Sorry friends, I haven't been a good boy about updating here. Things have been keeping me very busy the past three weeks, both my mind and my life. The heat hasn't really helped things either: it's not so much the heat that gets to me as the humidity - you can sweat and sweat and sweat but it doesn't go anywhere, your clothes stick to you and not even when the breeze blows do you find relief, as it feels more like hot breath than wind.
Let me share a little cultural anecdote about the Turkish mentality with you. I must apologize in advance to anyone who might take offense at this - I'm sorry, but I call it like I see it.
Even though this is one of the biggest cities in the world, the mass mentality of the population is that of village people. For example, Turks believe that the slightest draft of cool air will cause one to fall gravely ill (most of them are hypocritically hypochondriacal, but that's a different matter altogether). In the unairconditioned classroom on stuffy days, I like to keep both the door and the window open when I teach, because sometimes I am lucky enough to have a lukewarm breeze come through that can sometimes be a relief. However, this always becomes a conflict, because the Turkish instinct is to close the door as soon as someone opens a window. Once, in this situation, a girl came late to class, sat down in front of the window and closed it. The classroom was about 90 degrees and I was lucky to have a slight breeze:
"What the hell are you doing?" I asked.
"I become sick, teacher."
"You're kidding, right? It's almost 40 degrees. Trust me, you won't get sick. Open the window and sit in a different place, it's too hot to have the window closed."
The situation is even worse on the buses. Imagine this: you get onto a unairconditioned bus stuffed with about a hundred people. Not only is it the hottest, stuffiest place you have ever been, but it smells worse than a locker room hamper as well. The air isn't moving despite the windows being open because the damn bus is locked up in traffic. When the bus finally frees itself from the gridlock and starts moving, and the air starts moving in the windows to alleviate the sweaty, stagnant air, before you can breathe a sigh of relief someone reaches up and shuts the window. Who? The fat covered woman in front of you who is not only wearing a headscarf, but a thick black trench coat as well. Why? She's going to catch a draft under all those layers, fall ill and die. Dear god, dear god.
I don't want to go on about it - I have to save such fodder for other posts. But anyway, despite rumors of a summer slow down at work, we have been pleasantly - and exhaustedly - surprised. I have been very busy the past month. I had planned on going on holiday in August, but now I think I'll be too busy at that time and, it'll be Ramadan anyway, so I might save it for September, a birthday treat.
I'm changing my house (again) towards the end of the month. Since my apartment is partly underground, it is impossibly moist and humid in this humidity, and nothing ever dries because a breeze hardly ever comes through the house. Mold abounds. I don't really want to be bothered to have to find another house, so I'm letting Kürşad do the work. He has been intent on getting a place of his own anyway for a while now, so I'll let him take care of the details.
I'm sorry to those whom I haven't seen in a long time. I miss you, but it will probably still be a long time before we see each other again.
