There's a First Time for Everything...

So they say. We've been continuing our list of 'firsts' since we arrived in Turkey over 1 month ago, and recently it feels like we've had a jet pack propelling us forward into new things so fast we may lose a limb if we don't hold on!

Two of the biggest firsts for us happened at almost the same time (in this past week within a day or so of each other), and solidified our winter stay in Turkey: work and housing.

I made Deviled Eggs for Thanksgiving! After remembering with such fondness my Grandma Nancy's famous eggs, mine weren't quite the same-but they were pretty darn good!

Our Thanksgiving feast! We felt so  blessed to be included in our friends' celebration.

Since being here, we have been almost exclusively staying with friends, house and city hopping once a week, lugging our packs around on public transportation that was never intended to accommodate someone with backpacking packs. For me (Kindra), in spite of the wonderful times we were having with people at their homes, I was becoming increasingly ready to have our own space. Particularly as the possibility of having jobs was becoming more and more realistic, I was craving a space to unwind COMPLETELY without expectations of interaction or engaging with those around me. The introvert in me was becoming slightly grumpy at the lack of private space and quiet time, yet the extrovert was loathe to leave the exciting and fun environments of families, friends, new people, games, and meaningful conversations. Like the terrific time we had with some 15 fellow Yanks for Thanksgiving last week! It was a blast! The introvert prevailed, however, and once we finally found an apartment that was: a) furnished b) in the general area we wanted and c) a month to month rental, (which we were continuing to trust God for despite its supreme lack in this area) it only took us 20 minutes to look at the place, agree upon it, give the first month's rent in cash and have the keys in our hands. It took several days to reach that point, but, as is the case with many things in Turkey, once a decision is made on something, everything else moves very quickly. So this is our FIRST apartment in a foreign country as a married couple- woohoo!

Our living room! It's a little orange...we call it the Life Room.

Our new pad has 3 rooms, which we're thinking of opening up to couch surfers (!), a small kitchen, huge living room and 2 bathrooms-1 of which has 2 separate showers side by side......? Not sure what that's about, but as we have been saying more and more often: "Hey, it's Turkey!" Meaning-logic is not a prevalent value of this culture, so there are many things that, especially to a Westerner, can seem confusing or unnecessary. It all adds to the color and life of this place, and can be a refreshing break for us from what sometimes seems the too logical and practical, thought through approach of many Americans.

The other major FIRST is work-we are "official" English teachers/conversation club facilitators/our boss told us upon giving us our schedule that we can "do whatever you'd like with the classes-they're all yours!" So we have teachers books, and classes varying between levels A (beginner), B (intermediate) and C (advanced). Every level has 2 additional levels, 1 and 2. So A1 is the very beginning of the course, and C2 is the end goal for students, with a graduation certificate to reward their efforts at the end. All sounds great, right? Well we certainly thought so......and then we had our very FIRST class last night.

Austin paying with one of the many children we've met staying with different families. This guy and his family are all Kiwis! (From New Zealand)

We taught separate classes, Austin's was a C1, mine a B2. 9 of 12 students showed up for him, 5 of 7 for me. We were originally told that we should try and focus on listening and speaking as much as possible, since we are the only native English speakers in the program right now, and we thought-how hard can that be? Just talk and listen for 2 1/2 hrs. Sure! Great in theory-until we realized that the A/B/C/1/2 levels didn't really mean much at all, and the levels of English that we were dealing with were in NO position to be speaking and listening to the things we had planned to discuss. So despite our preparedness with our list of 'get to know you' questions, a great lesson plan and even colorful name tags, with only 2/5 students in my class and a few in Austin's being at the levels we had thought fitting for their class level, it quickly turned more into this formula: 1) student A speak about themselves for about 30 seconds (instead of 5 minutes) 2) student B ask a question from our "get to know you" sheet in badly pronounced English 3) student A have no idea what the question means, and student B has no clue either 4) student C or D, the only students who could really speak or understand, translate the question in Turkish, with responses of gales of laughter from everyone else, and student A responds in Turkish 5) Student C or D translates the response into English, and finally 6) when I, teacher, ask student A to try saying that in English now that they've heard what it sounds like, they all laugh and say "too hard" or some equivalent. Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh

We later learned a key piece of information that fit these seemingly unfitting puzzle pieces together-the students are not required to take any sort of exam after their first test of speaking when they first join the program to determine which level they are at, which seems basically pointless. After this initial "test", the students MUST be passed after the end of each level, no matter what their abilities are. Which means a student can take a test, for some reason be put into a B1 class, have TERRIBLE English, and at the end of the session-which lasts only 1 1/2 months- move onto the B2 class. Because that's what you do. And EVERY student receives a "diploma" at the end of the program, after "graduating" C2. No matter what. So when a fellow teacher, upon hearing that 2 of my students were in B2, remarked "I had them in B1 last session and I specifically said these 2 should not advance under any circumstances, they couldn't keep up with B1 at all and I suggested they move back to A1 or A2-how on earth did they end up in B2 now? I'm so sorry for you," I was less surprised than you might think.

So here we are!  With our Christmas decore in place, and *mostly* moved into our new huge, slightly cold apartment, working in an unpredictable English environment. Every day is an adventure-although the flavor and color of our adventures have changed slightly. From rustic to city, camp food to stove tops and an oven that appears to not work, solitude and wilderness to cars and flashing store signs. We're trusting God to provide for us just as much in this new season as He has in our past ones, and boy has it been an unexpected ride so far!

We've decorated our living room with silver sparkly stars and tinsel

Finishing touches of home decoration-maps in the hallway, and Christmas in the living room

Armed and ready!