Monasteries in Mardin

My Travel at Home piece for this week is a retrospective, dating back to our time in Turkey.  For various reasons we were not always able to drive far from Diyarbakir but when we did manage to do some exploration it was always a memorableexperience.  In August 1995, to take my mind away from my impending A Level results and whether they would be enough to allow me to start university that October (they were fine) some family friends, one of whom, a lawyer, I did work experience with during my holidays, joined us on a drive down to the town of Mardin on the Turkish/Syrian border.

View across the border into Syria beyond.

Mardin is an old town, there has been a settlement there since the Bronze Age.  It is also very beautiful, watch the  spectacularly enjoyable film Ek Tha Tiger (a Bollywood James Bond type film but so much better than the Hollywood versions) and you will see the town featured in the opening sequence.  It has a commanding presence on the hillside and the plains of Syria stretch out below.  Back in 1995 Syria was peaceful, 20 years on things are very different.  Mardin became Christian during the Roman period and was a seat of a Bishopric (it is still a titular Catholic See).  Following the Ottoman conquest the region became Muslim but given the tolerance of the Ottomans for ‘people of the book’, Christians were allowed to continue to practice their religion.  Mardin became a centre for various Christian sects including Armenian Catholics, Syriacs and Chaldeans, the churches nestled in amongst the mosques of the town.

The Saffron Monastery on the outskirts of town.

There was still a small but devout Catholic community at the time of our visit and the churches were open to visit.  We stopped at the Catholic Church of Meryemana (Mary), similar to most Catholic churches it fascinated our Turkish friends who wanted to know about the forms of worship and meanings behind the decorations and took the opportunity to quiz a member of our party who had grown up Catholic.

The monastery gets its colloquial name from the yellow colour of the walls.

From there we went on to the real object of our visit, the Syriac Monastery of Daryo d-Mor Hananyo also known as the Monastery of St. Ananias or the Saffron Monastery. Like the town it lies near, the Saffron Monastery has had a long history.  The site was originally home to a Temple dedicated to a Sun God (the remains of which can still be seen in an underground vault).  The Romans turned it into a citadel and when they left in the 490s this citadel became a monastery. The monastery has been rebuilt several times and even abandoned for periods in the intervening centuries but the dedication to Mor Hananyo is in memory of a Bishop who carried out renovations in the 8^th Century.  In the 12^th Century the Monastery became the seat of the Syriac Orthodox Church.  The seat moved to Damascus in the 30s but much of the official regalia is still held by the Monastery and several Patriarchs are buried there.

The Syriac Orthodox Church claims descent from some of the earliest Christian communities.  It has a large presence in countries such as India and Sweden but very few still in Mardin.  Some are still in residence, however, and it remains a working monastery.  One of the residents was happy to take us round and talk to us about the history of the Monastery which amongst other things had housed the first printing press in Turkey. The monastery was clearly in need of some renovation which, I understand, has now taken place.  It was, nevertheless beautiful and impressive, the Church of the Monastery in particular which at the time of our visit was dark, atmospheric and impossible to photograph.   After our tour we were invited to enjoy the grounds and picnic in the groves of Apricot Trees, a peaceful and beautiful place.

Looking back at the photographs I realise that we only have 11 or 12 to mark our day there and very few are good quality.  We did not get any pictures of the spectacular interiors of the Churches we visited, film was expensive to buy and even more to develop.  How different to today when we would have 30 or 40 each on our telephones, taking a chance on whether or not they would come out.  The place is, however, deeply ingrained in my memory, perhaps more so than if I had been able to photograph everything we saw.

Jimmy, our Nigerian rescue dog came everywhere with us and
enjoyed his picnic.

Posted as part of the Travel At Home Blog Link Up, click on the link to see posts from other bloggers.

Nemrut Dag

My post for this month's TravelAtHome is a retrospective for me.  I have a nifty new app  that allows me to scan old photo albums with my telephone.  The quality might not be great but it has enabled me to gain easy access to a lot of old photographs showing my first expat life, my adventures in Norway, The UK, The Netherlands, Nigeria, Turkey and Venezuela when I was a child and it means that I can carry these precious memories with me wherever I go, not just enjoy them when I visit my parents' house.

