Woo Hoo!

Unblocked!

Banned in Turkey

Along with YouTube, Blogspot is also now banned in Turkey. I've used another website to sidestep the ban, for now. There hasn't been a reason given as to why it's been blocked, but rumor has it that the man behind a few other bans is behind it - Adnan Oktar. He's an Islamic fanatic who is offended by anything appearing on the web that creates ideas or theories that don't relate to the Koranic version of creation. And for some reason, the conservative-leaning governing party, the AK Party, listens to him.

He had wordpress banned earlier this year, (unblocked now), although he is not behind the now 5-month-long YouTube ban. (We have that thanks to a childish argument between a few Greek and Turkish twits that went something like, "Ataturk is gay!" "Oh yeah? Well the Greeks INVENTED gay!". Then the Turkish government drew international attention to the insult by closing down the whole site and barring the whole country from seeing anything the site has to offer. Way to punish those Greeks! That'll show them!)

I have not lived in a country before that bans it's people from any sort of mainstream information, and it really bothers me. I have also not lived in a country where the people roll over passively and allow the government to do as it pleases. If you blocked YouTube in Canada or Taiwan, I'm pretty sure the locals would take to the streets. (You don't mess with the Taiwanese and their technology.) It's all part of progressing and moving forward which I feel the Taiwanese actively pursued and the Turks wouldn't pursue if they weren't forced to by the dangling carrot of the EU.

This week, because of the US election, the subject of elections came up in a few classes. Although Turks love to talk politics and worry about the state of the government in Turkey, none of my students had ever voted!!! I was shocked! They sit and complain about taxes and social policies and have never bothered to take any action. Why not? "There are no good candidates", "all politicians are all the same", "we are powerless against the government".... All really lame excuses because unlike their Arab neighbors to the south (that they never want to be like), they don't appreciate that they CAN vote or bother to apply their vote.

How disappointing. My students are all wealthy and represent the top management of their international companies. They are the upper echelons of Turkish society, and they don't even bother to vote.

And they don't even bother to speak up when the government takes away their freedom of information.

I'm totally disgusted.

Oh yeah!

This picture is being used in an ad for John Robshaw Textiles, but the taxi, the dirt road, the driver, the textiles reminds me of a day, long ago, when my sister and I begged a poor Mumbai taxi driver to take us to the suburbs in search of Fabindia.  

Although  we actually found it, (after hours of driving around and asking directions), when we arrived it was closed! We asked if he would take us back the next day since he already knew where it was and he agreed. Soon he was whisking us all over Mumbai to temples, Dhobi Ghats, and markets and finally, he took each of us in turn to the airport. 

If I had scanned my India journal, I could have figured out his name. I do remember he told a touching story about his wife. 

When it was time to get married, his mother and father went out looking for a suitable match. Like every Indian boy, he envisioned his future wife would be a beautiful girl with good cooking skills and super-model good looks. He was horrified when his mother introduced him to a short, round, plain girl. He rejected her on looks alone. (Although he himself was no Shahrukh Khan!)

But his mother insisted this was her choice for him and he was pushed hard into the union. He finally gave in and married her -- only to make his mother happy. But he was unhappy and made the first few years of their life together unpleasant for his new wife. He admitted he criticized everything she did and cooked and never had a kind word for her. 

Over time, she gave birth to a son.  He softened and they began to talk more. He grew to appreciate her cooking, maybe even more than his mother's, (gasp!) and then one day he realized that he had grown to love her. Not just love her, but ADORE her.  

He explained that his mother had been right all along, that although she wasn't thin and willowy with "wheat-ish" skin, her personality and temperament were an exact match for him. In his eyes, she was perfect, and he gushed when he spoke about her.

Looking back on the early days of his marriage, he said he felt ashamed he had treated such a wonderful woman so badly, but that she endured it all without holding a grudge, and for that, he loved her even more. 

It was a nice story. You hear so many negative arranged marriage stories, it was refreshing to hear about one that actually worked out. 

Suzani Rescue Operation!

This chair is covered in a material you can find all over Istanbul called Suzani, which actually means "embroidery" in  Uzbekistan where they come from. They can also be very pricey.

