surviving in istanbul

now that i am unemployed, i have finally found the time to start a blog, as you have all urged. in order to stay chronologically correct, please excuse me for starting at the beginning and slowly catching up to the present.

June 26, 2008
at long last, here is an update on my life in Istanbul. i apologize for the delay, but i've been busy trying to set up our empty apt with the essentials while my husband, suleyman, has been working 6 days a week, and i was waiting until i had been here long enough to give a more thoughtful impression - one that would not have been so positive earlier on.
to sum things up, my life is so completely different, i don't even recognize it, but in the same breath, i'll say that finally being with my husband makes up for it all. and i am confident things will improve over time, but things are not quite as i had envisioned or expected. i'm not sure why i thought that my nyc version of a housewife would be the same thing as one here...

a few things i've learned:
1. visiting here and living here are two very different things.
a woman - esp. a married woman & a foreigner - has rules to follow in dress & behavior.
ex: i had to run out & buy new clothes, because my tank tops, shorts & short skirts or even fitted pants were not acceptable for me to wear by my new husband & his family.
**note: his family is not super religious - being muslim in istanbul is like being jewish in nyc - it is a cultural thing, not necessarily a religious thing.
good thing i have a fashion degree & years of market research (ie: shopping) experience - as i scoured the local markets and shopping malls for lightweight cropped pants & cotton batiste long sleeve tunics to try to keep me covered but cool. an easier task in nyc, but here there is much less of a selection to choose from and most of what you find is either not appropriate (ie: short - so who is wearing this stuff?) or not to my taste level.
ex: we needed an electrician, whose shop was just at the corner of our street, to do some work, and it was not acceptable, to my husband, for him to come to the apt during the day, because i was alone. we had to wait until my husband could come home early from work to be here.

2. what they call a washer/dryer is not actually a dryer.
ex: the washer/dryer here is actually just an expensive washing machine - that spins the clothes really fast at the end & then the housewife is expected to hang the laundry to dry on a clothes line. **ahhh, so that is why his mother gave me the clothes pins - i almost threw them away, not knowing what they were for. not sure what they do on rainy days and don't try to do laundry at night, expecting to wear something the next morning because it won't be dry. you might also want to check the weather report and not do 2 loads of laundry before 4 days of straight rain. i almost cried when i had to rewash everything because after 4 days on our clothes line in our balcony, instead of drying, it got mildewy.

3. people still iron sheets here.
i have never ironed a sheet in my life. if you buy good quality, high thread count, long staple, cotton sateen sheets they come out of the dryer perfectly fine. try it with the local sheets here - the wrinkles don't come out from the spin cycle after hanging them to dry. good thing the wrinkles get a little lost in the carnival of print & colors that seem to be favored here. now i know why his mother irons his boxer shorts - i thought she was just being a bit overzealous.

4. washing dishes with cold water is not very effective.
ex: our apt has a hot water heater, powered by propane, that you have to manually light to work so that you can have hot water flow from the faucets. you can't leave it on all the time because of the odor & risk of igniting. although running hot water is not a new concept, it seems to have escaped our apt building. and yes, we don't have a dishwasher. **in Turkish the definition for dishwasher is housewife. i told suleyman that living in our apt feels like camping in NY.

5. husbands don't need their own set of keys.
ex: i learned this lesson after i got locked out of the apt on day 2 & inadvertently also left my new cell phone in the apt (i was just running to buy a few groceries). i say "locked out", not that i "locked myself out" because strangely i had my keys with me, but they didn't work, because he left his key in the door on the other side - i had to contact my husband from our old retired "busybody" building manager's apt to come with a locksmith - all while my groceries, including ice cream were melting in the Istanbul summer heat. **reminder: no one in my neighborhood speaks English & my Turkish at this point is very limited. while my groceries were stored in the neighbor's refrigerator & my husband & i were waiting outside for the locksmith to arrive, i asked him why he didn't have his set of keys with him, and he told me because i will always be home when he gets home from work (not "maybe" or "i hope"). and so my immediate reply was WHY??? which did not go over very well. i guess the men here expect their wives to be anxiously anticipating their husband's return at the end of the day?

6. high heels are not required.
i launched a major search for comfortable, stylish, affordable flat shoes which turned into a week's journey. basically you have to take your shoes off when you enter someone's house, including your own home, and many people live in walk up apt buildings, so i've realized it doesn't make sense to put on high heels just to walk up 6 flights of stairs, and then take them off & don a pair of vinyl sequin slippers provided by your host that aren't quite your size and don't coordinate with your outfit at all. i understand the hygienic defense for not bringing all the outside filth into your home, but what about sharing house slippers with countless strangers that have come to visit before you?
since i am limited to where i can walk to, i looked at about 25 local shoe shops - there are a lot here - with no luck (when are DSW & Zappos going to make it over here?). so after days of window shopping the local stores down back streets & shopping malls, i finally walked into Nine West and found a pair in 5 min.

