Last night, for the first time since the fellows have been in Turkey, snow fell on Istanbul.  Wet and heavy, tiny white flakes danced from the darkness and onto the cobblestones.

There are certain things in life that cannot be planned.  Certain moments of wonder that only happen because they take us by surprise.  These moments we call “Inspiration.”

81 days ago, in 14 different countries, 14 single persons clicked 14 computer mice and became inspired.  Bobby Dekeyser and his team planned a fellowship filled with dance and travel and even dreams.  But it was impossible for them to plan a German girl’s connection with her Turkish roots.  It was impossible for them to plan a Finnish girl’s quest for herself and it was impossible for them to plan the look on an Indonesian’s face as he sees his first snowfall.

These are the moments of inspiration that we have shared here in Istanbul, a city that pulses with sporadic drumbeats.  In every dark corner there lives the sound of exaltation.  From every window can be heard the cry of passion and inside every taxi cab, a whisper of friendship.

When we have glimpsed these moments that Istanbul has offered us, we have been surprised by true inspiration.  In 48 hours we will take this inspiration from Istanbul and launch it into the rest of the world.  It will fly as far as we dare throw it, and dance from the darkness and onto the cobblestones.

It’s the 20th of December and the Turks have just begun to decorate Istanbul for Christmas.  The tinsel just now being stapled to the store fronts feels oddly appropriate considering today’s balmy weather.  I wear only a light jacket and the sun encourages me to sit, one last time, in Taksim Square amongst the pigeons.

Last night the fellows danced on national Turkish television.  The show is the equivalent of Jay Leno with a host much shorter and guests who look more suited to an episode of “What Not To Wear”.  I doubt I’ll ever understand the mentality behind such makeup.  In fact, there are a plethora of things I’m sure I’ll never understand about Turkey, and the country leaves me now, at the end of my fellowship, wondering again.

I’ve been offered a job with Fire of Anatolia: working in the international relations department with the opportunity to train part-time.  It’s not what I had dreamed when I said I wanted to stay here – a life solely spent dancing – but it’s a place to start and I’ve accepted.  With the same dogged determination I’ve had for the past three months, I’ll train until I’m good enough to dance more.  This kind of role-swapping is common in the company, I’m assured by my big sister, Müge, and – Inşalla – this is true.

I had thought I would get a more formal offer before I left Istanbul for home; perhaps from Mustafa himself; perhaps with a few more details attached.  However, the Turks are playing their Turkish game, and Lucas and myself (self-proclaimed “Team America”) will both board planes for home tomorrow not knowing for sure if and when we’ll be back to dance in Turkey.

Going home to relax for the holidays is certainly possible, but significantly less so when I’m forced to sit in wait about my life plans for the near future.  I’m assured they’ll be in touch if I just sit and wait with patience.  But I wonder, will I hear from them in the same timely fashion with which they decorate for Christmas?

I’ve been in denial since we got to Turkey that this time here would ever end.  “It’s better that way,” I explained to everyone, encouraging them to do the same thing (For my own sake, really.  You can only live an illusion if everyone around you participates.)  “Just don’t think about the end until it’s right there.  That way you have no time to get sad.”

Tonight, right here in the hotel lobby, the sadness hit me for the first time.  I read Daniela’s diary entry and felt the knot in my throat.  I write this with tears in my eyes.  I know what I have to do…

To My Dearest Fellow Fellows:

1. Lucas – Start counting!  You actually inspired me to write this entry two days ago, Lucas.  At the workshop on passion I watched you.  I watched you, watching Maulvi.  You’re so beautiful, Lucas, when you let your guard down; so honest; so true.  When you told where you imagined yourself in 7 years and there was a catch in your throat.  It was the same catch that I had: tears.  Because you’re a beautiful dancer and a beautiful person.  Let your guard down and let the real you out.  We’ll be here to catch you.

2. Aura – Tweet tweet!  You never stop, and I’ve grown used to that.  But the moments I remember about you are the moments you’re quiet.  The moment just today when you lowered your voice and put your arm around me and said my luck would change.  The moment when I knew, at our group meeting, that I was probably being bossy and yet you still were silent and listened.  We were injured together and had to learn how to watch from the sidelines together.  Give yourself time and patience, Aura, and you will find all you need in life.

3. Teija – So quiet and demure, I remember the moment I saw you, all long legs and blond hair, at the Istanbul airport!  I respect your search for yourself so much.  I was there just a few years ago and the journey to who I am now has been amazing: I hope yours can be twice as good!  I know you’ll find terrific things inside you.  Keep working hard and loving harder.  And never forget the joy of Yakamos in Belgium.

