The Bazaar of Useful Shit (Episode 2)

As I said earlier, the nice thing about this place is that you hardly ever need to walk into a store.

Sure, for things like milk, juice, cheese, toilet paper, household objects - the necessities - you need to go to a store, but otherwise the need really isn't there because of street peddlers and weekly bazaars. Sometimes, there are peddlers that come by who sell cleaning and the aforementioned necessary household objects, but of course, I can never find them when I really need them.

Can't miss this guy, but he remains elusive

If you need fruit, there are meyveci, fruit sellers, on nearly every corner. Sometimes they have a cart they push around, but a lot of the time, especially now during the watermelon season, many men just park their car or truck on the corner and sell melons out of the back.

If you need a quick snack, there are all kinds of peddlers about selling a variety of healthy snacks to sate your appetite: roasted corn-sellers, rice-sellers, roasted chestnut-sellers, simit-sellers (simitçi), stuffed mussel-sellers (dolmacı), pancake-sellers, sandwich-sellers, meatball-sellers (köfteci), and so on. That's another thing I like about this place - all of the "fast food" or quick snacks are fresh and healthy. Of course, you need to beware of low quality döner meat and always wash your fruit before consumption, but otherwise it beats going to Burger King and the likes.

But, as I was saying, the bazaars here are awesome - they make you never want to go into a store because of the fantastic vareity of items that can be found there and, of course, the low prices and the possibility to bargain. Where I live in Fındıkzade, there is a major bazaar every Friday. This bazaar is famous throughout the city because of its sheer size and availability to buy anything that you need.

Thuırsday Morning

Same place, Friday morning

By my estimate, the bazaar spans about eight square blocks of my neighborhood. The streets are closed and cleared of vehicles, and the vendors arrive early (for Turkey) in the morning to set up their booths and merchandise. By 9 am the place is a madhouse: vendors shouting "Buyrunbuyrunbuyrunbuyrun! Bir lira bilirabilirabilirabilirabilirabuyrun!" (Yes please one lira!!!) at the top of their lungs, people thronging the tables rooting through piles of clothes and fruit and other goods; the bargaining is fast and cash changes hands rapidly. The bazaar can be a a pain whenever I have to go out and make my way to the bus stop, because it is so crowded and it takes a long time to pass through.

But it really does have everything you need, from fruit to fish to cheese to olives to toiletries to silverware to plates to hair scrunchies to shoes to pots and pans to clothes to fake Converses to simit to tea to nail files to mirrors to flowers to plants to swimsuits to baby clothes to vegetables to nuts to spices to.....well, you get the idea. You can get an entire week's shopping done by only walking two blocks. There are even men who walk around with great big baskets on their backs who will carry your goods home for you. Everyone makes some money at the bazaar somehow.

The best thing about the bazaar are the smells and trash that get left behind. On days where I work all day, the bazaar is just getting started, but by the time I come home the streets are once again empty and the streetsweepers have begun the monumental task of cleaning up the day's garbage. As I walk home, it is easy to imagine the lively environment that was there earlier that day - here was the sock-seller, and there where the wilted lettuce is was a fruit seller. There is a broken tea glass, and a half eaten simit. Olive pits everywhere, and plastic wrappers. And clearly, the fish seller was on that corner with the street cats enjoying the foul scent of the long gone fish tables. What interests me most about the bazaar is not the bazaar itself but the aftermath of it - the discarded candy and broken plastic and soda cans. Most of all I wonder what is like to be a street sweeper - what kind of treasures have they accumulated after cleaning up the endless parade of Friday bazaars?

Thursday Morning

Its Thursday morning after a long stretch of split shift work days. I finally got to spend some much needed time at home to do some laundry and housecleaning. You know, to get rid of the fresh batch of dead flies that have collected on the floor. Not much for breakfast, but what food is in the fridge is good and wholesome; last week, Kürşad's family sent him some fresh food from his farm in the village in Kayseri: fresh sheep's cheese, 3 kilos of cherries (we made short work of them), fresh sausage, kaymak (a kind of cream made from yogurt), a jar of unbelievably spicy peppers his father cured, pastırma (a kind of spiced cured meat that is unique to that region), and, of course, some kind of animal organ. Not sure what he plans on doing with that, though. Village people......

Yes, that is some kind of animal heart next to the yogurt

Wa'allah that's a big simit!!

Off to do some errands now that I have the time!!

