December 2009

A night at the taxi stand

(This article was first published on December 11, 2009 for the Study Abroad section at Global Post.  View the original article here.)

On a corner across from the Turkish prime minister’s grand residence lays the humble shed of what drives Ankara’s society: its taksiciler, or taxi drivers.

Like many big cities, Turkey’s capital depends on a mammoth fleet of taxis. Cars and gas are too costly for most citizens, which increases the demand for taxis. Hundreds of small taxi companies, each with their own taxi sheds or shacks, compete. Some are large, like those at airports. Most are just big enough for a card table and a few drivers.

“It’s kind of like being in a frat house,” says Jeff Turner, an American who spent several years in Turkey as a child and returned this year as a student researcher.

Inside the taxi stand near Turner’s corner, four drivers slammed down cards on a table in a complex card game. Downing several cups of tea each and sharing a cigarette or two, they laughed and chatted with each other through the night shift.

Turner says the taxi stands are often a strategic place for neighborhood information.

“They just sit there all day long,” Turner says. “They see who comes and who goes.”

Turner likened the taxi stands to a neighborhood water cooler. After disposing of several wine bottles near the taxi stand after a party, Turner was surprised but not offended when the taxi drivers asked whether he was, indeed, a tea-totaler as he’d earlier claimed.

Taxi receipts are neither constant nor plentiful, and overnight shifts can come away with less than 10 Turkish lira, or about $7. Customers are not always sympathetic.

“They bust their ass for very little,” adds Turner.

Ibrahim Corekci, 23, has owned his own taxi for five years. Corekci’s father drove for 40 years before quitting in 2006.

“I wanted to work,” says Corekci, a high school graduate. “If I could have gone to an American university, that would be different.”

Corekci works nearly 12 hours a day, seven days a week, except for major religious holidays.

“The money gets worse the longer you do this job,” Corecki says.

Still, Corecki said that he loves his job. His dream job, he said, would be working in the U.S. or for the Turkish government, the most competitive job market in Turkey. With no advanced degrees, Corekci’s realization of either dream is unlikely.

With not nearly enough jobs to support Europe’s youngest population, Turkey’s unemployment rate has climbed to 10.9 percent. Many college graduates are unemployed or underemployed.

Corekci grabs a wet rag and swipes his cab for 25 minutes at a time, several times a day.

“There are a lot of jobs here that wouldn’t be jobs in the U.S.,” Turner says. “And Turks take pride in the work.”

Although Corekci is unmarried, both his parents are alive, and he has three older sisters who have given him five nephews and four nieces. Corekci and the other drivers all say that their family is their top motivation.

“Family is more important than anything, it’s the world to me,” Corekci says. “I learned everything from my family.”

Corekci wanted to make sure Americans knew these feelings. After being asked what else he’d want to share, he said this:

“First, I say ‘Hello’ to them all,” Corekci says. “Then, come to Turkey, and call me for a taxi.”

Turner, our translator, shoots back, “But Ibrahim, there are 350 million people in the U.S.!”

“So what, let them come. I’ll take them all,” Corekci counters.

1,000 visit milestone achieved…keep it up

On December 5, 2009 at 10:46pm, Turk Film project had it’s 1,000th visitor.  Since debuting the site last June, Turk Film has had 1,048 visitors with 2,331 page views. The average visit seems low at 3:07 minutes, but the tracking system cannot calculate how long visitors stay if they only view one page.

I want to thank all of you regulars who continue to check in on the blog.  The mission of Turk Film is to spread stories from Turkey across the pond in the US. I’m proud to say that 36% percent of viewers are from the United States.  Moreover, another 30% of viewers are from countries outside the United States including Germany, Canada, Greece, Hong Kong, and Madagascar.  The other 34% are viewers from Turkey.

In the next few weeks, I hope that we will be posting even more content on the blog, including some real video segments.   The Turk Film project has been lacking in “films” since it’s inception, but changes will be coming soon in a hurry. Please STAY TUNED.

Also, if you liked a story on the site, please use the “Share/Save” icon located at the bottom of every story.  If you have a Facebook or Twitter account, you can post the article on your pages.  If you aren’t completely melded to the internet, you can also simply email the story to friends.  In a few clicks, you can make this site more successful than it already is.

November was our highest month yet with 251 visitors and 551 page views.  This month, we’re currently on pace to have over 200 visits and 650 page views.  I promise that there will be more content this month, so be sure to visit!

Lastly, in case you were wondering.  Our 1,000 visitor was from Copenhagen in Denmark.  They were using Mozilla Firefox on a Windows computer.  The screen resolution was 1440 x 900.  They found us through Google.

Who will be visitor #2,000?  Will it be you?

Sacrifice holiday turns Turkey blood red

Cars and trucks blow up dust as they caravan their way into a barren valley on the city’s edge.    A cow groans while chained to a post.   Nearby is a field soaked in blood.  Sheepskins and various organs lie in piles, a few heads that haven’t been tossed stare up into the sky.

It’s Kurban Bayram, the Sacrifice Holiday.  Eid al-Adha in Arabic, it is the 4-day climax of the Islamic calendar. Muslims congregate in Mecca as part of the yearly pilgrimage (known as Hajj) during this time.

Observed on November 27 (the date moves back 10 days each year), the holiday celebrates the story of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, Ishmael (Isaac in Christianity and Judaism).  According to scripture, Abraham was ordered to sacrifice his son for God.  As Abraham was about to follow through, God ordered him, instead, to sacrifice a lamb.

On the first day, Muslim families with enough money remember Abraham’s obedience by slaughtering livestock.

