In the Village, the first person to notice the first tooth of a baby will be required to bring a present to that child! This is the beginning of a celebration The celebration includes a special type of food as well. Wheat is boiled with corn and chick peas, and very little water. After this is cooked, chopped walnuts or pistachios may be sprinkled on top. This may be served with sugar or with salt according to the taste of the person cooking the dish. (Malatya)
When you enter a home, or even a tent, you will be expected to take off your outside shoes and your hostess will bring you some slippers to wear. If not, you will walk on the carpets in your socks or bare feet. This tradition which is still very strong, comes from the people protecting their precious hand made carpets. A nomadic type of people will live in the tents, but the rugs will be rolled up and carried with them everywhere amazingly dressing up the area in which they are living! The colors are there to brighten their days, and are often hand made. This tradition is so strong that you will be considered so ill mannered if you do not take off your shoes without stepping on the carpets! In our area, a very warm part of the Middle East, the carpets are rolled up and the bare floor helps to keep our house cooler in the summer. The carpets help to keep the house warmer in the winter.
The effect this has on us is so strong now that we have trouble walking on carpets in the US when we are there! My daughter complains that she is “uncomfortable” when we visit Americans living here in the middle east because they want her to just keep her shoes on!
The Evil Eye was traditionally a protection from the foreigners with blue eyes, but it is more of a good luck charm now. The people believe that if they have something which a another person might want, the envious person would put a curse on the thing be it an possession, a cow, a child etc…. Evil eyes are everywhere, pinned onto babies for “good luck” or rather to protect from evil thoughts (no longer connected to blue eyed people). You will see them on buildings, cars, curtains, jewelry, almost everywhere!
When we finally acquired a car after moving here, my neighbor explained to me that no one would openly admire the car (that is now uncouth rather than bad luck), but would tell us maybe the tire is flat! This is all connected back to the evil eye and protecting against curses!
Houses will be painted the bright blue color or just the windows around the edges will be painted to protect the house or barn. This would keep out the evil spirits.
WE do not have the evil eye anywhere around us because we believe that our God is the strongest and He doesn’t need the help of that charm to keep us safe! What security!
One of the hardest communications to pick up on are small physical gestures without accompanying words or sounds. There is one here which means “no” it is slight tilting of the head and a “Tch” . I was on a bus very soon after we moved here and I asked if I should get off as the bus was turning away from the direction I needed to go in. The person beside me made this head movement, but did not respond with any words. I did not recognize it, and so I asked again. This time he was more adamant about his answer!
When someone is drinking or other wise involved in something but needs to respond in the affirmative to you out of politeness they will just close their eyes. Even babies pick up on these two actions very early on in their lives! I see them in church doing this over their parents shoulders to the people seated behind before they can even talk!
Bread, as the source of life, is treated with honor and never thrown out. If I need to dispose of bread, I make sure it is covered and not obvious in the trashcan!
In this middle eastern culture, when someone comes to visit you, YOU are honored! This turns many things around from our western culture. This means if someone drops by, you are bound to stay there and show much hospitality! IF you have an appointment, well, the visiting person has to be shown to be more important, so you will at least be late! SO, in the West we honor people by being on time when we have an appointment with them, here you honor those who come to you. Excuses are made for the late person, and accepted by all if someone does not show up! This can be very frustrating for Westerners to deal with, but we just have to relax and let it go or we go nuts!!
Hospitality is ingrained in the people! Even if we are visiting people living in a tent they will offer what they have of their meager food and drink to us, joyously!! They truly love to have company and are happy to share their time and food with us!!
At the birth of a baby, many people come to celebrate and wish the baby and parents well. There is a special drink which is fixed by the parents to serve to visitors when they come to see the baby. This is called Kaynar. Kaynar is mainly apple juice with some spices and walnuts in it! It is quite delicious. Many Christians are making this a Christmas drink as one of their very own Christmas traditions! Remember how few Christians there are in the 99.9% Muslim country, and they need to make their own Christmas traditions!
When a child meets an older person the children show respect by taking the hand of the older person and kissing it and then touching their foreheads with the hand!
What to have for Breakfast?
In our part of the Middle East, breakfast is made up of olives, cucumbers, tomatoes, cheese (somewhat like a hard cottage cheese), bread, honey, and jelly. This may seem a little strange at first, but we have become accustomed to this.
Many women get together daily to sit and talk, drink tea or Turkish coffee. The Turkish coffee is much like boiling the very fine coffee grounds and leaving it in the cup! After drinking the liquid, many ladies will turn the cup over and let the dregs drain onto the saucer. After it drains, they will try to read their fortunes from it. We the missionaries do not participate in this and gently let the ladies know that we don’t believe in this type of fortune telling. The Bible instructs against this.
When a plane lands safely in Turkey, all the people onboard clap!!! This is for the pilot and to show they appreciate landing safely!!!
During Ramazan I noticed one of my students in ESL classes had his fingernails stained with Henna. I asked him about it. He said that he did not want it, but his mother had done it while he was sleeping! She felt it might help protect him from evil!
During Ramazan and the month of fasting, the women are expected to get up and cook a big breakfast for everyone before the sun comes up. To help everybody out, there are drummers who walk around beating their drum at 3:30 am so the ladies can get up! It doesn’t seem to matter that now everyone has alarm clocks!! It is a part of Ramazan. Some cities even use cannons for this purpose!
After Ramazan is finished, the next three days are holidays. The first day, children go all over the neighborhood ringing doorbells to receive candy! A bit like Halloween! The kids don’t dress up though! Mostly this is a family visiting holiday.
This country is not fully automated and on computer yet, so during elections, How to keep up with who had already voted? This problem is solved by putting a large drop of Ink on the nails of people once they have voted. It is indelible ink! It takes months for it to grow out! There is absolutely no question though!!
I was visiting a friend 7 days after her father’s death and I found the house very busy! There was a group of women in the salon. They all had their heads covered and were reading from the prayer book. In the center of the group was a little gas burner and over it cooking was a VERY large container with irmik (very finely chopped bulgur). It was being cooked with water and sugar. As it cooked, different women would take turns stirring and make a wish. As the leader read or said prayers, the group would chime in at different times. This tradition was repeated on the 40th day, or as close as possible. There were some prayers for relatives, dead and alive etc…
Sometimes on the 40th day, there will be a very large meal eaten FOR the dead person as if it would benefit that person in the other world.
It is believed by many Muslims that a person will suffer before dying for their sins on this earth. If a person suffers with a lot of pain before dying, they did something awful here on earth! This Thinking is very pervasive. It is hard for people who have believed this all their life to accept that true forgiveness is total! They cannot see how God could forgive someone at their deathbed. The concept of grace is a bit foreign when all their lives they have heard only of God’s judgment and not His love!