Unfortunately it isn't always a one to one correspondance between vowel used and vowel added.  In many cases, several of the Turkish vowels (and there are 8) map to the same harmony vowel, which should make it easier, but then you have to remember which maps to which.  My guess is, anyone who grows up speaking Turkish has no problem with this.  They may not be able to explain it, but they probably never get it wrong. 

There are some English words that we don't use here because of their similarities to bad words in Turkish.  I am not sure what they all mean, but students are never 'sick' they are always 'ill' and if you are not sure what to say next, you don't say 'um' but either 'şay' or 'ah'.  Of course this goes both ways.  I have already written about my student named Behiç, where the ç is pronounced ch and our food is prepared in the mutfak next to the cafeteria. 

There are lots of little phrases in Turkish that dont have direct translations but are very friendly. At lunch you would say 'afiyet olsun' which means roughly enjoy your meal. If someone is working you say 'kolay gelsin' which means may it come easy. If someone has made dinner for you, you say something that translates as 'health to your hands'. All of these little phrases are very sweet and friendly. 

I have been taking the Turkish lesson provided by the school for an hour and a half each Wednesday afternoon.  There are three of us in the class, the other two are ahead of me, having been here for longer.  This is good, because it pulls me along at a slighly greater clip.  They are also English teachers, which means they can help make connections to the parts of speech I am familiar with, although sometimes it gets pretty technical.  We have homework most weeks, which I do right before the next class to get warmed up for the lesson.  I do find that I understand more when I am in the grocery store or in a taxi.  I am still not very productive, as in I dont speak unless absolutely necessary, but I can if I need to.  Just this week I actually asked for half a kilo of stew meat at the grocery store, out loud even, and I was understood!  In class I have written a paragraph about what I do in a day and I have understood my clasmates paragraphs, which I think is pretty good. 

There are a surprising number of cognates or borrowed words, many from French and English, some also from Spanish (and lots from Arabic and Persian, but since I dont know anythign about those languages I dont see the connections.)  It was hard to see them at first, espeically since they are often spelled very differently.  See if you can figure these out:
radyo
banyo
taksi
yat
kafeterya
biyoloji
gazete
kedi (probably not really a cognate, but so close)

I still think I understand more Spanish than Turkish, but it is getting better.

Finally, here are two more of my favorite Turkish words:
kalabalik = crowded
denizanasi = jellyfish

students

Chances are, this blog will be long and boring, especially if you are not a teacher.  I might throw in a picture of a student or two but there wont be any sweeping landscapes or nifty architecture.  Just so you know you were warned.

I think I have written a little about the students at Robert College in other blog posts.  At the end of the 8th grade year, students all over Turkey (I am not sure if everyone takes it or just students hoping for a private school placement) take an entrance exam.  They also list the schools they want to go to in order of preference.  When the scores are announced in the middle of the summer, they are placed with the school they wanted starting with the highest scoring student.  Using this method, schools fill up their in coming rosters, when one school is full, they move on to the second choices, etc.  RC's class of 2016 (students in lise prep right now) all scored in the top 0.4% on that exam.  This means that most of them had a perfect score and the remaining minority missed one. One.  This is to say that the students here are good test takers and they know how to cram.  Are they all super smart? no.  Are they all good students? no.  Do they know how to behave? no.  Do they have an incredible capacity to memorize? probably.

Students at a ball with a pajama party theme.  They had entered a raffle to shave the mustache of some of the male teachers who were growing them in November.  It was very low light in the bubble, which is why this picture is blurry.  The woman with the camera front and center is an adult and the girlfriend of one of the teachers who was being shaved. 

This entrance exam has a little science, almost no art, and exactly no English.  It is mostly (as I understand it) math, language arts and history.  To do well on this exam students started going to cram school called dersane (three syllabuls: der-sa-ne) in the 7th grade.  This school after school taught them how to take tests, how to eliminate answers how to guess.  It also taught them all the factoids that could be on the multiple choice test.  The students had to work really hard to do regular school and dersane at the same time.  It cost a lot of money to go to a good dersane, one that has the best reputation for getting the most students into the best high schools.  They devoted afternoons and weekends to preparing and practicing.  We talk about high stakes testing in the US, but we have nothing on this, and it is only worse in high school.

So these super high scorers enter RC at 14 for a year of intense English instruction and basically a year off their other studies.  This is lise prep.  For some of them they are starting at zero and all of a sudden most of their classes are in English, for others, they have signifigant English already, some have spent years in the US, their parents speak English, the gap can be enormous.  I don't envy the job of the prep English teachers.  It is no easier in the subject classes.  Much of the material is a repeat for the students, with the only new twist is that now math is in English.  Even for a student new to English this can be boring, but for a student whose English is good, it can be awful.  By the end of the year, most students are ready to function (not necessary excel) in rigorous, high level classes completely in English.  But unfortunately they have also had a year off from rigorous high level classes in any thing but English. 

