Nanny Diaries and my "Ah ha!" Moment

 "There's a popular belief amongst anthropologists that you must immerse yourself in an unfamiliar world...in order to truly understand your own" --The Nanny Diaries



 I watched the 2007 movie starring Scarlett Johansson called "The Nanny Diaries" late one night last week. It was interesting to watch from my perspective as a current nanny. Johansson's character 'Annie' has just about as nightmarish an experience as I can imagine. Contrasting Annie's situation with my own, I realize yet again that I really hit the AuPair Lottery Jackpot in many ways. I thoroughly enjoy both the children I work with and the parents I work for. (And unlike Johansson's character my family actually calls me by my preffered name and not "Nanny")

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I was napping when the girls got home from school one day last week (something I am doing far too much of these days) so Selin came up stairs to find me for her customary afterschool hug. Before climbing into my (huge) bed where I was oh so cozily ensconced she expressed slight anxiety about her clothes being "dirty" from being at school (I confess, if there was any dirt I  couldn't see it) I have long been puzzled by the near germ-a-phobic cleansing rituals and habits here in the home. Selin explained: "Well...to muslims it is very important to always be clean"


Ah ha!

I literally exclaimed "Ah ha!" as so many little pieces fell into place for me. Suddenly I am remembering the Pillars of Islam and the ritualistic cleansing of hands feet and head outside mosques and it all makes sense. Despite the fact that this family and most modern Turks from what I can divine are more cold Muslims then I had expected there are some aspects of the religion that are now deeply ingrained in the culture.

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A not-so-clever-or-happy-Ah ha!-moment....

Cumartesi, 20 Mart, 10:45am
     "Brittany? Its me Vada. I'm in Sishane but I dont know where to go next"
     "Sishane?! You were supposed to go to Sisli. Its in the other direction. You need to get back on the Metro  and go towards Levent!"
     Doh!

11:15am
     I am pretty sure we are about the only 2 people in Istanbul listening to our ipods. He is wearing paint splattered blue jeans and...whats this? A black leather vest with rhinestone buttons over a low v-neck black button-up? Dana Dwyer Bradshaw...where is your international cell phone when I need to text you? I am often surprised the the metros in Istanbul are so clean and so quiet. Few people even talk. Its at this point that the fact that this is the third person to sit down across from me and then get off at the very next stop while I seem to be getting no closer to my destination strikes me as odd. I glance up to the stop indicator to make the horrible discovery that I am on my way BACK to Sishane! This train only goes back and forth between two stops. At Taksim I am supposed to get off the M2, walk twenty feet down the line and get on the M1 to continue toward my stop Sisli/Mecedekoy.
     F my life!

11:45am
     Sitting on the 121A, waiting for it to leave the station I pull out my cell phone. "Ayse, ben Vada. I am on otobus. I will be late. yok cimnastik. Uzgunum".

 12:30
     I pay the cab driver 10 lira and climb out of the taxi. Of course the door is locked, and after 2 minutes of polite then not so polite bell ringing I am forced to conclude that no one is home. I sit down on the Holland cover draped patio furnature and drift...

2:45
     "Where were you Vada?"
     "Here?" I mumble, still out of sorts from my nap and my struggle to stay warm while I waited for the family to return. "I'm sorry I was late...I got turned around"

Jellyfish, Octopus, Executives & Heels

     Abandoning my affected air of sophistication I broke down and admitted "no, I do not like the fish" with an apologetic smile and a small laugh at my own finickiness I handed the plate over to Bulent to distribute my fare to the real "adults" at the table. I was sitting in the nicest restaurant I have ever had the pleasure of being a legitimate patron at, eating what I am sure was the most expensive meal of my life, and I just couldnt handle one more bite. Maybe if I hadn't gorged on Little Ceasar's Pizza a mere hour earlier I could have sampled more of the rare delicacies laid out before me. As it stood, all i could think about was how to tactfully excuse myself from the table before my bladder burst.
     "Yasemin, do you have to go to the bathroom?" No. Damn.
But I won't be too hard on myself. I did afterall try both squid and octopus for the first time in the very same meal!

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"Vada....Like the British Darth Vada?" The boy asked.

Finally! Never mind that neither George Lucas nor the Star Wars Trilogy are British. In America, the most common response to hearing my name (at least from men) is 'Vada...like Darth Vada! Har har har'. Clever. Good one. Never heard that one before. Here what I get 'Elveda Vada!" (farewell) One night this week the father burst into some song about elveda and Yasemin jumped up from the dinner table to dance accompanied by the mother's clapping, all for me. I loved it

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(Rewind)
Freedom sweet sweet freedom! Errm.....actually....please....just halfway??? No? :( But but but...oh alright.
     So I walked from Sebnem's art studio in Beyoglu all the way across Taksim to meet Brittany and Eda all by myself! Stopping to ask "Hilton Hotel nerede?" ever 100 meters. The anxiety was all worth it. I am glad my friends pushed me to walk on my own; it's the only real way to learn the way. Now I have walked, taken taxis, and even taken the METRO all by myself! I think I deserve a cookie...

