When I was a kid in Grade School, I received a crystal radio set for Christmas.  It was kinda funny looking now that I think about it, but it gave me hours of enlightenment.

It had a plastic box that resembled a radio with a copper coil inside and a small germanium diode attached to it.  The headphone had one ear piece.  The radio had a wire hanging out to attach an antenna to it and that was pretty much it.  All in all, a very simple setup.

I would run the antenna up to my window and attach it to the outside window screen.  Listening to it while laying in bed at night, the radio would only pick up two local stations, KGRO and KPDN in the Texas Panhandle.  Most of the times they overlapped.  Not much of a selection, but the amazing thing about the radio, was there was no power source, and the reception was absolutely perfect.  Crystal clear, and no batteries or power plug.

A few years later, I acquired an old radio from my Aunt.  Many of you may remember those types that had the vacuum tubes in the back that glowed and gave off heat with the dusty smell.  There was the hum that was often heard in the speaker.  The back of the radio was always opened and had a place to connect a ground wire and an antenna.  Back then, we referred to them as short-wave radios.

I spent a great many hours sitting patiently, slowly fine-tuning stations from the other side of the world.  It was always best to be in the dark, so you could watch the unusual “tuning eye” that many radios had to show when a signal was coming in strong.  The green luminescent eye would close as it became stronger.

One of the characteristics of short-wave is its ability to bounce off the ionosphere enabling it to curve around to the other side of the earth.  And I found by increasing the antenna length, I could pick up stations further away.  So one day I rode my bike to Radio Shack and bought some copper antenna cable.  Crawled up in the attic and strung it from one end to the other and lead it down to my bedroom through a little hole in my closet.

I picked up places in the world that I never knew existed.  Radio Quito in Ecuador was a religious station with a very strong signal.  It was found several places on the frequency bands.  Another good clear station was Radio Nederlands.  One of the most intriguing stations to a young boy was Radio Havana down in Cuba.  This was during the Vietnam War, and would broadcast English language newscasts to America with propaganda, telling how many American Capitalist planes were shot down that day.  It was always in the hundreds.  They referred to President Nixon as the “Number One War Criminal”.

But the one I found most fascinating was Radio Moscow.  I would get the big thick world atlas out and open it to the USSR page, and look at the city of Moscow with all its roads traveling in and out.  I remember thinking; there are people that actually live there.  Probably a million or more.  What are the houses like?  … the roads, the cars.  I wonder how cold it really is.  Does it ever get warm there?  Are the people really standing in line to get bread in the mornings?

Then there was the BBC World Service and the Voice of America (VOA).  Years later I would realize the VOA is operated by the CIA to provide news to countries that repress outside information to its people.

A station located in Fort Collins, Colorado, WWV, was used as a time standard throughout the communications and the aeronautical industries.  It had an ominous click ever second and gave the official Greenwich Mean Time at every minute.  You could set your clocks to that time, which I did often.  It is now referred to as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).  Whether it’s still located on the short-wave bands, I do not know.

Over the years, I picked up a few more short-wave radios here and there.  But the World has moved on and now they sit in a storage unit, quiet and dark.  No warm dusty smell.  No steady hum.  No green luminescent eye.  I really do think of those machines at times wishing I was a young kid again, listening in the dark room to a radio station that is 7,000 miles away.  It now pales in comparison to home satellite systems, computers and me being able to call my mother every week using the Internet, from over 7,000 miles away.

The World indeed moves on.

It’s been a crazy past few weeks.  Our personal vehicle finally arrived and we are now mobile.  Then all of our household effects showed up at one time, so the three bedroom apartment looks like a storage unit exploded.  It will be weeks before everything is either in its place or thrown away.

And last week, I had to make an emergency trip up to Istanbul while fighting a hellacious head cold.  Airplanes and head colds do not mix well.  As I scurried around the Consulate doing some repairs, I had to stuff tissues up my nose to function.  Hopefully no one noticed.

But the trip was a success and the apartment will eventually resemble a home.  We bought a small pretend Christmas tree at IKEA, so we are now in some sort of festive mood … and we are now officially over the hump of Winter, so very slowly the days will get longer and the nights shorter.