Nemrut Dag

A few weeks ago someone asked me what was the most memorable trip or weekend I was able to take as an expat and my mind took me back to a weekend in 1994 when my family and I were able to join some friends on a rare trip out of Diyarbakir.  The security situation in Eastern Turkey at that time meant that it was almost impossible for us to undertake anything but the most essential trips so the opportunities for site-seeing were limited.  It was frustrating to be in one of the most fascinating areas of the world but unable to explore it as we wanted.  I think that is why this weekend really stuck in my mind.

Ferry across the Euphrates

On the first day we drove from Diyarbakir to Nemrut Dag, crossing the Euphrates River by Ferry.  Nemrut Dag is one of the most fascinating archaeological sites in a country that has more than perhaps any other.  A monument to megalomania and self importance, it is the mausoleum of Antioch I of the Commagene Kingdom, he is buried at the top of the mountain under a huge pyramid of shingle (to prevent him being dug up).  To the west and the east terraces of gigantic Greek and Iranian gods greet the rising and the setting suns.

A toppled god

The heads might not look large but compare them (the white stones)
to the height of the men in the middle ground

None of the gods' heads remain on their bodies, most were toppled by iconoclasts but the last remaining head fell after an earthquake in the early/mid 20th century.  The heads themselves are huge, many have been restored to an upright position and by themselves stand as high as a man.  In addition to the statues the terraces are decorated with bas relief murals telling the story of the ancestry of Antioch.

Bas Reliefs At The Foot Of the Pyramid

While many visitors to Nemrut Dag stay to watch sunset or sleep overnight to catch the dawn we were not able to do so.  Instead we drove down the valley to Adiyaman where we stayed the night.  On the way we passed an old castle discovered by Moltke senior during his detachment to Turkish service, it had not been excavated or properly explored but a caretaker on site allowed us to look around.  We were able to explore some of the ruins and go down into the wells that allowed the castle to survive sieges.  We crossed the Euphrates for a second time but this time by bridge rather than ferry.  The bridge in question had been built by Septimus Severus and it was quite something to think that his empire covered the land from Turkey all the way to the English/Scottish border.

Jimmy, our family dog and my sister scale the heights

Jimmy takes a rest at the feet of a god

After a night in a (less than completely salubrious but rather fun) hotel in Adiyaman we drove down to the Ataturk Dam.  This dam was very controversial at the time as it impacted on the levels of water flow in the Euphrates river from Turkey into Syria and Iraq.  Controversial or not it was a fascinating project to look around.  The dam is huge (the 5th largest in the world at the time) and the scale of the generators, piping and machinery were phenomenal.  I have not yet found the photographs of this part of the visit but will add them when I have them.

Inscriptions in an old, as yet unexcavated castle

Septimus Severus' bridge across the Euphrates still in use in 1994

Near the dam we also had the opportunity to look at some rock mausoleums, an entire city of burial chambers which had yet to be explored or excavated.  As a result I am not quite sure when they dated from, there were neolithic settlements in the area so they could be very old or comparatively more recent.  If anyone else knows about them and can tell me I would love to know.  I do remember our poor dog Jimmy managed to stick his nose into some tick infested undergrowth and we spent the car journey home throwing the blasted things out of the window before they could attach to his skin or infest the car.

Exploring tombs near the Ataturk Dam

Despite this little domestic problem our excursion to Nemrut Dag gave us what was probably our best experience during our 2 1/2 years in Turkey.

Reverse Bucket List

Expat life has the potential to be very exciting, to give us all opportunities we never dreamed of.  My husband and I still pinch ourselves, regularly, that we live freely and happily in the middle of the ex USSR and can talk with local friends about their experiences of the time.

We are in limbo at the moment, however, with just a few months to go until we say goodbye to Kazakhstan and start the next phase of our expat adventure.  Such times inevitably lead to future planning - thinking of the experiences to come.  Today I was reading Amanda Van Mulligan's Life with a Double Buggy blog and she has prepared a reverse bucket list - a list of all her experiences to date.  I thought it was a fascinating post as were many of the others on the blog link up so I thought I would add mine to her blog link up.  This is my list to date:

