Rotary GSE: Dispatches

BARRY:
I stayed with Dundar and Suzan Kincal and their son Efe in their beautiful apartment on the campus of the Middle East Technical Institute where Mrs. Kincal is a Chemical Engineering professor. We talked all night about Turkish music and I learned about and played their kanun, a Turkish Dulcimer. Cok guzel. (Very nice).

Katie stayed with Rumeysa Demirdamar and her daughter Irmak and reports spaghetti for dinner last night, going out for ice cream at midnight, and 5 (yes 5!) barf bags on the flight from Manchester to Chicago.

Yeah! Erinc has generously shared his computer with me and we (Erinc, Bahar, Cemil, Eray, and Guner) are listening to Backstreet Boys, Bon Jovi, Britney Spear....while we complete this dispatch.

What does Turkey look like? Most people live in apartment complexes that are built from reinforced concrete, which is how most buidings are constructed. In the old part of town we saw some buildings made from wood and brick, though they are not holding up so well. An interesting thing that happens here is that people can go right ahead and build a home on government land and the government takes no legal action on them. In fact, this property can later become theirs legally if an elected official decides to make it so. Politicians can use this to their advantage to gain support when running for office. It is also not a bad way of getting rich, since the owners can then build apartment complexes on the land.

Ankara is a large political center, since it is where the President and most beaurocrats live. It is also home to many university students attending 5 major universities.

We have only been here one day and it is 2:30 in the morning now, so I will say more later.

For now, I can say that I am very grateful for meeting such wonderful and generous people, particularly my homestay family Deniz and Mehmet Camurdanoglu, their daughters Bahar and Derya, and their neighbors Guner, Nagi, Erinc, Eray, and Cemil.Also their bird Gicir.

Spring is here in Turkey! Even though Ankara and the surroundings are very dry, trees and flowers are blooming everywhere. A sight for sore eyes!

I am recovering pretty well from jet lag and even went for a run this morning in the quiet gated community where my homesty family lives (Ibrahim and Tulin Guray). I managed to draw some attention to myself though - one man began singing the theme song from "Rocky" at the top of his lungs while I ran down the street trying not to laugh.

All of our host families are so friendly and welcoming and our days are packed with great things to do and see.