11 People in an 8 Seating Van

Cyprus!

Getma takes over Cyprus.

In the bitter coldness of January, Buğra convinced 10 out of the 13 Getma members to go to Cyprus with him. Buğra is from Cyprus and is affectionately referred to as the "father" of Getma. He's not actually in the program, but he's dating Goksu so he's always around. He grew up on the North side of Cyprus, the section that is controlled by the Turkish government. 

For those who don't know here's a short history of Cyprus. Cyprus was part of the Ottoman Empire, but the majority of the population was Greek. The British were given Cyprus by the Ottoman Empire as a gift in return for British military support at the turn of the century and it eventually became part of the British Empire. After WWII the Brits were kicked out, but then there were a series of wars in which Turkey and Greece fought for control over Cyprus. Greece thought it belonged to them because the majority of the population was Greek and Turkey thought it was there's because it had been part of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey invaded Cyprus on behalf of the Turkish Cypriots and war began. Eventually a line was drawn and the Turkish Cypriots were forced to move to Northern Cyprus and the Greeks in the South. Clearly there's still some problems and lots of left over resentment. Cyprus is still divided into two parts based on the 1974 Green Line that the UN patrols. 

Nice picture of the Division. Nicosia is the last divided capital in Europe. 

(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160738306000521)

So, we just went on a nice holiday trip because Buğra grew up there and could show us around. He very graciously put together a trip for us which involved renting a van and planning visits all around the island.The Getma domluş has to be the highlight of this trip because we managed to fit 11 people into an 8 seating van for a 5 day trip around an island.

Interestingly enough, in order to fit everyone in we divised a plan to put all the big people in the back seat and the little people in the front seat. The result? Germans and Americans in the back, Turks in the front. Whhhy are such big people??

Here's a nice photo of us crammed in the car. That's Caro sitting on my lap. Actually it was really hilarious. At all times there was one person sitting on all the others laps either laying across or sitting on one of us. In the front seat there was two people sitting on other people's laps. Haha at one point Jake was laying on all of us drinking a beer and commented, "Literally everything were doing right now is illegal in the US." Ah, so true Jake, so true, but so it goes in Turkey where the rules can be bendy. 

So much fun with big people in the back of the van.

We sang lots of songs and listened to lots of Cypriot music while driving around for literally hours sometimes. So much love in the Getma domluş. At one museum, Martin said, "I bet people are wondering how so many homeless people of different nationalities managed to get to Cyprus," because 11 ragged looking people emerging from the Getma domluş must have looked pretty ridiculous. Ah definitely one of the best parts of the trip was Getma bonding in the domluş.

Here's one of the songs on the casette tape we listened to all week haha.

Visting Lefkoşa was another great experience. The divided captial city is really really interesting. It looks and feels like a small old Turkish city on the North side, then on the South side its suddenly very European. All of Germans were so sure that it was more European, while I was more convinced it just looked Mediterranean--then I saw a handicap lift, a super modern bus station, and garbage cans everywhere. Alchoal also happened to be extremely cheap in Lefkoşa which meant I got to try this really great beer called Keo. Its a locally produced Southern Cypriot beer that is really really good. One of my favorite things about Lefkoşa was this old Church which had been converted into a mosque when the Ottoman's invaded. It is so clearly a gothic cathedral that they just slapped on some minarets. I love it.

Getma wandering the streets of Lefkoşa.

Here's the North Turkish side of border. (above)

Here's the same street just across the border in the Southern Greek side.

Great gothic cathedral with some minarets. 

Inside where they've added a mihrab, the corner which faces Mecca, and just covered up all the old Christian art.

Keo, the great Southern Cypriot beer. That's Buğra on the left then Martin, me, and Jake.

We were staying in Girne on the Northern coast of Cyprus and one evening Buğra thought it'd be a good idea to mangal, aka grill some lamb on the beach. So we set up a rectangular looking grill and ate TONS of food. It was so nice to have a real bonfire at the beach and make our own food by the water. It was really lovely.

Mangal on the beach.

