Welcome Back, Yabancı

I’ve been trying to come up with a fitting or clever way to break back into blogging after this week-long lapse of interweb yokage*, and, true to my Cassidy-in-Turkey thematic persona, Ima share a self-deprecating grocery shopping story.

[*yok=Turkish for “none”; most satisfyingly used (by us yabancılar) to describe things you expect to have (i.e. hot water, running water, water, electricity, internet, a shower, a key to your own apartment) but for some reason do not have; a common bitching out term.]

First, let me rewind to my Thursday night spent with some Australian Turks who toted a couple ‘a yabancılar all ova da Antep area for five hours and left us and their sister in the car at most every stop (it’s SO not okay fo da ladies to be out on the street after...eight). This [totally unplanned] evening out left lots ‘n lots of time to chat with our girl Abril, a Turkish girl who has lived the last twenty of her twenty-one years in Perth. We talked about gender expectation things, sexual harassment things, Muslim expectation things, marriage harassment things, AAAND toiletries. It’s very serious, you see, because when you move to a new place your whole body often does a giant W.T.F?! and freaks the flip out, then you have to decipher the labels of cosmetic care products and in short it’s just one giant inconvenience that no one wants to deal with. (#firstworldproblems) My gal pals and I talked about Turkish cosmetics and I finally had an opportunity to voice my stern disapproval of Turkish Dove products. Abril has a theory that the ingredients used to make toiletry stuffs in Turkey are all fake. Now, I’ve been havin’ dry skin problems like whoa the whole time I’ve been in Turkey. We’re talkin’ spots of straight-up white on otherwise decently tanned arms. (Thank you summer manual labor job.) Needless to say, I jumped all up on that bandwagon and ragged on Turkish body lotion like you wouldn’t believe. (It was a longass, tired, strange night in a car, okay?)

Fast forward to today, Sunday. I’m at my local Oli with my blessed angel of a Turkish-American friend, Didem. I’ve resolved that I’m going to try one more kind of body lotion before I send a serious SOS email to the madre to send some Aveeno stat. After examining several bottles, I ask Turkish-speaking Didem to translate a couple of labels so I can be sure I’m gettin’ the best stuff possible. At first she’s a little confused, and I’m, like, yeah, I know, it’s ridiculous, and she says, “It says something along the lines of ‘to prevent breakage’ but I’m not exactly sure.” ... Hmmm, that sounds suspiciously like rhetoric for hair care products. I ask, “Didem, is this lotion or conditioner?” Didem, “Oh, it’s definitely conditioner.”
Awesome. I’ve been furiously lotioning and re-lotioning for weeks with conditioner.

Dear Turkish Beauty Care Products,
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean those things I said that night.
Love, Cassidy
P.S. I am an idiot.

This is proof I’m alive. And that I can’t button a sweater. But that’s not too surprising from the girl who uses conditioner to cure her dry skin that is not a fungus like she absurdly supposed. (See earlier post about a possible skin fungus diagnosis.)

Buuuut it is finally sweater weather in Gaziantep--hooray!