last night

Hey everyone!
Sorry for my delay in posting the last update. I'm in America now, and have been for a little over a week. However, the pictures from my last night are way too good to go unposted, so for your viewing pleasure, here they are. One note: apparently it's a Turkish custom that, when your guests leave at night, you stay up with them until they leave. As our flight left at 6am, we stayed at the house until 4am- and the whole neighborhood with us. It was a great night.

Here's the cookout with just our family (that's my host mom Fatma on the right)

This is my host-dad Kadir ingeniously lighting his cigarette with a coal from the grill


This is Maggie (the girl in the program who was also in my house) and I with Seda, a really nice Turkish girl who lived just a few houses down.

Me with two of my amcas ('amca' means uncle in Turkish and is what I called most of the male neighbors), Ali Amca on the left (with raki!!) and Kazim Amca on the right

Me with all the amcas! Ali, Habip, Kadir, and Kazim


At one point, pretty late and after a LOT of raki, Habip Amca actually sat us down to pray. But everyone in the neighborhood was cracking up (including me) so I'm pretty sure it was a joke; Habip is basically the clown of the street.

Seynaz Teyze is lovin it

Seynaz Teyze, about a half hour before we left, went into the kitchen to make us some delicious cheesy Turkish item for our departure.
It was actually really hard to leave, but it is so good to be back. Thanks to everyone who kept up with the blog, I really appreciate it. Until next summer (back in Turkey hopefully!),
Clayton