Spindizzy in the Maastricht fog with the Karagöz puppets by my side

Posted on November 28, 2011 by lizcameron

View of Maastricht from St.-Janskerk

“Just keep your eyes shut, it’s warm in here.”  That’s all I could think.  The eyes seemed to be cemented shut but the charcoal glow of the behind the eyelids place I found myself in was pretty alluring, so I wasn’t going to worry about it.  I saw a few spots of glowing burnt sienna orbs floating past in the deep dark velvety grey before I realized that my head was wedged against something hard.  And my neck hurt, and my body was cold.  I felt a cool hand on my forehead and another pulling me up to a sitting position.  I could feel the uneven cobblestones under me. 

Without opening my eyes, I realized that I was sitting on the street and that I was in Maastricht, where I was set to teach for a week, starting the next day.  I felt someone slip my knapsack off of my back as they worked to right me, that’s me the flopsy mopsy body, mentally becoming aware, physically not.  The puppets started to come into focus in the deep grey – Karagöz was a bit less gleeful than usual, but did point out something I was grateful to hear”At least you didn’t pee all over the place!”  Kenne smacked Karagöz out of the picture along with one of the orange orbs her “leave her be” not even necessary to utter.  The little dancing lady chorus worked to pull my hair back into a presentable position, pulled my skirt down to a more decent level and generally saw to it that I did not lose my honor in this moment.  These little ladies, they are really worried about me losing my honor in the form of my underwear showing or some such.  “Does it count, I wonder, when you are wearing leggings?”

Outside of my closed eyes, what people saw was a not young and not old woman in a black A-line cotton dress, grey leggings and boots with an interesting scarf, splayed on the pavement unconscious.  Perhaps they could intuit that she was foolishly carrying her knapsack on her back – in her mind proof that she could travel light but in her body proof that she wasn’t up to that anymore.  They couldn’t have seen that she had already walked about 1.5 KM from her old to the new hotel as the booking was done this way by the University.  They did see that she had passed out in a doorway in the toniest section of Maastricht, right by the Max Mara store.  They didn’t see the Karagöz puppets taking care of me, like a little army of protectors in a difficult moment.

“You can open your eyes, you should open your eyes.”  This was now what I thought.  I could hear people speaking – in Flemish?  I knew they were speaking to me, but the warmth of the dark was so comforting and elusive and why worry about that throbbing pain in your head when it is so warm in here?  “You can open your eyes.  YOU CAN OPEN YOUR EYES.”  I heard the language shift, maybe that was French, then English? I am not really sure.  I made an effort to move myself and heard some positive signs from the voices on the other side of the closed eyes.  I felt dizzy and slumped back, the voices shifted accordingly.  Hacivad, ever the voice of calm, told me “Remember those Sufi dancers, twirling and whirling.  They say ‘Wherever you turn is God’ and while you are not sure about all of that, you can be sure that you are in safe hands now, it is ok to open your eyes.  You can trust these kind people who have stopped to help you, it is the kind people in your life, known and unknown that will help you when you are dizzy, when you are losing your balance or the like.”

I opened one eye, the left one.  The right one was stuck shut.  They grey light of mid-day was silvery in golden tones of fog.  I saw some lights flashing and as I regained my consciousness, finding myself sitting on the street, I realized I had passed out.  Remembering my father’s good advice that when you don’t know what to say, the best thing to say is either “thank you” or “aren’t you nice” – especially when you don’t know what to say – I did just that.  “Ah – you are American.  You need to go to the hospital, madam, you have hit your head.  Just relax now.  Do you have someone traveling with you?” Kenne and Khadijah jumped in – whispering to me that I should not admit to traveling alone, that this was shameful, that they had not liked this idea one bit anyway, it is served me right, God forgive them, they said, served me right for traveling without my husband.  A big sigh preceeded Celebi as he walked onto the scene.  Celebi, the modernist of this Ottoman era bunch of puppets inhabiting my head, was always quick to wash old ways, old views and old mores out the window.  “leave her alone – it’s a different time, a different role for women, especially here in 2011 in the Netherlands, where women’s empowerment is old hat.”