4. Shubhangi – My first D&F roommate.  I know I can say anything to you and you’ll never take it the wrong way.  That’s why I’m not afraid to say that, when we were getting our partners for that first night outside of Istanbul, I was horrified to have been paired with you.  I thought you were loud and obnoxious and were going to cause trouble with all your questions.  Little did I know, only the very last part was going to be true, and in the very best possible way   I hope life gives you all the chocolate and boat rides you dream of.  I’m coming to India to visit you and teach your street children mime.  And I hope you still have your belly when I get there.

5. Ayu – Little kitten, we share a love for all things small and furry and I’m so glad you brought Alphabet home in Antalya!  You’re talented in so many ways, Ayu, and I hope I’ll be able to model one of your dresses some day.  Remember to always treat yourself to a day of sleep every now and again.  You’ll never reach your full potential if you work too hard.

6. Süreyya – You were a cheerleader, weren’t you?  Well, you’re MY cheerleader here in Turkey!  Thank you for being so supportive of my pursuits in other languages, for always explaining grammatical questions to me, for speaking to me in French and German and for always always ALWAYS smiling… even if you didn’t recognize me that morning in the Frankfurt airport.  I hope we will have more time together, weather it be before or after you finish your studies

7. Meagan – You didn’t miss anything, okay? So stop poking your head out and asking!  Sometimes it’s okay to let bits of life pass you by, to be bad at things, to let hidden talents remain hidden, to miss a story that’s been told or to go alone to the movies.  I see SO much of myself in you, oh-horse-dance-roommate-of-mine.  I think that’s why sometimes you drive me up the wall.  But, then again, I think that’s why we’re good for each other and why I’ve come to love you: because you teach me more about myself.  If you don’t know what you want now, or how to get it, you’ll know eventually.  So, stay punny and don’t fret too much.  You’ll always have a friend just downstairs in America.

8. Maulvi – You are SUCH a monkey, Maulvi!  And SO talented!  Keep stalking people with those cameras of yours- both photo and video.  And keep dancing in bare feet because it makes people like me with shin splints like mine gape in amazement.  You’re an artist already, Maul-vee/Maul-fee/or however else you decide to pronounce your name.

9. Kasthuri – At least YOU recognized me at the airport!  I’ll always remember our secret trips to the sauna at Gloria and our night in the rain when we ended up at the Golf Club.  You were my first student and my first co-Georgian-lover and damn if I didn’t teach you how to talk without language.  Your Indian dance is lovely and your perfume is even better

10. Yasmine – The woman with few words is usually the smartest woman in the room.  I adore your down-to-earth, Australian simplicity; your fearlessness when talking about your problems and your solutions to your problems; your determination when dieting is necessary and your give-a-crap attitude when it’s not.  I was always glad to have a partner in the gym on those mornings before training, and someone to emulate when I went to fill my plate at the buffet.  Stay just as you are, Yasmine, and keep me in your heart.  That’s all I can ask for.

11. Dani – First, I’ll always remember that you’ve been to Maine (Who goes to Maine in the winter?!).  But after that, I’ll remember your laugh, your fearlessness in dancing when you profess to know nothing of dance and the pain on your face when we have stretching class.  You’ve been a true Latina on this trip: always encouraging us to live it up… even if I usually don’t listen and stay in anyway.  I hope you’ll let me know next time you come to the Northeast for the winter

12. Abi-Non-Abla – My roommate for the longest time on this trip.  Yes, how horrid to have to live with someone who likes the AC at the same temp as me, who speaks the same language as me (except not…) and who will lend me her bronzer when all my luggage has been lost.  I feel such a kindred spirit for you, Abi.  I think because we come from similar places in life.  Who knows if what I wrote in your journal is still the best thing to have written, or if I have more to say now, two months later.  I know at least part of it still stands though – You are more than you know: beautiful and wonderful.  I can’t wait to be the godmother of your children!

*****

This is my goodbye to you, Fellow Fellows.  So, don’t expect another goodbye from me, because I’ll be in denial up until I board the plane.

Love,
Hannah
Istanbul 2009

Müge, as always, was right in what she said yesterday.  We were working on a fairly new Fire of Anatolia dance.  This – no surprise – involved differing choreography for both the arms and legs: akin to patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time.

