Tag Archives: weather

That time our dolmus driver went bat shit crazy

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Yesterday our dolmuş driver lost his cool.  Postal.  I get it, I really do.  It’s hot here in Mersin and it is only going to get hotter.  It was 35 in the shade yesterday afternoon and when it gets hot people lose their shit but this guy was one sandwich short of a picnic crazy and I did start to worry about our safety (you will understand as the story goes on).

Just to remind you or for the uninitiated a dolmuş is a shared taxi that runs along a set route.  It is usually quite civilised.  They come along every few minutes.  There are signs on the dolmuş so you know where they are going and it is easy enough to wave them down or ask them to stop when you want to get off.  If you are lucky you will get an air conditioned dolmuş which is a blessing in this heat but if they are not air conditioned then it is a little like being stuffed into a sauna with 30 other unlucky souls.

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(Stock photo – not dolmus in question)

Up to speed so back to my story.

It all started with the driver receiving a telephone call.  Now I know I do not have enough Turkish to give you a rundown of the conversation but I can tell you that he was obviously not on time (the drivers have a very tight schedule to keep and if they run late or run early they are fined) and his boss telephoned him wanting to know where he was.  He pretty much told his boss to get f*cked and he would get there when he got there.  I had a big grin on my face at this point after all who hasn’t wanted to tell their boss to get f*cked at one stage or another.

He then lit up a cigarette.  No you are not allowed to smoke on a bus in Turkey but the sign above his head “Sigara içilmez” or “no smoking” meant nothing to him at this point after all he had already told his boss where to go.  An elderly lady complained about the cigarette so in reply he flicked it at her feet.  She got out of the dolmuş.

At the next block a young mother hopped on with two children.  She handed over 50TL to the driver for payment and this was the catalyst to the next fifteen minutes of crazy.  The explosion of expletives being thrown around the dolmuş by the driver was astounding and he wasn’t discriminating, he was screaming at everyone.  Daughter (who is well versed in expletives) was gawking at the driver with her mouth wide open.  “I think we need to get off this bus,” she whispered.  I nodded in agreement and was about to ask the driver to stop when his telephone rang again.  The driver looked at the telephone, pulled the dolmuş over, turned the engine off, got out and shut the doors behind him.  At this point I began to wonder if we were being held hostage.

A man stood up and started trying to open the door but he was unable to so he hung out the window and abused the driver who turned around and started kicking the side of the bus.  This was sensational, well except for being held hostage and all that.  The mother that the driver had abused moments earlier started crying and another passenger was comforting her.  I started to giggle (which is what I normally do when I am nervous) and I wondered if the other passengers thought I would lose my shit next.

A couple of minutes later the Polis arrived and the driver immediately opened the door.  The driver was yelling at the Polis, the passengers started to get off the dolmuş and began yelling at the driver and the Polis while Daughter and I stealthy snuck off the dolmuş and backed away from the scene.  Once we were clear we stopped and stared at each other.  WTF???

When we got home Daughter called out to The Turk, “Daddy we just got kidnapped!  Really!”

He is never going to let us out by ourselves again.

Oh God is she talking about the weather again???

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I had no plan to blog this morning but it is pouring outside and there is no way I am putting on my gumboots and venturing into the storm so forgive me as this post has been put together in haste.  In fact feel free to pass it over completely as all I am going to do is talk about the weather.  Quick rundown.  Rain, rain, weather, flood, weather.  There.  Thanks for stopping by.

Seriously though I know I have been banging on about the weather a lot – I am going to say it again – A LOT – but I deem it necessary.  I am amazed at how little it actually did rain here, I mean considering it was winter and all.  Arriving fresh from a Sydney winter (yes it has now been 6 months and I will get to that post another time) I had nightmares of having to live through another 3 months of cold and rain.

So I did what any google-loving person would do and searched “annual rainfall” in Mersin (why have I never done this before).  It seems that I have been incredibly lucky these past few months.  It should have rained in fact it should have been a “Noah’s Ark 2.0, grab your scuba gear and pray to whatever God it is that you pray to” kind of rain so I am grateful that my first northern hemisphere winter was not the blow-fest it could have been.