I've always really liked the fine silk pieces like this....

....and when I arrived home from Canada I saw that Bulent had bought me a red one not unlike the one on the chair up top. 

It only had 2 problems:

1. It had some crazy hot pink and lime green on it. Not my first choice of colours, and...

2. It really stank like mildew. (He bought it off a guy who was trying to sell a few items for money on the street - I can see why he got such a good deal.)

So, I hung it off my washing line for 3 days, but the smell did not budge. I had no choice but to wash it, knowing full well the colours were going to do crazy things - but it was unusable the way it was! 

So I got out  bucket and filled it with a generous amount of salt and vinegar to try to set the dyes. I soaked the whole thing overnight. In the morning I found that despite my efforts, the colours ran anyway.

Nothing to lose, I put it in the washing machine. I always wash everything on cold. Halfway through the wash cycle, I decided to check it and found that during my time in Canada, someone re-set our washing cycle to use hot water! The whole Suzani was really dark. Almost black. I looked it over, and actually didn't mind it. I set it to cold and let the wash cycle finish. 

End result? Most of that black came out in the rinse cycle. It's still red, but darker. The hot pink and lime green are gone, replaced with a deeper purple pink and the lime became pale sage green. Much better. And the best part, it doesn't smell like a barn anymore. 

I wish I had a "before" picture. Here is the "after". 

The colours are slightly off in this pic, the pink should be a bit more purple, and the the big white flowers have a bit of green to them. But it's miles better than it was!

A Sister Collaboration!

Many, many, many years ago, (more than 10!) my incredibly talented sister carved this design for her book making business in Victoria. This summer when I was home, I picked through the old stamps and brought back a few of the Islamic and Christmas -ish ones to play with.

I sat down one night with all my block printing supplies and printed up a heap of these in gold, turquoise black and red. Signing them R&M was the icing on the cake! I think they'll look awesome in frames.

Turkish Coffee

In Sultanahmet's hippodrome, next to the Blue Mosque, there's a nightly "night market" during the month of Ramadan. At sunset, the square fills up with families and picnic blankets taking up every spare centimeter of grass. Surrounding the eat-a-thon are even more places to eat; ice cream, donair kebabs, baklava,  dried fruit, nuts and, of course -- Turkish coffee!

In the Hippodrome, there are several vendors making Turkish coffee. Always made by men, who brew the ground beans traditionally over hot coals in little individual copper pots. The cups are kept hot in a big pot of hot water off to the side.

Coffee ground reading is big here. It involves first enjoying your little cup of thick strong coffee, but don't drink it all!  Stop when you get to the black sludge at the bottom, (it tastes bad so you probably will anyway). Then place the saucer over the top of the cup and flip it over. Make a wish and make 3 swirling circles with the cup and saucer and place it on the table. After a few minutes the reader will flip the cup and saucer and begin reading.

These are the basics....

• The cup is held so that the handle points towards the questioner. The handle represents the questioner and his or her home, and the grounds are read in relation to the position of the handle.

  
  
• The rim of the cup represents recent events. Grounds lying closer to the bottom of the cup indicate events that are more distant in time. The very bottom of the cup represents misfortunes.
  
• Grounds that lie to the right of the handle indicate the future, and grounds to the left of the handle indicate the past.
  
• The further away the grounds lie from the handle, the further away the events are in either time or even physical distance.
  

Then you take a look at the grounds themselves. You'll see that there are shapes in the grounds that can be interpreted but the reader. Every symbol, from ants to zeppelins have special meaning. 

Some people love it, some hate it, some acquire a taste for it, (as I did).  As the evenings turn a little cooler in late September, and the moon is full, (like it is tonight) nothing beats a tiny, steamy cup of Turkish coffee!

Even if you don't like Turkish coffee, you can still get a reading!  Try this out!

Little Cloud Pictures

This is a cool site. You put an URL or piece of text into it and it creates a little picture. The large words are the ones that show up most often in the text. I actually did this one a few months back when I just came back from Canada, can't you tell! (I even have the word "pine beetle" in there!)