• ·         Lived in 7 (soon to be 8) countries and moved internationally 9 (soon to be 10) times.
• ·         Lived in over 25 different homes (not including university and school).
• ·         Adopted pets in 5 different countries.
• ·         Maintained close relationships with family stretched over a minimum of three different countries.
• ·         Went to boarding school on my own age 11 and watched my family fly off to start a new life in Nigeria.
• ·         Flew to Nigeria for the first time alone four months later having had no post delivered desperately hoping my mother would be able to meet my plane and that I would recognise her (I was worried she would be so tanned I would not know her).
• ·         Survived a shoot-out/armed robbery in Lagos airport.
• ·         Lived through an attempted coup.
• ·         Speeding through the Niger Delta.
• ·         Visiting orphanages in Nigeria and seeing, first hand, how very very lucky my childhood was. 
• ·         Been on safari in Jos (Nigeria), not to be recommended as a top tourist destination!
• ·         Visiting Benin (the country) and Benin (the city).
• ·         Spending weekends in paradise (some holiday villas 2 hours from our home in Warri), walking through the gardens and swimming in the river.
• ·         Cycling on a raised path through the swamp.
• ·         Learning how to kill giant cockroaches, avoid scorpions and teaching the cat to kill snakes. 
• ·         Watching local witch doctors perform ceremonies.
• ·         Visiting Moscow and Leningrad (as it was) and travelling between them by train.
• ·         Going to the Circus and Ballet in Moscow and seeing the Hermitage and Aurora in Leningrad.
• ·         Learning to integrate almost seamlessly in the UK and to understand British humour.
• ·         Persuading my parents that, if I could fly around the world on my own I would be safe on solo trips to London.
• ·         Volunteering with my local lifeboat and old people’s home in the UK for community service experience.
• ·         Moving to eastern Turkey in the 1990’s when the situation was extremely volatile and daily life was very dangerous.
• ·         Convincing Turkish Airlines that they absolutely could let two young girls fly into our local airport and that we were not tourists.
• ·         Making my classmates in the UK laugh when a car backfired and I threw myself under my desk thinking it was the start of an attack. 
• ·         Driving to Nemrut Dag and Eski Kale and seeing the Ataturk Dam close up.
• ·         Enjoying a picnic on the shores of Lake Hazar and exploring Catholic Churches and Syriac monasteries on the Syrian border.
• ·         Exploring Istanbul – the most beautiful city in the world - for the very first time.
• ·         Shopping for carpets in Diyarbakir’s old town.  Crossing the Berlin/Bagdad railway every day and eating meals while looking out over the purported Garden of Eden. 
• ·         Touring remote villages helping to spread the word about the importance of education for girls.
• ·         Learning (and forgetting) Turkish.
• ·         Going to university in the UK and meeting my husband there.
• ·         Spending my first summer from university visiting friends before taking our dog from the Netherlands to our new home in Venezuela.
• ·         Exploring the Venezuelan Andes, Coro peninsula and Lake Maracaibo.
• ·         Being volunteered to work as a translator from Spanish for English, Dutch and German kids at a holiday camp despite not speaking a word of Spanish (I learned quickly).
• ·         Learning (and forgetting) Spanish.
• ·         Visiting the Venezuelan Supreme Court.
• ·         Qualifying as a solicitor and working in London.
• ·         Getting married in Durham Castle.
• ·         Getting our very first dog for our new family.
• ·         Learning to scuba dive, getting my Nitrox, Deep Diver and Divemaster certificates.
• ·         Taking a case to the House of Lords (now the Supreme Court) in the UK.
• ·         Buying our dream first home.
• ·         Having our beautiful children.
• ·         Driving around Europe for weeks at a time with no plan– just to see where we would end up.
• ·         Being elected as a local councillor.
• ·         Standing for election to the UK parliament.
• ·         Gaining accreditation as a social and commercial mediator. 
• ·         Moving to Astana, Kazakhstan.
• ·         Learning Russian.
• ·         Visiting Lake Borovoye and exploring the Kazakh Steppe.
• ·         Buying a car in Kazakhstan.
• ·         Being sent from Kazakhstan to Germany for an emergency operation (and back again in the space of two days).
• ·         Dealing with pregnancy in two (soon to be three) foreign countries.
• ·         Getting beaten up in Kiev airport.
• ·         Meeting NASA astronauts and Space Station personnel in Karaganda.
• ·         Exploring Almaty in the snow.
• ·         Coping and enjoying life in the second coldest capital in the world.
• ·         Visiting museums commemorating the Gulag.
• ·         Exploring the silk road cities of Kyrgyzstan. 
• ·         Spending Christmas in various places around the world including Lebanon and Angkor Wat.
• ·         Getting recognition as a public speaker and local government expert. 
• ·         Looking forward to all the experiences to come and thinking about all the things I have left off this list to prevent it becoming longer and more self indulgent than necessary. 