Some of them are away from home for the first time as well.  RC has ~100 residential boys and ~100 girls.  They live in buildings attached to, but on opposite ends of the main campus buildings.  They live 4-6 to a room in L9 but may work their way up to only 2 in a room by the time they are in L12. 

Those that live just outside of Istanbul 2-3 hours away, go home on the weekends, but others are here all seven.  The dorms are nice, we got to visit them this fall, they have new furniture, good laundry fascilities and nice common areas.  But they are still on campus all the time.  (Of course students can leave campus after school and on weekends.  There is even a very busy schedule of outings and tours for the students, but as a bit of a 7 day residential student myself, I can tell you, it is tough.  What they lack in age and experience, I lack in Turkish and since none of us can drive, I can say I have a lot of sympathy for especially the younger residential students.)

Lise 9 is a shock to most students.  They were the best student at their middle school, they got a perfect score on the entrance exam, lise prep was easy and then reality hits.  I think they take 9 classes as L9.  Math, 2 English classes, PE, Turkish, Social Studies, 2 science classes, French or German, plus homeroom, club, counseling and if they want to do an after school sport or instrument.  Their grades count and they don't know how to study.   These students are the same age as my sophomores back home, but they seem less mature.  I was worried about teaching chemistry to L9, until I found out that they would be 15-16,  and theoretically cognatively mature enough for the abstract concepts, and the do about as well over all as my chem 1 kids, different strengths and different weaknesses.

I am not sure if L10 is the golden year, or if this is just a particularly good group of tenth graders (which I have heard from more experienced teachers), but it does seem perfectly placed.  They are half way through the school, they know where things are and how they work, they are in the groove but they haven't started worrying too much about the next step.  I have L10 intro chemistry and L10 advanced chemistry and they seem to have made a signifignt step in maturity from the L9s, of course they are 16-17 years old and they haven't started going back to dersane.

Starting in L11, college entrance starts to loom and a couple of afternoons a week are spent back at the dersane.  We spend time trying to get them to think, be creative, and problem solve, skills we think will be useful not just for getting into college, but to be productive members of society.  At dersane they have to unlearn all of that and memorize facts, dates, names, places in preparation for the next entrance exam.  We spend all day teaching them science, art, English but at dersane there is no English, and no art and they have to learn all the science again, but in Turkish.  My 11s (advanced chem) have been the most challenging to teach.  They really push me and make sure I know my stuff.  They are the mostly like to catch me out or to dig for a deeper understanding.  They are very focused on their grades and every point counts, especially if they are planning to leave Turkey for college.

I dont have any L12s, but I hear that they are almost a new speices.  They started school a week later than the other students since they still had dersane summer lessons to attend.  They can also miss 45 days of school with no penalty (45/180 is a full quarter) and this is in addittion to being let off of second semester finals and being excused starting in the third week of May.  I hear that they basically dont show up second semester except when they need a break from dersane.  Second semester starts in a few weeks, I guess I will find out how true this is. 

RC requires the students to conform to a dress code.  For boys this means a RC polo shirt or a shirt and tie.  Slacks must be grey, black or khaki and the only sweat shirts allowed are the senior class designed sweat shirts worn by seniors only.  There is no rule about shoes, so that is really where the creativity comes out.  The girls have a bit more freedom.  They may wear skirts or slacks of the same colors and of a certain length.  They may also wear the RC polo, but what is considered a 'nice' blouse is much more open to interpretation and therefore there is great variety.  No facial hair is allowed on boys and their hair must be trimmed.  Girls can wear no jewlery besides stud earings and everyone can wear watches.   In general most of the students are well dressed, which has encouraged me to take a bit more care with what I wear.  Teachers could bend the rule more than students, but I choose my battles and just take liberties with my shoe color...
I am sure there is more to say about the students and maybe I will add to this later.  Any questions?

Edirne Part 2

I went to Edirne in October with a 10th grade geography field trip.  We were off campus for 14 hours and at least 8 of those were spent in the bus.  I was glad I went, it was a beautiful day, we stopped at a power station and got to go in one of the cooling towers and I got a chance to hang out with some of my students, but the time in Edirne was very short and much of it was after the sun set.  So when I had the chance to go again, this time overnight with adults and in English, I decided to go for it.
Edirne is in the far north west of Turkey at the Greek and Bulgarian boarder.  At one point (for ~30 years or so) it was the capitol of the Ottoman Empire before the fall of Costantinople.  It is now a modest city, but it maintains some of its glorious memory and there are ~50 mosques in and around the city.

