Phillip and Rebecca Mefford

If we could take you to one place in İstanbul… Rebecca’s choice: my neighbor’s house for tea I know, I know…there is a lifetime worth of sights to see in İstanbul , the most shining of which are raved about in tourist books and advertised on the television, but what those books can’t prescribe is a visit to Auntie Ayse’s kitchen to enjoy tea with her and the ladies. Almost every day in between kitchen chores and running to the pharmacy for grandma’s blood pressure medicine (truly, a day of hard labor not for sissies) the ladies in our building get together for tea. More than just warm beverages bind these women’s lives together, you see. Three out of four of our landlord’s sons and their families live in this modest apartment building. Their wives and daughters and granddaughters flow in and out of each other's homes about as constantly as the tides. I’m lucky enough to be somewhat adopted as one of them, despite the fact that I’m easily lost on conversation due to language barrie

Süleymaniye Camii The Mosque of Sultan Solomon When you go to Washington D.C. you see presidential monuments, when you go to Venice you see gondolas, and when you go to İstanbul you see mosques. One of the most important mosques, both because of who it was built by—the great architect, Mimar Sinan—and for whom it was built—Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent—is known as Süleymaniye Camii. Built on a campus once containing a hospital, soup kitchen, schools, and more, this imperial mosque has been preserved to this day representing a deep-seated religious tradition and the remnants of a glorious world force known as the Ottoman Empire. We see growing in Turkey a renewed interest in both of these elements, the latter most recently popularized by a televised drama series known as Mühteşem Yüzyıl, Magnificent Centry, which depicts the daily-life and intrigues of Sultan Süleyman and his harem. The show is hugely popular and yet controversial, criticized for disrespectfully and indecently repre

Geçmiş Olsun May it Pass During our seemingly continuous visits to the doctor we regularly hear the phrase, geçmiş olsun, may it pass. Most often used to wish someone ‘get well soon,’ it seems a little funny to hear this for one of Lincoln’s simple check-ups—what is there to “get over” besides, perhaps, a few tears after a routine vaccination? And yet, when you don’t think of them too literally, Turkish’s polite niceties have a pleasantness about them. Phrases like geçmiş olsun have, in fact, endeared us to the language. They offer something to say in the awkward pause between patient and receptionist, they provide just the right turn of phrase in conversation with a friend, and they give us something to ponder… 1. How do we wade beyond the greeting-card-type triteness of the get well soon’s of English and geçmiş olsun’s of Turkish and really mean what we’re saying, even if it is to a stranger? 2. Thinking about getting over and moving on, what do we wish to pass and what do we not

“Fishing” Nasrettin Hoca heard that the king sent out a committee incognito, seeking suitable candidates for qazis (judges). Nasrettin took to walking around carrying an old fishing net on his shoulder. When the members of the committee reached his village, it drew their attention and they questioned him about it. "Oh, I carry this net with me to remind me of my humble past as a poor fisherman," explained Nasrettin. The committee was impressed, and in due time Nasrettin Hoca was nominated as a qazi. Shortly afterwards those king's representatives met Nasrettin Hoca again and noticed the net was gone. "Where is the net, Nasrettin?" they asked. "Well, you don't need the net after the fish is caught, do you?" replied Nasrettin. Adapted from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Sufism/Nasrudin