Surprising everybody with "afiyet olsun"

March 25th, 2002:


The same as every day: Wake up early and come to work. Burak My boss finally appeared and said he could have a meeting with me, but only had free  the time of lunch ... lunch Boss?? This is not time for the meeting ... but I needed to show some things for him to know what to do now. We almost missed lunch but everything worked and we went to the cafeteria together.

When he finished eating he stood up and said "Afiyet olsun" (good appetite) and I replied "eyualah" (this and slang of the ancient Turks to express something positive). When I said that he started laughing out loud because he must have thought "how a Brazilian who is here only two weeks already know this type of slang ??" It was really fun.

At night went to AIESEC to try to wash my clothes and guess what ?? They continued dirty... what a shame there is no place in this city that opens at night to wash clothes !! But I left there to see what they can do for me. Other than that just went to dinner, then home and sleep after a boiling shower!


March 27th, 2002:

Another normal day but some white specks falling from the sky ... SNOW !!!! Wow... but okay, my culture shock is being the weather!!

It should be around 5PM when the weather began to turn, windy and from one hour to another the wind stopped ... and when I look into outside the company ... small white flakes gently falling from the sky ... I did not believe ... I approached the company glass wall to see more closely, completely frozen, not cold, but the fact of seeing snow fall.

Mr Burak, my boss, came into my room and asked me to go outside the company feel the snow... amazing experience ... it looked like a child when get new toy! Ican not describe! Too bad I have no picture, my camera is still without battery.

Speaking of my boss, he appeared again in the office but this time with more time for me ... He brought millions of books ... He thinks I can read it all in 6 months! I will read all that matters, but it has many good things for me to read... will be very useful. At lunchtime some guys from the factory came to talk to me in English ... very cool. The guys talk better than the people in my department who should know English because they are the IT area (Information Technology).

After work I went again to AIESEC and the same ... dirty clothes ... but it seems that tomorrow, Wednesday, they will put to wash !! I expect!!

Kisses thousand very sleepy and no clean clothes !!

March 27th, 2002:


Today I brought my CDs to the office and I was listening Brazilian music ... very good ... heard of "Bonde do Tigrao" and "Vinicius de Moraes," all my CDs ... until my boss appears. He set up a meeting with the guy from marketing area what was good. The guy during the meeting gave good ideas ... for business, not for me. I'll have to work even harder. The guy changed the entire project and I will have to restructure all over again !! We were at that meeting about 2 hours straight and I was already going crazy with the new things that the guy suggested to put in the system. The rest of the day was just digesting all this information.

Leaving the company went to AIESEC wishing my clothes are washed (this're looking Mexican soap opera). Getting there met Nurdan in the hallway and she told me that Mehmet has the store card so I take my clothes tomorrow. But tomorrow???? Tomorrow I will work in shorts and T-shirt. The thing that they got is this: They convinced a laundry to stay open for us, or we will call the guy to open it. We wash our clothes at night and then it closes or leave there and they wash to catch-up the next day . Good idea, but I still have no clean clothes to work ... and now I have not dirty because there are washing!!

Out this mess of clothes, we went to a different place of conventional to update the news. We rolled a very nice chat with Onur about change agent, meaningful work, leadership, trying to change the world, these things ... worth the day! I was exhausted but could not get out of there because the conversation was way too good. Finally someone in this town who has this view !! Around 11PM I went home ... destroyed ... and cold (-1 degree).

Arriving home I didn't even took a bath, went to sleep directly. I'll get in the mood of my dirty clothes :) !!

Here is a picture of my house ... I live on the fifth floor, front. The window with the antenna.

Tomorrow the soap opera continues ... (hopefully the last chapter of the novel "dirty clothes" is today !!)

Kisses to everyone!!
Xand

Next Post: What is falling from sky? Snow!

Sulamerican day in Turkey

March 24th, 2002:

As previously scheduled with everybody we would go to Katherine's house to estudy turkish and prepare the lunch. I'm done with bread and yogurt everyday but I feel I will miss it when I'm back to Brazil.

We went to the supermarket (Katerine, Claudia and I), bought spagetti, tomatoes, portakal juice (their orange) and meat. They have no idea how to cook and I had to do the lunch alone, then I decided to prepare my famous pasta and create a souce... if the taste was not good, the excuse would be "it's a brazilian food" kkkk. But at the end everything went right, they love it. We ate a lot! Without bread and yogurt (finally) and listening to brazilian music, I felt like in Rio, seated in the balcony, during the Carnaval, eating pasta and listening to music.

After this Brazil moment, we started to study, repeating over and over the turkish words for more than 1 hour following a tape that came with the book. Time for a break, music in the radio, let's dance. They would like to learn how to dance... what a shame... but ok, I tried my best. Katerine also showed us some Colombian dances like Merengue, It was a lot of fun.

After that I went back home as I had to do laundry and talk to the guys in my appartment before leave around 8:30 PM to have dinner with the AIESEC people and guess... more bread with yougurt!! Everything here must have it? It's impossible to get rid of it. The only solution is to get used to it.

After this "turn back to reallity", the only thing to do was to go back home, have a shower as I was freezing, relax and go to bed to sleep.

See you in the next email (post).

Brazilian cultural presentation

Hi Everybody!!
Yesterday was a hard day at work, I was very tired... just came back home, had dinner and went to sleep as at the next day there was an AIESEC meeting but the mood at the CL (AIESEC office) was not that cool... something happened but they didn't want to talk.

March 23rd, 2002 - Saturday: Turkish seminar in turkish and the brazilian cultural presentation
Wake-up very early... this is not for me... specially because here is very cold in the mornings but as I needed to was my clothes I decided to put everything in my backpack and bring to AIESEC office as they could tell me where to bring it to wash. Time passed and the only answer I got was we could make it... and I trusted.

Went to Ozmangazi University to get the end of the meeting. Me and my backpack full of dirty clothes. The meetings sucked as I could not understand 90% of what they were talking about, but they loved. Around 2PM they asked me to talk about my traineeship in Turkey, my expectations, etc but I had only 5 minutes. Tried to compile my thoughts and focus on being a change agent and learn as much as possible to try to change something back in Brazil. I talked also about meaningfull work but I could see that even with someone translating to english their faces showed me they were not understanding much. At least, I made my part.

We left the university and went to the other one (Anadolu University) where there was a seminar about something I didn't understand again as I don't know turkish yet. Several minutes later, it was already 7PM and my clothes, of course, still dirty in my backpack. Seminar ended and I decided to talk seriously to them as they promissed something to me but nothing. Of course, didn't work as everything closes at 6PM and only opens again on Monday. I almost had to come to work by pijamas.

At night, to relax, there was a birthday party in one of the AIESEC guys house and I made my brazilian cultural presentation. It was good but from 20 people there, only 5 were really enjoying asking questions and participating. Anyway, they day today was very long and I was also tired and I don't know if I could pay atention to something completely different being presented by a brazilian, in english. I think I understand them. At the weekend of April 6th I will make my brazilian party and I hope they enjoy more than this presentation.

Kisses and see you!

Alex!