Mangal style.

Springtime-bordering-on-summer is out in full force in Turkey, which can mean only one thing — it’s mangal season! Now, at first glance, a mangal may seem like your run-of-the-mill picnic, but this is not your average throw-shrimp-on-the-barbie event. So to get you started on your first mangal, here’s an easy how-to recipe:

Ingredients:

• 3 kilos*** tomatoes
• 3 kilos cucumbers
• 3 kilos peppers
• 1 kilo onions
• 10 chicken breasts
• 5 dozen köfte
• 20 loaves bread
• 2 kilos mixed nuts
• 4 dozen cookies
• 2 cakes
• 1/2 kilo loose-leaf tea
• 4 liters each Coke and Fanta
• 8 liters water
• Salt and pepper to taste

*** Remember, 1 kilo = 2.2. pounds

Equipment:

• 1 grill, procured from an unlikely source (e.g. dorm room)
• 2 bags charcoal
• 1 lighter (for lighting the grill and cigarettes)
• 1-2 blankets (debate cleanliness of said blankets first)
• Appropriate cooking utensils, plastic plates, cups, blah, blah, blah
• Volleyball and/or football (known in the US as a soccer ball)

Serving size: 20 people

Prep time: 1 hour to drive around town and assemble pre-purchased ingredients and equipment

Cook time: At least 8 hours for maximum fun

Directions:

1. Upon arrival, the male contingent sets up the grill. At least 8 people required — 2 to actually set up the grill, 6 to stand by and give unsolicited advice. After 15-20 minutes of failed attempts to start the grill, a person who was previously uninvolved in this task steps in and starts the grill in approximately 30 seconds.
2. While the male contingent engages in pyromania, the female contingent quickly and efficiently unpacks the rest of the picnic. This contingent then makes a salad in record time.
3. Once all the food is prepared, drop whatever you are doing and sit down on the blanket to stuff yourselves full of meat, bread, and salad.
4. When it inevitably starts to rain, use your blanket and whatever else is handy to jerry-rig a makeshift shelter. Under no circumstances are you to go home.
5. As the storm rages, huddle in your makeshift shelter, eating nuts and desserts, joking (usually at someone else’s expense), and playing tavla (backgammon).
6. Once the sun reemerges, grab your ball for a game of football, volleyball, and/or dodgeball. The game is only finished after 3 people have been mildly injured.
7. If the picnic area has paddle boats/a trampoline/bumper cars, pay for a turn with that ish. The hilarity that will ensue from misuse is worth the 2TL.
8. If there is a small pond nearby, be sure to throw the ball in at least once. Seek out volunteers to rescue the lost ball. Earn bonus points for retrieval methods in a variety of categories – ingenuity, creativity, feats of engineering, shows of brute strength.
9. Drink çay out of a plastic cup. Don’t question how many carcinogens you may be ingesting due to the melting plastic. The health effects of the çay will cancel them out.
10. Before leaving, take photos. Lots of photos. You need at least one photo per pairing/group combination.

Afiyet olsun! Enjoy!

Rouketopolemos

*BOOM*BOOM*POW*

The explosion made me jump a foot in the air. I turned around to a face full of acrid, gunpowder-scented smoke and a man with grin on his face like a five-year-old and a homemade rocket in his hand.

*WHAP*WHAP*WHAP*

Another explosion to my left. This time, an actual five-year-old with a homemade rocket in his hand.

*EEEEEEEEEEIIIIII*THWAK*

A third rocket careened away from the thousands being launched, headed straight towards me, and hit the ground at my feet, where it burst into flames.

Welcome to Greece, the land of pork products, once-garishly-painted statues, and lax laws about explosives. More specifically, welcome to Chios, a small Greek island about 45 minutes off the coast of Turkey by ferry and home to Rouketopolemos (literally “Rocket-War”).

About two weeks ago, a few other Fulbrighters and I took a hop over to Chios to watch the spectacle of Rouketopolemos, the island’s Easter tradition. Each year at Easter, two rival churches in the town of Vrontados pummel each other with more than 50,000 homemade rockets, while people are inside at the Easter vigil. People not associated with the two churches have also taken it upon themselves to set off homemade rockets and fireworks during the event. Because when isn’t a drunk adult, a small child, and faulty explosives a foolproof combination?

One of the rocket churches, prepared for battle.

