Beyond words...

I've safely reached my hotel in Rome tonight(Sunday).  It's been a long time worry of mine to make it safely on my own but with advice of friends, everything went just as I had planned...at least for Rome! 

Most of my blogs have been light hearted and offered a little touch of humor...until now that is.  While I don't want to remember the final day of my CSC assignment as being sad, I do want to capture some of the overwhelming feelings that surrounded it.  For me today's experience isn't captured in any pictures that I've taken...and I'm not sure I can even adequately write it but I will try.  Over the whole weekend, today was my test of endurance!

Saturday was our final day in Istanbul together as a team.   We spent time as a group debriefing on our experience.  There was great discussion in a relaxed atmosphere that gave us a chance to pause and start a reflection upon the past four weeks.  While there were a variety of suggestion and mixed feelings about the full impact of our contributions, many of us can attest the personal growth was far more than we may have expected.

Following the debriefing we decided to take a journey to the Grand Bazaar...WOW, this should really be GRAND BAZAAR SQUARED!  This is close to a woman's dream come true!  This is where you put your true bargaining skills to the test.  Moving from vendor to vendor to capture the lowest price possible.  It's unbelievably beautiful with an abundance of colors, energy and life!

It was a special treat for Kushbu and I to spend the afternoon at the Bazaar with Dilsah Yergin (and her mother-in-law) who currently lives in Istanbul.  Dilsah grew up in Turkey but at 15 years old moved with her family to Florida.  Dilsah attended University in Florida and during this time was also a co-op with a number of Rochester IBM teams, one of which I had previously managed.  She recently has gotten married and moved to Istanbul where her and her husband both work for IBM Turkey.  As we've come to know, it always helps to have someone from Turkey with you when your trying to bargain for a great deal.

Our "last supper" was at a fine restaurant on the waterfront overlooking the troublesome dense fog that settled in for the evening.  Honorary guests to join the CSC team were dear Ozlem, Dilsah and her husband Tansel, Nithya's husband Hariharan and Madeline's friend Claudia.  It was fun to have everyone together and share some final stories and laughs before parting.  The entire day was great for reflecting and sharing many of our special times together.  There are many jokes among us that can create endless hours of entertainment...for some, you may have had to be there to understand!

I said my good byes at the restaurant since I (and a few others) decided to go back to the hotel while others went to a club to check out the Istanbul night life.  The good byes were brief which allowed me to keep my composure!  :)  The public setting may have helped but I also think the energy from the assignment was still running pretty high.  While we logically understood, we'd reached the end and the assignment was over...I think I struggled with understanding what "over" really was going to feel like.

After just a couple short hours of sleep I awoke at 5:30 to get ready to head to the airport...perhaps this is one of those days I should have overslept and just stayed in bed!?  :)  As it was Saturday night, the fog was still hanging over the city.  Needless to say, it wreaked havok on flight schedules as it has for the past couple days.  My original flight was scheduled for 9:30am, with round about rebookings, I was scheduled and did depart at 2:30pm.

Idle time any day isn't usually good for me.  Idle time today was particularly troublesome.  Emotions were running very high in the airport.  I saw many outburst of anger from various people, all distressed over further delays in their travel plans.  I saw airport delays instantly send adults into an immature tantrum.  It is a very uncomfortable expereience to be withnessing enraged travelers who are literally yelling, stomping their feet and flailing their arms while I have no idea what they're saying.  I simply knew, they were NOT happy and I occassionally, was caught in the middle of some of those coversation as I was trying to get a rebooked flight as well.  Bless the manager who had to face each of those customers today...that was a thankless job!  With all the termoil, I was beginning to feel the world I felt I was on top of just hours before, quickly starting to crumble around me.

The anticipation of leaving has again turned into an unending good bye.  The long hours of waiting in the airports over the past two days have be somewhat of an emotional torture...yet maybe it was a forced time to just "be" and reflect upon the whole experience and now decide how I will proceed forward.  The easiest today would have been to completely surpress the emotions and casually carry on until another day when I'd decide to deal with it.  Could I have controlled it?  I'm not quite so sure.

Seeing that my stay at the airport was going to be longer than initially anticipated, I searched for a cozy quiet place to get comfortable.  I figured it should be easy to pass 5 extra hours with internet and my cell phone.  To my dismay, nothing was working...I went to the information/technology desk to see if they could give me guidance but no such luck as the language and technical barriers were too much to overcome.  :)  The next alternative...settle in with my mp3 player and a good old fashioned pen and piece of paper on which I initially wrote this blog.

Silenced today "in my own world" which so happens to be a half a world away from what I call home was too much to handle.  The accumulated  emotions that built up over this journey begin to uncontrolabley pour outward onto the paper in both words and tears.  I'm going to miss the simplicity of life, the love of the people, the amazing food and the friends I shared this experience with.  I now can't imagine how much I would have missed out on in my life if I hadn't experienced this.  "You don't know what you don't know" but this was so MUCH more than I ever imagined.  At that time, I was thankful for 5 hours to figure out how I would regain my composure and carry myself gracefully through to Rome.

