I was supposed to get a residence permit within four weeks of arriving in Turkey. It's now been eight weeks, and I still haven't even applied. And no one seems to care. I mentioned this to Zeke, the only guy in the English Department I ever see work, and all he says is, "Tamam (okay), tomorrow." Zeke's about fifty, and is a thick man with a black mustache that looks like a fruit wedge. Tamam is Zeke's favorite word. Every time I have a problem, his number one response is, "Tamam." It's okay, he says, no one really cares if you have the permit or not. It's Turkey.
But last week he decided it was time to move forward, so he sent me to get passport photos made. Six of them. I was confused at the number - most of the time organizations only ask for two, and even then I think it's overkill. You only need one to put on a passport. But Sanaye, the thirty-year-old non-trad student who helps me with errands, said that when he filled out his paper work for the university, he was asked to provide twenty-four passport photos. 24. I asked him why, and he shrugged. I said maybe they were planning on losing twenty three, just to be safe, and he said, "It's Turkey."
There are a surprising number of photography shops in Van's central area, Besh Yol (five streets - it's where the five major roads meet. It's also where there's an awesome statue of five fish swimming above the cars. They're probably asphyxiating). The oddest feature of these shops, as well as any other shops in my town, is how they fit everything in a hole the size of an RV, cut in half and stacked on top of itself. I told an elderly man I needed the photos and he took them. It was my first all Turkish transaction, and this wasn't lost on me. When they produced the photos maybe fifteen minutes later, it looked like they had airbrushed the acne out of my face. I high fived the owner.
When I lived in Rome, the weekend before I was to go home, my passport was stolen while I was riding a train to Florence. I had to postpone my flight a day and go to the American Embassy for an emergency passport. It's quite fun, actually - they treat you like a B-list movie star. They're all very sorry about what happened and they liked that one movie I was in. It was quite gratifying. But the best part was knowing I'd only use the passport once. So when it came time to take the photos, right before the camera snapped, I pulled my hair to a standing position (it was shoulder length at the time) and opened my eyes and mouth like I had just seen an alien. And that's the photo that got me home.
In Van, as I waited for the photos to be processed, another older Turk who was in the parlor reading a paper asked me the usual questions. Where are you from, what do you do here, what is love. When he found out I worked at the university, he asked me if I knew Hassan so-and-so. I was half listening, and thought he meant my department head, so I said yes. He pulled out his phone and started dialing, and I realized he meant the Rektor of the university (basically the Emperor - everyone thinks the Rektorluk, where he works, is the Death Star). I quickly paid for my photos and left before he realized I was lying. As I walked out the door, I could hear him saying in Turkish, "Cass. No, CASS. Tall blonde American. C-A-S-S."
No comments:
Post a Comment