Ramazan

In Turkey, or as you may know it in the West: Ramadan, is the holiest month in the Islamic calender. For the devout, nothing shall pass their lips during the hours of daylight. Restaurants however, are still open for business, doing great trade at about 19:07 everyday for Iftar - the breaking of the fast.

The streets seems a little less crowded and people a little more subdued.

About half of my students are fasting. This only seems to be a problem for the evening classes between 18:30 and 20:30. The first half of the lesson they cannot seem to concentrate and the second half, after Iftar, they just seem to want to go to sleep.

You would think that a holiday of solemn abstinence would be hard to commercialize. This is not the case, as you can see from the advertisement to the left from Migros, the Tescos of Turkey. They offer special "Iftar Packs" with everything you need for the breaking of your fast.

The bonus of all this will be at the end of Ramazan when we have the Sheker Bayram or Sugar Holiday, a five day public holiday when people visit their families and feast.

We however, plan to head to out of town for a short holiday to Cappadocia. I will keep you posted on that one.

Happy fasting!!

Keith Gets Head!!

For his final meal in Istanbul, our good friend, part-time colleague and full-time joker, Keith chose to have a sheep's head.



This is apparently a Turkish delicacy, although I have not really seen it offered in too many places. Maybe around the the time of the Kurban Byram they might be more common.



Kurban Byram mean "sacrifice holiday". Here in Turkey it is a sheep that gets sacrificed. This does not sit well with the EU. The idea is, I am told, carried over from ancient times. Your family kill a sheep and share it with everyone, especially the poor. However, slaughtering livestock in your home or the streets does not seem to be a "Shared European Value".



In his opinion: the pupils were nice, the jaw flesh was like shoulder flesh, the rest of the eye ball "minged", the brain was a bit gooshy and the tongue... he didn't even go there.



Fare ye well Keether, I am sure that you will make a great carpenter or at least, better than you were a teacher!



Take it easy.

Coup!!

Some of you may have noticed that our old home of Thailand has been taken over by the military.

I have been in touch with friends and associates who are still there who assure me that there is nothing to worry about. Business continues.



Fortunately, this was achieved with the support of The King and therefore the people. In addition it removes Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was (in my opinion) working for himself rather than the people.



Unfortunately, it is the first coup in 15 years and it is no way to deal with political issues in a democracy.



Why the opposition boycotted the last election when they had a fine chance to remove him then, I don't know.

Maybe someone could help me with that one.



The military will be appointing a new PM next week and there will be fresh elections in 2007.
Although this is not ideal, I am sure that the issues will be resolved peacefully.


Meanwhile, we watch and wait to see what happens...


Photo: Darren Whiteside of Reuters

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