Birthdays!

We always celebrate birthdays in the Ankara Branch. This month Elif turned two, and Ron turned . . . well, a little older. Elif ate the pink frosting off three cupcakes, but Ron was a little better behaved.

We were surprised to see birthday greetings from our satellite company. It looks very official, doesn’t it? That's a BBC World News Broadcast behind the birthday greeting banner.

We celebrated the Relief Society birthday with a luncheon. The picture shows almost our entire RS, minus one sister who had to return to work. Although our numbers are few, it felt great to view the broadcast and feel part of a world-wide sisterhood.

We’re currently working on projects to buy electronic readers for students with limited vision, sewing machines and computers for women prison inmates, and computers for an association that serves children with cerebral palsy. Recently we bought surgical instruments for a children’s hospital, equipment for schizophrenics, and sewing machines for a sheltered workshop for paralyzed people. We are also working hard to order a shipment of 250 wheelchairs. This is the best job in the world!

First Snow

It has been very cold for the last week—in the teens—but there was no snow that stayed on the ground. This morning, however, we woke to 3 to 4 inches of snow! It was beautiful. In midmorning the electricity in our apartment went out, so we decided we may as well take a “snow day” and walk around and enjoy the beautiful snow. The snow was especially lovely on the berries of the pyracantha shrubs, which are very abundant here.

The school children are on their winter break, so we enjoyed seeing many snowball fights. In the park, they also slid down the hills. One of the places we visited was Kuğulu (Swan) Park, which has many swans, geese and ducks. Many of the fowl were in the little houses constructed for their protection near the pond; but many of the swans were standing on the pond, as it was frozen except for the areas where the motion of the fountains kept the water unfrozen.

After walking for nearly an hour we stopped to warm up and enjoy a winter drink that is popular in Turkey: sahlep. It is warm, sweetened milk flavored and thickened with the ground bulb of the wild orchid plant which grows on the Anatolian plateau (around Ankara). It’s very aromatic and lovely, especially when sprinkled with cinnamon. This drink was popular throughout the world in the 17th and 18th centuries, before the popularity of coffee and tea. It’s delicious!

We continue to love our humanitarian work. Currently we are working on projects for a school, a hospital, a foundation that works with schizophrenic young adults, and organizations that serve refugees.

Noah’s Pudding

Turkish food is great, and most of the desserts are delicious. “Noah’s pudding”, however, is a dessert which I probably won’t make again. It’s traditional at this time of year, and many housewives cook enough for their neighbors as long as they are making a big pot of this favorite dessert. Tradition has it that when Noah’s ark landed on Mt. Ararat in Eastern Turkey (shown in the picture below), they took the remaining dried foods and made them into a pudding to celebrate their arrival on dry ground. The pudding contains oatmeal, beans (both red and white), barley, dried fruits of many varieties, and nuts. It is boiled into a sort of glutinous consistency, then chilled. Afiyet olsun! (Bon appétit!)

We finally saw a “Van kitty” on the streets of Ankara. These cats come from Eastern Turkey, around Lake Van. They are very large and fluffy, and they have one amber eye and one blue eye (hard to see it in the picture). Most interesting of all, they are very friendly—and they love water. They seek out water and will play in it. They are highly prized, and consequently are protected; they can’t be taken out of Turkey.

Happy New Year! Mutlu Yıllar!

Christmas Oddments

In Turkey, a Muslim country, Christmas is not celebrated, but we have managed to celebrate with fellow Church members. We had a small but wonderful Christmas service last Sunday; and Tracy and I baked holiday cookies. We have seen some odd reminders of Christmas, though:

School bells play songs when it is time to change classes. We heard “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” repeatedly last spring. During August we dined twice with friends at a hotel in Ankara, where they played about two hours of Christmas music each night. It was so strange to hear “Winter Wonderland” and “White Christmas” in the heat of August evenings! Recently, I explained to my Turkish teacher that we play Christmas music only at Christmas time, and she was genuinely puzzled.

Turks exchange presents on New Year's Day, so the stores are filled with “New Year” decorations, which look just like Christmas decorations to us. They include lights, trees, bright balls, Santa Claus and we’ve even seen a couple of “New Year” angels.

Speaking of Santa, St. Nicholas was born in Turkey. Every December people make pilgrimages to a 4th century church near Altalya, on the Mediterranean, and there are symposiums and debates.

There are a few poinsettias everywhere, but they are called “Ataturk flowers.” Apparently Mustafa Ataturk saw them in Europe and brought them to Turkey, thus they are named after him.

We found a box of Christmas decorations in our missionary apartment, so we have a very small tree with lights and a few other things, including the carved wood crèches we bought in Armenia when we were there last April at a Humanitarian Couples’ Conference. I also pieced a quilt top a little at a time during the autumn, so that makes the apartment look cheery. About 15 people will come to our house for dinner on Christmas Day. We are luckier than most people and have a real though small oven in our kitchen; our 18-lb turkey just barely fits!

We enjoyed singing Christmas music with Ankara A Cappella Choir, a small group of mostly American and British expats. We gave two concerts and will sing at the candlelight service at the British Embassy chapel on Christmas Eve.

We wish our friends and family a very merry Christmas! We're grateful to be serving the Lord at this season of giving. Our Humanitarian work feels like Christmas all year. We hope you feel the love of the Savior in a special way during this joyous season. We wish you "Noel kutlu olson" - May your Christmas be blessed!

Thanksgiving and Kurban Bayram (Sacrifice Holiday)

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration here in Turkey! We managed to fit a 15-lb turkey in our small oven, and there were 13 of us for dinner. We even had a children's table. Two women brought their favorite dishes; and we had dressing, mashed potatoes, yams, green bean bake, rolls, cranberry jello salad and sauce, and we ended with pumpkin and apple pies. I mastered the Turkish rolling pin to make our family's traditional rolls in our tiny kitchen. We were lucky to have access to the commissary on the small US Air Force base here, so we could buy all the foods we can’t find here on the economy. We had a true American feast, and it was a wonderful day with our friends.

