[EXPAT VOICE] Summer in Alanya

For example, in the neighborhood where I live, most of my neighbors and their relatives are going to their villages and will come back after the summer. The neighborhood is empty, only a few families are still at home, including us. But every summer, we always head to the highland for a picnic. We go on Sunday mornings, then come home in the afternoon. It takes two hours to drive to the highland, and my father-in-law always takes us there for a summer picnic so we can enjoy the cool weather. We bring meat and other food so we can prepare our own barbecue. In the early morning after sabah namazı (morning prayer), we (me, my husband, daughter, father and mother-in-law and brother-in-law) head to the highland by car, with my father-in-law being our chauffeur. We set off early in the morning to grab the best picnic area near to the river. When we arrive at our desired destination, we will have breakfast and then spend a few hours there before having a barbecue for lunch. Then it’s homeward bound.

Alanya is a very popular tourist destination and is always packed with tourists every summer. They sunbathe and swim at the beach and busy themselves with other beach activities. They shop in the city center passing by the cuma pazarı (Friday market) wearing bikinis. The dolmuş I take to the center is always full of tourists, as are the emergency rooms in hospitals when it’s summer and tourists have accidents or become ill. Every day during the summer, I hear ambulance sirens passing by on the ring road. Last summer, my daughter was ill, and we had to head to the hospital at night. We went straight to the emergency room, and it was full of tourists coming in and out. Some were in wheelchairs, some were walking wounded and some were accompanying their injured friends.

Every Friday and Sunday, I go to city center (where our shop is located). Every Friday there is a market held in the area, and I go to buy the week’s groceries -- vegetables, fruits, spices and meat. I also come on Sunday afternoon to the center just to visit our shop and sometimes just to walk around and go to Alanya harbor.

Summer 2005 was my first summer in Turkey. It was the first time I had gone abroad, and during this time, I settled in Turkey because my husband is Turkish. That summer I met some Dutch tourists who I hadn’t previously seen but who already knew me. When they came to our shop, one of them told me they had met my husband the year before. I was confused because I wasn’t married the previous year. We talked for a while and then I figured out how they knew me. They had met my husband (my boyfriend at the time), and he’d told them that he had an Indonesian girlfriend, and if they wanted to meet me, then they must come here again next year because he would be heading to Indonesia to get married and would be bringing me back to Alanya. The Dutch tourists explained that they were half-Indonesian and that’s why my husband had told them that he had an Indonesian girlfriend. We’ve been friends ever since. Whenever they are planning to come to Alanya, they always contact us by e-mail or SMS to let us know they’ll be coming. They always ask me whether I need anything from Holland as there are many Asian stores there selling Indonesian food.

In the summer of 2008, I met an old friend of my cousin here. It was actually my husband who led us to this meeting. One evening, my husband came home by dolmuş where he had met an Indonesian woman. And as he always does upon meeting someone Indonesian, he sparked up a conversation about having an Indonesian wife. This is usually followed by him inviting them to our shop to meet me there. This was a similar situation, and I met this lady at my husband’s store. We had a conversation in which I found out that she’s from Bandung (my hometown) and she’s an old friend of my cousin. They were coworkers. What a small world that I would meet I someone from my hometown in Alanya. Of course, I am happy when I meet people from Indonesia; it’s nice to be able to speak in the same language. She said that she and her family (her husband and son) come to Alanya almost every summer because Turkey is close to Holland, where she now lives because her husband is Dutch. She explained that this was the first time she had ever met an Indonesian in Alanya.

That same summer, I met two Norwegian tourists, a brother and sister. They were of Afghan origin living in Norway. They spent a few evenings at our house, and we still keep in touch by phone and e-mail. The last time she phoned me, she informed me that she and her family will be coming to Turkey this summer.

I like the summer season because I can meet people from other countries and form new friendships. I have so many stories about meeting tourists in Alanya, but I can’t write about each and every one here. One drawback for Alanya is the weather; it’s extremely hot. It was 42 degrees last year. Back in Bandung (my hometown), the hottest temperature the thermometer ever reached was 30 degrees, and even that was very hot for me. And now here in Alanya, 30 degrees is normal for summer days.