7. family is paramount.
it's not like i don't love my family or wouldn't visit them periodically, but here, you do everything together & spend lots of time with them, and even though i love them dearly, and appreciate their warmly welcoming me into their tight family unit, nevertheless
1. they are my inlaws
2. they don't speak English (and my Turkish is far from conversant yet)
3. i need some personal space & time alone.
here, you are never alone & i am sure they think i am a bit freakish (his mother was worried about what i was doing all day by myself - she could not even imagine why i would prefer it or what i would be doing) but i need time to email, write this blog, read, study, do yoga/pilates, meditate, wander around by myself to get oriented to my new neighborhood, in my spare time when i am not food shopping, making dinner, cleaning or doing laundry & ironing in the stifling summer heat. i had to risk insulting his mother to keep her from coming by a 30 min. taxi ride every day to help me adjust & keep me from being alone. it is like a rotating cycle of dinner visits at various relatives' apts and they all want you to sleep over even though you haven't brought a toothbrush or a change of clothes. and they are all waiting until my belongings arrive before they will start expecting me to host.
his mother & i actually spent one day together which was really amusing, where she helped me iron about 50 meters of curtains that she had washed to cover all the windows we have, so that god (or allah) forbid anyone should see inside our apt. she also showed me how to cook some of suleyman's favorite dishes (Turkish of course), as we passed my pocket dictionary back & forth while chopping & stirring. she is an amazing woman, and not just devoted, but extremely resourceful, intelligent & interested in learning about new cultures & travelling, although she has never been outside of turkey.

8. working does not excuse women from household responsibilities.
i'm not quite sure if he was joking or not, but when we discussed the possibility of me working, my dear husband was very supportive of me working if it made me happy, but not open to having a housekeeper (or later a nanny) or sharing the housework for that matter - all of which made working seem far less desirable, but there needs to be more discussion in this area. i'm still interested in keeping this option open or looking into part-time work/consulting, and i am sure i will be able to get some compromise - i am not giving up on this one. i realize that this stems from a cultural difference. i was not raised with the single goal of getting married & being a housewife and mother. i had a successful career and want to have interesting life experiences and evolve spiritually. those life plans do not include scrubbing the toilet or the floor every day. believe me i have done it, but it gets very old fast, and i stand solidly behind the importance of a clean home, but i don't believe that i have to be the one to clean it.

so now i know why most of my turkish female friends exclaimed proudly "i don't want to be a housewife" like they were referring to 2nd class citizens with leprosy. things are pretty sexist here - most women are very dependent (socially & financially) on their male family members. when we went to the bank because i wanted an atm & credit card, the female bank associate told Suleyman that i could just use his ATM card & asked why did i need my own? & most families can't afford or don't even consider buying modern appliances that will help save them time. his mother joked that i was the first person to notice that she needed a dishwasher. they are going through what we have already gone through in the 50's - sometimes i feel like i have been sent back from the future. they don't have A LOT of what we have in NYC, but they do have some things which surprised me, but for a surprising number of the people they don't know they exist or more often, can't afford them.

so my days have been filled with wandering for hours at the local markets & large supermarkets in the basement level of every shopping mall, trying to figure out all the new, interesting food, and planning dinner menus (as my husband told me - one night we can have Turkish food, and the next night we can have "your" food) and comparison shopping for appliances and other household items. i still haven't found a dish drainer i like - there was one stainless steel one that i found, but they had somehow configured the side supports into the shape of a heart. and i am on a crusade for a dishwasher & dryer & oven (yes, i have been challenged to trying to devise turkish dinner menus solely based on what i can cook on the stove top), all of which will not fit in our small apt, without expensive major plumbing & electrical work - and i'm not entirely sure that it is feasible, but i need to protect my free time & make sure that my days are not wholly consumed by household drudgery. i need to study Turkish, and i was going to brush up on illustrator & photoshop & scan all my negatives from my pre-digital travels, and get more into photography, and take up painting, etc. etc. etc.

for the sake of humour, i hope i haven't painted a negative picture of my husband. as far as i know, his expectations & cultural standards are not much different from the majority of Turkish men. but he is the most loving, devoted & caring person i ever could have wished to be with, and even though he will call me 4x a day to check where i am - it is all because i am so precious to him and he worries about making sure that i am safe, knowing that i don't speak the language yet. and he is just beginning to realize that i am really resourceful & good at getting what i want & have already made friends with all the local shopkeepers & managed to navigate my way around & get what i need so far on my own.

so i am confident that the universal truths about a successful relationship will hold true, that with a little compromise, if you love & respect each other, there is no limit to what you can accomplish.

i miss you all very much!!! pls let me know how you are all doing.