My friends and I didn’t make it inside the church for the service; instead, we watched the fiery spectacle, which dates back to the Ottoman Era, from above.

But fire hazards and hundreds-year-old grudge matches are not all Chios has to offer. Most of our weekend was spent indulging in all the island had to offer — bacon, non-Efes beer, mustard on my hamburger, beautiful Orthodox churches, pork products, gloriously sunny beaches, crystal-clear water, and did I mention bacon?

Bacchanalia, or the weird ones.

 

This weekend, 46 Fulbrighters descended on the Aegean Sea-side town of Bodrum for our unofficial end-of-year celebration. With only a month to go in our grant period, and everyone finishing up classes at different times, this weekend was our last big-group hurrah.

We spent the weekend at a five-star, all-inclusive, seaside resort just outside of Bodrum proper. We traded in our whiteboard markers, textbooks, and listening tapes for bathing suits, booze, and middle-aged European tourists. Our two glorious days were spent drifting between from all-you-can-eat, nearly-24-hours-a-day buffet, to the beach, into the Aegean, and back to our lounge chairs, punctuated only by many trips to the bar for watered-down drinks. It was a weekend full of clothes I cannot wear in Afyon, day-drinking, delicious food, sunshine, sea water, and great friends.

Going home on Sunday was difficult. I didn’t want to leave this piece of paradise for another week of teaching. I didn’t want to be stuck on a nine-hour night bus. But mostly, I didn’t want to say good-bye to my friends. As the year draws to a close, it is difficult to say when or where we will meet again.

R.O., always in the sea.

The Fulbright friendship is a rare, strange bird. We only met each other in September, and since then, have only seen each other on and off. Apart from my roommates, the Fulbrighters I see the most, I see about once a month. Others I see even less than that. By virtue of how much time we actually spend in each other’s company, we should be good acquaintances. But in reality, we’ve grown quite close, bonded by this weird place and experience into which we’ve been thrown together. Apparently close friendships are built on the foundation of crazy students, headache-inducing administrative issues, scary teyzes, and travel mishaps.

If there is one thing I can tell you about the Turkish Fulbright ETAs, it is that they are a weird bunch. They have atypical hobbies, tastes, interests, and experiences (I’ve witnessed a Dungeons and Dragons tournament in a hostel basement this year.). They are plagued by catastrophes and accidents (Such as falling off the teacher’s platform, pulling the teacher’s desk down with them, and showing their whole class their underwear in the process.). They are plagued by an offbeat sense of humor (Mostly cat-based). They love to dance, even though they know they’re not very good (Case in point, yours truly). But I love them. I love them for every awkward moment, every embarassing story, every cultural faux pas. There’s no way I would have made it through this year without their love, support, sympathy, distractions, entertainment, etc., etc. They are my tribe.

I love everything that’s going on in this picture. From KTown doing it big in the back to the Yalova love down in front.

 

 

Uykusu gelmiyor.

Woke up this morning in a funk of indeterminate origin. The kind of funk where you spend the day on the verge of tears that never come. The kind of funk where you spend the rest of the day lost in your own head.

I’ve only got two weeks of teaching left and seven weeks until I head back to the States. This is simultaneously exciting and terrifying. On the one hand, I’m ready to see my family and friends, to eat burritos, to drink in public, to ride my bike and swim in Lake Michigan every day, to wear whatever I want. On the other hand, the idea of starting over in the States is a scary one – reintegrating into the culture and lifestyle, finding a new job, reconnecting with old people, being truly busy again.

Keeping in touch with people across a continent, an ocean, and a seven-to-ten hour time difference is difficult. I’ve tried to keep in touch with my friends this year, but I sometimes fear that I’ve fallen far short. I’ve let life get in the way, sometimes putting the relationships I really care about on the back burner. What if we’ve grown too far apart this year to bring it back? What if they’ve all moved on to post-college, new-town friends? What if the prospect of catching up on friendship is too overwhelming? Simply put, what if we’re not friends anymore?

I’m also anxious about really, truly stepping into the American job market. I know what I want; I know the kinds of jobs I want (mostly research-based) in the field I want (mostly global public health). However, I’m afraid I won’t find that job that will wedge my foot in the door and allow me to push it open wider for myself. I’m terrified I’ll get stuck in some job that doesn’t challenge or excite me, and then I get sucked inexorably down a life-road I don’t want to be on. I don’t want to settle.