Time is a healer and I know with time, today's emotions will get easier to control.  Prior to leaving for this assignment, I had hoped that I could capture as much as the experience as possible.  I'm typically not a blogger but I was dedicated to doing so through this experience to provide a lasting memory that pictures alone can not tell.  Time will tell how much influence our CSC assignments will have on Malatya and Turkey.  I do know with certainty the experience has changed me.  I have had a WONDERFUL time in Turkey...beyond what words can fully explain.  To the wonderful people I've worked with and the wonderful friends I've made along the way, thank you doesn't beging to express my appreciation for each one of you!  Take care until we meet again...Turkey, I will forever love...

Lead a stray...

The final weekend in Malatya has come and gone...three weeks ago it seemed so far away.  Today many of us are of disbelief that it's gone so quickly and tomorrow we will depart from Malatya.  It's been an incredibly amazing experience and I'm really going to miss the Turkish people and their zest for life.  The life style here is a magical blend of complexities with an abundance of simplicities.  I'm a person of many questions and four weeks hasn’t been nearly enough time to answer all the "why's" in my mind...things just don't seem to add up and I envision I'll always "have that sense of wonder". 

This past Saturday, the majority of the team set out to explore the city of Malatya.  We'd been staying here for three weeks but hadn’t gotten the opportunity to just "be" in Malatya. The first destination was Battalgazi otherwise known as "Old Malatya".  Many people from the group had already been there but they decided to join the excursion again.  As the large group assended in this small village, it was again quickly acknowledged that the foreigners had arrived!  J  After a short amount of time, the majority of the group had seen enough.  Rob and I were interested in staying longer to just peacefully wonder the streets.  In fear of leaving us in Battalgazi by ourselves, Ali one of our translators chaperoned us for the afternoon. 

The afternoon was very quiet but I think it was my favorite day of sight seeing that we’ve been on.  We quietly walked the streets of the neighbor hood watching kids playing soccer, families working in their gardens, women hanging laundry, men socializing at the local café and the list goes on and on.  While the living conditions in Battalgazi still weren’t what I’d envisioned for a “developing nation”, it was the best view into real lives of the Turkish people that I’ve seen since coming here.

Each day brings new adventures and Saturday was again no exception.  There’s been this common discussion point among the team as whether we (IBM CSCers) are stubborn people or rather determined people.  Lütfen, No comments from the peanut gallery on this one!  The remaining three of us made our way back the the center of Battalgazi to partake in our next mystery meal.  We walked the entire center circle passing by just a couple small restaurants.  While there is some risk in eating in the rural restaurants, we were up for the full cultural experience and after a recommendation from a child on the street, we settled upon a small kabob shop. 

The owner was ever pleased to invite us into his very small restaurant for a “home cooked” meal.  Seeing the restaurant was small, the weather was nice and we tend to attract attention when we speak in English, it was suggested by the group to take the private table sitting right outside the door.  Rob and I thought this would be a “purrrfect” spot to enjoy!  The business owner looked hesitantly at us…he and Ali start the typical Turkish banter back and forth…(we never know exactly what is said but I suspect the owner suggests we’re crazy to sit out there and Ali agrees stating that not only crazy, they’re also stubborn J) never the less, the owner respected our wishes and wiped down the table for us to have a clean place to eat. 

The table outside gave us a great view of the locals transporting goods here and there.  Having a sensitive nose to dust, I was feeling bad for the horse that was pulling wagon loads of goods to and from the market stands.  Apparently, the horses in Turkey are on a strict schedule and unlike the people, they must eat on the run.J  The horse had a burlap sack hanging from his ears that was covering his entire nose and mouth.  In the sack is his food for the day…I couldn’t help but wonder how he could possible enjoy eating his meal through what I could relate to as a "dusty old medical mask".

Ah the food has arrived!  It smelt delicious and the first couple bites confirmed the kid on the street knew what he was talking about.  It must be “all the rave” on the streets as suddenly we were being surrounded and stared down by the locals!  Yikes, so much for the…Old McDonald’s farm also lives on the streets in Turkey!  With a meow, meow here and a meow, meow there we were being surrounded by the local STRAY CATS!  One cat, two cats…oh look, here comes a dog too!

Nothing more needs to be said, we quickly could draw our own conclusion that THIS is why the owner was discouraged when we chose to sit outside.  As we start to laugh and myself a little stressed about the tattered cats now crawling around among our feet…the Turkish banter back and forth between the business owner and Ali started up again.  Yes, Ali has confirmed our insistence on eating outside has lead us a stray!