Before I could comment on anything to Celebi, I was whisked up and into the ambulance and off to the hospital a few blocks away.  I just felt like puking I was so dizzy, but after a scan ascertained that I was fine, I went home to my new hotel in a taxi after a few hours.  The puppets as well as M. convinced me to order room service and rest.  M. became so worried the next day when I did not immediately text him back that he called all over creation to find me – convinced that he had “lost me” in some sort of melodramatic but heartwarming outpouring of true love and concern for a loved one far away.  In fact, I had braved the spindizzy to head in to the University to teach, as I was only there for a few days to do so, and hated to cancel on the first day.  For the first time in a long time, I delivered the lecture sitting down, but made it through.   The spindizzy, exacerbated by jetlag, continued on and off and has still not left me, but I am muddling through the fog ok.  The puppets and M. keep their watchful eye out for me. 

So, this is just to get you up to speed on my three-week absence from these realms of the Internet.  Slowly by slowly, I’m getting back into the swing of things.  The stories are a little stilted and fuzzy, the puppets are a bit disjointed and still coughing, but they are making their way back.

Related articles
Posted in Karagöz puppets in dreamland, Visits from the Karagöz puppets | Tagged , , , , , , | 8 Comments

On comfort in a foreign land – or – comfort in a cabbage leaf

Posted on November 6, 2011 by lizcameron

Bassin, Inner harbour in Maastricht, the Nethe...

Image of Bastion Hotel near Bassin in Maastricht via Wikipedia (in the corner, to the right of the photo)

It is 2 a.m. and I am wide awake.  I am in some anonymous hotel room in Maastricht, in the lower tip of the Netherlands near Brussels, jetlagged to beat the band.  My neighbors are drunk and puking, from the sound of it, all to the tune of what sounds like a football/soccer re-run.  It’s been a long week, with bad health problems and students to see, but I decided to keep my commitment and so I flew to Europe today, with just enough time to finish my preparatory work for a short course I am teaching at a University over the week to come.  More attuned to the presence of the shadow puppets in my life, I wasn’t sure what they would do about my trip.  As these puppets started appearing once my relationship with M. began, I figured they are mostly interested in guiding me on what I have called my “road trip through cross-cultural marriage.”  What I have learned so far is that just like me, little shadow puppets from the Ottoman era who inhabit my head in the form of personifying different cross-cultural messages, well, they have jetlag too. If you are new to the blog, you can read a bit more about this madness here.  BUT, they are still very much a presence.  They didn’t like the airplane much, felt that the dry, circulated air was not ideal for their wax-papery complexion, but they were in high gear upon arrival.

Location of Maastricht in relation to Brussels

Now, Karagöz is trying to spin, but is wavering, much like a spinning egg at the end of its glory, when dizziness and gravity get in the way.  He is about to peter out, just in time to fall off of the top of the television.  Hacivad is not much better, although he is still in his favorite lotus-like position, his body gave up the ghost and he is snoring, his little wax-papery head smooshed onto the hard silver plastic of the alarm clock next to my bed.  The chorus of little dancing ladies, you may ask, what of that band of babes?  They emerged from their usual haunt in my purse, and are splayed about in exhausted sleep, circled together over on the leather chair by the window overlooking the canal.  Finally, Karagöz’ slurred speech wavers down and out just before he falls from the television down onto the ruby-red carpet, out like a light.  And here I am, all by myself in this foreign land, and whilst peppermint tea is some comfort, I am missing the comforts of home some…but let me reflect on the day, and how I got to this awake and pensive spot.

Let us start early this morning, circa 8 a.m., as I was exiting the plane in Brussels and looking for my ride to Maastricht.  Jangling with anticipation at the thought of experiencing a new place they had never been to before; all of the shadow puppets were involved in presenting me with a range of excited utterances, all at once:

Karagöz and Hacivad went at it with this: “Will there be waffles? I think not chicken and waffles like in the southern United States, dummy, waffles with something Belgian, but what is that? You are so shallow; maybe this is some American creation, like French fries?  We want waffles, we want waffles!  And some chocolate! Belgian chocolate.  You idiot – cacao isn’t grown here, the Belgian chocolate moniker belies the colonialistic hegemony of cacao production and consumption in this globalized age.” 