Sometimes I think about staying in Turkey, about finding a job here and continuing to live this weird, sometimes-surreal life I live here. In spite of all it’s weird quirks and the number of times I’ve thrown up my hands in frustration, I love Turkey. I really do. I can imagine myself settling into a life here. But when I think about it too much, when the daydream becomes too real, I get this huge panic knot in my stomach. I think it’s a case of wanting to want to be in Turkey. I love it, so why wouldn’t I want to stay?

This is an idea that is extremely difficult to articulate – the idea that I love Turkey, but I want need to go home next year. Logically, if I love Turkey and I have the opportunity to stay (which I do), I should stay. But, I feel in my bones that Turkey is not the place for me to be next year; I need to go home and figure out life. I’ve been treating this year as my life on “pause” and it’s time to press the “play” button and figure out what the hell I’m doing with my life. As much as I love Turkey, as much as I know I’m going to miss it next year, I think it’s time for me to get started on my real life aspirations (spoiler: teaching English is not among them).

These are just a few of the thoughts that keep me up at night these days. And they really have been keeping me up this week. But rather than dwell on them, I’m going to go stuff my face with the chocolate peanut butter cookies that I made for yesterday’s picnic with Class 23 and squeeze in a nap before leaving for the Turkey Fulbright ETAs’ unofficial end-of-year shindig in swanky Bodrum.

Anlamsızlık.

Bus is the most convenient, cheap, direct, and accessible mode of transportation in Turkey. It is also the most complained about mode of transportation in Turkey. Which company is the most dangerous? Is never on time? Has the most coordination issues? Has the most inconvenient schedule? Has the oldest buses? Most importantly, which company has the worst snacks?

Everyone has an opinion. Everyone has a preferred company. Everyone has a company that they avoid whenever possible. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Çeşme Seyahat…

“No, the 7:40 bus is full. The 8:30 bus is full, too. But there’s a second bus at 8:30. Do you want to be on that one?”

After a rather confusing exchange at the Çeşme otogar - there isn’t a bus, but there is another bus – I secure tickets for our trip back to İzmir. I think. I give the man at the desk my name, but after hearing the yabancı-ness of it, he just writes down the first three letters and the number of seats I want to reserve. I guess that counts as confirmation?

Luckily, there is a bus at 8:30, and we get seats on it. We go on our way, doing the small-bus-company-thing, stopping constantly to drop off and pick up people at seemingly random points along the route. Until we reached Alaçatı, where the bus stops at the main bus station, and remains stopped. Two other Çeşme Seyahat buses are stopped here as well (Ç.S. only travels between Çeşme and İzmir). We wait… and wait… and wait…

At this point, I’m a little panicky. It took us two hours and ten minutes to get from İzmir to Çeşme. We only have two hours and thirty minutes to get back to İzmir before our bus to Afyon leaves.

“You six, go get on that bus.”

Without explanation, we are herded onto another Çeşme Seyahat bus. After a bit of back and forth, we are reassured that the bus is, in fact, going to the İzmir otogar. This bus finally gets on its way. I’m jealous because R.O. gets to sit shotgun, in the seat usually reserved for the bus attendant. I reveal the extent of my yabancı-ness when the elderly bus attendant asks me a question I don’t immediately understand. It’s a normal bus ride.

That is, until we stop again.

This time we’re all herded off the bus. We’re standing on the side of the road on the outskirts of İzmir, on the opposite side of town from the otogar. Yet another Çeşme Seyahat bus shows up. We’re herded on board. It’s standing room only, but we’re assured that this bus is definitely going to the otogar. Okay.

“We didn’t think it’d be this crowded this weekend. I don’t know what’s going on, I just work here.”

Our friendly surly bus attendant informs us that he has no idea why it takes three different Çeşme Seyahat buses to travel seventy kilometers. There were more people traveling this weekend than were expected. He doesn’t know where the other two buses we have been on are going or why they couldn’t take us all the way to the otogar. All of this in a tone of disdain that indicates it is the travelers’ (our) fault that the bus company cannot get its ish together.

For reasons I cannot explain, our three buses take less time to get back to İzmir than our one bus took to get out to Çeşme. Ama, burası Türkiye - But, this is Turkey.

No outside nuts.

Returned to Eğirdir Gölü (lake) this weekend for a much-needed relaxing getaway. Last time, the focus was on bikes, beer, and breaststroke. This time, we omitted the bikes, and to some extent the breaststroke, in favor of Sivri Dağ, the mountain overlooking the lake (though we kept the beer part).