English Time Şirinevler

Şirinevler is a crowded suburb of the greater city of İstanbul. Because Şirinevler is a ways outside of the city and is inexpensive, most of the people who come to İstanbul from the viallages of Anatolia to seek work or a life settle in Şirinevler. This means that Şirinevler is crowded and often dirty, because of its location next to one of the city's busiest highways and its role as a minor transportation hub. But it's not a complete hole. It's more of a working class neighborhood, incomparison with the planned, upscale neighborhood of Ataköy, which faces Şirinevler from across the highway. It is also near the airport, so there is always activity and people coming and going. For these reasons, Şirinevler is a bit of a misnomer - in Turkish it means "cute houses". I always got a ride out of that.

Looking west, towards the airport

İstanbul as far as the eye can see

Şirinevler square and the main mosque

English Time, the business - ahem, school, where I work has nearly ten branches all over the city, but I work at the Şirinevler branch. I wouldn't have it any other way, because even though it is crowded it is out of the way, it is inexpensive, unpretentious, and bit seedy and, therefore, genuine. Most of the students don't like the Şirinevler English Time, but it is fine by me.

It is located at the top of a high rise work center, only one long hallway of classrooms and two offices. I like this because you don't have to know your way around. Once, or twice, I had to cover at a different branch and I hated it because there were 6 floors that all looked the same so I could never find my classroom. The Şirinevler branch is simple - there are about 10-13 classrooms along the hallway, that's it. There is also a little canteen where you can buy cookies and crackers and drinks, but it is a little pricy. Sometimes it is nice to sit in there between shifts when no one is around.

One of the unique things about the education system in Turkey is the requirement of all classrooms to have a short inventory list on the wall cataloguing all the items in the room, as well as a photo of Atatürk, his "Youth Address", and the "İstiklal Marsi", something like a national anthem. This is mandated by law, and the Atatürk photo must always be set a bit higher than the "İstiklal Marsi" and the Youth Address. There must also be one in the main hallway for everyone to view.

I have a varied work schedule. During the weekdays, there are two classes a day: the morning class, which runs from 10 am - 2 pm, and the evening class, which runs from 7 - 10 pm, with a 10 minute break every hour. On the weekend, the morning class runs from 9am - 1 pm and afternoon from 3 - 7pm. English Time breaks the levels of proficiency down into 6 levels, so a weekday class, a level, takes about one month to finish, but a weekend class takes about 4 months to finish. This means that my work schedule changes about every month or so, depending on whether new classes open up. I always work on the weekend. Now, in the summer, students are hot and take holidays, so business is slow, but luckily I have work, so I am thankful for that.

The best thing about working at English Time Şirinevler are the teachers. The students are great, but the rapport and lively comraderie between the teachers makes the work tolerable, even enjoyable at times. All of the teachers get alont great, which is a bit unusual; once, when I had to work at the aforementioned different branch, I found the teachers there to be chilly and unconcerned. Not so at Şirinevler - we all get along, joke with one another, help each other, and spend time together outside of work. All of the teachers here are hardworking and care about the students' progress and do our best to make sure they understand things, and to make learning fun and interesting as well. We have one Turkish teacher who helps the students with their grammar problems, Feyza - she is very affable and charming and helps us out a lot, making the teachers' room a great environment and everything a bit easier for everyone.

Martyn, our token Brit hard at work

My Turkish friends, Feyza and Ali

Everyone at the Şirinevler English Time makes it a nice place to work - Şirinevler may be gritty, but at least the staff and students help our branch live up to being a "cute house"!

The Bazaar of Useless Shit (Episode 1)

One of the things that is great about this place is that you hardly ever need to walk into a store.

Whatever you need at any given moment is probably being sold by someone on the street not far from where you are at any particular time or place. Of course, this also applies to what you don't need as well. Whether you are casually standing on the street or purposefully going someplace, there will always be a peddlar nearby to offer you the silliest and most useless things. This is standard across the city.

Most common are the old women selling tissues and candy out of shoeboxes. I don't know if these women are just bored or miserably poor, but they will spend the whole day wandering with their box of tissues and candy, entreating every passerby to buy. I have to hand it to them though, they do try - it's better than the fat, lazy ones who spread a newspaper on the stairs in everyone's way, sit down and beg, palms open, Allah rahsosun!, God bless you. Yes, because starvation and poverty makes you fat as a whale.

Also standard in every district of the city are one or two zenci, black Somalians, who walk around with a red velveted board on which a fine selection of fake watches is displayed. They sidle up to you slyly and show their goods with a slight nod, as if divulging a secret. I can't vouch for the quality or bargain prices of these watches, but I find the practice enigmatic - I've never actually seen anyone buy from these men, nor have I ever heard them speak. They roam the streets silently, like shadows, disappearing as quickly as they appear. Turkey is a relatively homogenous country, so an African makes you look twice. The consensus among the Turks is that these Africans come here from some lawless, war-torn African country hopeful to pass into Europe or England clandestinely. Istanbul is just a waypoint for them, another caravansaray along the way.

