Diving

I’ve watched my last World Cup game.  I’m serious.  Last night’s Italy-Australia game was a complete travesty with an Italian player diving and being awarded a penalty kick with 12 seconds left in regulation and the score tied 0-0.  Game over.  The worst part of it was the stupid ESPN/ABC commentator complimenting the Italian guy for fooling the referee.  Anytime you start celebrating fraud in any kind of sport, it’s time for some serious reform.  Soccer in its basic form is a beautiful game, but this is the first World Cup where I’ve watched a decent amount of games (due to the friendly European time zone), and I am so sick of all these world-class players falling down just to get a penalty call.  Don’t even get me started on Portugal-Netherlands.  You can’t even say it’s just the bad habits of European players.  Witness the Ghana-USA debacle where the Ghanaians were eating grass every chance they got.  At least I can be proud of the Korean team.  Sure, they were falling down all over the place too, but that’s just cuz they’re small and feeble.  It wasn’t intentional.  I’m telling ya, I am done with soccer.

Kindness

The security guard’s kindness was unexpected, noticeable among the other guards.  Always friendly, willing to lend a hand, open a door, shoo away some cats.  After six months of accrued good will, he took the step and cautiously explained his situation to his ward.  There could be a promotion for him if only he could improve his English.  To his surprise and delight, the ward became a friend and offered lessons.  The guard could only marvel at his good fortune at picking such an agreeable target.  The friend became teacher and invited the guard into his home and confidence.  Lessons were followed by tea and pastries, and the guard always felt like an honored guest.  “Such unwarranted benevolence”, he thought to himself in his own native tongue.  “I wonder how you say that in English.”  Unbeknownst to him, his teacher was spying.  Not for any government, agency, or non-profit organization, but a God intent on overhauling the entire spiritual and moral structure of society.  His orders were to plant seeds of revolution.  War games, the teacher called them.  No one is pure. 

From Ezekiel’s journal, on the passing of his wife

I open my hand and close each finger one by one, and here staring at my fist, I imagine myself as a child, thrilled at the realization that I can make myself… stand.  And then it’s gone, and I’m sick again, wondering if it was that thing inside me, orchestrating my movements.  What happened yesterday, Lord?  You told me not to lament or shed a tear, and I didn’t.  But you know, I tried.  Just to see if I could.  What happened yesterday?

You said you’d harden me, make my forehead harder than flint.  To protect me from what?  Israel?  She was my home, Lord.  My one escape from binding myself in ropes, digging through walls, baking my food in cow dung.  I even had to bargain with you not to use my own feces.  The one person that didn’t think I was completely insane or sent from Satan.  You took my only friend.

I didn’t think you’d do it.  You spared Abraham that.  Where was my ram, Lord?  And then when she was gone, in spite of myself, I groaned meekly.  Why?  Because I fear you, Lord.  I fear you so much that when every fiber of my being ached to say goodbye to my wife, I kept my face rigid.  To disobey you today seemed the most human thing to do.  And I couldn’t do it.  Without choice or conscience, I don’t know what I am.  Is it my will or yours?  It’s been so long I can’t tell anymore.  I’ve known you as my creator, but today… today you’ve shown me what it means to be the created.

And to my dear wife: should I have told you?  Would it have comforted you to know that God was taking your life for a purpose?  If I had the strength to say no to him when he first called, then you might never have gotten sick and we could have had another twenty years.  But I couldn’t very well say no to him, could I?  There I go, rationalizing again. 

I confess I didn’t even protest when he told me.  So deeply have I failed you as a husband, as a man.  I’ve already been shown today what feebleness is my love, and yet I can’t help but beg you.  I cannot express… there is something squeezing the blood out of my heart…   However you may, forgive me.  I am miserable and sorry…

Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore…

The building is surrounded by reflective one-way mirrors allowing those inside to see out but not those outside to peer in.

The cracks and holes are courtesy of firebombs thrown through the glass last April.  The perpetrators were never caught.

Inside, the Molotov cocktails set the carpet on fire and the smoke singed the walls a dark and greasy black.

The holes are patched up with duct tape because there’s no money to repair them.

This is my church.

Yoda the Cat or the Chick Post

One of our neighbors went away for a
week on vacation and CC and I volunteered to take care of her cat,
Yoda.  Yoda likes to be petted until he doesn’t like it anymore,
at which point he’ll let you know by grabbing your hand with his claws
and sinking his teeth into it.  Here he is trying to fall asleep
on a chair.

Yes, I played Puss’N'Boots in Shrek 2.  Get away from me.