Hiking in Turkey is always a bit of a strange experience – strange terrain, strange people, strange encounters. Strange is not bad, it’s just weird. A few of the more strange highlights from our ascent:

• Kept our eyes peeled for the famous Eğirdir “shepherd roastings,” but to no avail. We didn’t see a single shepherd, but we saw a large, abandoned fire pit, so perhaps we missed the roastings by a day.

Shepherd roasting. Happens nightly.

• Took the type of shortcut my dad likes – not necessarily shorter or more direct. This particular shortcut took us through some teyze‘s backyard. She was none too pleased when we frightened her cows.

Switzerland? Or Turkey?

• The next teyze we met was  fair bit friendlier (might have been because she was a businesswoman). Bought half a kilo of fresh, unshelled almonds from her. But not until she had cracked and fed us at least a kilo of almonds at her roadside stand.

• Stopped at a çay bahçesi (tea garden) with a wonderful view. And where our “outside nuts” were not welcome.

“Bringing in outside food, drinks, and nuts is forbidden.”

• Never really found the surprisingly well-signed “ancient city.” Or do they mean that pile of rubble over there?

• R.G. decided it was a good idea to stray off the path and go waltzing through the jandarma (gendarme) forbidden zone. Turns out it was a former army shooting range. Luckily, they’ve abandoned it in recent years.

At the 500 meter mark, wary of the bullet holes.

• Were fooled by Sivri Dağ’s false peak, only to realize that the toughest part of the climb still lay ahead of us.

At the top! …Sike!

• Finally reached the zirve, and were rewarded with the most incredible view.

• Practiced for the forthcoming “Teyze Games” (whereby Fulbrighters compete in teyze-themed tasks, such as scowling and ayran-making) by cracking our half kilo of almonds.

• Treated (or tortured?) ourselves after our hike with a jump into Eğirdir Gölü. what had been a pleasantly cool dip in September was a frigid plunge in April. Thankfully, there were beers waiting for us on the shore.

• Finished the day with our hostel owner cracking open a one am bottle of champagne for us all to share.

Kanatsız kuşlar.

“I believe that diversity is an old, wooden ship.” – Ron Burgundy, downtown Fethiye.

I have loved reading since I was a little girl. I spent a lot of time growing up with my nose in a book, getting lost in stories. There were the two years in third and fourth grade when I secretly pretended to be Laura Ingalls Wilder, living out on the frontier. Then, the disappointment when I was eleven and I realized my letter from Hogwarts wasn’t coming. This was shortly followed by my attempt in seventh grade to start my own Babysitter’s Club; much to my chagrin, my friends were not interested in this endeavor (I also found out I don’t like babysitting). Suffice to say, my literary dreams have not exactly panned out.

Cemetery in the woods.

So, I was supremely excited to travel to Fethiye last week and to delve into the real-life version of Louis De Bernieres’ Birds Without Wings (De Bernieres is of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin fame), the tale of a fictional, multi-ethnic village, set outside of the town of Telmessos (now Fethiye) during the decline of the Ottoman Empire, World War I, and the rise of the Türk Cümhüriyeti (Turkish Republic). The fictional village of Eskibahçe serves as a microcosm of what was happening in the Ottoman Empire/Turkey at the time — the pride of the Battle of Gallipoli; the rise of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk; the forced eviction of the Armenian peoples; the “population exchanges” of Christians and Muslims between Greece and Turkey; the formation of an ethnically-based “Turkish” identity. It is a beautifully written, heartbreaking tale that I highly recommend. But this isn’t a book review, so I digress…

You know you’re in the village when…

On Monday morning, R.O., K.C., and I wandered through Fethiye for about an hour or so until we finally found the Lycian Way trailhead (you remember how that went last time…). It was a stupendous day for a hike in the woods – warm, sunny, and a little breezy. While keeping an eye out for red-and-white trail markers, I lost myself in Mr. De Bernieres’ book. The Muslim cemetery in the woods, the Lycian tombs where the Dog lived, the spring where travelers could refresh themselves. It was my literary dream, and the Laura Ingalls Wilder impersonator inside me jumped for joy.

Thanks, Turkey, for your lax laws about climbing on ruins.

