Amasya

One rental car, 5 women, and a weekend. We decided to check out a charming town called Amasya about 4 hours east of Ankara. Amasya is known for its Pontic king tombs, Ottoman architecture, birthplace of the first geographer, Strabo, home of the first insane asylum that practiced music therapy (the Mongols), and a narrow river valley.
Pontus was a kingdom located in a fertile valley between two rivers. It was established by a refugee-adventurer from a Greek city-state , Mithridates. He established Amasya as the capital of Pontus around 300 BC, and as a result many of the Pontic kings are buried there in tombs carved into the cliffs above the town.
Many people have since occupied the town. Our hotel was stuffed with Ottoman artifacts:





The Ottoman houses along the river, Yesilirmak:



The girls:




The town:


The Pontic King tombs:



The first signs of spring!

Hattuşa: The Ancient Hittite Capital

On our drive home to Ankara, we stopped at Hattuşa, a settlement occupied by the Hittites around 2500 BC. This was their capital city, and consisted of an artificial bank with tunnel entrances, a castle perched upon a hill, and all other buildings encloses within the city walls. The settlement was mixed amongst rocky outcrops in rolling hills; it must have been camouflaged in its day. You can imagine that at 4000 years old, there wasn't MUCH of the building structures left to see. Only the foundations, which created eerie patterns in the earth. An eerie day in general: about to storm, and I was foggy-headed from a weekend of driving. I would like to return to Hattuşa in the summer when I have more time to hike around the ruins and soak in the vibes. In the meantime, we toured the place in a 1/2 hour, jumping in and out of the car, running around trying to read the signs and see everything. (We had to have the rental car back by 5:30pm).




Some cool facts about Hittites:
1. They set up city-states (a term I still remember for 6th grade Social Studies).
2. They wrote on cuneiform tablets (also learned in 6th grade S.S.).
3. The arrival of the Sea Peoples resulted in the destruction of Hattuşa around 1200 BC (same time as the Fall of Troy). (My traveling companions and I loved the name, "Sea Peoples." All the other inhabitants of Anatolia had cool names like Hittites and Ottomans. But this particular group were just "the Sea Peoples." Like Ursula from the Little Mermaid.)
4. Hittite culture that survived and became known as the Neo-Hittites were a group of people who were mentioned in the Bible, in conjunction with Abraham and David.
5.They had a highly advanced and complex social system. Kings were absolute rulers, but then there was an assembly that had a lot of influence. There was a major division in society between the free and the slaves. Their legal code involved 200 laws. The best: rape and bestiality were punished by death. The worst: murder was only punished by a fine if the victim was a slave.
6. The two most important gods in their religion were the sun goddess Hebut and the weather god Teshuba.


Teshuba was definitely present during our visit.

Androcles and the Lion

The school play is going up this weekend! Last night, we all stayed until 9pm doing a tech rehearsal. I was busily sewing sword loops and capes onto soldier costumes, and repairing ripping costumes with my student assistant, the amazing Melis. Stacy is stage managing, Wes is in charge of lighting, and our dear friend, Duffy, the director, is trying to stay sane whilst managing 40 highschoolers in pulling together this production of Androcles and the Lion by George Bernard Shaw. Here are some pictures of that process.

A Day at School

A regular scene in room FZ22 with my 11th graders, studying Tennessee Williams' A Glass Menagerie. You can tell from the pictures that the students are just hanging off my every word; they've never felt so inspired by an English teacher in their entire lives. Well, maybe not, but at least they're smiling.







It was Twin Day for Spirit Week. Miss Chestnut (Stacy), Zeynep, and I were triplets. Zeynep has chosen me as her extended essay supervisor, and she is going to write about how Barack Obama is using the theme of hope and dreams from his African American predecessors in order to affect change in the U.S.. A girl after my own heart.

Notice the progression of emotions in these pictures as Naz realizes she has read the wrong 300-page book on which to write her extended essay.

Ilhara Valley: The Outdoor Club

I have been growingly involved as of late as one of the supervisors of The Outdoor Club at school. Those who are in the outdoor club are mostly international students. One of the sadder truths of our school is that the 10% of the students who are foreigners tend to stick together and not mix with the Turkish kids; they also tend to flock towards the international teachers, and I generally feel closer to my international students. As I have mentioned before, when I do go climbing or hiking, I meet other foreigners doing it. There is little to no outdoor culture in Turkey, so it is no surprise that the club consists mostly of international students and teachers.

My colleagues, Pierre and Phil, started the club this year after pulling some strings, and as they are leaving at the end of this year, I am transitioning in so I can take it over next year. I am also interested in helping create a higher profile for the club to generate interest with the Turkish students. I enjoy being a female teacher, hopefully acting as inspiration to the girls involved.

We've taken the kids to the local climbing gym a couple of times and they love it. Today, we took them on a hike down the Ilhara Valley of Cappadoccia, and explored some of the connected caverns of homes and churches carved into the cliffsides.






Some of the churches had painted ceilings- I am still amazed in this country how something so old and fragile is not barred off from the public. We could crawl around in the churches, taking flash pictures and destroying the place if we so pleased. Of course the students don't even think of defacing the art, and maybe that's because it isn't off limits?? It would be interesting to research countries' differing preservation efforts and subsequent successes.

Many of the religious figures had no eyeballs, and we were discussing the anti-iconoclastic time period, where deities were not allowed to be depicted as human beings, and so many of their human features were altered in later years.



We came across this cool gang symbol. I cannot quite tell if it belongs to the Sharks or the Jets.


The students' favorite part of the day was finding a three story cave dwelling, and exploring the connected rooms with flashlights.







Unfortunately, as wonderful as it is to see kids enjoying the outdoors in ways they never have before, I was reminded today of the accompanying risk involved.



As we came to the end of the Ilhara Valley, we had some time to spare, so teachers and students crossed to a rock above a small waterfall. I was standing across the way taking pictures, when I noticed through my viewfinder one of the girls starting to slip. It was an awful feeling to watch her slide down this waterfall in her clothes with her backpack on and not be able to do anything about it.




You can see from the pictures that it wasn't a huge drop-off, maybe just 6 feet or so, and she luckily fell feet first. But it was a cold day and the water was freezing, and when we all rushed to the edge to find her, we couldn't see her. All we could see was turning whitewater at the base of the waterfall, and of course my mind went racing that she was caught underneath in an eddy, and I instantly thought I would throw up at the implications of this. Then one of the students leaned over far enough to spot her clinging onto a rock, and was able to talk to her and find out that she was okay.

At this point, some local men who had been fishing nearby, had run over, jumped in the water, and got her to grab onto their fishing net so we could pull her up the bank. We were able to strip her down and dress her in dry warm layers. She was not at all hurt, and warmed up after a 1/2 hour.

She was only in the water for 2 minutes, but of course every second felt like an eternity, thinking of the worst possible ending to the situation. But it was such an awful feeling to think someone I am responsible for could have died; my life would be changed forever if I had to carry that around with me. Nobody said this aloud, but we were all thinking it and so thankful that she was okay. Phil, Pierre, and I retraced our actions, and I don't think any of us would have not crossed the river if we were to take the trip again; it wasn't an incredibly risky place to step. It was just an unlucky moment of imbalance. Water is such a scary thing to me, especially cold water. Forceful and paralyzing all at the same time. Even though the actual hike ended on a traumatic note, everyone was still able to smile and laugh on the busride home.