 

How to help your children cope with tragedies they see on the news

Paris, Beirut, Metrojet, MH17, MS804 – the Boston Bomb… Expats can find it difficult to see or hear of problems affecting a family member far away and be unable to help.  I speak from personal experience when I say it is even worse for children. 

I boarded when my parents moved to Nigeria shortly after I turned 11.  The potential dangers were highlighted when my mother and I were caught in an armed robbery and again a when the airports were closed due to an attempted coup. This was before the days of easy communication so whenever I was at school I was obsessed with hearing as many news bulletins as possible.  I wanted to be sure that nothing was happening to my family.  These feelings intensified during our posting to Turkey in the 1990’s.  We lived in Diyarbekir in the east of the country and it was at the height of the problems with the PKK.  Bombings, kidnap threats and worse were commonplace and we went everywhere with bodyguards.   I would scour the newspapers daily and could not sleep until I had heard the late news on the radio. More recently, when our children, who were very young  and had just moved abroad with us for the first time, heard about the London riots in 2011 they did not settle until they had spoken to all our family in the UK. 

When bad things happen it is important to make sure that children understand the context of the event, the repercussions and that their loved ones are safe.  Of course, if family are potentially involved it is essential to find a way to reassure children as soon as possible.  In these days of mass media and internet lack of information is not a problem - rather there is a danger of information overload.

As soon as something happens tell your children before they see potentially distressing and worrying information in the media.  In 2014 we were living in Malaysia when flight MH17 was shot down, children at their school lost parents and the whole community was hit very badly.  In such circumstances it was vital to ensure that the children knew exactly what was going on so that they did not hear from rumours.  I would advise parents in similar circumstances to give their children  a fair and honest account and, if they want to watch the news make sure that you are with them to put it into context.  Younger children may well not understand the concept of a ‘news loop’ and worry that events are repeating themselves so make sure that they understand that there is a single incident.  Very small children will need a lot of physical reassurance, and older children may want to speak to relatives to reassure themselves that everything is ok.  

Schools have become increasingly sophisticated at supporting expat children through such crises.   My house parents lacked sympathy, they were exasperated by my need to keep up to date with information and my worry for my family.  I know from personal experience (Mr EE and I were living in schools in the UK as boarding house parents during the 9/11 tragedy and the London tube bombings) and from speaking to people whose children have boarded in recent years that things are very different now.  Nevertheless if you are living abroad but have children in boarding school it is worth speaking with the house parents to ensure that they know how best to support your children if necessary.  

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This article has, sadly, been updated far too many times since it was originally published in 2013.

Coping with Emergencies

Just last week the excellent Your Expat Child blog posted a guest article that I wrote on how to prepare for and cope when things go wrong. When I wrote that piece I was thinking about all the back ups we have in place as a family to deal with such situations.  I did not realise that, just a few days later, I would find myself being sent to Europe for an emergency operation.

I had been feeling a little unwell last week and so made an appointment with our GP.  He went with me to one of the local hospitals in Astana for some tests.  This is a new system for us – previously we had no English speaking GP or translation support.  I was very pleased he was with me as it made the whole process much simpler.  I do understand enough Russian to get by in day to day life but answering questions and understanding what a Doctor is saying to you about complex medical issues is very different.

The tests showed that I had been unwell for some weeks, just unaware of it, and the hospital wanted me to have an operation straight away.  Our insurers have not had any experience of the hospitals that could do the operation or, they told me, any experience of operations in Astana full stop.  They said they would be more comfortable with me travelling to Frankfurt or Istanbul to have it done.  The next available flight was to Frankfurt so I ended up packing a bag for a trip to Germany. 

I must admit that I was in two minds about which destination I would prefer.  In many ways I wanted to have things done in Astana with my family around but I also believe in listening to the professionals.  I have friends in Istanbul from our time living in Turkey and know no-one in Frankfurt but despite never having lived there I speak better German than I do Turkish.  I think, in the end, either destination would have been fine.

