One year in...

The view from our apartment

The world around me is beginning to come into focus. As I learn more Turkish, signs I've walked past for a year and  conversations which would have completely escaped me start to make sense. I noticed yesterday that the bakery just down the road (Komsufirin) translates as 'neighbourhood bakery', I had always lazily thought of it as an invitation to surf. I prefer my old version, but the real name certainly leaves no room for ambiguity. I still celebrate on the odd occasion when I manage an actual conversation, so I've got a long way to go with the Turkish. I still can't make telephone calls, although I now know enough Turkish to leave a note for my cleaner to ask her to call, that way I can leave her to use her imagination in replying to any questions that would have stumped me. It seems to work. On Mondays I speak French (with W African refugee Mums and babies), which really messes up my Turkish for the rest of the day, but on the other days I can manage a sprinkling.

In other ways, life here is starting to come into focus. Having made such a decisive start in our first week here, the rest has all been consolidation, but we know people, we've figured out routines and we get through it more smoothly. It was all a bit of a blur at the beginning. Of course, life with a 4 month old and school age children is a blur anyway, I look back at our time in Whitchurch and I was just about getting from day to day. Naomi seemed so fragile a year ago,  it hadn't been long since our last trip to the neuro ward. When I heard ambulances crossing the bosphorus bridge (which is frequent one has started up since I wrote the start of the sentence) I often imagined setting off to an unknown hospital on the Asian side for some Neurosurgery. Now it's just background noise.

Tim's homeward commute has changed every few months, as Istanbul itself is changing at an astonishing rate. A new shopping centre and exit from the metro station, a handy tunnel under Taksim Square with a metro entrance, a new metro line opening up. Fortunately, each of these changes has taken a few minutes off his afternoon commute. His morning commute along the Bosphorus, with all its grand buildings, including Dolmabace Palace, hasn't changed, apart from the addition of some rainbow steps (whose story pinged round the world through social media). His structures at work seem to be changing about as rapidly, but again it is mostly good change. He arrived as his a job was split into two and rattled through various projects which had hung around for ages, then he felt like he was twiddling his thumbs a bit. He was flying off to different countries/parts of Turkey every week though - he overspent his travel budget, then started spending other peoples'.  He volunteered for this board and that working group within the Consulate, most recently having fun with running a crisis exercise. He now no longer says he hasn't got much work. He celebrated one year in Istanbul by flying off to Ankara for a couple of days.

6 months in to our time here, our Pastor encouraged us to sign up as members of the church before the AGM. We recognised the pattern of being newly arrived people being lined up for a job (in Whitchurch it was the fete committee). Then we were invited to dinner, and returned without any jobs. Tim was probably a little disappointed - I'd long been banned from taking on any new activities by then. A few days later Benjamin asked Tim if he'd chair the church committee. So, suddenly Tim was in the middle of all sorts of church activities, including (as it turned out not that long later) starting to recruit a new pastor. Whenever Tim does the notices and welcomes newcomers to our church, it makes me think back to our first week here, not really that long ago. It's now Tim's turn to be banned from taking on new activities.

Miriam made the chocolates at a chocolate factory and Reuben made the plate at a glass factory

 Reuben and Miriam's lives are very similar in many ways to how they'd be back in Whitchurch. School, playing in the playground with friends, cubs, swimming lessons, birthday parties, Sunday school. More sun, more hills, less grass, fewer trees and more bus journeys. Also a globe for them has become a treasure trove of places their friends are from. Less swimming, less outdoor play, fewer trips to the beach and fewer prawns than in Cameroon, but more visitors, more things to do and places to explore. Naomi has the third child's experience of joining in with everyone else's activities, rather than having everything planned around her. Her toddler activities here are aimed at refugees, she comes to my Turkish lessons and delights the teacher and the staff in nearby offices. She is very happy to be a princess, being rescued by 5 and 7 year old pirates in the playground.

People are always saying to us 'Do you remember when...[something that happened way before we arrived]?'. It does seem like we've been here ages. However, it still feels like we're such beginners in learning about Istanbul, let alone Turkey. There are so many places we've not been and things we know nothing about. We don't even know the way anywhere by car, unless we follow our bus routes. It's a good job we have another 3 years, even so, we'll still be beginners.