Must… put… my… head… down…

This bed sucks.  Needs more leg room…

I would KILL for a pillow.  My neck is gonna be achin’ tomorrow morning…

Shoot, I hate when I drool…

Aaaahh, forget it…  I’m comfy now…

Marine Ball

A little over a week ago, CC and I
attended the Marine Ball.  Every year the U.S. Marines celebrate
their birthday by throwing themselves a bash.  All the Marine
units all over the world throw the same party on their birthday
wherever they’re located.  It was fun and interesting, but it felt
a little weird since there are only 12 Marines at our post and 300
people showed up to attend a party they threw in their own honor. 
Anyway, supposedly it is the party of the year for all the military folks here.  They had bad music though.

Our ticket.  We had to bring our passports to get in.

The program.  Had history notes and a little bio on each Marine.

Me and the missus.  I was just
glad to get some use out of the tux I bought for the wedding. Actually,
what I mean is I’m so glad to be in the presence of my heavenly wife in
whose aura I am not fit to be.  Wow.  How did I ever get so
lucky?  God is good.

Check out my sexy blue bowtie.  Just between you and me, I wasn’t wearing any cumberbund.

The main room where we had dinner and the presentation.  Very red, isn’t it?

All the tables had numbers, kinda like a wedding.

The front where the bride and groom sit.

A close-up of the banner in
front.  At first, I thought the US flag covered left side was
America, but it’s actually western Turkey.  Hmmm…

The Marines presenting the flags.

The Marines doing umm…
something.  Check out the tattoos on this girl in the front. 
The one on the left is a fairy in a bikini I think…

This was the coolest part of the
presentation.  At every Marine Ball, they leave one table and one
place setting reserved for their fallen comrades.  Here, the guy
is placing a helmet at the table.

All the Marines lined up.

Me and the missus in red.

Of course, all of us here are very
thankful to the Marines for the security they provide, but you know
what’s funny?  The Marines’ responsiblities are clearly
defined.  Their job is to protect in descending order of
importance:

1.) US classified documents
2.) US property
3.) US personnel

We’re third, baby…

Cappadocia

Last week was the end of Ramadan here
and the Turks have a couple of holidays in celebration called
Bayram.  CC gets both Turkish and American holidays off so we used
the time to head down to Cappadocia, about a four hour drive south of
Ankara.  Cappadocia’s mentioned in the Bible here:

“Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
      To God’s elect, strangers in the
world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and
Bithynia, who
have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father,
through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus
Christ and sprinkling by his blood:
      Grace and peace be yours in abundance.”  1 Peter 1:1-2 

And is also one of the areas where
visitors were from who witnessed the Pentecost.  So it’s been a
hotbed of Christianity for quite a few centuries.  But to
backtrack a little bit, here are a few other tidbits about Turkey and
Christianity that you may or may not have known:

• Turkey used to be the land of the Hittites from 1900 to 1300 BC, those troublesome OT foes.
• Abraham, on his way to Canaan, stopped by here and lived in a place called Harran for a little while.
  
• Cyrus of Persia came here and took over for a bit.
• The city I live in, Ankara, is what used to be Galatia.
• Antioch, the place where the term Christian was first coined, is here.
• The seven churches that John is commissioned to
  write to in Revelations: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis,
  Philadelphia, and Laodicea are all here.
• Paul was born in Tarsus, which is here in southern
  Turkey, making him Turkish!  Well, sort of, if he wasn’t already Jewish and if Turkey existed back then…

Cappadocia is mostly well-known for its
really cool rock structures that were formed by nature.  And yeah,
lots of places in the world have cool rocks, but in Cappadocia, they
carved out those suckers and lived in ‘em.  And not like cavemen
either.  Whole cities of these rock houses.  And rock
churches.  Tons of rock churches.  Not much in the way of
decoration remains in the houses, but there are plenty of drawings and
frescoes still inside the churches.  Also, Cappadocia was home to
not only rock houses, but also underground cities.  Apparently,
those Cappies didn’t much like living on level ground.  Haha, I’m
funny.  The underground cities go down to about nine levels, but
only about 5 are open to the public.  The Christians would go and
hide down there when invaded and it was fairly impregnable.  It
was very sophisticated engineering.  Hidden airshafts, wineries,
door seals…  I have pictures of that, too.  Anyway, here
are a few of them and I’ll narrate as we go along:

I gotta say though, after visiting this really cool place and
seeing the remains of this great Christian civilization, to think it’s
all gone now and the place is 99% Muslim is really kinda sad….