Speaking of Christmas, it baffles us to see all the Christmas decorations throughout a country that is 99.8% Muslim.  I was just as surprised to see they also celebrated Halloween like they did.

We find the people amazing, just like we did in Ethiopia.  Just different.  They are very sociable and giving.  I recently gave several classes to our Local Guard Force on the operation of a piece of equipment, and after each class I had to sit with the Guard Supervisor and have çay (tea) with him.  In the period we will be here, we will drink more tea here than anywhere else we live.  After every meal, hot çay is served in small curved glasses.  Most people put a cube of sugar or two in it.

I have so much to write about, but my head is still trying to recover from the cold I picked up.  Working in single digit weather will take a grown man down.  As I told Terese many times, I paid my dues in the cold, let the young guys do that work now.  Only problem, they want to sit and play video games instead.

I’ll get back to you soon.  If I don’t before Christmas then:

To my Liberal friends:                    Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2014, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great.  Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other countries nor the only “America” in the Western Hemisphere.  Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishes.

To My Conservative Friends:      Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

–          (not my words but I wish they were)       D.

… yes, I know.  You don’t give a rat’s butt about that.

Before coming to Ankara, we spent two beautiful warm years in Ethiopia; warm to hot summers and cool wet winters.  I could live there the remainder of my life.  Too many times in my life, I worked out in cold weather as well as oppressive heat, but now my tired old body says, enough.

Just got back from Adana in time to see the snow move into the city of Ankara.  Terese and I sat at one of the large windows in the apartment and watched the drivers imitating the Keystone Cops.  For those few youngsters who read this blog, click here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Cops

As with any city in Europe, you find people who think they are experienced Formula One drivers.  These are the idiots who try to pass on a slippery hill and end up losing control.  We have yet to witness a wipeout, but I think it’s just a matter of time.  The Turks are not good drivers and deadly on snow and ice.  There is a steep hill I have to traverse to get to and from work.  I am told the dangerous part is not driving on it, but dealing with the Turks who drive on it.

In the States, when you speed past a police officer, you get pulled over or worse.  Creep through a stop sign and you will get a ticket.  Throwing trash out the window will yield a hefty fine, especially in Texas.  But in most European countries, speeding or running a stop sign is usually ignored, because there is no compensation for the officer to chase you down and stop you.  It’s not uncommon to drive down the wrong direction of a one-way street.  We see it all the time.  Trash goes flying out the window with no recourse.  From our apartment window, we see vehicles below, stop along the street next to a row of trees, open the doors and toss out all the trash like it’s a landfill.  Several times, we have seen a vehicle stop, and actually set a sack of garbage on the sidewalk and drive off!  Seriously!

We will get our vehicle this week and I will be a bit nervous driving at first, especially with all the Turks driving on snow and ice.  We survived Ethiopia with just a smashed mirror, and that was my doing.  We will see what happens in Turkey.

Konya, Turkey is the origin of a Sufi sect of Islam, which worships God with a practice of whirling as a form of dhikr (remembrance of God).  These guys are commonly known as the Whirling Dervishes.  The order was started by the followers of Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi-Rumi, a 13th-century Persian poet, Islamic jurist, and theologian, according to Wikipedia.

Saturday, Terese and I went on a tour to Konya to eat good food, do some shopping, and then attend a performance of the ceremony.  We took many pictures, but we were not allowed to use flash.  Altho others ignored the request, we didn’t, so many of the pics were out of focus.  But we did get enough to show.

Once we arrived in Konya, the guides took us to a restaurant to eat.  As in any meal I’ve had in Turkey, the food was excellent.  Usually with lamb or chicken, and always with yogurt, peppers, onions and greens that looks like weeds to me.