I don't know if this woman bought or not

Many times older, disabled, or unemployed people will sit on the sidewalk, put a blanket on the ground, and lay out a variety of objects to sell with the care and precision of a museum display. Of course, these objects are useless (unless you smoke or have a hangnail): cans of lighter fluid, some matches, lighters, tissues, tesbiis (religious prayer beads), nail clippers, combs, and so forth. Usually there is a bathroom scale there as well, and for 50 kuruş the old man will let you step on the scale and tell you your weight. Sometimes if someone has been up on his luck he will have other things to sell, like television antennas, old radios, remote controls, keyrings, and used batteries. Yes, if they find it and it appears that it will work, then they can sell it.

Some men aren't content to sit in the same spot all day and therefore take these objects on the road. Last week, while Üskan and I were standing on the street killing time, a man walked up to us and revealed some multi-purpose screwdrivers and manicure sets. Üskan, casually leaning on the fence with his thumbs hooked cooly through his belt loops, inspected these objects with a knowing carefulness. After a moment, he nodded slightly, raising his eyebrows and puckering his lips as he *tsk*ed no - sorry, no thanks, don't want that garbage - and the man moved on. This happens a lot; men come along with briefcases of sunglasses, bags of socks, or duffel bags stuffed to the brim with "brand name" jeans or polo shirts. It's nice to know that if I suddenly decide that I need a pair of jeans or a screwdriver at any random moment, someone will surely be along to help me.


But usually most of the time it is in the afternoon or at night that these "bazaars" spring up on the sidewalks of İstanbul. Usually old men, widows, or the unemployed will set up shop right on the sidewalk to sell anything and everything no one needs. Things get particularly lively at night, and especially in the seedy areas of the city, like Aksaray or Şirinevler, where I work. In Şirinevler, there is a pedestrian bridge over the highway that, after 9 pm, really does become a bazaar - there are old phones, antennas, cell phone covers, bootleg DVDs, scary plastic dolls, socks, belts, underwear, an unimaginable collection of the most irritating battery-powered toys, books, kitchen utensils, shaving accessories, pens, bootleg Georgian and Bulgarian cigarettes, lighters, gaudy jewelery - you name it. It really is a bazaar of useless shit. I have come to think that these salesmen come here under the cover of night to sell because the darkness masks the poor quality of their products; once, I bought four pairs of socks for 1 lira, and after wearing a pair once my foot was stained black and the sock was thinner than tissue paper. Useless.

Where does all this useless shit come from? Well, not China, as you might be surprised to hear - it comes from Turkey; almost everything you see here is made here in Turkey. The brand new stuff, I mean. But the things that are used and no longer wanted are collected, repaired, and sold again. This may sound strange, but it is actually the most efficient recycling system I have ever seen. Many people in İstanbul actually make a living collecting old things. These people are called eskici.

The eskici is most undoubtedly one of my favorite things about this country because I think it is so funny. The eskici has a cart he pushes around all day while yelling, "Eskiciiiiiiiiiii!!!!!" If the eskici comes and you have things you need to get rid of, you call him, give him your unwanted items, and he gives you a little bit of money for it, if you want. What's so funny about that? you say. Well, the "call" of the eskici is particularly funny - some men have a deep, throaty call that sounds like a croaking frog, animal like. Other men say "eskici" in a way that sounds like "sıkıcı", which is the Turkish word for "boring" (pushing around a cart all day? Yes.). Most of the time, it just sounds like a low, incomprehensible moan. This is enhanced by the fact that in my neighborhood at any given time during the day there are at least 3 eskici working in a 5 block area. So all day, you rhythmically hear eeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Ooooooooooooooooooooo! After a while, this gives the feeling of living in a jungle of some sorts, the constant sound of animal calls in the background. Or, at least, like the streets are filled with raving derelicts.

Eskiciiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeaaaaaaa!!!!!

There are also many men who walk around with a giant plastic sack on a hand truck all day, moving from dumpster to dumpster to root around and pick out the plastic and paper materials that they can sell to recycling centers. I scoffed at this at first, but a woman I work with told me that it wasn't a rediculous job - a man she knew had bought an entire house for his family solely by picking paper out of the garbage. So perhaps useless things are only useless in the eye of the beholder - one man's trash really can be another man's treasure.