Eats

In the days leading up to coming here, I was looking
forward to Turkish food.  A lot of the Middle
Eastern/Mediterranean foods are similar to each other with an
assortment of grilled meats and appetizers of hommus-like stuff, olive
oil sauteed veggies, fresh baked pitas, etc.  Unfortunately, from
the moment we
stepped off the plane, we were in Ramadan.  As most of you may
know, Ramadan (or ramazan, as it’s pronounced here) is a monthlong
period of fasting for Muslim believers.  They don’t eat from
sun-up till sun-down.  Of course if you’re not Muslim, you don’t
have to follow it, but it affects our lives in a few ways.  One is
that most restaurants don’t offer their normal menu and instead have a
scaled down version that eliminates most of the mezze, which
is often the best part. 

CC and I went to an ‘iftar’ last week
which is the evening meal and a communal breaking of the fast.  We
walk into the restaurant and immediately notice there is all this food
on every table and nobody is eating.  Meanwhile on one side of the
wall they’re projecting what looks to be real-time video of some holy
place with all these people bowing and praying.  The food looked
like it was getting cold and me wanting to assert my Christian liberty,
I start eating, whereupon people began shouting and throwing food at
me.  Just kidding.  No, I waited like everybody else until
some really loud prayer was uttered on the video broadcast and on cue,
everybody began eating.  What’s also annoying about Ramadan is
that there’s some dude in my neighborhood who normally belts out the
call to prayer around 8 PM or so every night.  That’s not so
bad.  But this same dude gets up at like 4:00 AM every morning and
starts banging on a drum to wake people up to remind them to eat again
before the sun comes up.  This is normal practice so I’m told, but
I still feel like throwing a shoe at the guy.

Eggplant is really popular.  These people just
love them eggplants.  Yogurt, too.  Yogurt can be in a sauce,
in your soup, on the side, and if you’re thirsty, have some ayran, a
fermented yogurt drink.  All the yogurt and cheese is making CC
and me rather gaseous.  On the plus side, I’m getting addicted to
pistachio nuts.  I don’t know what they do to ‘em, but these
pistachios taste WAY better than the stuff they sell in the
states.  Crunchier on the outside, and creamier after they’re
pulverized in your mouth, they taste like cashews with a nuttier
twist.  Oh, and of course, baklava everywhere you go.  Here are some pics of what we ate last night:

salad.  tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, parsley, vinegar and lemon.  very refreshing.

red lentil soup.  nice on a cold night.

fresh pide always available with every meal.

donor kebab.  thin slices of grilled lamb.  perfunctory fries on the left.

iskender kebab, which
is essentially doner kebab with tomato sauce and traditionally, the
waiter brings over a pot of frothing butter and dumps about a cup of
the stuff on top.  see the mound of white stuff to the left? 
yep.  yogurt.

spinach pide.  like a pizza, except no sauce and egg instead of cheese.

rice pudding for dessert.  baked until the top caramelizes then refrigerated till cold.

finally, chay (tea).  everything always ends with chay.  you drink the stuff anytime, all the time.

Turkish Phrase of the Day:  afiyet olsun! 
Means “Hope you enjoy(ed) your food!”  Can be said before or after eating….

The Turkey Post

Dang,
I hate starting all over again.  So, I’m in Turkey.  It’s
been almost two weeks now and I’ve finally got the Internet and VOIP
set-up.  Where to begin?  Well, let’s see, first
impressions…  my greatest fear was that I would step off the
plane here in Ankara and think, “Dammit, this place looks like
Queens.”  Instead, I stepped off the plane, looked around and
thought, “Dammit, this place looks like Korea.” 
Not the nice parts, mind you, but the still developing areas outside
the cities.  As we made our way into the city proper, it got
better, but the grimyness of the streets and the diesel smoke all over
the place reminded me of Seoul.  This place is hills, hills, and
some more hills.  And holy cow, there is some
seriously crazy driving.  I mean, I drive in NYC with
speed and I have no problem with it, but here it’s just another
world.  It’s mostly the taxis.  I don’t know why they bother
painting lines on the road cuz nobody ever stays in their lane. 
They use their horn and their high beams like they’re having
conversations with each other.  Turns from any lane, anywhere.  Our first cab ride, the driver was smoking while
driving with the windows nearly all the way up.  Haven’t been in a
smoking culture for so long, it’s been a bit of a shock.  The
place they gave us is nice enough.  Three bedrooms, fully
furnished, plenty of space.  There’s of course lots more to tell,
but I’ll bring it out in bits and pieces.  Here are some photos we
took of Ulus, the oldest part of the city, and a bit of a tourist stop:

Turkish Phrase of the Day:  Siz nasilsiniz? 
Means “How are you?”  Try saying that fast ten times….

The pidgeons come… at 6 AM.  Into my delirium, they arrive on
schedule, on a mission, as if from God.  Their cooing haunts me,
interrogating, forever ending in a question.  What is my answer to
them?  She rises, unkempt, to shoo them away, “Pidgeon,
go!”  I fall back asleep, comforted by my pidgeon protector.