Stumbling out of the house at 7 this morning to catch the service bus to school, there's a red Volkswagen bug parked half on the curb in front of the entrance. It was completely covered in dust, and someone had written on the back windshield, "Beni yika"--"Wash me!"
Every Monday morning, the zoo animals gather in front of the Turkish flag and are shouted into silence for a rousing rendition of the Turkish national anthem. I have to stand there, too, but of course, I don't sing or anything. Instead, this morning, I ran my eyes over the Vice Principal's office and counted how many pictures of Ataturk she had. There were thirteen in all. To be fair, three or four of them were on advertisements or posters of some sort, but that leaves quite a lot, which means she purposely put nine pictures of the man around her office. Now back home I can see having one picture of George Washington or someone along those lines lurking about a school official's office, but nine? Delal suggested that I file a complaint--namely, that the Vice Principal is not patriotic enough and should have even more photos. Apparently 31 more people were arrested on Friday for a "coup plot" against the government. I'm sure I could get fingers pointing her way.
Apparently, in the city of Tekirdag, in Thrace, the local people cannot pronounce H. So the name Hakan is pronounced, "Akan". While words that normally don't have an H, suddenly get one. So the name Aylin, becomes "Haylin." This is a lot like the famous New England R, where "mother" becomes "mothah" and "data" becomes "dater".
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