On Sene (Ten Years)
Ten years ago, on January 21 st , we landed at Ataturk International Airport. A friend met us at the airport with a bag of simit (a ring-shaped bagel-like bread covered with sesame seeds) to tide us over on the three hours of bumper to bumper traffic to our new home—a “family apartment” owned by Ata Bey and inhabited by him, his wife, three of their sons and their families, and a few renters like us. Mrs. Ata Bey had left a large bowl of Aşure Pudding in our refrigerator—a soupy, sweet pudding colloquially filled with 40 ingredients including but not limited to a peculiar mixture of crushed walnuts, chickpeas, raisins, barley, and pomegranate seeds. We soon learned the beauty of Turkish hospitality, the ubiquitous presence of çay (black tea), the new family you gain through being part of an expat community, the patience of Turks as we stumbled through language school, the longing for your own home and family on days you feel your outsider-ness, the thrill of achieving cult