The Joys of Following Random People

Here is a great example of why I love staying in hostels:

I met this lovely woman here (Janet) who is an artist fresh from an artists residency in Capadoccia (images.google it – it's spectacular). She said that she knew of a drum recital going on in Taskim – which is where all the Turkish people go to party/shop.

Though I'm not really that into drums, I like music and I haven't been going out that much since I've been here, so I decided to go.

To find this place, we had to go into this unremarkable building and up three flights of half-lit stairs. I was just starting to think this is how human trafficking happens when we start to hear drums.

Turns out the 'school' is just a studio space in an apartment building where this woman holds week long intensive courses on the darbuka, the traditional Turkish drum. The recital was supposed to be a celebration of the end of the course and a chance for all the students to play together.

I felt very honored to be there, because me and Janet were the only ones who were not in the course in attendance.

It seemed like a chill session more than a concert and the students had clearly not counted one anyone showing up to be entertained. The teacher had to play about an hour before the students would touch a drum but eventually we were being serenaded (can you serenade someone with a drum?) with the most intricate drum beats.

The teacher than took out what she described as a 'spike fiddle' and started playing. Now, this thing looks like a black widow spider, but sounds like an orchestra. The music sounded like it was coming from the depths of someone's soul. It had a large amount of sympathetic strings, like a citar, but unlike a citar, you play this with a bow, so it resonates deeply. I can't describe it any better than that. I just hope the sounds comes through on the video better.

I could have sat there all night and listened to her play that thing.

One of the girls in the class was really into Balkan folk music and started singing along. It was unreal this mix of cultures that worked together so well.

I ended up having a lot of fun, met some really nice people, did some yoga, and learned a lot about Turkish and Balkan folk music.

What more can you ask out of a school music recital?

The Funeral

 I haven't updated lately because I have busy with the business of my Grandmother's funeral.

Its a mixed blessing, I guess, because on the one hand, I miss her very much and I can't believe she won't be around to see me achieve everything she wanted for me in life. But on the other, even at her funeral it was obvious to see the legacy she has left behind. Our family is tight-knit and loving and the church – where she spent most of her time and energy, raising money, organizing committees, and just being a general bad ass – was packed with people whose lives she had touched.

There were two(2) priests officiating because one was the regular priest and one had grown up with my grandmother and wanted to do his best for her in anyway he could. His eulogy was so sweet and touching I nearly broke down. I know my Yiayia would have been so proud of him and of everyone there. If she attended the funeral, I know that she would have been thrilled at how it went.

After the funeral, and the burial, and the reception afterwards, we – all the cousins – went to her place to look through her things. My Yiayia was forever trying to get people to take her stuff. She was a practical woman and knew that, being 88, she wasn't going to need the stuff for so much longer. Her greatest wish was to see the things she loved in life go to someone who would care for them.

We felt... uncivilized, I guess, going through her things but, to be honest, nothing would have made her happier to know that they were going to a good home. We anicipated problems but, in the end, we are all family and we didn't have a single argument.

I took some books that she left me and some more books. And a ton more books. She had a billion books about Cyprus that no one really wanted and I, thinking about a possible future grad school thesis, didn't want them to be thrown out. They were all these independent publications that I wasn't going to find in a University library.

She had about 30 copies each of the Iliad, and the Odyssey, with about 10 copies each of the Orestia and the Oedipus Cycle. I, unfortunately, have all of these books (except the Iliad, which I took a copy of) so I couldn't take any. But my brothers and my cousins took some so there were less left in the end.

Going through her things reminded me how very alike we are and how much she loved us all. She had so many pictures everywhere of all of us and she had lovingly saved more or less anything we ever wrote her. She was so proud of the people we have become and I hope I can live my life in such a way that I continue to make her proud.