45 Pieces of Turkish Delight: Memoirs of a Peace Corps Volunteer

By Patricia Morgan

From her first experience with Turkish cuisine to her own attempts to emulate America recipes, from her first meetings with Turks to her final good-byes, these forty-five short stories highlight the ups and downs of a fresh-out-of-college, know-it-all female Volunteer attempting to find her place in the conservative town of Konya, Turkey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781543966053

Patricia Morgan

Patricia has lived and worked in Turkey, Italy, and South Korea. She now resides in Iowa, where she shares a house with an assortment of adults, cats, and the occasional eight-year-old. Seeds of Change was Patricia Morgan's first novel and Turkish Delight is her first collection of memoir stories.

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Acknowledgements

Preface

In the early 1960s, hundreds of young American adults flocked to the Peace Corps, believing in Kennedy’s call of Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country. I became a Peace Corps Volunteer but not for any altruistic reasons.

In the fall of 1963, I was preparing to graduate from The American University with a major in Russian and minors in chemistry and education, a path laid out for me by my ambitious mother.

I had no plans beyond graduation. No plans to take on the adult world consisting of job/husband/family responsibilities. Exasperated by my unwillingness to engage in the reality of life after graduation, my mother insisted I apply to the Peace Corps. I probably shrugged and said whatever, never thinking what that might entail.

Although I was dismayed to learn I’d be teaching English in Turkey, a country I had a dim recollection of, instead of battling dysentery in Africa, which I believed comprised the true Peace Corps experience, I went.

From my deepest fears of being sent home in disgrace, to the everyday functioning of a Western woman in a foreign conservative culture, to the gratifying realization that teaching English was something of which I was good, these forty-five stories highlight the two-year period of my Peace Corps experience.

Chapter 1

In the Beginning

Turkey! I said as I scanned the long-awaited letter from Peace Corps headquarters in Washington, D.C. Where the hell is Turkey?

In 1964 the Peace Corps was a mere three years old. All the advertising and commercials I’d seen showed shots of Volunteers in Africa. That’s what I wanted—the real, rural Peace Corps experience. Living in a mud-and-wattle hut in Africa with heat, flies, and dysentery. Doing important work like digging wells or administering medicine to women and children. I wanted to feel I’d made a valuable contribution.

Instead I got non-essential Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). In place of primitive living, I’d be stuck with schools and indoor classrooms, cars and buses, telephones and radios. What kind of Peace Corps experience is that? I asked. I seriously considered not going.

My mother, whose idea it had been originally, thought otherwise. Her most compelling argument went like this: You’re graduating in a few months. Do you have a job lined up? I shook my head. Have you even thought about it? I shook my head again. So, going to Turkey will put off having to make that decision for two more years. Then in her sternest voice, she added, I suggest you go.

I sent off my letter of acceptance.

Along with my placement information, Peace Corps included some literature about Turkey, what to expect living in a different culture, and some advice for parents. I skimmed through it and set it aside. Piece of cake, I thought.

I didn’t figure I’d have difficulty with teaching English. After all, I spoke the language fluently. Then too, I’d taken a course on Materials and Methods of Foreign Language Teaching at American University and expected to begin student teaching in Russian, my major.

As for living in a different culture? No problem. I’ve done my share of adapting. I lived in Maryland, Florida, and D.C., and I survived five different elementary schools, including several Catholic boarding schools. That ought to count for something.

Then I learned of my student teaching assignment. Eastern High

School! Dear God. What was wrong with Western, my alma mater, or some safe high school in a Maryland suburb? I remembered the riot that ensued when Eastern lost the football championship to a white, Catholic boys’ school. What the hell was I getting into?

I approached Eastern High that first day not knowing what to expect. While a few Asians attended that all-black high school, I was the only white. Police patrolled the halls. Knife fights occurred in bathrooms on a regular basis. It was all so different from my white, middle-class school experiences.

I did okay in the Russian and German classes, despite my own shaky background, as long as I was well prepared. The students were friendly and eager to learn, and I appreciated the congenial atmosphere in those classes. But my tenth grade homeroom scared the hell out of me. The boys were big, tall, and rough. Thankfully, my supervising instructor stayed in the room every morning, drinking coffee and reading the paper while I conducted morning business.

Later on, during Peace Corps training, I learned more about cultural differences and what culture shock meant. I wondered if my perpetual feelings of discomfort at Eastern High were a result of culture shock or race. As for my teaching methods? During my Peace Corps training I discovered they were as antiquated as the araba, a horse-drawn wagon used in Turkey.

On April 22nd I received a telegram from Peace Corps Headquarters stating that I’d be training in Putney, Vermont, at the School for International Living, with a starting date of June 14th. A letter followed shortly thereafter with plane tickets, instructions, and a list of stuff to bring.

With less than a month to go in my last semester at The American University, I still had a few finals to study for, a couple last minute papers, and a review of my student teaching with my supervisor.

At the end of May, my parents threw a triple whammy of a party to celebrate my 21st birthday, college graduation, and going to Turkey. I had a steel band and a huge three-layer cake with two large letters on top in the shapes of a P and a C. What a blast! I was twenty-one, free and independent, and about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime.

All too soon, it was time to go to Washington National Airport for my flight to Boston and the beginning of a new life as a Peace Corps Volunteer

Chapter 2

Putney, Vermont

I said goodbye to my parents and my two younger sisters and boarded the plane for Boston, the first leg of my journey to Putney, Vermont. How did I feel? Excited? Worried? Scared?