The day after Thanksgiving, the biggest Turkish holiday, Kurban Bayram or Sacrifice Holiday, began. According to the Koran, Ishmael was the son whom Abraham was commanded to sacrifice, not Isaac as the Old Testament claims. In remembrance of this event, Turks make animal sacrifices on the first day of the holiday. The man of the family will go to the place where animals are sacrificed and will buy a sheep or, with other families, a cow. The animal is then slaughtered. (The slaughter took place on the street near home until a few years ago, but now in the cities this is no longer done.) The man of the family may take 1/7th of the meat home, if he desires, and all the rest of the meat is distributed to the poor. At home, the women are preparing a large meal, which may include some of the meat from the sacrifice when the men arrive home. After a day of celebrating with family, the Turks will spend the next three days visiting friends and extended family. Trains and buses are crowded as people travel to visit with family. Very few stores are open during this favorite holiday of the year.

Although we missed our family very much on Thanksgiving, we were busy and happy. We were pleased that our latest project was accomplished just the day before Thanksgiving: we gave winter boots to all the children in a village school, so now they will be able to attend school even when it snows. The supplier of the boots was so impressed with the project that he donated 15 extra pairs as a "sacrifice" in honor of the holiday, so some brothers and sisters will also get new boots. We're having an amazing experience here as humanitarian missionaries!

A Visit to the Village of Hısarlıkaya

We had a most interesting experience at a small, isolated village which is at least an hour outside of Ankara and even 30 minutes from any other village. LDS Charities provided tables, chairs and educational toys for the kindergarten class and also a multi-purpose printer for the office. The school is just two rooms at present: grades 1-3 meet in one room, grades 4-5 in another. Although there is also a kindergarten room, right now the kindergarten students are divided between the other two classes, since the teacher had to leave a couple of months ago and has not been replaced. Each of the classrooms is heated by a wood stove, and the bathroom is a separate, unheated, very dilapidated building.

There are about 40 students in the Hısarlıkaya school, and they are very sweet. The older students wrote us letters to thank us for our donations. They called us “Elizabeth teyze” and “Ron amca” (Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Ron), which is common for younger people to do to show respect for their elders. Practically every letter said, “Sizi çok seviyorum” (I love you very much).

After visiting the school, we went with some Lions Club members to the community building where the women of the village were gathered to have their blood pressure and blood sugar checked by a doctor. What an amazing sight it was to see about 50 village women seated around the room on the traditional carpet-covered benches. They all wore the baggy pants that look like skirts until just above the ankle, where the skirt divides into two legs. They could easily sit cross-legged in such an outfit, and many did. They all wore headscarves and colorful outfits, and we “city women” looked and felt very different from them. Our interpreter said most of them have only the 5th grade education that they got there in the village. Now children must attend more school, but it was not required until several years ago. I wanted to take a picture, but I didn’t want to be offensive; so I admired a baby and asked if I could take a picture of the baby. Of course, I got a few women in the picture, too. The woman was very pleased (and so was I), and when she left, she hugged me and kissed me on both cheeks—even though most people aren’t doing that these days for fear of swine flu.

We talked to the doctor after the village women had left, and she said that they found many women with blood pressure and blood sugar which was too high, but she was convinced that they wouldn’t be able to do much about it. The nearest doctor is at least 30 minutes away, and we saw very few cars in the village. The doctor feared that even if the women got diagnosed and treated once, keeping up on regular visits and prescriptions would probably be too difficult for most of the women.

One of my friends told me that her mother had been "too old" to come to her wedding. I was surprised to find that this OLD mother was several years younger than I. "But village life is very hard," my friend said. It is! We feel very blessed!

Remembering Ataturk

November 10th was the national day of remembrance of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkey’s great national hero. He died at 9:05 a.m. on this day in 1938, so everyone stops for a minute of (supposed) silence at that time. We went out on the main street in our district to see what would happen, and sure enough, all traffic stopped and pedestrians stood still for a minute. At 9:05 we heard a siren in the distance, and everyone stood still. Unfortunately, we were by a large number of stopped cars, and some of the drivers observed the minute by sounding their horns for that period. It was deafening. We were impressed that the minute really was observed by everyone in our sight. There was a major ceremony at his huge mausoleum and in other locations, and we saw flowers by his statues. Many buildings featured huge banners with his pictures, many stories in height.

Ataturk is revered by the Turks—and with good reason. His name means, roughly, “father of the Turks.” He was the first president of the Republic, but he also brought sweeping changes to the country, among them changing the alphabet and numbering system to coincide with those of Europe. He changed and westernized the language, calendar, dress, education and social institutions of the country. Before Ataturk, no one used last names, and women had little legal or social standing. He truly was a remarkable man. He faced Turkey toward the West.

Each schoolroom and office has at least one picture of Ataturk, and there are myriad statues of him in every city in the country. We counted four pictures of him in our own apartment, from "thank you" gifts we had received! We visited a school yesterday and saw the “shrine” above in the playground. The slabs in the foreground read “We are following you,” and “We miss you.” "How happy I am to say I am a Turk" is inscribed under the bust of Ataturk and is one of the most common quotes inscribed on his statues.

The school we visited yesterday, by the way, educates only children who have been cured of leukemia and are being monitored. Their immune systems are often weakened, so special care is taken to provide a healthful environment. LDS Charities outfitted a science lab for the school. A special ceremony was held yesterday, where we cut a ribbon in the doorway leading into the classroom. Since it is an elementary school, the scissors were very dull and blunt!