In a way the medevac process itself was rather underwhelming.  I remember when I lived in Nigeria practically every flight out of the country had someone on a stretcher in the back of the aircraft – not dissimilar to the set up for the little girl in the spoof movie ‘Airplane’.  Luckily this did not happen to me; because I was well enough to travel alone and without a nurse it was no different to a normal flight.  When I arrived I took a taxi to the hospital, checked in and was treated the next day.  I had hoped to travel home the same day but apparently you are not allowed to travel for 24 hours after a general anaesthetic.  Looking back that was probably the right decision – I flew home on Sunday night arriving Monday morning and despite being someone who is never ill, travels well and needs hardly any sleep I found the journey much harder than I expected. 

In hindsight the whole event seems like a bit of a dream but it has started me thinking about what really helped make it less unpleasant.  All our emergency planning and the procedures we have in place worked flawlessly which was wonderful.  The main thing that helped was that I really trusted the insurers and their co-ordinators to make the best choices for me, they updated me on their decisions as quickly as possible and were very open and thorough when discussing them with me.  

I  had an internet enabled ‘phone I could use to contact friends and family.  When we left the UK we were in two minds about whether to keep our monthly ‘phones or to use pay as you go sims when we returned.  We decided to keep our ‘phones; we get good rates on international calls and internet roaming.  Because they are contracts we don’t need to worry about getting cut off.  Our Kazakh phones are pay as you go so although they work abroad we cannot re-charge them when the credit runs out.  The UK ‘phones may be an expensive luxury 11 months of the year but I would not have been without it this last weekend. 

I was very glad that I took my computer and my kindle with me.  I did not get any work done at all but I was able to watch films on the laptop.  German and Turkish television tends to be dubbed rather than subtitled and for a lot of the time I just felt like zoning out in front of some rubbish TV without having to make a mental effort to understand what people were saying.  The kindle meant that I did not need to worry about packing enough books for an open ended stay.

One thing that, in retrospect, I did wrong was not drinking something before I left the airport.  Because I had been feeling unwell I had not eaten a proper meal in days.  I took some water on the flight with me but I should have had some more in Frankfurt before going to the hospital.  As soon as I arrived there I was nil by mouth until after the operation.  I didn't feel like eating but I was horribly dehydrated and thirsty. 

It was certainly not an experience I wanted to have and it is not one that I want to repeat.  That said it is a comfort to know that the whole process works and that our family are in safe hands in the event of any emergency.

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Sugar Sugar: How to bake without specialty sugars

I had a wonderful afternoon yesterday as a friend invited  seven or eight of us over for tea and cakes.  She had made a wonderfully tasty chocolate fudge cake (my favorite) and a bannoffee and lemon meringue pie.  Yumm.  It is always good to meet up with friends because, to a great extent, they stand in for your family when you are abroad.

During our meet up talk turned, for a while, as it always does to what you can find in the shops and how to cope when you can't.  I mentioned that I had seen some caster sugar the other day and was immediately asked for details of where and when I had seen it.  Caster sugar is quite rare here and usually you have to bake with granular sugar.  I have written before on baking without baking powder and without baking chocolate but sugar is a fairly key ingredient to any cake.

Granulated sugar is easy to find

I have got used to using granular sugar, as it is not difficult to turn it into caster sugar - just put it through a coffee mill.  My food processor came with a special mini mill which I use for this purpose.  Just blitz it in 15 second bursts to make sure that you do not over process.  I usually just blitz enough to use on the cake I am baking at that particular time but I sometimes do a bulk load for friends who do not have a mill.

It is easy to make your own caster sugar

Icing sugar is easily available here and in most places.   I have made my own in the past, usually when I have realised that I had forgotten to buy the powdered sugar in the shops and had no time to go and get more.  Just blitz the sugar to a very fine powder (checking at 15 second intervals) and then add 1 tablespoon of cornstarch for every 250g of sugar.

Muscovado sugar is one of my favorite baking ingredients, it makes a lovely toffee sauce, works brilliantly in a lot of banana recipes and when combined with orange juice and mustard powder gives a tasty glaze to ham and is a must when cooking red cabbage.  Muscovado sugar is like gold dust here in Astana.  I found some in the supermarket last year and bought four kilos.  I am nearly out of it now.

