The beginning of the Year's Rotary events

So the year has begun here in Ankara, Turkey. Amidst the frenzy of settling down, going to host Rotarian functions, and plunging into graduate course work in social anthropology I have just found time to update my blog today. I am very pleased with the helpful group of international professors in the social anthropology department at Middle East Technical University (METU). Currently I'm taking one graduate lecture course on Political and Social Issues in Turkey that focuses on the Turkish sociologists an one seminar course on Migration and Transnationality that looks at some very interesting aspects of ethnic and civil nationalism and issues of citizenship in Turkey and around the world.

I have attended a several of the Aniteppe Rotary club meetings so far and I have been able to schedule my first two presentations the first and second week of November. Three weeks ago the Koru Rotary Club hosted a fundraiser at the Austrian embassy. The food was as amazing as it was plentiful; amidst the cold appetizers there were all varieties of roasted vegetables in olive oil or yogurt with herbs as well as hot borek (a pastry filled with meat or cheese and topped with black sesame seeds). I also had the opportunity to try salep, a hot drink with cinnamon made from orchid root. There were two live performers, the first a women dressed in interesting gettup who sang in English (she had me singing along) and later on a man who sang Turkish pop songs that really got the Turkish ladies dancing and waving arms while standing characteristically shoulder-to-shoulder. The weekend later I have a very Rotary Sunday: in the morning I attended a beautiful brunch on the grounds of one of the Aniteppe Rotarian's manufacturing plants. We sat in a gazebo in the plant garden area snug between a apple orchard on the left and a field of grape vines on the right. I was given a bag to fit as much fruit as I wanted to bring home with me. In the afternoon we attended another Rotary fundraiser that was an outdoor picnic and live music with a special guest, Deniz Arcak, who I was told was pretty famous around Turkey. What she sang in Turkish sounded good to me, but she really shined when she did her rendition of Rollin' on the River. The photos below say a little bit more about my Rotary adventures thus far.

Aniteppe Rotary