Kenne and Khadijah went at it with this:  “You don’t want to LOOK or APPEAR to be American, remember, you are working on the assumption that people will think you are a dumb American.  You should have worn the other scarf, that coordinates, but doesn’t match, so you fit in a bit more, you are too monochromatic today.  BUT – you didn’t wash your hair, so that may make up for it.  What kind of stereotype about Europe and bathing is that?”

An early Zap Mama recording

Celebi and Hacivad went at it with this:  “Will we see the famous musical group Zap Mama and their zap Bebes? Or wait, are they Belgian or French or both? You American idiot – Belgium and France are not the same thing! African immigrants go to Belgium as well as France, you know, don’t you?”    

Slinging my backpack over my shoulder, I hoofed it over to the driver with my name on a card, dodging and wobbling through the crowd.  I let those puppets argue it out and just ignored them.  I was happy to see a woman driver.  I soon met several others ready for the hour-long journey from Brussels to Maastricht for a short course in management (vs. public policy, my area) – a woman from Tanzania and a couple from Afghanistan.  Breaking into my usual mode, I chatted about my approach to Kenyan chai with the Tanzanian and my Nepali-influenced approach to chai with the Afghanis.  We joked and laughed and compared notes on the way to the van.  I kept having to swipe Kenne out of my mind though, she was dropping her wax-papery scarf down over my eyes every time I looked at the Afghani man, saying something like “don’t look at him, he will think you are being forward, just focus on the woman, this is more appropriate, don’t give the wrong message.”  I wondered if Kenne was being a bit over the top, but I remembered how my friendly greetings to local amjas (uncles) went over like lead balloons in the village on Bozcaada.  Hmmm, I thought, better safe than sorry.

A bit of the Belgian countryside, verdant

“Here, Madame, let me put your luggage up,” the van driver said, hoisting my backpack off my back and maneuvering it up into the boot in one fell swoop.  “Now the rest of you, please place your suitcases flat on the bottom of the van, please.”  My eyebrow went up, she had helped me, but not the folks who were “obvious” immigrants.  After my eyebrow went up, the stomach acid started to hit, how to handle this situation?  Karagöz, of course, jumped in with his opinion, and before I could even consider it, I was helping my fellow travelers hoist their (many) bags up into the van.  The van driver seemed bemused at this.  “This number of bags, this is against the rules!  We have a one-page handout of the rules for this van – and you have not read it you people!  You always come with so much, and what am I to do?”  Clearly studied in managing these micro-aggression moments, my travelers just hauled their bags, rolled their eyes and joked through it all.  I yearned a bit for the comforts of New England where sometimes, but not always, these micro aggressions at least take on a different form, more masked in a sense of respect or at least propriety.  Suffice it to say, the hour-long drive was a wee bit uncomfortable, with Hacivad waxing on and on about the need to see love in all, despite bad behavior (Hacivad is ever the Rumi-quoting fanatic).  After she dropped my fellow travelers off, I was subjected to a torrent of nationalistic, anti-immigrant rhetoric that I will not deign to repeat.

Wish I could walk in heels on cobblestones, but alas, not possible!

Shaking this experience off – with more success than the shaking off of my jetlag – I decided to walk around the city.  Putting on my most cobblestone-friendly shoes, I set off, winding along through the markt (main square) and many shopping streets – finding myself befuddled at the plethora of wig shops around and also very hungry all of a sudden.  Seeing that part of my boot had come apart, I stopped at a cobbler I happened upon, asking to the best of my ability in French and English if he could fix my shoes – he seemed put out, and shooed me on.  As I bought a few bottles of juice and snacks for the hotel room, my attempts at Flemish (from the guidebook) were giggled at – not in a “we’re laughing with you way.”  This reminded me of the brilliant Jack Scott’s commentary on his perfect Turkish pronunciation when ordering a coffee in Bodrum, only to be both understood and ignored in favor of his native-speaking companion.  Hysterical and deeply frustrating experience when one approaches the world with such good intentions as this.  In any case, momentarily undeterred, I continued my attempts at Flemish in order to buy some bubbling brown apple pastry from a street vendor in the central markt area, but was generally met with a brusque grumble and a sticky wax paper package and not enough change.  As I tried to assert my rights, based on the sign for how much the item cost, Karagöz, who made terrible fun of me, I blushed, and ended up just walking away.  

