A Few Things I've Learned

We're packing up. Our suitcases are bulging with clothes, and books and papers are stacked everywhere. Brooms and mops are being plied over the floors, the washing machine is going full-time, and this house we have grown used to is beginning to look as empty and lonely as it did the day we moved in almost two years ago. Dozens of bags have been hauled off to our local charity, and our leftover food and spices have gone to obliging friends, but we're still taking a lot of stuff home with us. How can we throw out framed photos of ourselves and our students? Or the brass Turkish coffee maker we bought last Christmas? Or the nazar boncuğu (evil eye amulet) my husband got last teacher's day?

It's hot, so I've got the windows open. A fierce wind is blowing in from the Mediterranean and it's a chore to keep the piles of paper from flying everywhere. There are lists: of things we have to do, things we have to get rid of, things we have to buy. We've been taking stock of what is ours and what is not -- and I've been taking stock of what I've learned here in the past two years.

Here are just a few things I've learned:

1) A little Turkish. I know greetings, the days of the week, the months of the year, and numbers up to a thousand. I know most of my colors, fruits, vegetables, and greetings. I know how to say You're lazy! and Stop talking! too.

2) How to bargain. I've always been awful about this, but the other day I went shoe shopping with my youngest daughter and bargained the clerk down from 25 Turkish lira to 20 without even batting an eye. I'm pretty sure I could have gotten him down to 15, but I didn't want to embarrass my daughter.

3) How to sing the İstiklâl Marşı, the Turkish national anthem. I learned this last year and it is still my party piece. It's a great song, by the way, with a really bracing, stirring, moving melody. I'm a little shaky on the second stanza, but that doesn't stop me from putting my heart and soul into it whenever there's an occasion to belt out the İstiklâl Marşı. Getting to sing it has been the high point of every long, tedious assembly and school parade.

4) How to get mobile phones out of teenagers' hands fast. I can do this almost effortlessly now, even when the teenagers in question are almost twice my size. The secret is the element of surprise. If you sidle up to them nonchalantly, keeping your eyes elsewhere, you can catch them off guard and easily divest them of their precious phones. A sense of humor is also a great asset; people are much more malleable when they're laughing.

5) How to teach auxiliaries. My Japanese students already knew how to use these, so I never had to teach auxiliaries before and I really didn't know what I was missing. Two years ago if you'd asked me why we say Who did Madonna marry? but Who married Madonna? I'd have been horrified. Ask me now and you'll get an answer.

6) That Turkish is spoken in many countries other than Turkey. Two years ago, I had no idea that a lot of people from Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan -- and other central Asian countries -- could speak and understand Turkish.

7) That Turkey is a great melting pot. I had no idea before we came here that there could be Turks with red hair and freckles, Turks almost as dark as Africans, Asian-looking Turks, Turks with blonde hair and blue eyes.

8) How to make Turkish coffee (it's all about timing) and stuffed grape leaves (don't stint on the olive oil). And how to eat kebab without spilling it all over yourself (peel down the paper it's wrapped in, never be tempted to remove it entirely).

9) That C is pronounced like J in Turkish. I wish I'd known this when we first got here. My daughter and I kept asking people in Istanbul Airport where the terminal for Ercan was, pronouncing this as Er-kan. People kindly asked if we wanted the Er-jan terminal, but we insisted that no, we wanted the Er-kan terminal. Our cheeks still flame just remembering.

10) That most Turks, though Muslims, do drink occasionally, and that by no means all Turkish women cover their hair. Before we came here, I pictured a typical Turkish couple as a large headkerchief-wearing woman in a voluminous skirt walking six paces behind her swarthy, mustached husband. Imagine my surprise when the first Turkish woman I met was a savvy, multi-lingual, stylishly dressed ex Army officer.

We're taking far too much back with us. Good thing all the knowledge we've accumulated is light.