Below it starts with the little bowls of stuff, some of it not be eaten by those with a soft stomach.   Then came the “Mozambique” soup, followed by lamb on bread.  The dessert we determined was a chestnut paste mixed with butter.  Everything is meant to be eaten with bread. Afterwards we went to an outdoor Mevlana Museum with the history of the Mevlevi Order.  The museum contains many sarcophagi – (plural of sarcophagus) holding the remains of the early Rumi families. Here’s some pics Terese took in the museum. As we walked around in the sub-freezing sunshine, two little school girls stopped Terese and asked to interview her.  Turns out to be their school homework.  They spoke very good English, whereas it’s not common in Turkey to learn our language.  As soon as they finished, two more girls stopped to interview her.  That’s when I pulled my phone out and took these pics. Terese always gets cute girls to visit with her, while all I get are old women who want me to help them cross a street.  Below are a few pics I took of the surrounding area. As we walked around waiting for time to go to the performance and do a bit of shopping, I was more concerned on finding a place to warm up, and did not take any pictures of the inside of the shops.  Luckily Terese took some. The gentleman on the left is the proprietor.

We eventually attended the performance (Sama).  It starts out with a very slow procession of the sheikh and 28 dervishes.  The lighting changed color occasionally, so the best pics are the ones I got with the full lighting. Once they all came in, with a lot of chanting and bowing between movements, they removed their black cloaks showing the white garments. Taken from Wikipedia:    The Sama was practiced in the samahane (ritual hall) according to a precisely prescribed symbolic ritual with the dervishes whirling in a circle around their sheikh, who is the only one whirling around his axis. The Sema is performed by spinning on the Left foot. The dervishes wear a white gown (tennure) (symbol of death), a wide black cloak (hırka) (symbol of the grave) and a tall brown hat (kûlah or sikke), symbol of the tombstone. Then there is a very slow, step-by-step walk (even slower than a wedding march) of several of them, in a circle with the sheikh.  The sheikh is the one with the green cloth on his hat. Then they all slowly move past him and started their whirling.They did four separate whirling sessions with a lot of bowing between them, each lasting about 10 minutes or so.  Not once did I see any of them barf, nor show any signs of vertigo.  I told Terese to keep her purse handy in case I got sick watching them.

I figured the guy walking among them was controlling the movement of the circle.  He would move in and out allowing the dervishes to fill in gaps and to help some of them know when to move.  As I understand, they are suppose to be in a trance of sort.

The Sama is concluded with a recitation from the Qu’ran and a prayer by the sheikh. I saw a much smaller Sama years ago in Istanbul and was interested in seeing this larger show.  I think Terese enjoyed it more than I did.  She being an old dancer from decades past could relate to it better than me. … and no, I didn’t get sick.       D.

I added some thoughts about Employment on the topic, Something to Think About.  Please take the time to read it.  It’s the link on the left, under Page One.

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A few weeks ago, I had to do some work in Adana, about 6 hours southeast of Ankara.  When I worked in Ethiopia, all our constituent posts were reached by plane, but here in Turkey we take a vehicle.

It affords me a chance to see what the Turkish countryside looks like, from the mountains to the plains, including the second largest salt lake in the world.  Second only to what we have in Utah.

I took this trip three years ago and found it beautiful.  On the way back, we stopped at a restaurant that specializes in lamb chops.  I know for a fact I could eat a whole kilo and a half by myself. (About 3 lbs)  Outside the restaurant was a spice dealer selling his goods.

Everywhere in Turkey, you will find all kinds of nuts, (the food type) and they are not only plentiful, but inexpensive.  I do not see as many walnuts and pecans as much as all the rest.  At the Consulate in Adana, the back part of the property had perhaps 100 citrus trees, from lemons to grapefruits to oranges.  Some of them have been removed for construction, but they add an interesting effect to the compound.

Then this past week I traveled northwest to Istanbul for some work, and fell in love with the ancient and enchanted city.  I stayed at the Hilton on the Bosphorus Strait, which divides Istanbul – the Asian side and the Europe side.

Below is a sunrise picture through dirty windows on the 9^th floor.

Good Morning, Turkey!

Every place we sat to eat, food was brought out as soon as we sat down.

And at a restaurant in Adana, I had broiled fish served in a clay bowl.

You know, I could easily get fat in this country.  More Later.

Kick butt.     D.

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