The first time we learned this type of choreography, I thought, “Okay.  This is the end of the line for me.  My brain just wasn’t made for such movements and it’s going to explode in exactly 5-4-3…”

Take the Harkuşta, for example.  This bent-over run, done at extreme speeds, involves, not a 1-2, 1-2 pattern of the feet, but a 1-2-3, 1-2-3 rhythm.  The arms, on the other hand, go in a 1-2, 1-2 rhythm.  But, where the legs go A-B-B, A-B-B (think rhyming patterns in a Shakespearean sonnet), the arms go A-B-C-C-D-A.

This monster was introduced to us when I was sidelined with shin splints, and, concequently, I missed Müge’s delicate touch in the teaching.  I learned the Harkuşta with the help of various toutors, three weeks later, in about half the time as the other fellows, and sincerely didn’t think I’d live to see success.  (In all honesty, I still haven’t 100% mastered this step, but I’m pretty close these days.)  But, back to Müge.

As we were working this new mind-bending step the other day, I realized, “Hey, I’ve picked this up a lot faster than I was picking things up at the beginning.”  (This step had only taken me two days, where previous patterns had taken much longer.)  “I’m so proud of you all,” Müge said, echoing my thoughts.  “You guys are learning so much faster now.”

As always, Wise Müge was right.  All the fellows have made incredible progress in their ability to put together difficult dance patterns quickly.  Not all of us were born with the Harkuşta gene, but, it seems, we’ve all got the ability to learn.

*****

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I believe there are very few cultural gaps that cannot be bridged.  As the sole actress and sole mime on this Dekeyser & Friends fellowship, I have quickly become the resident non-verbal communicator with the Turkish world around us.  Somehow my speech seems to be clearer, my hand gestures more precise, and, honestly, I imagine my self consciousness is much less than the other fellows’ when it comes to doing what it takes to get my point across.  Most of my conversations turn into at least a small game of charades when I ‘talk’ with our new Turkish family.  The fact that I mix languages more heartily than a tossed salad and have absolutely no regard for lack of grammar and non-sensical non-sequetors really doesn’t phase me.  In the end, if my point has gotten across, I’m a happy camper.  Laugh at me all you want, but I’m a communicator.  Take away language and I’ll still find a way to communicate.

Spending time with my closest Turkish friend on this fellowship has been the ultimate test of non-verbal communication.  How do you get to know someone – their history, their values and their plans for the future – when you share just enough words to fill up two pages of a pocket notebook?  “We figure it out,” I tell people who ask wonderingly.  Cem, our D&F watchdog and Turkish keeper here in Istanbul, still breaks into an enormous grin every time he catches me mixing languages and hand signals with bodily noises and inquisitive glances.  “Sen go, go go,” he giggles, mimicking me waving emphatically and pointing.  But does my Turkish friend understand?  In the end, he does.

Bridging language is one thing, but bridging cultural tendencies has proved to be another.  Turkey, for all its efforts to be a part of ‘modern’ Europe, still has some fundamental differences separating it from its Western neighbors.  Many people jump straight to the fact that it’s a Muslim country to explain Turkey’s fundamental values in many things.  Indeed, half of its largest city and nearly all of the country actually lie in Asia, and the Arab influences are plentiful.  However, there are as many mini skirts in Istanbul as burkas, and the country prides itself on being a melting pot for Christians and Jews, as well as Muslims.

Women wear jeans and hold jobs, but females often defer to males for daily decisions.  Children play video games when their parents are talking to them, but it’s still tradition to kiss an elder’s hand and touch it to your forehead as a sign of respect.  Municipal trash barrels line the streets of Istanbul’s busy shopping districts, but countless Turks still throw wrappers onto the ground.  Men pull overloaded rickshaws alongside SUVs and sports cars and sharing a cup of tea is still the preferred way to give your attention to someone.

Recently, I tried to have a fairly complicated conversation with my Turkish friend, who shares very little of my language.  How important is it to wear a condom during sex?

Any American who’s been through scare-tactic sex ed will tell you that it’s very important.  STDs can be spread through any number of bodily fluids and the last thing any aspiring young person wants is to get pregnant.  The Turks , however, have a rather different view of the matter:  As long as the man is able to keep himself under control (ie. keep his bodily fluids to himself) there’s no problem with unsafe sex.  The girl won’t get pregnant and STDs are a laughable matter.

That’s the first thing that got me: his laughing.  As someone passionate about keeping women safe during sex, the fact that this friend laughed at my warnings of creepy crawlers ‘down there’ really got to me.  Sure, our communication wasn’t perfect during this conversation, but it was good enough for him to know that my view of ’safe sex’ wasn’t the same as his.  I got mad.  He got confused, and we parted ways.