A comforting Turkish meal in Maastricht

Coming around to my senses, I ceased my one-person cross-cultural exploration effort with the help of the noontime bells and stopped my meanderings by walking into Capadokia, a Turkish lokanta in the Maastricht markt by the Stadthuis (nevermind that they were all from Edirne, near Bulgaria vs. eastern Anatolia, where Kapadokya actually is).  This little lokanta held promise of some comfort – at least I could use some of my Turkish here in this place.  And what I found was comfort indeed.  While my Turkish is pretty terrible, I know many words – and many many for food and food interactions.  Between their English and French and my Turkish and English, we learned a great deal about each other.  Before long, the chef was sending me special off-menu items from the kitchen, to which I knew to respond “cök güzel” (akin to “how delicious”) and after a furtive text to M. back in the U.S., the addition of the phrase I always forget – eline saĝlik – “health to your hands!” 

Who knew cabbage could be so comforting? Lahana dolmasi - super spicy and delicious

As I walked home to the hotel, I thought, how is it that in some ways, my connections to the much-maligned land of Turkey bring me more connection and comfort than the Dutch who founded New York where I lived so long?  Thus is life in the globalized era – and on this solo leg of the cross-cultural road trip known as my marriage.

Related articles
Posted in Cross-cultural learning moments, Turkish Food!, Visits from the Karagöz puppets | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Tarhana and a healthy breeze (not evil night air): Cross-cultural confusion #232

Posted on November 2, 2011 by lizcameron

As I sit here in bed, recuperating from the combined effects of a sinus infection gone wild, an ovarian cyst in full protest and a wailing kidney stone, I have had a lot of time to think on cross-cultural approaches to health and illness as they manifest in the Turkish and American variety.  A lot of time, that is, in between being totally konked out and/or keeling over in pain.

M. has spent the last several days making tarhana soup for me by hand, fixing it up with French butter from the local store to make it extra special – an adding our most spicy pul biberto assist my sinuses.  As M. tells it, this particular soup is the only way to go re: home-spun medicine for a cold.  Tarhana is made from a powder that is cracked wheat, yogurt, peppers and tomato that are fermented then dried.  It involves constant stirring, akin to risotto, so that nothing clumps together.  We buy our tarhana powder from the oldest looking old ladies on the hillsides of Assos/Behramkale and savor it for the rest of the year.

As M. stirs and stirs the pot of tarhana, What a lovely, albeit non-traditional partner, say the little dancing ladies of the chorus, and Hacivad agrees.  Karagoz agrees too, even if he scoffs in jesterly fashion at this traditionally female role being taken on by a male, surely a shock to his Ottoman-era origins.  We pay him no mind.  After the tarhana is consumed, the featherbed back tucked in, there is, you see, the question of air, fresh air.  In the fog of the last few days, I have a distinct memory of M. coming into the room to open the window for fresh air for me.  “This is good for you, we need this,” he said, as far as I can remember,  and the troop of shadow puppets screamed their approval – as in “about time, open the damn window, we are dying in here!”

Wrapped from head to toe in a down comforter and even-warmer canine foot-warmer, I feel pretty good in the warmth, and didn’t complain at all at the cool, fresh breeze.  While I could feel it on my face, I couldn’t smell it, as all routes to the nasal passage are blocked for what appears to be the duration.  What is odd, therefore, is not that Hacivad the learned and Karagoz the jester are agreeing, what is odd is that I cannot figure out the rules about when it is ok to open the air at night for fresh breezes and when the night air can only be seen as evil, perhaps home to a miasma causing an illness.  Just last week, when I wanted to sleep with the window open, something M. often loves, he said “no – I will get a chill.”  And how often is it that he decries a new malay of the cold variety as deriving from having the window open?  I can’t understand it.

So, in my sick, not-writing-too-much state, cross-cultural couples with at least 1 Turk, can you explain this?

Related articles
Posted in Cross-cultural learning moments, Turkish Food!, Visits from the Karagöz puppets | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments