A year has gone by since I last posted on this blog. I thought I had nothing to say. I haven’t gone anywhere or taken part in unusual activities. Yet in recent weeks I have felt an urge to report on the ordinary. So here I am, back again, and I hope regularly in the months ahead.
First, from a journal entry for March 21:
Yesterday we went to the Bayındır Hospital for our second shot of CoronaVac, the vaccine from the Chinese company, Sinovac, which is what the Turkish government is now offering, free. I had that Rip van Winkle effect, or the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. Since I hadn’t been beyond the immediate environs of Bilkent University for one month, when we emerged to get our first vaccinations, I felt I was waking up, my eyes blinking in the bright light, and all was familiar but at the same time strange. Weekend restrictions have been lifted here in Ankara, but even so, the traffic at 9:00 am, Saturday, seemed heavy. What were all these people doing on the road? The hospital was full of hustle and bustle, too.
The vaccines were given in orderly fashion. After our shots, we duly waited 30 minutes, without any ill effects. I looked at people walking through the central hall. With their faces partly hidden by masks, I paid attention instead to shapes of bodies, ways of walking, and clothes. Most were seniors, like me, for we are the ones called up now for vaccinations. Some were middle class, westernized; some were more villager-like, to judge from their clothes.
I watched the big TV high up on the wall at the far end of the central hall. The president had just fired the chief of the Central Bank, an act that will no doubt lead to a further fall in the Turkish lira against the dollar and the euro. Also in the news: Turkey has announced its withdrawal from the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (= the Istanbul Convention). This move is ironic, since this convention was opened for signing in Istanbul, and Turkey was the first country to ratify it, in 2012. The Turkish government claims it can protect women perfectly well without the solidarity of the European Union. It also claims the convention promotes homosexuality and undermines Turkish family values. Not everyone in Turkey agrees with this view; there are bound to be protests. As for violence against women, it is hard to see how withdrawing from the convention will improve things.
After waiting our 30 minutes, we left the hospital and went to get our car. This time, we parked in a regular parking lot (fee: 15 liras). One month ago, when we came for our first vaccination, I had parked on the street, near a deep gutter, a small ditch. There was some ice, but I thought nothing of it. When we returned to the car after the vaccinations, we found the front of the car in the ditch. Apparently the ice below the tires had melted while we were in the hospital, which caused the car to slip forward into the ditch. We couldn’t back it out. The back wheels spun furiously on another ice patch. Rubber pads placed beneath the tires gave no traction but were immediately thrown forward by the spinning wheels. What to do?? Well, this is Turkey. Three young men appeared from nowhere, and set themselves to getting the car out of the ditch. Lifting, pushing, cardboard under the wheels – nothing worked. Then one, perhaps an employee of a nearby parking lot, came back with handfuls of salt. Soon the crucial ice patch began to melt and the car was freed and ready to go. We thanked the men profusely. They smiled, hopped into their van, and sped off.
Back to yesterday: returning from the hospital, we stopped at Migros, the biggest market in our neighborhood. Our visits to Migros, normally frequent, have been rare this past year; they have become adventures. But I had a sudden and uncontrollable desire to buy marul (Romaine lettuce), which our on-campus Meteksan market is not selling now. We walked into the shopping center, gave our HES numbers (tracking number for virus cases) to a guard, held up our wrists to a temperature-reading device, and went through a metal detector. Migros is a market chain, and this particular store is well furnished. Imported pineapple was on offer; we took some. Dried mushrooms of various sorts are sold; we bought a little package of morels. Olives? Migros has a big selection. I had to get some green olives for breakfast; I particularly like çizik (cut on one side, for the curing process). And some bread with flax seeds, not sold at Meteksan (which does have its own marvels, I hasten to add). With beef for our main course, we left Migros with much more than the Romaine lettuce we first thought of.
