Blogs from Turkey, Middle East - page 456

Teaching English as a Foreign Language can be fun if you enjoy it. And I certainly enjoy it!! I love teaching, and I think I am good at it. At first I was scared and to be honest I wasn't sure I could do it! I wasn't sure I could cope with teaching using only English, especially to Elementary groups. The system the school uses is extremely good, and we work in tandem with native Turkish teachers. It works like this: Turkish teachers explain English grammar in Turkish in 1-2 hour classes, and after the break there is a foreign or native English teacher taking over and carrying on with the same topic, but focusing mostly on vocabulary and practical grammar, through exercises, conversation and so on. So it works swimmingly!! The Turkish teachers are very ... read more

So the holy month of Ramadan is here: muslims are commanded to fast while the sun is up throughout the month. Today was the first day and I'm a little anxious about what this will mean for me; finding open restaurants may be problematic in the more devout portions of the country. I was drunk last night -- I'm going to hell in a handbasket. But more about that later. I've been busy since my last blog at Ayvalik, but I didn't want to post without having pictures, so I've been holding out. Now I'm on an island, and the only internet cafe doesn't have usb ports on its computers, and gmail doesn't support the version of IE it has. Bottomline: no pictures yet (I can't even check mail). I'll upload some as soon as I ... read more

We finally got to meet the Aiesec Chapter in Eskisehir, a happy bunch who asked us to put together a country presentation. Part of our Aiesec experience was to act as Cultural Ambassadors on behalf of our country. We were expected to deliver a speech and create a detailed power-point presentation of Romania containing information on our country's geography, history, and main cultural monuments and attractions. At that time in Eskisehir there were several other trainees, Waldo, from Mexico, Fabian from Germany, Andresa from Brazil. Rahmit from India also came later on, after our arrival. Romania Country Presentation was a huge success, over 20 Aiesec members and trainees came along. A bunch of students from Onder Dil interested in cultural diversity were also invited to attend. We tried to make our presentation informative and interactive, but ... read more

Ayvalik. An inseperable part of the Turkish national homeland(!). Signs all over point out that it was here that the first military resistance was formed against the advancing Greeks back in 1919. I daresay I'm a bit puzzled. By all indications this was as Greek a town as any in western Anatolia. I spent all day walking down the quiet narrow alleys, among unmistakably Greek houses, spotting the occasional unmistakable church. One sign on a shop read "Rum evleri tamir ve yikimi yapilir" (lit. "We fix and demolish Greek houses"). This is yet another town fallen victim to the forced population exchange between Greece and Turkey -- Greek speaking Turks sent east to Anatolia, and Turkish speaking Greeks shipped off to Greece. A true tragedy. Yashar Kemal has an excellent trilogy "Bir Ada Hikayesi" (lit. "An ... read more

On the 30th of October, a friend and I walked in to the office of Kamil Koc in Taksim, looking to buy a ticket to Canakkale the following day. The guy who spoke English, knew 3 words: Yes, No, and Tomorrow, or so we thought. Trusting his vast English knowledge, we asked for a ticket to Chanakkale for TOMORROW. He wrote down, 12:30, and asked "Tamam?" After some reluctance about missing class on Friday, we accepted. The ticket we received said 00:30 for time of departure. Turks and their crazy military time thing, we told ourselves, not fully grasping the meaning of it all. The next day, we show up, with the least dirty of our clothes stuffed in our backpacks, panting for breath just after twelve noon. The woman at the desk looks at our ... read more