Happy Bayram, Whatever That Is

I peek inside the packed reception room. I don't know a single person in there, and they all appear to be speaking Turkish.

Nope. No way am I going in there.

It is four o'clock, but the sun is still pouring down like melted lead. A stream of people flow through the wide open doors, joining a noisy reception line. There is much hand-shaking and kissing of cheeks and I am utterly lost. I look all around me and I cannot see one familiar face.

Because there are so many of us new teachers, no one has been able to explain just what this Bayram reception we are expected to attend is all about. "Something about Ramadan," my husband informed me hastily just before leaving for work in the morning. "To mark the end, I think."

I take a deep breath and think I've just about worked up the nerve to go in, but a quick peek reveals another volley of kisses and as I hear the enraptured greetings exchanged, I feel immensely self-conscious, as though I am crashing a private party. Worse still, a private religious party. The people inside will quickly spot my lapsed Christian soul and chuck me out in short order, as well they should. My mouth is dry.

Then I see another new teacher who looks almost as nervous as I do. She is Turkish, I know, and accompanied by one of the older teachers, but there is no mistaking it: she is quaking in her boots. I quickly latch on. "Can I go in there with you? I don't have an idea what to do."

"Neither do I! Come along, we will follow her," she says, pointing to her companion, who has already crossed the threshold. She is greeted with delighted exclamations and a volley of hands are extended for her to shake. My new friend and I trail after her like waifs, our hands timidly extended. We too are met with happy smiles and handshakes and the same phrase, repeated over and over.

Inside, the noise level is tremendous. There are little tables set up with plates of cookies and snacks, but almost no one is eating. I follow my new colleague as closely as I dare. "We just go from group to group and shake hands," she whispers over her shoulder. "They told me this would be easy, and I see they are right!"

They told me it was no big deal too, but I didn't believe them. And now I see that this really isn't a big deal; much like coming here in the first place, the only really tough thing was making the decision to cross the threshold.

By the end of the reception, which lasted barely half an hour, I believe I must have shaken over a hundred hands. Small hands, big hands, brisk hands, limp-as-dead-fish hands, moist hands, dry hands, hot hands and warm hands. The difference in human hands and each and every handshake is surely as diverse as the difference in faces and personalities.

Everyone without exception greeted me kindly and warmly.

"Happy Bayram!" the other foreign teachers and I said to each other afterwards, though our Turkish colleagues explained that the greeting they had been exchanging was more to commemorate the end of Ramadan than to enjoy it as a holiday. One woman told me that the day should be spent in quiet contemplation, not in drunken revelry. "People have lost the whole point of the holiday," she fumed. "They think that after a little fasting they can go out and get drunk as lords."

The very next day marked the end of the working week and the beginning of a one-week holiday. To our amazement, all the teachers, new and old, were given a cake to mark the end of Ramadan. Most of us pictured small confections in boxes, but when we went to collect our gifts, we were astonished to see that they were whole, fully frosted white cakes pristine in their boxes. Each one must have weighed at least a pound and they were all decorated lavishly with pink frosting bows.

Sadly, I left mine in the back of a colleague's car and forgot all about it. My girls, when they heard about this, were broken-hearted, but I reminded them that we did not fast in the first place and so were hardly entitled to it. My husband had a beer, but no one got drunk. We spent the rest of the evening in fairly quiet contemplation.