Carpetblogger

Ask Carpetblogger! How Do I Become a Bureaucracy Usta Like You?

It seems like it was just yesterday that I was dealing with things like setting up utilities, cable and ADSL in a language I don't speak, but here I am doing it again with only marginally more language skills.

Becoming an Usta (master) in Turkish bureaucracy is not something that can be achieved overnight, but every time you fail you learn something new and every time you succeed you feel like a complete bad-ass. My advice is start with something easy (setting up your Digiturk) and move up to advanced techniques (getting your resident permit).

Let's get started.

Do your advance work: There is a surprising amount of online information in Turkey in English. Many times, you can identify the location of the correct office, download the documents you need and figure out exactly what you should bring with you, thus saving you multiple trips and helping you avoid conversations you won't understand.

Block time. Do not assume it will go quickly and don't be in a rush. You will make mistakes and have to backtrack. You must not get annoyed.

Go early. This might be the most important hint. Crowds and chaos are your enemy, and while you cannot avoid either completely, you should do what you can to minimize them. Remember, Turks don't get up early. Get a good night's sleep the night before and be there when the office opens. Not only will you beat the rush, but you will avoid tea/lunch breaks which can disrupt the stamp-getting flow. Both you and the bureaucrats will be in a better mood, too.

Bring everything you think you could possibly be asked for: Passports, ikamet cards, tax cards, photos and multiple photocopies are the currency of Turkish bureaucracies. Come well stocked. Having it and not needing it is preferable than needing it and not having it. Remember though, if you forget something simple, there is probably someone selling it outside the door of the office that demands it.

Think like an Ottoman-era bureaucrat. Every figure is an authority and every authority figure needs a stamp. Your goal is to obtain a stamp from each of these authorities. Also, remember, no one can be trusted to handle money. If you understand this you will not be confused when you have to visit five windows for five different stamps and then go to the bank down the street to pay (you ALWAYS have to go somewhere different -- a different window or floor or building or city -- to pay). There is no penalty for going to the wrong window (other than time wasting). If you go to the wrong window, smile, be apologetic and someone will send you to the correct one eventually.  Remember, you do not need to understand what every stamp or window is for. Your goal is just to get them. (This is actually Carpetblogger's Key to Expat Success #4: You Do Not Need To Understand Everything That Happens Around You.

Watch carefully: Take a few minutes before jumping in to the process to read the signs (physical and psychological), to understand the flow and logic of the room and identify helpful, friendly-looking clerks. Identify centers of power in case you need to appeal to a higher authority. Look for another customer who is doing the same task as you and follow them.

Know your enemy. Your enemy is not the clerk behind the desk; it is other customers. Put on your game face and sharpen your elbows. Every new customer arrives, pushes to the front and asks a question.  This means that the clerk will stop doing whatever he or she was doing (i.e. helping you) to answer that question, probably only partially, then will forget to come back to whatever task he or she was doing before. This results in a room full of half-helped customers and clerks running around squawking. Americans are too polite and will fume quietly rather than join a scrum or cut a line. Get over this. Your goal is to cut the line yourself (play that foreigner card while  it still works!) while physically blocking other line cutters from getting to the front. Once you're there, you must make sure the clerk has space to focus on his or her task, which is helping you.

Make friends: Being a western foreigner gets you pretty far in Turkey (god help you if you are Russian or Bulgarian, though). Smile, be friendly and be free with your polite Turkish and the compliments.  This works in America, too. Once, while doing opposition research in an American courthouse, I was given documents I had no right to have simply by complementing the clerk's dress. The other goal is to identify a sympathetic, competent figure who maybe speaks a few words of English. This is especially important if you make repeat visits to a particular office.

Don't let anyone tell you you can't get your ADSL or telephone line yourself. It does take a little extra time, patience and creativity, but you can do it if you keep a few things in mind. In fact, I think many of these principles apply everywhere*, even if you do speak the language.

*Except the FSU. Forget it. You're screwed.

Ask Carpetblogger: How do you clean your carpets?

Until this week, my answer has been, "I don't."

The likelihood an elective activity like carpetwashing gets done is inversely proportional to the number of linguistic and logistical obstacles that stand in its way. Not only must I identify a qualified carpet cleaning professional, that person has to come get the carpets. Furthermore, moving stinky carpets around is a royal pain in the ass any time of the year, more so when it is 100 degrees and you are on your own. These are all significant obstacles.

On the other hand, I have carpetdogs, so my carpets are pretty damn dirty. Smelly too. That workhorse 6' x 5' Dagestan sumac that was in the dining room in Baku and Kyiv absorbed prodigious amounts of food and alcohol from Sunday dinners and parties. These factors make carpetwashing less elective and more imperative.

Most importantly, however, if you're moving into a new apartment with Ottoman-era wood floors that appear to be designed for your favorite carpets (or, looking at it another way, if you made your second real estate purchase based on how good your carpets will look), you cannot have dirty carpets.