It wasn’t until a few days later that we were able to clarify things.  I was padding around the dance studio in my stocking feet when my friend joined the ranks of Turks who chide me for this practice.  “You’ll get sick,” he insisted.  “No, I won’t,” I assured him, remembering our costume mistress’ consternated look and threats of never having children because of this same habit.  “Every time I walk around with cold feet, I get sick,” he insisted.  And then it struck me: The bridge.

I reminded him of our earlier conversation about safe sex.  But this time, instead of just insisting that I was right and he was wrong, I put it in context.  “In America,” I explained, “we’re taught in school and by our parents that you always have to wear condoms during sex.  They scare us.  They tell us if we don’t, we’ll get sick.  But, in Turkey, it’s no big deal.  Eine,” I segwayed, using the Turkish word that means same.  “In Turkey you learn that walking around without shoes, you’ll get sick.  But, in America, it’s no big deal.”

He seemed to get it.  “Cultural differences,” I articulated, and he laughed.  But this time he wasn’t laughing at me.  He was laughing at our situation.  At the reality that Turkey and America are worlds apart, and, no matter how much we, as people, are the same, we, as people who have been reared by different cultures, are very different.  Sometimes we have to make concessions that we don’t understand and adopt mothers’ warnings and scientific reasoning that doesn’t make sense to us.  But if it’s important to the other person, and if the other person is important to us, then, well, it’s just important.

When I was around eight years old, I was in my first community theatre production: Gypsy. I fell in love during that show.  With the singing and the dancing and, of course, the play of acting, but I also fell in love with the lifestyle.  Ironically enough, it wasn’t the lifestyle I was living that captured my heart, but the acted, nomadic lifestyle of Rose and Louise and their mother.

I remember laying in bed one night during that time, telling my own mother that I wanted to be Louise.  My poor mother.  What do you do with a child who, at the age of eight, is already so in love with something that she can’t find the place where that passion ends and the passion of her own life begins?  What she did was to tell me how hard life like that truly was: full of suffering and loneliness and isolation.  Little did she know, her only daughter already saw the poetry in such things, and this explanation probably only helped to solidify the longing I felt for an existence on the road.

Like all things, life is in the details.  A wallet carrying four different currencies, a passport full of stamps in foreign scripts, the ability to speak fragments – sometimes more – of so many of the languages I come in contact with; all of these things are romantic details of the life I lead.

Weddings and babies are missed, and holidays are spent wishing the well-wishes I dole out were returned with more familiar enthusiasm.  But these things bring only brief moments of sadness.  The small ping I feel, shaped like my mother’s embrace, when I realise a nomad has no home, is dwarfed by the presence of other nomads.  Like a honing beacon in the ocean, one ping means little, but many pings clustered together mean the presence of something great.

It’s been such a long time I’ve spent trying to understand my existence as a gypsy.  It’s never before been clear to me.  Perhaps because my mother told my mailable brain that the existence was a lonely one, I’ve always believed that my life would be like that.  Fire of Anatolia has dispelled the belief in me that the nomadic life must be that way.  People will generally say that it’s very easy to feel alone in such a large group, but I disagree.  There is always a bus to lull me to sleep or a dance to be danced, shoulder to should with 100 others, all high on the very same love of the stage.  In these moments, even isolated by language and culture, I know that the stage is my home and these Turkish gypsies are my family.

“I’ve never seen anyone so happy who’s just lost all their luggage,” said Gülin at our first rehearsal in Belgium.  Why fret when there’s nothing I can do to help it, I thought, and I felt proud of my optimism.

I joked that now I would be without clothes and money when my credit card was refused in Belgium.  (Suspected fraud, I assumed, even though I had taken precautions to see that this didn’t happen.)

But my shell of positivity finally cracked last night when a second US company proved themselves incompetent and my ATM card was “retained for security purposes,” never to be seen again at a Turkish machine.

My jaw hinged open, my eyes began to swell, and, in conjunction with a personal foreign-language argument, the events of the past week finally got the better of me.  Now I seem to be stuck in the cyclical pit of negativity I preach against, and am hostilly awaiting the inspiration necessary to pull myself out.

The laundromat closed when I make a special trip there.  Three brimming trash barrels blocking my path down the sidewalk.  Being disconnected from the customer service rep who seemed – finally – able to help me get some of this sorted out.  My luck seems to be tumbling faster than shit down the icy, frozen-over hill of hell that I now reside on.

