Daily life #2

This is what one half of our living room looks like on a daily basis, now J has his own train set. If I hadn't taken this at nap time, there would probably be a small boy in the photo saying hopefully "Mummy build train track. Daddy build train track [pause] please."

And there's also a fan running as well because we're well into Istanbul summer here (despite the crazy hail storm the other day) so it's rather hot and humid. And even though I could probably turn it off right now, S has gone to sleep with the sound of the fan acting as white noise so now I don't dare turn it off for a bit in case he wakes up.

On the far left side, you can see our net curtains billowing slightly from the open window - everyone in this area has net curtains of some kind. The street we're on is a narrow one way street, so it's rather easy to look straight across into the windows of the flats opposite without them - and for them to look straight into your flat.

Daily life in Istanbul on a sleepy Saturday afternoon!

Common questions

Our experience so far has been that Turks are more upfront asking questions than Brits would be, to make a very general stereotype.

These are the most common questions I get on a regular basis:

1. Is your baby a boy or girl?
2. How old is your baby?
3. Where are you from?
4. Is your husband a Turk?
5. Do you live here?
6. What work does your husband do?
7. What do you think about Turkey?
8`. Why are you living here when you could be living in England?

To give an example of how this works out in practice, I was talking to a lady in the park this morning. I've seen this lady a few times recently but she's only just twigged that I can speak some Turkish. Her first question was whether my husband was Turkish, followed by asking what work he did. And then while walking home with S and J, an older lady walked past me on the street going in the opposite direction. After an initial exclamation of how sweet J was, she looked in the pushchair and asked if I had two boys. This was followed by asking where I was from and whether we were visitors here. She seemed quite gratified to hear that we actually lived here.

It's taken a bit of getting used to, but I'm starting to accept this as normal. What doesn't quite come so naturally, though, is asking similar questions in return! Maybe that's something I should be working more on. I'm quite used to asking how old a baby or child is in the park now, but I don't think I can bring myself to start quizzing people to quite the extent that is often normal here - yet!

Technology and language learning

I have a love-hate relationship with technology. I love the things it enables me to do more efficiently and easily. I love how it helps keep us connected with friends and family back in the UK. I love how it gives me access to resources, music, recipes and information. And I hate how dependent we all (me included) seem on it and how hard it seems to 'switch off'. And how easily looking at a phone becomes a default when I've a few spare minutes.

But, I've recently been thinking about how helpful technology is to our language learning and thought I'd share some of the different ways we use it.

• Anki. This is probably by far the most useful way we use technology for language learning. Anki is a program for memorisation using spaced repetition and is basically the computer version of the piles of index cards of vocab to memorise and review regularly. Even more helpfully, there's an app for our phones that syncs to our computers. L and I both use Anki every day for vocabulary learning and reviewing. We discovered in classes that we both had a relatively wide range of vocabulary compared to other learners and this is basically attributable to Anki. Bonus points for the fact that I can review my cards one-handed on my phone while feeding S. Minus points for the fact that I eventually realised that catching up on my Anki cards during middle of the night feeds didn't really help me retain new words.

• Watching TV, talks etc. online. A lot of our language work now is improving our understanding, so watching Turkish TV series or talks is super helpful practice - and there's a lot available on YouTube, as well as lots of series that are dubbed into Turkish on Netflix. We've found one of the big advantages, in comparison to traditional TV, is being able to pause as often as needed and go back over bits as many times as is necessary. I've also been reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in Turkish (with a dictionary next to me!) then listening to the audio book on YouTube and following along with the book.

• Internet dictionary websites. Hard copy dictionaries definitely still have advantages but this is much easier than lugging a dictionary everywhere with you. There's also Google Translate when you're desperate, though we learned early on not to trust it completely!

• The YouVersion app. As well as the myriad English versions, there are also versions in lots of other languages, including Turkish. And the Turkish translation has audio for the NT, though not the OT currently. There is also a complementary app for kids with interactive animated stories that also comes in Turkish and with audio, which J loves. 

So, love it or hate it, it looks like we'll be utilising technology here for a while longer.

How a language misunderstanding worked out for our good

In a previous post, I mentioned a misunderstanding with the paediatrician after I gave birth. This is the story of how our Father used that misunderstanding in a way we didn't expect.

I gave birth in a small private hospital on the other side of Istanbul. This meant that other than my doctor, who was an 'outside doctor' who doesn't work for that hospital but works with a couple of different hospitals, no one spoke English.

We thought we'd managed to communicate with the midwives, nurses and the paediatrician successfully (after reminding them a few times, particularly the paediatrician, to speak slowly). The paediatrician wanted us to bring S back for a check up, as is normal here, and was throwing a few different days around. I was convinced he said cumartesi (Saturday). However when we dutifully turned up on the Saturday for our appointment (bearing in mind this was 3 days after I'd given birth, going back on the metro to the other side of Istanbul), he told us we'd come two days early and he'd said to come on pazartesi (Monday).

So much for communicating successfully. I should have been more careful and clarified what he'd said, considering I was rather tired having only had about 1.5 hours sleep and then had a baby. But I hadn't. Oops. The doctor did the check up anyway, but according to the doctor, S was meant to have another blood test, which couldn't be done at that point because it was too early. However, we were told that it could be done at the sağlık ocağı, which is the local health centre.

At the time, I was really frustrated with myself. Why hadn't I double checked the day with the doctor when usually I clarify information like that? We'd dragged ourselves (plus my mum, sister and J) over to the Asian side two days earlier than necessary, which seemed like a waste of one of the few days my sister had with us. And then I had to figure out what exactly the blood test was that S needed - thanks to a couple of friends I worked out that it was a second heel prick test - and how to get it done.

I waited until the Monday, messaged the doctor who J was registered under, who told me to contact the nurse. The nurse told me that the doctor had actually left (however the doctor had neglected to mention this to me) but to come in on the Tuesday and meet the new doctor.

We woke on Tuesday morning to find that S had what looked like quite a nasty eye infection, but as we were heading to the health centre anyway that morning, we thought we'd try and kill two birds with one stone and ask the doctor about it while we were there.

When we turned up at the doctors, the nurse introduced us to the new doctor, who told us that he couldn't register S without an ikamet (residence permit), which we still don't have (and at that point, we didn't even have a passport for S). But the heel prick test could be done, which was a positive. However, even though the doctor couldn't officially treat S, when the nurse realised the severity of S's eye infection, she spoke to the doctor. He was kind enough to look at S's eyes anyway and gave him an unofficial prescription for antibiotics. And the nurse told us to make sure to take it to the pharmacy opposite the health centre, as they would accept it without a problem. Fast forward and with the antibiotics, S's infection eventually cleared up.

If I'd understood the paediatrician properly, we'd have gone to him on the Monday, at which point S's eye infection wasn't really obvious, and there would have been no need to arrange to take S to the local health centre. So on the Tuesday, when S really needed to see a doctor, we would have had to either try and get a last minute appointment with a hospital paediatrician or take S to the equivalent of A&E at a hospital. Both of these options would have been quite a bit more complicated and stressful, and would have taken a lot more time, energy and money.

But our Father, in his wisdom, used my language misunderstanding to provide an opportunity to see a doctor, for free and despite the fact that the doctor wasn't officially meant to be treating S, just when we needed it. (And I got a bonus lesson in humility as well.)