“It’s going to be like a big pig roast,” joked American Hugh Turner to friends accompanying him to the kesim yerine, the cutting spot.  Unlike the others, Turner spent some of his childhood in Turkey and knew what to expect.

At first glance, the holiday seems far from festive.  Men walked with six-inch blades, their hands covered in blood.   Pens of crowded sheep sat across from plastic tents, where some soon found themselves skinned. But Kurban is more than the first day’s gruesome sight.

“As a child, I always remember Bayram as a happy time,” said 45-year-old Ilhan Unlu.

Unlu’s memories included his parents giving him the traditional set of new clothes for Bayram while his family would come together.

Entire families like Unlu’s take part in the slaughter. Men cut the neck of the blindfolded offering while repeating the required prayer.  Burly village women picked up axes to cut the meat on bloody stumps.  Young boys and girls moved troughs of water and plastic bags to help their parents clear the waste and pack the meat.

The meat is traditionally divided into three parts: one for the poor, one for visiting friends and relatives, and one for the owner.  The skins are donated, many to the Turkish Airforce to make leather jackets.

“Every part must be used for God,” said Sezari Ozgul who collected sheepskin scraps for the poor, “Nothing can be used for evil [to make a profit].”

On the way back into the city, our taxi driver stopped at a student cafeteria turned butchery.  Inside, racks of meat hung from the ceiling as families carried their kill in oversized shopping bags to be chopped into cuts.  Teenage boys wearing yellow slickers and boots pushed wheel barrels filled with guts and poured them into a garbage truck.  Some of the meat was cooked on site and given out.

“The sharing of food levels the playing field,” said Ozden Alp, a female fitness instructor,  “In the past, this was the only way.  Today, you can give directly to charities.”

With the price of livestock on the rise, more are giving to charities that include care for veterans, cancer research, and refugee aid from Palestine to Turkmens in China.  For many however, tradition still dominates.

“Normally, I give to charity,” said 35-year-old Mertan Korkmaz with a blood spotted chin, “But my mother is here, and she wants this.”

As Turkey becomes more urbanized, more debate how Turkey should regulate the practice.  Some even ask if the practice should continue at all.  In earlier years, sacrifices were made in backyards, roadsides, and in city center gatherings.

“Kurban Bayram is a rule in Islam, and it’s not going to disappear,” said the stylishly dressed Alp, “The problem is when people don’t have enough knowledge to do it safely.”

Today, most cities regulate sacrifices to approved areas for health and safety purposes.

“The city laws make it easier for us,” agreed Korkmaz, “It’s much safer now.”

At the end of the day, only a few hundred sheep remained alive in the field from what must have been nearly a thousand in the morning.   People left dirty and tired, but ready for the next three days of feasting with family and friends.

Before leaving, I asked Korkmaz if he ever felt bad for the sheep.

“Yes.  Always,” he replied.

(For complete pictures from the day, visit the “Kurban Bayrami” photoset in the Photo Gallery.  WARNING: Graphic Content.)

Turkey Day in Turkey

Last week, I celebrated Thanksgiving not once, but twice.  With Plymouth rock over 5,000 miles away, my expectations for Thanksgiving in Turkey were low.  Not many Turks know much about the holiday, if they know of it at all.

“It’s the day when you sacrifice a Turkey, right?” said one of my conversation students.

Ironically enough, this year’s Thanksgiving happened the day before Kurban Bayrami, the Sacrifice Holiday.  For Muslims, it’s a day when they sacrifice livestock, usually a goat, to remember the sacrifice of Abraham (More on this later).

Returning to Thanksgiving, the first dinner took place at the university in Kayseri.  Maria Iskenderoglu, an American married to a Turk, invited myself and several other Americans and Turks to her house for a traditional thanksgiving.  I contributed apples for two delicious apple pies (another food I didn’t expect to have much of while in Turkey).

It was indeed a very traditional Thanksgiving: at least 15 people trying to cramming themselves into a small dining area, Turkey and gravy being passed every which way, cranberry sauce and cornbread on the table, and there was even a “pin the hat on the Turkey” game which the adults found more amusing than the kids.

After the meal, my friend David passed around a story, “How the Turkey got it’s name.” It told the story of a professor who sought out name’s origins.  According to the story, a smaller and more delicious bird lived in Turkey called the “chulluk.”  The bird was popular in England well before the discovery of America.  When the colonists arrived, they mistook America’s bird as a relative of the “chulluk.”  Turkeys are known as “Hindi” here because, at the time, people believed Columbus had landed in India.

Five days later on November 26, I found myself at another American gathering in Ankara.  Together, with other Fulbrighters and their Turkish friends, we celebrated another traditional thanksgiving.  The living room was a bit bigger for this one though!  At the table, we each went around and said three things that we were thankful for this Thanksgiving.

Although only celebrated in the U.S. and Canada, Thanksgiving is a holiday that easily crosses over.  In my conversation classes last week, I explained the traditions behind Thanksgiving: the ideal of coming together with family, sharing a huge meal, and being thankful that everyone is still around.  Many asked me if the holiday had a religious connotation.  I said the holiday is adopted by many of the religions in the U.S. as a day to celebrate, but the holiday is a national one.  Whether you’re Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, agnostic, etc, Thanksgiving is a holiday you can celebrate.  All that’s needed is food and good company.

Once introduced, Thanksgiving seems to be a holiday that everyone can appreciate, especially if you ask Orhan Iskenderoglu.

“I have an idiom for Thanksgiving,” said Orhan, “I wish it could be Thanksgiving everyday.”