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But now it is spring – yahoo – and it is raining, in fact, Mersin has had a bit of a pounding the last few days.  Daughter came home from school yesterday with the news that the water in the playground came up to her knee (today she wore gumboots to school).  I saw a couple of photos on social media sites too where Mersin’s inadequate drainage is blatantly obvious.  The photo below is from The Forum which is my usual Sunday Funday haunt.  The Forum is actually the largest shopping centre along the Mediterranean coast and one would think that when it was being built the engineers would have taken inclement weather into consideration.  Perhaps not.

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Council elections are currently underway and I expect that drainage will become an issue of contention with members of the public in fact last night the local member came to the Village for a meet and greet and was inundated with supporters.  Here are a few photos from last night.  Crazy eh?  Could you imagine that many people turning up to support your local member?

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Thunder Struck

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A clap of thunder just tore through my quiet this morning followed by the irregular, staccato beat of a dozen heavy raindrops clattering on my rooftop.  Moments later the clouds unleashed an assault of such ferocity that I ran to the balcony to witness what I thought would surely be the end of the world as we know it.  Excessive rain.  Major thunderstorm. 

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It’s raining.  It’s pouring.  It’s still warm though.  I sat on my comfy day bed on my beautiful (and 10 weeks later finally completed) balcony and watch the storm pounding the village around me.  I am glad to see the rain too but my reason is a little more selfish.  I love the sound of rain.  I love the smell of rain as it clears away the dust.  I particularly love the smell of rain here as it lands on the mint crop across from my house.  The scent of mint wafts up to the balcony and makes everything smell of toothpaste minty freshness.

I sit with my cup of tea and my Hurley Dog sleeping next to me and enjoy the sounds and smell.  My Hurley Dog is dreaming I think because he growled in his sleep.  Maybe he is having a nightmare about the rain.  My love is his hate because when it rains it gets muddy – really, really muddy – and this means baths, lots of baths.

Weather Update

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As you all know I have been keeping you abreast of the lack of rain in Mersin.  I think at last check it was 4 rainy days in 138 days.  That’s a lot of sunny days!  Anyhow, Daughter and I went to Istanbul last weekend for a little holiday and, on the way to Adana, our rain free run came to an end.  Yes it rained.  Daughter was excited.  Me?  I was more concerned about the weather in Istanbul.  I googled it that morning and saw a high of 3 degrees Celsius.  That falls under a huge “Yikes” for me.

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In the six days that Daughter and I were in Istanbul it rained in Mersin – a lot.  There was some localised flooding (not in the Village thankfully) heavy rain and strong winds.  Since our return yesterday it has been sunny and rather pleasant, in fact I managed to get a little pink while sitting on my newly completely (finally) balcony this morning.

And Istanbul?  Yes it was cold.  Really cold in fact.  But despite the zero degrees and the occasional snowflakes that turned the city a dreary grey we had a great week away from Mersin.  Daughter did a lot of shopping (she “discovered” Topshop while wandering down Istiklal Caddesi) and we visited our usual haunts including the Basilica Cistern, Sultan Ahmet Camii and Hagia Sophia.

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Will blog more about Istanbul soon but right now I have a lot of laundry to get on the line.  Just before I sign off I just want to add one more thing.  Away for a week and The Turk is unable to do the washing despite the fact that I have showed him a dozen times how to use the washing machine AND the fact that the instruction manual is in Turkish AND who uses a clean towel every – single – day?  Clean undies – yes – but clean towels???

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Realisation

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I came to the realisation yesterday that I have been excessively blogging as a means of ignoring my feelings.  The time that I have spent sitting at the computer (mid-morning after breakfast and prior to Daughter returning home from school) is the time that I would usually sit with my mother in law in the sunshine enjoying a cup of cay.  So here I am trying to fill this void with typing (as I am doing right now at 10.29 am).

So today I am going to walk away from the computer and perhaps have a little time to examine my feelings.  I understand the finalisation of death although I still wait for Refika to call me downstairs.  I think it is more that I loved my mother in law as an akadas (friend) as well as a motherly figure (and the fact that I had watched her smack The Turk with a stick when he pissed her off).  Her and her little gaggle of friends welcomed me into their lives and she accepted me as her daughter not her daughter in law.  Sure I was a yabanci (foreigner) but Refika always included me in her day whether it was teaching me to cook the Turkish way, visiting her sisters for a good gossip session or merely watching her favourite shows on television.