My life seems to have a constant soundtrack to it these days, almost always courtesy of Fire of Anatolia and Troya.  Tonight it’s one of the oriental songs that’s swaying endlessly through my head to the rhythm of my arms going up, up, down, down; up, up, down, down; 1-2-1-2; 1-2-1-2; over and over again.

How do you get upset in a foreign tongue?  It’s one of the most frustrating experiences I’ve ever had: feeling that my logic is correct and his is wrong, and not being able to argue my point.  Up, up, down, down.  Over and over again, but I never seem to make it onto the stage.

I want to be a dancer.  I’ve even “dreamplanned” it out.  But what about your legs, he asks.  And my dream is punctured and begins to shrivel before my eyes as I try to re-inflate it with an uncertain straw and the determination of a five year old trying to tie her shoes.

Oftentimes, writing out the hurt helps me to feel cleansed.  Tonight, though, I find solace only in an empty elevator that goes up, down, up, down.  Tonight I just want to go to sleep, acutely aware of reality and that things will probably still be dirty in the morning.

Factual blog entries often leave a bad taste in my mouth: dry and unsavory.  However, today’s events on Thanksgiving Day 2009 warrant some telling, so here goes.

Our day begins last night as Meagan, my Canadian roommate, empties the entire contents of her two 50 lb suitcases onto the beds and the floor and spends the next three hours packing for our four day trip to Belgium with Fire of Anatolia.  I revel in the only up-side to severely under-packing for this trip: I have no choices of what to bring, so I just bring whatever I have that will be sufficiently warm.  Done.

Somewhere between 1 and 2 am, Abi (my English roommate), Meagan and myself switch off the lights with our alarms set for 5:15 am.  The dudes that jackhammer next door at all hours seem to have the night off, but, luckily for us, the karaoke across the street jumps into swing minutes later.  With self-inflicted blindfolds tied, we nap til morning.

Leaving four of our 13 fellows in Istanbul because of visa issues, the remaining 9 of us board a bus for the Istanbul airport.  I’ve got bread, butter, jelly and a knife stolen from the hotel in my bag.  I reflect on the world we live in: the fact that people are people and yet some can’t cross an invisible line to dance the Yakamos with the rest of us because of politics.  I hope Shubhangi will post a blog on this with her thoughts.  I miss her already. Meagan and I take turns imagining what wry comments she’d come up with next, were she here with us now.

At the airport, the line for passport checks is immense and spontaneous applause erupts three times when additional windows are opened.  An over-sized, overweight airline employee yelling “Casablanca! Casablanca!” sits on my lap in jest as we wait for the bus that will shuttle us to our plane, at a staggering 2 mph.  Again: spontaneous applause when we finally reach the plane.

I had imagined spending Thanksgiving on an airplane and saying grace over a tiny plastic cup of water and some peanuts at least.  Today’s airline is Pegasus though, a budget carrier, and the only food they have is for sale at a ridiculously marked-up price.  We hit turbulence landing in Brussels and I give thanks I’ve made it in one piece.

After celebrating the fact that Belgium has BNP Paribas (a foreign bank that doesn’t charge me ATM fees for withdrawls) I discover my luggage has been lost by the airline.  Murphy’s law: the first time I don’t pack my medications in my carry-on is the first time this happens.  I have enough to get me roughly through the next two days and I start a “Don’t Let Hannah Go Naked” fund, to which fellows donate clothes.  I finally have “Thanksgiving dinner” at the Holiday Inn Express.  I say grace, imagine my uncle in the Macy’s parade and miss my mom’s pie.

I’ve gained two dances here in Hasselt: an oriental number (on my weak side, but my brain finally obliged and reversed things since it was at last really necessary – amazing what is possible with a little shove) and the infamous Horse Dance.  That is, if I don’t screw it up.  With Meagan as my recurring roommate and Horse tutor and Sulleman Hocam (literally “my teacher” and a term of respect) on my side, I swear that I will get this number down and not get booted from the number for failure to get it right, which has already been threatened me.

Tonight’s rehearsal will begin around 10pm.  We plan on a long night; longer than the UAE which ended at 2:50 in the morning.  Wearing Meagan’s pants and sports bra, Abi’s top, and Yasmine’s shoes I am ready to set out into the Belgian night and practice the horse dance until it kills me.  Even if I don’t make it on stage for that one though, I’m pretty sure I’ll still feel happy.  I finally got the shot I wanted.  Oh, and today we got official Fire of Anatolia passport covers.  Which sort of makes my life.