But was this the best part? Hell no. That prize goes to the abandoned village of Kayaköy, the inspiration for Eskibahçe. The mountainside village of Kayaköy was formerly home to Turkish-speaking Christians (often referred to as “Greeks”), who lived peacefully with their Turkish-speaking Muslim (i.e. “Turkish”), valley-dwelling neighbors. However, in 1923, the governments of Greece and Turkey undertook mandatory “population exchanges,” swapping Christians and Muslims, respectively. After the exchanges, Kayaköy was completely deserted; the Christian inhabitants ventured across the Aegean, leaving behind a village of 500 homes, two schools, two churches, and a number of mountaintop chapels.

İbrahim and Philothei.

As we three travelers arrived late in the day, we had the whole ghost town to ourselves (Who am I kidding? No matter what time we arrived, we would have had the village to ourselves because it’s not on the Istanbul-Efes-Cappadocia tour circuit). I alternated between the delight of popping in and out of the abandoned homes and the sadness I felt whenever I remembered these had been people’s homes only ninety years ago. These vacillating feelings reflect a lot of what I feel about this country — I love it, despite the fact that it constantly does things for reasons I cannot comprehend.

Home, sweet home.

The best part of our adventure was one I did not venture into willingly. At one point, R.O. and K.C. wandered off the beaten path, forcing me to hunt them down. By the time I found them, they had latched on to the idea of venturing through the underbrush to see what was at the top of the mountain. I protested at first, claiming that I was too famished to climb, but eventually allowed them into cajoling me to come along. As we climbed, my two compatriots sang American folk songs at the top of their lungs, while I grumbled under my breath. However, once we finally summited, my hunger was forgotten and my mood immediately improved. We had reached what we dubbed the “Goat-Poop Chapel” (self-explanatory), and were treated with a most glorious view.

View from the Goat-Poop Chapel. Future terminus of the E&R Teleferik and future site of the E&R Gözlemevi.

Room friends and future owners of the E&R Teleferik and Gözlemevi.

“Man is a bird without wings and a bird is a man without sorrow.” – Louis De Bernieres, Birds Without Wings

Yavaş yavaş geliyorum.

I’m sorry, dear readers, I know you’ve missed me greatly. You’ve felt my absence across great distances, and have cried every time you open your inbox to find no new messages from yours truly. It all started when my washing machine broke not last Friday, but the one before that, flooding my kitchen with several inches of water. Then I was ill. After that, my students caught spring fever hardcore. And my telephone broke.

But these are only small tragedies. The washing machine works again. I feel better. My students will have spring fever for the next month, so I’m just working with what I’ve got. Eventually, I’ll buy a new phone. Slowly, slowly I am coming, catching up on life.

As I collect my stories from my most recent adventures, I leave you with a photo gallery of my recent trip to Magical Muğla to visit the incomparable, fellow Chicagoan, R.A.

Quick jaunt to the Florida Keys.

Afyonlular with our magnificent Muğlalı host.

Om nom nom.

Magical Muğla: Valiant heroes reside here.

Türkiye meets Florida.

Hard at work, or hardly working? Sometimes it’s hard to tell with amcas.

Post-Fulbright endeavor: Boat-hotel.

Plotting for the boat-hotel.

Magical Muğla: Colors that don’t normally occur in nature.

Oh, you know, just one of the herd.

Sunshine, daisies, butter, mellow.

I spy with my little eye…

Cows hiding behind bushes, indeed.

Always an adventure with these kids.

Magical Muğla: Artists live here.

After this year, I’m opening a gallery featuring exclusively pictures of column heads.

Maymunlar gibi.

Monkey-ing arounds in tombs.

More Magical Muğla masterpieces.

Harbor of Magical Muğla.

Travel compatriots, looking adorable.

Lost my lens cap ’round about here.

Don’t make me go home.

R.O. will tell you that it’s quite warm. Others will beg to disagree, but will put on a happy face.

Sitting on the dock of the bay, watching the tide float away…

Inner-Anatolian joy at finding ourselves seaside.

Rough life.

I didn’t think Turkey did lifeguards. Only in Muğla…

Ne mutluyum.

Magical Muğla, I will miss you.

Spring Break 2013.

Booze cruises! Bikinis and suntans! Girls gone wild! Partying all night, sleeping all day! Turkey’s conservative heartland!

Konya: Land of the Mosques.