So what to do?

One thing you'll notice about Istanbul is that there are a lot of carwashes. Because Turks are enterprising, rare is the carwash that is only used for washing cars. For example, because they can be hosed down, carwashes are ideal places for a bayram sacrifice -- a ritual slaughter of sheep and cows and a right bloody mess. More frequently, however, carwash guys are as likely to be aiming their high pressure hoses and soap brushes at carpets hanging from wires as Anadolu sedans.

"No carpet of mine is going to a skanky carwash!" I sniffed.

Turns out, that's pretty much wrong. A few weeks ago, I called a carpet dealer and he came to get three of them. They came home all shiny and reptilian, smelling of clean wool rather than dirty dog. I fell in love with them all over again.

Apparently, they went to a carwash. According to my sources, that's standard Istanbul carpetwashing procedure.

If this is the case, I thought, why not just cut out the middleman and go talk to the guys at the carwash near my house?

Fortunately, my Turkish has progressed to the point where I can negotiate such a transaction. I hopped into the guy's 1967 green jeep Cherokee and we sped up the street to my house. He threw them in the back and took off. Receipt? Hells no.  I've been able to track their progress as I pass by with the carpetdogs. They've been drying on the roof of the carwash in the scorching June sun.

I was only going to get a couple carpets washed, but why stop with six? I've got another eight ready to go. The remaining eight might wait, or I might send them to the car wash too.

Ways in In Which Istanbul's Awesomeness Will Increase Substantially

1. Opening the Bosporus Bridge to Pedestrian Traffic.*

*Net increase in awesomeness will be perceived by people who are not me, since I would rather stick pencils in my eyes than walk (walk! Kidder -- crawl) across that bridge.

2. Free wireless in Beyoglu! They've said it's coming before, but just maybe they mean it now. I promise to use it only for completely legal purposes.

3. This one is a badly kept surprise, but lets just say the net awesomeness of Carpetblogger is going to increase substantially with the purchase of our new apartment!  Photos and update to come after bureaucratic obstacles are cleared.

Excursion to The Country

Istanbul is a big city. Some 15 million people live here and it sprawls, L.A.-style, for miles in every direction. Since it seems that all 15 million are driving simultaneously, its traffic jams are epic. Sometimes its hard to get your head around just how big it is, especially if you're like me and prefer your feet to cars.

But now I know where Istanbul ends. There are no suburbs or exurbs or other visual cues that ease the transition from urban to rural. There's a dusty, truck-clogged highway lined by cement factories and coal yards and then, cherry orchards and wheat fields. If someone asks me where the gorge where we went hiking is, I'll say it's where Istanbul ends.

A multinational group met up in Bostanci, a outlying seaside district that reminded me of a denser, more chaotic Orange County beach town. Turks rushed to the ferry dock on this hot summer morning, with kids and bags of groceries and beach towels in hand, eager to stake out picnic space on one of the Princes' Islands, which lie just offshore. Palm trees line the streets and people rode bikes, walked dogs and rollerbladed in the seaside park that stretches the length of the Sahil Yolu (Shore Road).

It momentarily occurred to me that I live in the ghetto.

Rural Anatolya begins an hours' drive past Bostanci. You can see the gorge - Bali Kayalar -- from the highway. We stopped to buy five pounds of cherries from a guy sitting under an umbrella, selling them from big baskets. He explained he had just picked them that morning and expected them to all sell by noon. Best. cherries. ever.

For a native of an area with multiple national forests within an hour of home, Bali Kayalar doesn't exactly impress. But spending a Saturday scrambling over rocks and listening to frogs is a lot more fun that jumping over garbage and and listening to kids screech "Anne!" (mommy!) in the narrow alleys of Beyoglu. Turks aren't big hikers so it took nothing more than walking 100 yards up the river to escape the littered picnic ground and have the place to ourselves.   

Summer is here. The river's deep bowls were compromised, clogged with fibers of green slime, and its waterfalls sluggish. Local "crazy bloods" (as Turks refer to teenage boys) dove from rock faces 15 feet above one of the deeper pools, unconcerned about the water snakes. A breeze ruffled the leaves and pushed the heat from the rock faces downstream, making it easy to forget it was over 90 degrees. Climbers silently scaled the granite cliffs above the river.

I'm no climber, but it seemed pretty legit to me!

 

Crazy Blood

 

 

 

As much slime as water

 

 

100,000 Visits!

Sometime in the next few days, Carpetblog's 100,000th visitor will be recorded. Since it's probably some mouthbreather searching camel toe, ass fat, boobies or devushka photos or gay sex hamam Baku, it will be hard to single out the blessed visitor. Would that it were possible, however.

But you, dear reader, make Carpetblog what it is today.

The Anti-Devushka Goes to the Beach

Masallah!

