Something busy

Okay. So, I will not hold it against any of you blog readers (...if I still have any at this point other than my family) for not wanting the cats. We may have found a home, so thank goodness! I have been such a poor blogger lately. My Mediterranean life has become a very busy one as it comes to an end! My precious laid-back, short notice planning, show up late, beloved Turks have succumbed to being penciled into my planner in advance. I can't help it! It's gotten so busy. Just about everyone I've ever met in Turkey has wanted to have me over or eat a meal or drink tea or just see me--which is wonderful, but busy! I'm not complaining, I'm taking tons of sweet mental pictures to last me and lots of real ones.

Yesterday I had plans to go eat, what I thought would be dinner, at my D.V.D. friend's house. I was going to go over there at 3 or 4. So I thought...okay, we'll eat dinner about 5 or so. I didn't feel bad when one of my best friends called and asked me to come to her work and eat lunch with her and her co-workers. They're so sweet and I wanted to see them again. So, I just couldn't tell her no. I tell her yes, of course even though this means I am only going to be able to stay an hour and a half and that still only leaves me a half hour on the bus to high tail it across town--which unless the bus driver has had his complete quota of tea for the day usually doesn't happen. So, I go to eat lunch and of course, it's a good one. The oily Turkish kind, but delicious. We eat and then we chat and then they want to drink tea. And then they give me gifts! I don't even know my friends co-workers well enough to merit goodbye gifts! So sweet. Then, just about the time I'm already a little late to run across town, they want to go out and buy a cake and eat cake! I apologetically tell them that I have got to go, which I feel incredibly rude doing (but what do you do! It makes no sense to Turks to have back to back plans with 3 people in one day, but I'm a busy going to America in a week kind of girl...and I don't want to tell anyone no!), but I have to leave. So, while I'm on the bus my other friend calls and tells me she hopes I won't be late (I will). Apparently, I was not keeping just her waiting...

I get to her house. She has been inviting me to her house for 2 years, but in all actuality, she has been saying she is going to invite me to her house for 2 years and now in my last week, it happens. But, not only are her parents there. Her aunt has come to see me. The neighbor across the hall has come to see me. The neighbor's son has come to peek his head in to see me and tell me that he wishes I wasn't leaving and if I weren't, could we get to know each other better (thank goodness I am leaving on that note). Then the uncles came by. Then the aunt's husband came by. Mercy. All to see the foreigner before she leaves. I'm like a booth at the fair. Maybe I should have charged per person! Anyways, I was wrong. Apparently, we were going to eat at 3:00. I'm not sure if this was lunch or dinner, but I began to literally pray that the Lord would make room in my stomach for this food. Immediately when I asked for less than a normal portion--which I can't finish on a good day--I got comments of, you don't think you're going to like it? Of course I'm going to love it, I tell them. Because even if I hate it, I'm going to shovel it in with the biggest smile on my face I can muster!

In Turkish, if you don't eat the server's desired amount for you to eat, then automatically you have not liked the dish. This leads to eating alot to be courteous. I have a drink at least 2 glasses of tea rule out of politeness. This has led to me putting on a few pounds which led to me working out all summer and not drinking caffeinated beverages to try to lose some kilos. Now, it's cold (according to them) and it's time to drink tea like it's going out of style again. In spite of my efforts which I thought had succeeded in losing a kilo or two, my friend's neighbor who came to see me who hasn't seen me since two Aprils ago at a wedding (remember the police escort--good times), told me I had filled out. I'm sorry, but this is one thing I'm just not sad to leave behind. Everyone quit watching my weight for me and telling me I've gained kilos!!! I dare you if you see me in America to tell me I've taken on kilos (which is absolutely normal conversation in Turkey). So, i might have given a few kilos this summer, but somehow according to everyone around me and partially because of them, I have taken them back on. But, I'm being polite and I'm not leaving any one of them to say I don't like their food!

Anyways, we ate. I miraculously finished my plate. We drank tea. We ate fruit. Fruit is usually the closer. It's usually the last thing you serve. So, being a bit tired after the long day and knowing my marathon wasn't over yet, but that I had stayed over 3 hours, I got up to leave. I hadn't stayed long enough. At this point though, I knew I was going home only to turn around and go to the neighbor's house and drink tea which was making for a very full day and stomach and I just had to excuse myself.

I did come home and go to the neighbor's house, who didn't understand why she had rung our doorbell every night that week only to discover we weren't home every night this week. I am telling you, I am exhausted. We're busy. So, by the end of the night, I was Turkish'ed out. Two years later, my Turkish is enough, but my brain was a bit sluggish, I'll sadly admit. Someone from home asked me the other day, if I was fluent and my answer was, 'honey, I've led a Bible study on Ephesians in Turkish'...if that's not fluent enough for my short season here, then I don't know if I can do much more! Seriously though, I could do so much better. I still become sad thinking about how much more I could have learned. But, for now no regrets. I have heard of a book that is popular in America by the name of Eat, Pray, Love. I am NOT recommending this book on here because I have not read it! Can't say what it's about, but I do love the title. When I heard it, I thought...well, that's exactly what I've done here. Were I to have written a book, I might could have named it that, but alas the title is taken. I have certainly lived and I have loved here...and if my schedule wears me out for the next seven days because these people are so desperately wanting me to leave knowing that I am loved, then so be it. I feel incredibly full...of food and love. My cup runneth over. I hope as I'm leaving that some of what's in my cup will run over into these people that I so dearly love.