Looking out my window I can see it is yet another beautiful, sunny day in Karaduvar.  Time to close the laptop and get out there.  Enjoy the sunshine and enjoy my life.

Until next time.

Birthday Lunch

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Daughter took me out for my belated birthday lunch today.  We left the Village behind us, passed by the historical (and chaotic) Carsi and travelled west to the more European inspired area of Mersin for lunch at the new Marina.

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Arriving at the Marina is akin to arriving back in Sydney and going for a day at Darling Harbour.  Lots of sunshine, tourists, designer shops and European-styled restaurants.  Daughter picked a great looking restaurant that had good old fashioned burgers and, although it was empty when we arrived, 20 minutes into our lunch we were surrounded by a bus load of German tourists who appeared to be drinking their way around Turkey.  They were travelling from Alanya and were expecting to continue their historical tour of Turkey by visiting Tarsus this afternoon.  Honestly I cannot imagine how they will fare wandering around all the historical sites that Tarsus has to offer – I should watch the Haber (news) this evening to see if there was a group of German tourists arrested for disturbing the peace.  They were a very rowdy bunch but Daughter thought they were excellent value and befriended them.  She was having an awesome time.  She taught them some Turkish swear words and they reciprocated by teaching her some not so appropriate German.  It’s great to have a multi-lingual child!

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After lunch we spent time in the sunshine just wandering along the waterfront.  It was such a lovely afternoon – we stopped for cay at a tea house, Daughter befriended some puppies (and tried to convince me to take one home) and we brought freshly roasted chestnuts to nibble on while watching old men fishing from the wharf.  As the sun began to set on my birthday day some ominous looking clouds appeared on the horizon.  Rain?  Nah!  But we better find a dolmus just in case.

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Incidentally it has only rained four times in Mersin since September.  That’s over 120 days of sunshine.  I get quite excited when I see the clouds and the prospect of rain but it just never eventuates.  I know that Australia is sweltering in 50 degree heat and America is suffering with their “polar vortex” but I must say that winter in Mersin is extremely pleasant.  So lucky!

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Waiting for Rain

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It was depressingly grey in Karaduvar.  The sky has been overcast with the potential of rain dangerously close.  I have been waiting for the rain to fall for a few weeks now.  The constant of dust is starting to grate on my last nerve.  It has become cold but not winter cold just overcast, kind of eastern bloc cold.  There has been some major flooding in some of the resort areas along the coast however the storms that have been pounding western Turkey have not yet made it to our neck of the woods.

Last night the rain hit – and it hit hard!

I woke at 1.00 to the sound of thunder and the immediate follow up of lightning.  As a kid I used to count the time between the thunder and lightning to see how close the storm was.  “One Mississippi, two Mississippi”.  Last night there was none of that!  It was crash and flash one after the other.  Holy crap!

Holy crap was right – I realised that my mother in laws cheese had been on our roof the last few days to dry in the sun (well in the overcast with glimpses of sunshine).  I ran upstairs to bring the cheese (now a soppy mess) in and in the process was drenched to the skin. 

Fast forward to 5.00 this morning and she was ringing my doorbell about her cheese.  Now I could have thrown it on her but . . . probably better to not do that so with my limited Turkish I yelled down to her, “Peynir, burada, evimi” (Cheese, here, my house).  I would have yelled “go back to sleep” but my Turkish is not that advanced yet.

Come 7.00 this morning and the doorbell rang again.  This time it was the builders (yes I know it is Sunday).  At this point I gave up trying to sleep so Daughter and I took Hurley for a walk.  It would have been better to have put on my swimmers and taken him for a bath but . . . well they already think I am the crazy English lady so I had better not give them any more to talk about.

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And for those of you who were concerned about the cheese it survived the night (a little worse for wear) and is now drying out on my back balcony which appears to be the only place in Karaduvar that did not get soaked by the storm last night.  It should be ready to eat early next week (fingers crossed).

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