The TAA Talent Show!

After weeks (ok maybe just a week and a half) of preparation, we finally performed our songs and dances at the "talent show" last night! It was a very long day leading up to the show, and I was worried at times that I wouldn't make it.

I started the morning by walking out of my room towards the bathroom, only to be told by my host mother that su yok - there was no running water. Ok, I thought. I had been looking forward to a hot shower to clear my sinuses, but I'd make it through the day. I pulled my hair into a bun and did my best to forget about it. An hour later, on my way to school, I realized that my cold was worse than I had thought as I wheezed and coughed my way to the city center. I became winded after only ten minutes of walking. When I finally reached the bus stop, I stumbled into a supermarket to buy water and tissues, grabbed a bottle of fresh squeezed orange juice from a local vendor, and jumped into a cab for the rest of the trip. I was already late, and needed to conserve my energy for Kolbastı! :)

After barely making it through four hours of lessons, I decided that I deserved a treat, and proceeded to stuff myself with yogurt kebab (see below) at our regular lunch place. I felt pretty sluggish after that, and even more so after completing a mandatory assessment exam in the un-airconditioned TAA computer lab. At that point, I met my host sister and her best friend Ceren in the cafe downstairs and the two of them did their best to teach us all the proper steps to Kolbastı. After developing a painful dance wound (in the form of an enormous blister on the ball of my right foot), I was ready to collapse from exhaustion, both mental and physical.

But the show had to go on. So I rallied, with the help of a quick dinner (a healthy mix of a banana, chocolate Kinder bars, a redbull, and painkillers - for my cold and for the blister) and we managed to put on a surprisingly impressive show. To be clear, it was impressive because I had extremely low expectations. We've been treated like middle schoolers for most of the summer, and, I feel, are often expected to perform like them as well. It's been kind of fun to graduate college and then be forced to act like a kid again. So I went into the "talent show" with the attitude of a 10 year old. It was fantastic.

Unfortunately, the videos I have of the show are taking extremely long to upload. I've tried for about 24 hours now with no success. If I have time later, and also manage to find videos of the end of the show (in which we invited audience members onstage to hop and skip around to the traditional Halay dance), I'll try again. In the meantime, check out this video that one of our instructors took.

After the show, I hung out with my host mother, my host cousin Zeynip, my host sister, and Ceren outside of the TAA building, trying to cool off and recover from all of the dancing under the hot stage lights. When Zeynip's husband arrived to pick us up, the six of us quickly piled into his compact car for the ride home. During the drive, I really enjoyed the view of Ankara the from the back window. I also enjoyed the view of the car itself: my host cousin in the front seat, smoking a cigarette and talking loudly on his cellphone; Zeynip, next to him, controlling the radio; the rest of us, crammed on top of each other in the backseat, dancing to the traditional music blasting from the tiny speakers behind us.

I'm really going to miss this place.