Turkey - Demre

      

 Life on land teaching unwilling young Turks

17 May 2007

We went directly to Turkey and arrived on the south coast of the Antalya Province four days and 371 nautical miles later. We have friends in Cyprus and had been keen to go there, but we still had no main sail and with the prevailing winds being westerly this would have given us a reasonable sail to Cyprus but later sailing west from Cyprus would have been a nightmare. For this same reason we also didn’t go to Israel which I’d love to have visited again. On the recommendation of various other yachts we chose the port of Finike to make landfall. It was so good to be back in the Mediterranean after that long hot slog up the Red Sea. The weather was cooler and everything was green, with flowers! We’d truly seen enough sand.

Regrettably, the anchorage outside Finike was not particularly safe and therefore not suitable for a long term stay so we moved into the marina. Anchoring is much nicer than being in a marina in some ways – the water is usually clean so one can swim, it is cooler, more private, and, of course, free. Downsides are worrying about the anchor dragging, discomfort when the wind blows up, and having to take the dinghy to get anywhere. Marina’s on the other hand are sociable, convenient to all facilities – particularly water and electricity, and the boat is tied securely and blessedly still. Downsides are the cost, being cheek by jowl with other boats, the water is dirty and there is considerably less fresh breeze.

A decision had to be made quickly on what to do with ourselves as our financial situation had become rather precarious. We looked on the internet for businesses to run, but in order to pursue anything in that area we would have to sell Forever first and we knew that could take some time. I looked on the internet for jobs teaching English, totally without success so I decided on the direct approach, walked into the local school and offered my services as a teacher. They had nothing, but the helpful English teacher suggested I try a private college in the next little village along the coast called Demre. I phoned, made an appointment, was interviewed and offered a job – all within a week of arriving in Turkey!

The school, Anka Koleji, was closed for summer holidays but they were running a summer school and I could start on 1st June. The salary they offered was small (in my opinion) but as the marina was 30 kilometres away, they offered me a furnished apartment in Demre as part of the package. I accepted, and duly started work three days a week at the summer school. A bus would collect me each morning outside the marina and bring me home in the evening. I had to push very hard to actually get the promised apartment, but that finally happened in September, when the new school year began. It was a spacious two bedroom on the 5th floor with no lift, but had a large balcony and a view over the village, the countryside and the sea in the distance. The school bought us some basic furniture and we arranged satellite TV. The flat was hot in summer and cold and damp in winter, but it was within walking or cycling distance of the school and we were reasonably happy there. We lived there during the week and then took a bus on Friday afternoons back to Finike and spent the weekends in the marina on Forever.
The mosque was nearby and we got used to the calling of the faithful five times a day.

The view from our flat - a sea of plastic greenhouses

Mustafa Kemal Attaturk (1881 – 1938), the founder of the Republic of Turkey and still utterly revered by the Turkish people, transformed the former Ottoman Empire into a modern and secular nation-state. He was a forward thinking man and did much for the cause of Islamic women. At a meeting setting out his new civil code he made the following comments:

To the women: Win for us the battle of education and you will do yet more for your country than we have been able to do. It is to you that I appeal.

To the men: If henceforward the women do not share in the social life of the nation, we shall never attain to our full development. We shall remain irremediably backward, incapable of treating on equal terms with the civilizations of the West.

My Hero!

There had been a bit of an upsurge in fundamentalism in the southern provinces of Turkey and a lot of women, young and old, had reverted to wearing the headscarf, though it remained forbidden in all government offices, including schools.

The school arranged for a year’s visa for me – an expensive (for them) and very time consuming (for me) process. The headmaster and other teachers at my school were welcoming and kind but mostly didn’t speak English. I started to learn the language and made some headway, never enough. Saniye, my fellow English teacher, a beautiful young Turkish woman, spoke excellent English of course and she and her husband, Hasan, became good friends to Mike and me. We were the only non Turks in the village and didn’t really make friends apart from them.

Demre is a small town, its main claim to fame being the ruins of the ancient Lycian town then called Myra, a name derived from myrrh. In classical times, Andriake was the harbour of Myra.  This silted up later on though some remains can still be seen.

Roman theatre - with Pam, Pai and Nats

Its second claim to fame is the 11th-century church of Saint Nicholas.  The church once held his earthly remains, though most of them were later stolen by holy-relic thieves. St Nicholas (who was later transmuted into the jolly Christmas elf, Santa Claus) was born in nearby Patara, became a priest, rose to the rank of bishop, and did much of his good work here. He died in 350. There’s a statue of Santa in the town square. 

The countryside in the area was lovely.



I can’t say I enjoyed the job much. This was a small private school and the classes were mercifully small. I taught English to every class from kindergarten to early teens but only some actually wanted to learn English, mostly the girls who were a pleasure to teach. The boys, however, were often very nationalistic and felt that everything Turkish was good and everything else was not – and therefore didn’t want to learn English. They were a lot less well behaved than the Thai children, discipline was slack and the teachers didn’t get the support needed from management and parents. I persevered with the job because it permitted us to stay in Turkey for the year and also I thought the experience would stand me in good stead if I wished to get teaching work when we returned to Europe.  Though my salary provided us with a decent living, it wasn’t sufficient to make any significant savings.

Mike went back and forth from Demre to Finike, sometimes on his bike which was quite a feat as the road was mountainous and curved sharply and precipitously along the coast.  I hated that road, the buses thundered recklessly round the hair pin bends and I’m surprised there weren’t more accidents. He often went off exploring on his bike, climbing right to the top of some of the mountains around Demre.  He also had to travel to Kas every three months for a visa-run to the island of Castelorizo in Greece. There was a reasonable, pebbly, beach within easy cycling distance of our apartment where we’d go for an evening swim in the summer. 

Mike continued with his painting, and concentrated on portraits. He met a young man in a shop one day who asked for a portrait of his girlfriend. He was so pleased with the painting he gave us each a pair of shoes and a blouse for me from his shop in exchange. Mike also painted a portrait of Attaturk for Hasan which he hung in his music shop.

Towards the end of December, we had a four day weekend whilst the Turks slaughtered goats and celebrated Bayram, a festival of giving that is similar to our Christmas except they are more charitable and give to the poor as well as family. Christmas Day and Boxing Day were, however, ordinary working days for me. We celebrated Christmas the following weekend with a crowd at our friend Alison’s house in Sahilkent.

When our year was up at the marina, we decided not to stay for another year, so I resigned and finished work at the end of March, and we returned to Finike.