All is not lost, however, because I can buy molasses here.  If you add about 2tbsp of Molasses to ordinary baking sugar to get a good replacement for muscovado sugar.  Alternatively you can replace Muscovado sugar with ordinary brown sugar.  There is less moisture in brown sugar so you may need to check your recipe and add a little more liquid.  In places where molasses has been impossible to find I have used honey or maple syrup in its place.  The recipe tastes different but not unpleasantly so. 

One of the problems of using muscovado sugar is that it gets hard very fast.  I am always careful to store mine in airtight containers but it still gets hard and my four kilos became rock solid very quickly.  I know that it is possible to re-hydrate it by placing some slices of apple or bread in the container with the sugar (remove once moist).  I usually forget to do this, if I remember that I need it the night before baking I will cover the sugar with a damp kitchen towel and leave it overnight.  If I forget that I soften it in the microwave, this takes care because the sugar can get too hot and melt or burn.  Place it in a container and put a glass of water beside it.  I usually zap it in 30 second intervals checking if it is soft in between.  In extremis (my microwave was broken) I have just used it as is without softening but using the grater to break up the larger pieces., I probably should have used the food processor.

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Packing Problems

My recent post about moving got me thinking about one of the key questions all expats wonder about.  Why do things always get lost in moves?

I should mention that I hate packing, it is one of the most horrible jobs I know, worse than ironing or going to the dentist.  The other day I worked out that I had lived in over 30 different homes and, in my life, gone through about 8 international moves and many regional re-locations.  

Coming to Astana has been a completely new experience.  When I was a child my parents moved around the world with the support of a large international corporation behind them.  We could take what we wanted (within reason).  When we came to Kazakhstan we were given a sum of money (£2000) to spend but no idea of how much volume this would buy us for this particular destination -we were only advised of this the day before the packers arrived and, predictably, the answer was – not a lot. I mentioned in my earlier post that  I remember being very unsettled by moves when I was young so I wanted the children to have as much of their home with them as possible to make it easier to settle in; cramming it all in with 24 hours’ notice was a challenge.  Well, we made it, although I must admit to some envy when I visit the houses of friends in the diplomatic service or those who are working for the international companies who have all the comforts of home.

One thing I have noticed in every move and that our friends also mention is the amazing attrition experienced.   Something always seems to go missing whether it is thrown away with the packaging or from more sinister reasons.  My mother could pack and unpack a house in record time and the tips she gave me to help minimise this were:

•       Do your own inventory – it is a pain in the neck but very worth it;
•       Supervise the packing very closely and pack precious items yourself;
•       Check each box and the packing paper thoroughly before it is disposed of.

Because I was so stretched for time in the last move I was not able to supervise as closely as I would like.  We had what was possibly the worst moving team I have ever encountered and when I came to unpack our clothes most had been balled into ordinary packing boxes instead of wardrobe boxes.  I spent a fortune on dry-cleaning and about a week washing and ironing. At least this time we did not have any truly nasty surprises.  When we moved from the Netherlands to Turkey we unpacked the boxes to find the mummified remnants of a packer's lunch and an empty cola can amongst the kitchen ware.

Our old inventory was a lengthy beast – we traveled with over 1,000 books, about 800 VHS cassettes not to mention crockery and cutlery to feed 80 (yes really, 80) people and various other necessities.  Everything was listed together with the replacement value.  Originally the inventory was typed up on the old Amstrad computer and printed out on our snazzy and rather noisy dot matrix printer.  You may remember the ones - they used the spools of paper with the perforations at the edge and green and white striped lines running across the page, rather annoyingly the lines of typing never matched with the lines on the page.  Over time, the list migrated to a more modern platform but in my mind's eye it is still on that old paper.

Mistakes can still happen of course - I recall one move we made back to the Netherlands for a short posting of a few months.  We waited for a long time for our boxes to come only to find out that we had received a shipment belonging to another family with the same name.  Our stuff had gone to Oman and by the time it arrived we were practically ready to leave for our next country.

This time our list was so short I wrote it out by hand.  We are now the proud possessors of iPhones and an iPad so we will probably dictate our inventory on the next move, in fact there is probably an app for it.

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