Fun with Students

You could say that living in Turkey isn't all that different from Australia. Well, no, that's not really true.

We are still teaching - we were teaching in Australia. No, that's different too.



One of the really nice things about this job is the students that we teach.



That's Gözde and Merve, a couple of the girls in my morning weekday class. As you can see, they are very studious - I never have to say, "Sit down! Be quiet! Gözde don't steal Merve's book!" and things like that.

Most of our lessons are four hours long. The best bit is the ten minute breaks every hour. Then the students head downstairs to the courtyard for a smoke and a cup of çay (Turkish tea). We are free to have a coffee in our staff room, or join them.




This is Cenk and Yiğit, a couple of lively young chaps from my morning class enjoying their break time.

Now that the weather is getting hotter - and very humid - and very few of the classrooms are air-conditioned, we often take our classes outside under a tree or in the "Wendy House" in the courtyard.

My Sunday afternoon class were discussing a documentary Cengiz had seen about English people dunking their biscuits into their tea. He was curious to know if it tasted good.



So we sent to the school canteen for some tea and biscuits, and we had a little lesson in English Culture.




Now there's a class you don't get to teach in Australian primary school.

Sand-between-the-toes

Yesterday I had a class to teach, but Peter was at a loose end, and Charlotte was going stir-crazy. So the two of them hopped on the train that runs right by our apartment - just to see where it would go. They went to the end of the line, and back, but on the way they saw a beach out of the window, so they got off and felt the sand-between-their-toes ... (Charlotte is from Brighton where the beach has pebbles.)

So today I didn't have a class, and Peter and I hopped the train and went 13 minutes down the track to be on the beach by the sea.


It was only a little bit of beach, and we weren't at all sure if it wasn't a private beach. In Australia there are no private beaches, access to the water is protected by law - but maybe here its different. We had to go through a big black gate - which was open. It appeared that the beach belonged to a hotel. And walking further along the beach was made impossible by these fences.

We thought we might go look at the pier. So we went along the road further and tried to get back onto the beach further along. But the police with guns were guarding the gate, so we guessed it was some sort of military area - there are a lot of those.

A bit further away from the beach, on the other side of the rail line, we found the Havuzlu Çay Bahçesi - Pool Tea Garden. There were two large pools with fountains - this time of year no water though. The weather was delightful and we sat outside for our lunch.



The waiter came and laid a sheet of paper over the heavy Turkish-style tablecloth - later when we finished he came and cleaned up by wrapping the paper around our dishes and everything and carried them away in one neat bundle.

As we sat and relaxed, there was something familiar in the air. I gradually realised that I could hear parrots - a familiar sound in Australia. We found that one of the trees had a man-made hollow branch, with a nest-full of small green parrots.


Actually the place was full of birds - the ubiquitous doves, sparrows (you have to realise that for us West Aussies even these are exotic), the green parrots, some jackdaws, and even the odd finch. I was always an avid birdwatcher as a kid, caught it off my dad ...

We don't see a lot of birds in Istanbul ... too many cats!