THE ART OF MISUNDERSTANDING

Our time in Turkey, while it was probably the best time in our lives, was also one of the most confusing. We, of course, mostly were the cause of the confusion because we were the guests and we couldn't speak the language. When we did meet up with a Turkish person who seemed to understand English, more often than not we made an assumption that we were understood, when in fact, the person we were talking too probably was too embarrassed to say they really didn't understand us at all.

When we arrived, we had the task of furnishing our flat, right down to the washcloths and bedclothes. One day in my hunt for something to dress up the living room a bit, I found a 12” high clear glass oval-shaped vase that I figured would look nice with a dried-flower arrangement it in. Near Jerry's office there was a small shop with home decorations in it, including such flower arrangments. When I took my vase to them, I asked if they could make an arrangement for it. The clerk I spoke to answered me in English and I told her what colors I would like to use. She said she could do it and I could pick it up in a week. One week later I was told it would take an additional week.

On that day, I asked Ahmet Bey, our driver, if he could pick up the arrangment for me, as I had to go over into the old part of Istanbul to a luncheon for new American arrivals in the city. He said he could do that, and later that day when he brought my husband home from work, he handed me the vase and arrangement. I waited until he left before I burst into laughter. Almost the entire arrangement was inside the vase. A few long dried leaves and stems peeked over the top, but for all intents and purposes it could almost have been a terrarium. I had been sure that since both the woman in the shop and I spoke English we understood each other, but obviously we didn’t. I saw no other "terrarium" type arrangements in her shop, so I'm inclined to believe that this is what she thought I wanted. Throughout the 22 months we were in Turkey, I kept it on display just as it came to me. It was a perfect example of how difficult not speaking the native's language can be.

In getting our house furnished we kept running into very difficult problems. As an example, with our bedspread came two 57cm square pillow cases. I hunted in every shop in town to find 57 cm pillows to go inside them, but to no avail. At the time, there just weren't pre-made, pre-sized pillows. So when it was time to have living room curtains made a man who owned a curtain shop arrived to take measurements so his wife could make them. The fellow and I spoke in English. I showed him my empty pillow cases and asked if his wife could make pillows for them. He said she could. I thought we understood each other. When the curtains were delivered, I got two more pillow cases, this time out of the same material as the drapes. So then I had to find four pillows. I never did find a Turkish pillow. I brought some back with me on the plane after a trip to England for our cousin's son's Bar Mitzvah.

One time we had a screen door put on the back balcony of our 6th floor flat. When the workmen finished it, the handle of the balcony door projected so far out that when you closed that door, it pushed the screen door open. That made the screen door flap and rattle whenever the wind blew (which at 6 stories high a block off the Marmara Sea is all the time.) We had a new water faucet put in the kitchen; the only problem is that the plumber crossed the pipes so that the hot water came out of the cold-water side. Considering it took us over two months to even find a plumber, we decided not to try to have it corrected. We just adapted. We had a new ball put in the toilet tank and then had to have a new tank cover made in order for the new "guts" to stop the water from running.

Another day we went out with Ahmet on errands and finally, after almost a year of looking, I found a plastic squeeze-bottle which I intended to fill with liquid soap and use when I had just a few dishes to wash. We found it in a shop about as far away from where we live as could be possible and still be in Istanbul. After getting home I filled it, only to find that it was not sealed properly on the bottom and leaked like a sieve.

Lest you think we were complaining, we were not. Well, sometimes we grumbled a bit, but if everything had worked just as efficiently as it does in the United States, we would not have had anywhere near so much fun! We laughed all the time, sometimes at Turkish ways, sometimes at circumstances but mostly at ourselves! Here, almost 18 years after being in Turkey, we still remember with fondness and glee our time there.