Day Two in Sapanca & Adaparzi-Katy

End of our first ‘working’ day in Turkey. My host family’s home is beautiful and they have been extremely generous. My father’s (baba) name is Cevat and my mother’s (anne) name is Esma. They hosted our barbeque the first night in country, which was quite a party. One small problem, they speak NO English. We’ve gotten by enough with hand gestures and one word sentences. It is so hard because they are the nicest people and I’m sure they have fabulous stories to tell. It also just makes you feel like an idiot.

We’ve gotten on a new eating regime; they have us on a schedule of feeding us, what feels like, every 60 minutes. Breakfast consists of eggs, toast, jam, olives and the staples that show up in EVERY meal: sliced tomatoes, cucumber, and big slices of a feta-type cheese. Today we visited the University of Sakarya, the earthquake museum, the local TV station, a company that manufactures cheese-processing machines, an art opening, and then the rotary meeting in the evening. Minus the earthquake museum, we were given tea @ every meeting. So each meeting is followed by a restroom break. The tea has grown on us quickly and we beg for Turkish coffee when possible. The problem with this mass consumption (other than the fact that mass consumption isn’t a good thing) is that it makes me very sleepy!! We were meeting with the Dean of the University and the Turkish conversation was lulling me to sleep. I kept blinking my eyes very rapidly in order to stay awake; not a good thing, especially at 10 am.

The earthquake museum was really interesting. I vaguely remember the news about a severe earthquake in Turkey several years ago, clearly our Turkish friends in Adapazari haven’t. Adapazari is roughly the size of Fort Wayne. The earthquake happened on Aug. 17, 1999 and Adapazari was the epicenter. It killed approximately 26,000 people here, and 90% of the town was leveled; most of the buildings that we see have been built since 1999. There have been several major earthquakes here and they predict there will be more. They’ve limited the height at which a building can be built.

There were many other wonderful people that we met and things that we learned. The head of the largest local media company is a woman and she runs a very tight ship. While there is smoking everywhere in Turkey, so doesn’t allow smoking in her building. One of the largest costs of doing business for the manufacturing company is stainless steel because all steel is imported into Turkey.

We are all doing well; trying to pick up as much Turkish as we can. My family doesn’t have internet, so I’m typing this on my laptop and hoping to post as soon as I can. We are here for a ½ day tomorrow; we are going to hang out and shop in the morning and then off to Kastamonu. We have absolutely NO idea what we are going to do there, but are learning to go with the flow. I do have cell reception, but no clue of how much it costs. I’m limiting myself to a text message to Mom every couple of days.