No One I Know Would Call At This Hour

After 5 days in Turkey, I don't feel like I know too much more than I did when I arrived, but I feel like surviving this long is an accomplishment in itself.

I've made 1 1/2 round trips to the airport - 1/2 a trip when I arrived & another round trip to get my luggage. Nothing was missing & so far I've only identified one item I shouldn't have packed, simply because I didn't realize it needed to be refrigerated. There's 2 pounds of weight allowance down the drain.

I have my very own office, which I plan to decorate with my amusing parts of speech posters. I still can't quite believe I don't have to share an office with anyone!

I can find my way to my office, the campus supermarket, and 3 different places to eat. I also might know how to catch the bus to the local shopping mall.

I get to pretend to be an expert teacher for the 3 English Teaching Assistants (ETAs) who are here through the Fulbright program. I have more experience than any of them, so that makes me an expert by default, right?

I managed to sleep through the early morning call to prayer once this week. I'm really hoping to improve my percentage on that one, but the mosque is directly behind my building, so I may just have to get used to a 5:00 AM wake-up call.

The plumber seems to have finally fixed the leak in my toilet, after his 3rd visit.

My list of accomplishments may not be long, but keep in mind, I'm doing all this with only about 15 words of Turkish, and 10 of those are numbers. There's a chance I might be able to take a Turkish class for foreigners, but otherwise the 3 ETAs & I are talking about trying to find someone to tutor us. One way or another, I've got to start being able to communicate on my own!

So that's week 1 in Malatya. Next week, I'll actually start earning my keep - just as soon as they get around to telling me my teaching schedule.