Tag Archives: humor

Rise and Shine

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School in Turkey is completely different to school in Australia.  In Australia school starts at the most civilised hour of 9 am and finishes at the very acceptable hour of 3 pm.  This allows you (and your brood) a decent sleep and leaving enough time for afternoon activities.  Here in Turkey Daughter starts school at the most uncivilised hour of 7 am and finishes at the completely unacceptable 12 noon.  This means I am dealing with a complete grump in the morning and, as for me, I can never get everything done in the few hours allocated as child free time.

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There are advantages to a Turkish education in Daughter’s mind.  Yes she loves the fact that she is at school for one hour less here in Turkey.  She now has a butt load of free time in the afternoon to run amok with her friends.  Another bonus in Daughter’s mind is the fact that each lesson seems to run for approximately 20 minutes with a 10 minute break for toilet or canteen visits (although the toilets are squat toilets and never seem to have any toilet paper which is more horrific to an 11 year old than anything she has gone through so far).

Returning to my point – Daughter has to get up at 5.40 am.  This ridiculously early start is required to give her enough time to get ready, whinge, drink a coffee(!), whinge, eat breakfast and whinge some more before her servis comes to collect her at 6.35 am.   The reality is that she whinges – a lot – in the morning.

I have tried lots of different tactics to make the morning starts a little easier on everyone.

Get her to bed early.  This is usually difficult as Turkey seems to be a country of night time frivolities.  Lots of visitors, loads of food, occasional dancing and music and Daughter being Daughter will not miss out on a party, even if she is the only one at the party.

Blackmail (also called Negotiation)

You’ve all done it – don’t lie.

Responsibility

I gave the responsibility to Daughter.  Brought her an alarm clock.  Set it and did not get out of bed to help her get ready for school.  This option failed dismally as she missed her servis three days in a row and in fact missed school twice!

H-e-e-l-l-l-p-p-p-p!

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I put it to you – how do you get your child up for school when it is pitch black outside.  How do you motivate them enough to get ready for school when they hate you or hate life or hate the world.  And finally, how do you get your child to stop hating you or hating life or hating the world!

My Kedi Cat

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My Kedi Cat has lived a few lives since she came into this world.  Her first life was that of a stray.  Part feral, she and her mother lived in a dumpster bin behind a warehouse complex.  Caught they were taken to the Animal Welfare League which was where she began her second life when Daughter and I adopted her New Year’s Eve 2011.  She was a nasty little blighter.  She hated me with a passion.  Daughter and The Turk were accepted as her humans but me – nope – she would bite, scratch, hiss and attack me by throwing herself from the vestibule when I passed by.  I did not call her by her name Kedi (which is Turkish for cat) I called her “that bloody cat that hates me” or “that black cat that hates me” if Daughter was within earshot.  “TBC” for short.

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When we discussed moving to Turkey and taking our fur-friends I have to be honest, I did not want to bring TBC.  There are enough cats in Turkey do we really need to bring one with us?  I argued, I begged, I pleaded but to no avail.  Both The Turk and Daughter (and apparently My Hurley Dog) wanted TBC to come to Turkey too.  So putting aside the extra cost of bringing TBC to Turkey I realised that this particular cat never spends any time indoors.  In fact after we adopted her it only took her a few days before she escaped and lived in the backyard.  This of course is a new problem as we could not let her out of our home in Turkey as those Karaduvar “Kamikazi” cats (have a read about these terrors here or here)  will no doubt kill her on sight.  So what do we do?

You may recall when The Turk arrived in Mersin he immediately instructed builders to extend our balcony and it now wraps its way around the front of our apartment.  It is a good size, certainly not huge, but enough to keep My Hurley Dog and TBC out of trouble and to give them some outdoor area.  It is still not finished yet (we are now onto our second builder – don’t ask) but both My Hurley Dog and TBC spend time out there already in the sunshine, the dog helping the builders and the cat stalking birds and watching the neighbourhood cats.

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I must say that TBC has moved into her third life quite well.  I worried that she would try and escape or suicide off the balcony, but no, she is happy to sit in the sunshine or in front of the heater.  After her initial jetlag (she spent the first two weeks awake all night and sleeping all day) she has now acclimatised and other than a few crazed moments at 3am she is generally quite happy to sleep on my bed or sit with me, as she is doing right now, on my desk as I type my blog or check my emails.

That bloody cat that hates me has morphed into My Kedi Cat that I love.  My mother in law called her a princess and she was rarely wrong about anything.  Yes I agree.  A princess.

No Touching Please – I’m Australian

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I have never been a big fan over overfamiliarity.  No unnecessary hugging or kissing or . . . look just get out of my dance space okay?

Here in Turkey it is in fact unusual to not be overly familiar with people.  A “gunaydin” (“Good morning”) is usually accompanied with a kiss on both cheeks and a hug for good measure.  The first time it happened I stiffened like a board but now I have come to accept (albeit reluctantly) that friends or strangers alike they will come at you whether you want them to or not.

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It is also absolutely acceptable to give a kiss or a hug to a stranger’s child, which would not only be be unheard of back in Australia., you would probably be arrested for it!

The first time I took Daughter to Turkey she was 10 weeks old.  The Turk did not yet have a visa and so I was taking her to meet her father.  It was a 27 hour flight from whoa to go – Sydney/Bangkok/Istanbul/Bodrum.  By the time I reached Istanbul I was haggard.  Travelling as a single mother was extremely challenging particularly with the precious little package that I had with me.  Arriving in Istanbul I had a 4 hour wait for my connection to Bodrum.  I sat with Daughter in my arms on a chair and promptly passed out from exhaustion.  When I awoke Daughter was no longer in my arms.  She had been kidnapped by the elderly Turkish lady sitting next to me who kept her for the whole flight and at one point I wondered if she was ever going to give her back.  Luckily The Turk was waiting and she reluctantly handed Daughter over to him but not before she kissed, cuddled and thoroughly examined her.

Daughter also has her own issue with the overfamiliarity.  It seems that not only do her friends in the village school greet each other every morning with kisses and hugs it is also not unusual for a teacher to hug or kiss a student – certainly not what this Aussie kid is used to and it made me say “Yikes” when I found out!

Over the past week I have probably kissed and hugged over 1000 people which, putting aside my non-touching issues also brings up my germaphobe issues.  People – keep your hands and lips to yourself.  It’s the flu season.  I have run out of my Dettol hand sanitizer and I am now having a general melt down.  The Turk is sick, Daughter sounds like she is hocking up a lung and I am running around with my Eucalyptus spray wiping down every hard surface that they touch.