We also went to Kormakitis, a Maronite village in Cyprus, which is an interesting place where an ancient Christian group, the Maronites live. They're one of the oldest Christian groups in the world and centuries ago some moved to Cyprus from what is now Lebanon. Its a really interesting village and we were lucky enough to come on St. George's day weekend so we got a really wonderful tour of this calm quaint village that tries to maintain its interesting heritage and culture.

The Maronite village. It was so tiny.

During the trip we visited Buğra's family. His grandmother was a sweet old lady living in Güzelyurt who served us these very soft carmalized walnuts while we looked at her old photos. We also met Buğra's mother and father at their house in Girne which is actually heaven on earth. Their house has a HUGE garden where they grow everything from oversized lemons (seriously look at that photo!) to peas and avocados. Ah, when I get older and have a million dollars I'm moving to Cyprus and into Buğra's parent's house. It was so nice of them to have us over and they were so generous to share their lovely house with us.

Largest lemons I've ever seen. This is Buğra's family's garden and my future home.

Cypriot coffee with Buğra's parents.

Eventually we ended up in Iskele, the long skinny part of the island. There's no big cities in Iskele, just little villages and beautiful beaches. We spent the whole day on Altinkuma (translation: Golden Sands), a beach with almost no one on it in the middle of no where. Ah, talk about heaven.

In the end I'll remember this trip for the Getma domluş, singing along to ridiculous music, cheap beer, missing lunch in order to save money, eating nuts and dried fruit like it's a meal, being so sweaty hot in the car, and reaching a whole new level of comfortably with the Getma group.

Cyprus will definitely go on my list of best trips ever. 

SPRING HAS ARRIVED!

So somewhere baby Jesus is angry at me for not keeping my lent promise, but hmm yeah all I can say is that things got busy. Just to list a few things I got really sick, Duncan came to visit, I went to Cyprus, and classes got super interesting. I should probably address all of these things in separate posts, but right now I'd like to talk about the SPRING! Its so sunny and wonderful here now! As I type I'm sitting barefoot in the grass in the bright sunshine. The library is right behind me haha.

Speaking of the library, I'm really excited to be in one class in particular, "Family, Marriage, and Kinship Dynamics in Turkey". In the course we discuss the different way family is understood in Turkey and the way its similar to worldwide perceptions of family. Actually sometimes its a bit depressing, so goes sociology when you realize we're all doomed to influenced by our social upbringing. One well expressed view on family is from Pierre Bourdieu's article, "On the Family as a Realized Category," in which Bourdieu claims that family structures are a series of obligated affection and affective obligations. Basically family is a circular relationship where you feel emotionally attached to your family and simultaneously are expected to preform certain duties for them and vis versa. I thought it was a very well articulated understanding of the complicated power structures embedded in the family.

As expected, the differences from American family life are most interesting to me. Its really a cool experience being a foreigner taking a class on Turkish family. I'm the only one who doesn't understand the social references, but it does makes it more fun when they ask me about stereotypes of Mexican immigrants in the US and suddenly I'm an expert. Actually that would be false, our professor studied at University of Texas, Austin and worked in Mexico, so I'm pretty sure I'm not the real expert, just the cultural one. Anyways I've learned a lot about Turkish culture such as women in Turkey are extremely shamed after divorce. Divorced women become threats to the monogamous relationships of couples. They are expected to wear modest clothes and devote their lives to their children. Not exactly typical of American where roughly 50% of all marriages end in divorce.

What should be really cool about this class is that I'm finally going to do real research! Hooray! My final project is on the duel lives of gay Turks. In the US, if you're gay its almost socially required that you come out to your family members and friends to be fully accepted in the gay community. In Turkey this is not always a viable option. Many gay Turks never tell their parents about their sexuality, but sometimes a few family members know. My project is on why gay men keep their sexuality from their family and how it affects their relationships with their families. I'm really excited to finally do real interviews, especially because I'm in Turkey and the whole topic is so different from my understanding of gay life.

Yeah so that's it for now. I'll have more to share, especially about Duncan visiting and the amazing Cyprus trip, but I should probably go write a proposal for the project I was just talking about.

Goodbye beautiful grassy outdoors. Ah those purple trees are everywhere!