    I was able to go to Taksim twice this week, once just for the afternoon on Wednesday, I met Eda and Brittany for lunch and some shopping. Thursday I spent all day with my friends and had an interesting adventure. Eda was asked by her friend Barak who is in the tourism business (owns his own hotel and restaurant at 25 and is also some kind of ladies man socialite here in Istanbul--he googled paparzzi pics of himself to prove it)...anyways, back to story. Barak asked Eda to come to his office in Sultanahmet for an "interview" for a translating job.
    So down the fuicula and onto the metro to Sultanahmet we go. Walking past the great obelisks of the hippodrome into the mecca of tourism that is Sultanahmet for said interview.

     That interview really turned into two television channel executives from Star TV one of the biggest broadcasting corporations in Turkey, a police chief, one secretary, Barak, Eda, Brittany and yours truly watching an episode of "48 hrs Mystery" Brittany and me explaining what was going on in the show while Eda translated it into Turkish for the rest of the group. For 3 hours. Alla-h-allah! I think we got the job.

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     What was NOT so good an idea was wearing high heels in Taksim.
     Cobblestones, tiles, concrete, stairs, steps, hills, inclines, potholes, gutters, manholes, and grates....Lets just say that Istanbul is not exactly a heel friendly city. (Note to reader: concider carefully before donning those oh so cute pumps for a night out on the town. A nice pair of fashionably LOW HEELED boots may be a much better decision...an thanks to the open air bazaar I now possess just such an item. cherry red leather. only 20 Lira. Allah I love Turkey! Its amazing how a great pair of boots, a sparkly scarf and the perfect jacket can make a girl feel like a million bucks.
    Friends and family would be happy and shocked to know that I am better dressed then I have ever been. Ever.
     To get back to the aforementioned open air bizarre: visitors and newbies to the city need to know about this. The Bazaar (not the Grand Bazaar) is the best place to find anything from cheap sunglasses, to clothing, to home furnishings, to q tips, to nazar boncugu (evil eye) jewelry. The shop keepers also tend to be friendlier and more fair then the keepers of the Grand Bazaar whom raise the price of their items to twice the Turkish rate if you are American.

The Marathon Breakfast

I went on my second official all family outing today. We had been invited to Kahvalti at the home of Sebnem's good friend Aylin who is a successful Photographer and has published several books including a collection of photographs of the sea and sea going vessels called "VapurIstanbul". Aylin and her husband have only recently moved from their home in the most densly populated part of Istanbul to a new home in the country near the Black Sea, so this was also a House Warming party.
    As we pulled out of Beykoz Konaklari and headed north, the thousands of stacked toy block homes that is Istanbul quickly--and I mean surprisingly so--gave way to green hillsides and open country. And my heart leapt inside my chest as my soul sang in delight to be reunited with Mother Nature, so long denied. For a while I felt I could have been on any road in Wyoming or even Idaho until suddenly a cami (mosque) suddenly winked at me from between two hills as we passed. Then I remembered where I was and a delighted laugh bubbled to my lips. The mother turned back to look at me from the front seat and all I could do was smile and point out to window to the nothing all around us.
    15 minutes later I was silently marveling that we hadn't passed a farm of any sort yet when it happened. Suddenly we were passing a field which contained of all things, a herd of geese (yes I know that groups of geese are called flocks--but what would you call a group of domestic fowl which are lounging about a carefully kept pasture and are, to all appearances, grazing?) Next was a flock of sheep....then cows...and finally, like Allah had decided to grant my every wish today, horses.
     I took what felt like my first deep breath in a month. To quote the blog of another American nanny in Istanbul: "City I love you; but Nature, I need you"

The wonders were not through.

We crested a rise, and there it was. My mouth refused to say it. My face failed to show it. But my heart knew what it was. After years....nay, an entire decade, I was finally seeing with my own eyes what I had only read about. The Black Sea. Something about this mysterious and dark body of water has fascinated me from a child. Had it been a sunny day with skies of blue I probably would have been disappointed. But no, today was shrouded in a heavy blanket grey, casting the sea and remote, grey shadows. In short: exactly as I imagined it.
     Though on the opposite side of the sea from the particulate peninsula which was the setting for the books which began it all, still the ancient geography of the land resonates. Only last night I was admitting to my brother online that an entire year was beginning to sound like a terribly long time. This brief glimpse reminded me that a lifetime will not be time enough to see every site my soul craves--many of which are in close proximity to the room in which I sit now.

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Ignoring my desperate protests he sets a second gozleme, this time filled with cheese on my plate. I am already full having had two small domates (tomatoes), some zeytin (olives), bread with tomato paste, a peice of what I think was raw/dried beef, a glass of fresh squeezed blood orange juice, a cup of tea, and a kofteli gozleme (meat filled crepe)...all on top of the 2 crepes I ate at home with the girls before we came. He wouldn't be dissuaded. To I grudginly allowed him to place the folded and fried pastry on my plate and took two bites in the name of courtesy and gourmet curiosity before excusing myself from the table to join the girls on the couch.
     I was a lovely home. Not opulant in the manner of Baba-anne's house, not pale and modern in a suburby-way like ours. But rich not-overly-polished woods, wide corridors, and inviting artistic book shelves. I'm not sure whether it was the country setting, the friendly but laid back manner of our hosts, or the house itself, but I was more comfortable sprawled on the couch watching Johnny Bravo in Turkish then any place I have been yet in Turkey.
     I loved them. They even spoke french in the most beautifully clear accent to me. I wish they had children. I would beg to live with them. Maybe they need an underqualified graduate with a Bachelors in Psychology. Wishful thinking.