False cognates...

My job has taken me away from Istanbul, again, after a four day visit which involved a job interview sandwiched between visits to the Istanbul Police Office (where I applied for and received a residency permit).

Still not sure if I got the job.

I should talk about the residency application process, sometime, but this isn't the post where I want to complain about Turkey's bureaucratic difficulties of Ottoman proportions. I'll just say, I was glad my friends Gregg and Emrah came along. Their commentary made the affair a good deal more fun.

Monday, I took the midnight flight to Antalya (48 minutes), was received by a bewildered driver at the airport ("Sean" sounds distinctly feminine, when Turkish logic is applied to the phonemes. Read it "se-an"), was then driven to Club Salima (50 KM from the Antalya airport), and by 2:30 was settling into my room at a Mediterranean resort.

I was excited!

The veil of expectations, however, was lifted the following morning. Although waking up to the sounds of children, blowing whistles and singing to club music, at 10 AM (which is an early hour, these days), didn't do much for my confidence in a pleasant stay, I think it was a scantily clad, obese Russian family that finally enervated my hopes.

At Club Salima, I'm that guy who thinks the whole place is retarded (or insane, or absurd), and who invariably (I try not to!) exhibits disdain in every movement, spoken phrase, or dip in the sea.

I'm reminded of Bill Murray's character in Lost in Translation, because that is exactly how I feel.

It's been four days. I've gotten to know several of the staff, all good people who seem to have had their nerves frayed by a summer of working with the globe's neediest population: tourists. I've also met some Russian college kids, and though they don't speak any English, they were excited when I smiled at them, said "I like Russia", and gave them a thumbs-up. That, and I bought several rounds of vodka for the lot of 'em (and then suffered the worst hangover in years).

Today really tied it all together. Another beach-goer had seen me speaking Turkish with the staff, and then correctly surmised that I wasn't from around here. This Turkish man was doing his best to figure out what I was doing at a resort for Russians, Italians, and Germans, and tried a little of all three languages before settling into Turkish.

He asked me if I was an animatör.

I didn't understand, what could give him the impression that my line of work involved drawing, much less drawing cartoons. So, I offered him the side-to-side head shake and shrug, which in Turkish means, "I don't understand".

Again, "are you an animator? Do you do animation here at the resort?"

I told him "no", but also asked that he explain. The mimes that this request provoked took me off guard, as the man began jumping from side to side, jazz-hands in the air, smiling like a fool.

Then he said "animation man", several times, and it clicked.

A Turkish animatör is an entertainer.

When I worked with refugees...

I have a new job for the summer, something absurd and in Ankara that I'll talk about later. The job I left, was only part-time with the International Organization for Migration. I was the "airport guy," though my title was, and I'm not kidding: Identification Authenticating Officer.

I never had a badge, my biggest lament in that position. I would go to the airport, usually around 2 AM, with another IOM staffer, and we would help assist refugees with their exit procedure. This amounted to coordinating 35 refugees, usually from Iran or Iraq, and sometimes E. Africa, to get all their baggage checked, documents verified and in order, and conveyed through passport control to the airplane. It usually took between three and five hours, depending mostly on the police.

It is the kind of work that involves managing a great deal of chaos. The population I was working with was, understandably, traumatized by their experience. In short, refugees are often treated as criminals in Turkey. You don't ever want to be a refugee, and you don't want that for your family.

Having fled their homes under duress (because of war, persecution, famine, biblical-style badness, etc.), these people were subjected to the treatment of the Turkish police and legal system, which regards refugees in much the same way that the US government does illegal immigrants. People are detained, shuffled around, and occasionally they get separated from family; some are abused, subjected to extortion, or poorly fed and clothed.

The IOM, and several other organizations, are working to change this, but change is slow.

By the time I saw a refugee, they had likely been in Turkey anywhere from nine months to five years. I even met a couple who had been here for eight. So, when people are within hours of leaving to goto the US, where they have been set up with a job and a home and hope, they are a little agitated and needy. One gets lots of questions, worried looks, and I had to learn to try to be a comforting and empathetic person, while still directing the group.

Did I mention it was 2 AM?

Five plus years ago, I remember what was in the news, and what people were say, in the months preceding the Iraq war. There pro/con style arguments. There was a staunch, principled opposition. There were "hawks" and "doves" (why we anthropomorphize those positions I will never understand).

I was a "dove," because I thought the war was a bad idea. I even went to a protest in Washington D.C., to be the best possible dove I could be.

In all the talk I heard about the coming war, the planning, the opposition, etc., I don't remember anyone mentioning the potential plight of refugees. I know I never thought about it, at the time.

I was with the IOM for about six months, before moving the Ankara. It is work I'd would like to continue... except 2 AM is a strange hour to be up several times a week. Anyhow, my experience there was really informative, and I'll have more to say about it. With the total Iraqi refugee population topping two million, it will continue to be a problem for Turkey, and the region as a whole. Long after the Iraq war ends, there will probably still be talk of the "Iraqi diaspora".

I just reckoned I oughta preface my connection to it, before I said any more. While I still worked the job, I was taking notes on the experience, and there are some funny, as well a some sad stories, that I mean to publish here.