I wasn’t concerned with the important aspects of the training I was about to undergo: learning enough about the language and culture to feel comfortable in a new country and be a productive Volunteer. I hardly gave a thought to the world importance of being a Volunteer. I worried instead about the other trainees, certain they were smart, confident, and sophisticated—all the things I felt I lacked in comparison. Would I like them? Would they like me?

I knew I wasn’t a good language learner, despite the high score on the language aptitude test I took last fall as part of the Peace Corps application process. My poor grades in high school and college would attest to that. What if I couldn’t do it? What if they decided I wasn’t good enough? What if they sent me home? How could I possibly face friends and family?

All those worries disappeared when I viewed the puddle jumper going to Vermont. I had reason to be scared. Tossed around like a peanut in a Cracker Jack box, I didn’t know which was more imminent: the plane crashing or my vomiting into the bag I held tightly in my hand. I gritted my teeth, determined not to humiliate myself in front of all those strangers. To my great relief, we did land safely in Brattleboro, Vermont, and in triumph, I tucked the empty bag into the pocket in front of me.

Several vans met us at the airport. We separated ourselves into two groups, both bound for Putney, but the other group, headed to East Pakistan, would be training at a separate facility down the road from us.

After about an hour’s ride, we left secondary streets and headed uphill on unpaved roads. The sky was blue, the air warm, and the pine trees, despite their coverings of dust, smelled like you’d expect them to on Christmas morning. We passed fields of horses and cows, and I wondered just what kind of place we were being sent to. We soon passed through the gates of the school grounds. Lots of

grass, a large pond, and austere, white, two-story buildings scattered about.

Dormitories, classrooms, and who knew what else.

I wish I had concrete memories of that first day, those first meetings with the almost fifty people I would come to know over the next two years. I wish I could remember meeting for the first time the three women—Nancy, Mary, and Toni—who would have such an impact on my life in Turkey. Would I have guessed at the time how our lives would be so connected?

But that month passed in a blur of language classes, and meetings with the Turkish staff to discuss cross-cultural problems and solutions. There were dentist appointments—I had two pre-emergent wisdom teeth removed the same day—and doctor appointments—I was not pregnant, nor did I carry a venereal disease. I was told I could not wear contact lenses in Turkey and was fitted with the ugliest pair of dark brown frames.

I remember Michael, a Volunteer headed for East Pakistan. The nights we snuck into a vacated staff cottage, the afternoon we spent making love in a field, our bodies slick with sweat, the smell of crushed clover, the clank of a nearby cowbell, and the tickles as ants wandered over our skin.

I remember the laughs that erupted in the dining room as we each reached a certain question on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality test— Are you afraid to touch doorknobs?—and the fear of meeting with the psychologist. Rumor had it he had the final word in deciding who would not be going on to Istanbul for further training.

At the time of my appointment, I walked into his office, sat in the chair across from his desk and eyed the big plastic insect placed on the outer corner. I’d heard about this and there had been much discussion as to how to react to it. Did you ignore it? Show fear? Laugh? I don’t remember my reaction or much of that interview except the psychologist’s final question: Why do you persist in hiding your light under a bushel basket?

I could only answer with a shrug, not certain of what he meant, and hoped I would not be weeded out because of it.

Then the time came for our departure. One by one we were called into the head office to learn our fate. I held my breath as I walked into the room and emerged moments later beaming. Some were not so lucky. For reasons I did not understand, one woman was deemed too worldly, and a couple were thought to be too religious, posing possible problems in a Muslim country.

The next day, we left the Experiment for International Living to return home, pack our bags and wait for the final word. We were Volunteers. We were Turkey TEFL

Chapter 3

Going Abroad

Back home, now that I no longer had the fear of washing out, I could boast to friends and family about being a Volunteer going to that mysterious country, Turkey. When asked what I’d be doing there, I’d say in an off-hand manner, Of course, it’s not the same as being in Africa, but they’re desperate for English teachers. Which meant I still felt cheated out of the ideal Peace Corps experience, but I’d rather go than stay home and look for a job.

The next week or so passed in a frenzy of shopping and packing. Into an Army-issue foot locker, we packed everything I’d need for the two years I’d be in Turkey. Sent by sea, this small trunk would arrive several months after I reached the town where I’d be teaching. Mostly clothes, shoes—a winter coat and hat, just in case—a few books, and toiletries. Over my protest, my mother included a pair of Army-issue, steel-toed, high rubber boots that I guess she just couldn’t resist buying. What I personally slipped in was a spare pair of contact lenses and solution because I was not going to wear those ugly, ugly glasses.

That left two suitcases in which to pack everything I’d need until my trunk arrived. Doug, my stepfather, added a Polaroid camera and film to my carry-on bag. I don’t need this, I told him as I attempted to remove both items. I don’t like taking photographs, I lied, hoping to get out of taking it.

Won’t hurt, he said.

What if I can’t find any film? I know I sounded churlish, but I didn’t want to look like some old person, carting around a Polaroid.

His response of I’ll mail you some reminded me I was not headed for deepest, darkest Africa.

Everything was packed and ready to go, except for one last item. Despite two semesters of classical guitar at the university, I was hardly proficient, and yet I had to bring my guitar along. My mother objected, but I insisted. And so it accompanied me, tucked safely in its case with my graduation tassel hanging from the tip of its neck.

A final round of goodbyes and promises to write, and off I flew from D.C. to New York to meet my fellow Volunteers for our flight to Istanbul and