Yes, dear readers, it’s that time of the year when most American twentysomethings celebrate the arrival of spring (and the countdownto summer) by letting loose in Panama City or on a Caribbean cruise. But not this American twentysomething. No, I swapped my bikini for a modestly-cut shirt and my beer bong for two glasses of wine in C.M.’s apartment in Konya, the religiously and politically conservative stronghold of Turkey and home of the Sufi mystic Rumi and his order of Whirling Dervishes.

Whirling.

Though we weren’t going wild and crazy, we seven Konya springbreakers were able to incorporate all the essential spring break elements into our party…

• Relaxing: First thing Saturday morning, we hopped over to the Starbucks, where we sat on the patio, sipping our iced beverages and having some serious girl talk.
  
• Dining al fresco: After raiding the local grocery store, we schlepped our bounty (and there was a lot of it) over to the park for a picnic.

Picnickers.

• Making “vacation friends”: These included: the man who prayed for our infidel souls in the park, our extremely friendly waiter at dinner, and a waitress who just couldn’t get over the fact that we could speak both English and Turkish.
• Tourists in shorts: Read about my trip to Pamukkale and learn about my thoughts on tourists and shorts.

• Romantic candlelit dinners: While dinner for seven is not quite as intimate as dinner for two, we got our romance on when the lights in our restaurant kept going out as we tried to eat dinner on Saturday.
• Too much sun exposure: By the end of Saturday, we had many a burnt nose and forearm among us. Alas, our torsos stayed resolutely pale.

So the sema begins.

• Dance circles: The main reason to visit Konya is to see a sema gösterisi, or religious performance by the Whirling Dervishes. The Dervishes practice a form of Islamic mysticism, or Sufism. They whirl in active meditation, with the goal of reaching the source of all perfection. The performance can be quite entrancing. Unfortunately, the performance is less entrancing when every teyze in the building gets up to leave in the middle of the show and the man in fornt of you is talking on his phone. Quite frustrating, actually.
• Gorging ourselves: From the peanut M&Ms and Hershey’s Kisses C.M. had been hoarding from the US, to the over-the-top picnic on Saturday, followed by a lot of grazing until dinner, to, finally, the etli ekmek (a meter-plus-long, pizza like piece of deliciousness, and Konya’s speciality) on Sunday before heading home, it was an almost non-stop eat-a-thon for yours truly.

Springbreakers.

Rest and relaxation; baking in the sun; eating my weight in bread, meat, and cheese; sharing a friend’s pull-out couch with two other people; laughing so hard I cried. My spring break sounds just like yours, doesn’t it?

Silly day in the park.

Klasik.

Afyon is not exactly the most happening place. In fact, very little is ever happening here. According to my students, it is, “Teacher, very boring” (Luckily, I’m easily entertained.).

But this week is among Afyon’s most cultural. It is the 12th Annual Afyon Classic Music Festival. The festival, held each year during the first week of April, features nightly concerts by a visiting classical ensemble. There are also concerts and workshops held by local musicians and members of the visiting ensemble at elementary schools and smaller towns throughout the province. It’s exciting for me to see the community (or a portion of it) get behind such a cultural endeavor.

My roommates are often jones-ing for a night out in Afyon. So, when one of my classes and fellow English teachers graciously invited us to join them for the final performance by the visiting ensemble, B.S., R.O., and I jumped at the chance for a “cultured” evening.

The concert was held in a beautiful, restored medieval hamam, or Turkish bath. The venue was certainly beautiful, but not necessarily the most acoustically ideal setting. And the music? It was fantastic. This year’s visiting ensemble, select members of the Prague Modern Youth Orchestra, played both modern and classic classical music. The music was beautiful; I had a fantastic night out on the town.

But the best part of the night was, for sure, my students’ never-ending ability to make me laugh. Several of the girls developed a crush on the admittedly-good-looking cello player and were constantly chattering away about him. At the end of the concert, the English-speaking ensemble director introduced each of the players by name. It was difficult to hear his Turkish translator over the applause, so when he introduced the cello player, my students turned around and imploringly asked me,

“Teacher, what did he SAY?!”

They were excited to learn Stefan’s name (incidentally, the same name as my 5-year-old self’s German boyfriend). And even more excited for the post-concert photo ops with him. Today, they came into class and proudly showed me the background on their phones – each of them with Stefan. They were crestfallen, however, that they weren’t able to find him on Facebook, despite a very thorough Facebook-stalking session after they got home last night. Luckily, I was able to restore their hope by correcting their spelling of his name.

I hope they find him.