Eyup Sultan Mosque and tomb is one of the most holy sites in Istanbul. It is the burial place of Ayoub al-Ansari, a standard-bearer and advisor to the Prophet Mohammed who was killed in the Arab siege of Constantinople in 670. Located in one of the city's most religiously traditional areas, Friday prayers attract a great number of worshippers and pilgrims. Families spend the afternoon sitting in the shade and around the fountains after passing through the Iznik-tiled tomb to pay respects and participating in Friday prayers in the cool, airy mosque.

Neither pilgrim nor worshipper I, it was more interesting to watch all the young boys who stopped by the shrine to celebrate their sunnet, or circumcision.

Yes, indeed! Circumcised between ages 6 and 10. How do you like 'dem apples? Sunnet marks the kid's passage into manhood and his formal entrance into the faith. It is a very big deal for families. The little victims get all dressed up in shiny outfits, with a fur trimmed cape, spangled cap and jeweled scepter, and drive all around town in processions stopping at holy places. Many have sashes that say "Masallah," which is a wonderfully complex word that means a lot of different things, but particularly joy and praise that god has willed a positive event. Turks, and Arabs especially, use the word in every other sentence.

The little boys are all excited and nervous, and are generally treated like little pashas to an even greater degree than usual.  This fat kid (or one that looked just like him) puked up his breakfast in the middle of shrine after imbibing in a tin cup of holy water.

It was a hot and sticky afternoon and the boys had things on their minds other than the blessings conveyed by complete strangers.

No boy of any age wants his granny hanging all over him.

This little dude's foreskin is probably safe.

After the snippage, the boy returns to his home, gets propped up on pillows and waited on hand and foot while visitors stream through offering their wishes and gifts of gold.

Ask Carpetblogger: What Have You been Doing Lately?

I have been cringing. A lot.

I am back on the Turkish language bandwagon and have been spending a lot of time in Turkish class. Since I am a known language retard, the last class didn't take all that well, so I am repeating level one, but at a different school. My class is quite entertaining. The list of students includes:

• An Iraqi who left Baghdad with her family last month
• A Jordanian
• A Lebanese
• A Syrian
• A Bulgarian
• A Greek
• A smattering of Euros, including a German
• A teacher who likes to use geopolitical discussions to teach grammar

Those are pretty much the major inheritors of the chaos that followed the collapse of the Ottoman era, and representatives from the top regional conflicts of the last and next 100 years. If we had an Armenian and an Israeli, the list of aggrieved parties would be complete.

Here are some sample grammar lessons our teacher has provided:

Dates and past tense:

"Nora, what year did the Americans come to Iraq?"

Cringe.

Why:

"Yason, why do the Greeks hate the Turks?"

Cringe.

As an aside, I don't think I have ever mentioned my objection to learning the word "why." It is a most useless word for a beginning student. Let's assume you ask a "why" question and are understood. Even in the unlikely event you understand the words in the answer, you will never understand the concept behind the answer. This is especially true in the FSU.  Asking, like Enidd did, "Why did the landlord shut off my water?" will never result in a satisfying answer.

Jokes:

"An American, a Frenchman, a German and a Turk were sitting in a train compartment. The Frenchman takes out a bottle of wine, takes a drink and throws it out the window. "Why did you do that?" ask the other passengers. "We have lots of wine in France." The American smokes a cigarette then throws the pack out the window. "Why did you do that?" ask the other passengers. "We have lots of cigarettes in America." The German gets up and throws the Turk out the window*......HA HA HA HA.

Cringe.

*this joke is funny because there are lots of Turks in Germany. Get it? Sort of like Mexicans in the U.S. and equally appreciated.

The Difference Between "Cok Guzel" (very nice, beautiful) and "Cok Yakisikli" (very handsome).

"Lawrence of Arabia: Cok gozel?"

That was a trick question. "Cok gozel," when referring to men, means gay. "Cok Yakisikli" is the correct term to describe a handsome male. I recalled in my mind all the small children in my neighborhood whom I had described as "cok guzel."

Cringe.

Even though everyone has their own version of history (and at times, expounds at length, in multiple languages), the discussions are always good natured and often hilarious. I am learning a lot more than in the last class.

Can you just imagine the look on Bush's Face

When Putin said, "hey, let's put that missile shield in Azerbaijan" ?

If Putin wasn't fucking with Bush, I will have lost all respect for him (Putin, I mean).

And Bush got sick after the meeting?

There is a god and his name is Vlad.

Thank God I am Not Turkish

If I was, I would be turning 40 this week instead of 39. Turks count the year you're starting, not the year you're ending.

The producer is even happier about this. Even though he thinks he has a Gram Parsons impersonator lined up, that person still needs a lot of practice (on the singing part, not the running amok part-- he's got that pretty much down) and hasn't yet traded his salwar kameez for a nudie suit.