I have been on several trips with ARIT (see posts about walls) but this was my first over night.  I had asked to be paired up with another single female traveler to avoid the dreaded 'single supplement.'  When I got on the bus I found out that a roomate had been found, Betty, a retired English teacher and free lance writer, who has only be in Istanbul about as long as I have.  I had met her on the long walls trip and she seemed very friendly. 

We got on a big bus at 8:30 and headed west.  It was a beatiful day in Istanbul but it got foggy quickly out side of town and soon we were in terrible traffic.  Traffic from the main highway was diverted and we later we found out that it was one of the largest pile ups in Turkey's history, some 83 cars collided in the fog although only a few people were killed. 

We had quite a history lecture during the first 1.5-2 hours of our journey from our very knowledgable tour guide Tuna (which is the Turkish name for the Danube river).  It was interesting for a while, but I thought it had too much detail and was too long for me.  These trips tend to have a very erudite clientelle, with Ottoman scholars, historians and persons knowlegeable about what they are seeing.  I imagine it would be tough to lead such a group well and you would need to be very knowledgable yourself to not feel intimidated (there is a reason I teach teenagers).

Unfortunately since it has now been more than a month since I took this tour, many of the details are lost to me, so I will let the pictures I took take front seat.

Our First Mosqe of the trip, you can see how foggy it is on Saturday afternoon.

Inside the first mosque, the stained glass window are somewhat unusual.

Cedit Ali Pasa Camii 1572

 The Cedid Ali Pasa Camii is the second biggest mosque after Selimiye in Edirne and is called the great mosque.  It was designed by Architect Sinan in 1560.  It is amazingly light inside due to so many windows which is very unusual for a mosque.  Sinan was a master architect and is responsible for some of the most magnificent structures of Ottoman history including the Sulemaniye Mosque in Istanbul.

The reader climbs these steps, but stays 5 steps from the top (you can see the microphone) since to get any higher would be presumpteously close to God. 

Built in prayer rugs on the carpet.

At least on foggy days you can look directly at the sun.

We just looked in this hamam, which is good since I am afraid of them.

Down the foggy street in Edirne

Uc Serefeli Camii

 The Uc Serefeli Camii (Three balcony mosque) is built in the town center.  Each of the balconies is accesible from a different stair case so the prayer chanters do not see eachother on their way up. 

The star of David told Jews that they were welcome at this mosque.

Uc Serefeli camii from afar.

The center skylight in the Eski Camii

The Eski Camii is known for its giant calligraphy

The bottom pattern is also a type of calligraphy, in a more modern style.

Very intricate carving on the prayer stairs.

Sinan with the Selimiye Mosque in the background, his masterpiece.

The central dome inside the Selimiye Mosque.

Selimiye Camii at sunset.

Sinan really had a thing for windows.

 The Selimiye Mosque is considered Sinan's masterpiece, greater even than the larger Suleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, which he refers to as a practice for this one.  The dome is supported by an octagon of pillars which gives it a more open plan than other mosques.  It is possible to see the mithrab from anywhere in the mosque. 

Sunset in Edirne

 The next morning was even more foggy and very cold.

Muradiye Camii 1436

Graveyard of the Muradiye Mosque - the hats on the stones tel you the occupation of the person buried there.

Some original tile work remains in the single dome

Memorial of the Balkan wars martyrs

The begining of the resoration of the Edirne Ottoman Palace

Sultan Bayezin II

 We went back to the health center hospital and I paid a little more attention to some of the details this time. 

Early animal testing.  They made the snake bite the chicken and then gave it a concocted antedote to see if they could cure it. 

More occupation markers in another grave yard. 

spoons

Gazimihal Bey Camii 1422

An old synagogue in the Jewish section of town.

Rustem Pasha or Ekmekcizade Ahmet Pasha Caravanserai I am not sure which.

 A caravanserai is like a motel before there were motors.  Typically there would be rooms for humans on the second floor, and places for the animals on the ground floor.  This was is supposed to be a fuctioning hotel, but it looked pretty abandoned to me, except for the cats of course. 

A tower as part of the old city wall of Edirne

City Wall

 Other notes on Edirne... I guess the town is well known for three things besides the history and architecture: 1) Liver, 2) Almond cookies, 3) fruit shaped soap. 

Fried liver served with fried hot pepers, tomatos, raw onion and pickled pepper.  It was the best liver I have had, but I didn't need to repeat the meal on my second trip to Edirne. 

It is all generic soap, and I am not sure how good it actually is, but it looks neat, especially from afar.

 Final notes on my traveling companions.  One really nice thing about the ARIT trips are the people who are on the trip with you.  They are all friendly and interesting.  I have even met up with some of them again for dinner in town.  There haven't been any ARIT trips in more than a month, but I hope to go on some more in the spring.