Hello, My Public:))

Happy New Year!

I am still alive and kicking. It continues to be a rocky, exciting, frustrating and rewarding ride here, but I am hoping that in maybe two months I will be able to blog fairly regularly. Still things progress slowly in Turkey at times with some people and things. I get extremely frustrated at times, but I am hanging in there.

There has been far too much drama for me and my school in the last several weeks. The “Ugly American” was dismissed, but she did not take her dismissal seriously. After one of the biggest holidays of the year in Muslim countries which is here called Kurban Bayram and in Arab lands called Eid, the “Ugly American” showed up back at work. She had been told just before the holiday thank you for your work, but do not come back. She asked us at a faculty meeting as she sauntered in late and obviously unwelcomed, “Why isn’t anyone asking me what I did during Bayram? Well, I went to a movie and dancing with my BOYFRIEND.” This at a faculty meeting?!!! This was all for my benefit, though, since my boyfriend does not live in the same city with me, and we have to communicate most of the time through texting. She had hooked up with some Turkish military man which the boss had told her might only be out for sex. Though she emphasized how prim and proper she was, despite her loud and “in your face” behavior with almost any Turkish male who would pay her any attention, I think no one was buying her words.

Over the last two months, the "Ugly American” had become an ongoing nightmare for more than just me, but for the school. Students and those with parents who were paying for their classes complained about her teaching and how she was wasting everyone’s time. The management was pulling its hair out in silent frustration, because this woman’s behavior was so alien to anything these people had probably ever seen. She had no boundaries or principles except her own needs. If she told her to do something, she did just the opposite. At the same time, she made it clear to everyone that she was a Christian. I started to get very nervous because as time went on, she put her version of Christianity (which was not Christianity at all) in everyone’s face. Along with her huge assortment of obnoxious and provocative behavior, in the final weeks before she was fired, she had started walking around the school singing Christian songs. I am a devout Christian, but Turkey is a Muslim country trying to balance secularism and a conservative Muslim population all at one time. As my boss had said, “Christians are killed here sometimes.” I did not want to be added to that number because of a foolish, psychotic woman who kept insisting that Turkey is a “European country, and the people look like Italians.” What an idiot! I could have died of shame many times at the school because of her loud and ignorant comments, which she did not know was insulting to the students, the staff, and management. I learned too that she had even been teaching some of her students profanity during the classroom breaks.

The Turks in the end showed that they were not so European. As time went on, they silently calculated how to rid themselves of this monster in a dignified and diplomatic manner. I heard everyday, “We do not like ___.” There is indeed a European and an eastern side to the Turks. The east side can be hospitable to the extreme, but take hospitality for granted, spit on and stump on it, like “The Ugly American” did and you will meet your down fall.

For weeks the management tried to pacific this woman. The boss even gave her the sewing machine of his late mother, because the woman kept insisting how great her sewing skills were and how she was going to start a online fashion design business. The woman always over estimated her abilities. Her sense of style was a schizophrenic mixture of blindingly bright 1980s colors, tacky thrift store leavings, and hair extensions. Even her makeup was too loud. She painted her eyes with eyeliner like actresses did in the 1960s. I had not seen those 1980s styled leg warmers in 20 years. She wore them though. She constantly talked about her shopping and hair styling plans to anyone whom she forced to listen: her students, men, etc.

Shortly before Christmas, the boss’ wife and the head teacher took her aside after her last class of the day and announced that her dismissal two weeks before was real. I had been asked to dismiss her, but I and the Turks knew that the outcome might be too explosive for the school. The woman had long had it in for me. The next day I was told that when she realized that she about to be told “bye” she asked could she pray. Sigh!

The Turkish man chaser, narcissist, and religious fanatic psycho finally met her match last week. The school had told her to be out of their apartment in seven days. She did not leave, even though another school had hired her. The boss had lain low as much as he could on the issue, but then he apparently decided that this woman who had caused so much havoc in so many lives here should give back the sewing machine of his beloved mother. When he told her that he wanted it back, she lied and said that someone has stolen it. The boss then went to the police and also told her new employer about the sewing machine. She had just moved into another apartment with another teacher. That teacher told the police and my boss that the sewing machine was actually in their apartment. So in the end, “The Ugly American” was found out to be a liar and a thief. She not only lied about the sewing machine, but she also stole from the other American teacher at our school whom she shared an apartment with. For a month I had been living with the boss and his family. If I had still been living in the school’s apartment, I am sure she would not have wasted time in stealing from me. She had clung to this teacher for weeks. Yet she stole from him. She had even told the boss’ wife and the head teacher after they fired her that “___ and I share everything.” Well, she stole from ___ before she left the apartment.

Today while I was dining out with one of my students, she asked me about the "Ugly American.” She wanted to know if the Medusa was still in Turkey. Hopefully, she is not, for her own good. If she is, sooner or later she will either be imprisoned or killed. Sooner or later she WILL push the wrong Turk’s buttons. As I told her in an e-mail in response to an unwelcomed one she sent me, ‘You need psychiatric help.’ I hope she gets it before it is too late.

The weeks of agony under the "Ugly American” really showed me the tragedy of the human condition. She was a raging, psychotic disease that engulfed so many people’s lives here. I saw from the beginning that something was wrong with this woman on the first day I met her. Call it insight. I have lost friendships because of my ability to sometimes discern a person’s character. It is a great gift I have, but it can also bring about the end of relationships. Bad people never want to be found out. They try to tell good people that they are the ones who are terrible, bad, or evil. The "Ugly American” even called me evil once. She even dismissed me as a bad teacher. Later many of her students came to me and begged that I teach them, not her. I wish more people had the ability to scope out the bad and the treacherous. So much evil roams the world now because of the bad few who fool the naïve and trample on the innocent. The gullible help to keep the deception and misery going because they say things like, “It’s not my business,” “Who am I to judge?” or “I don’t want to get involved.” You are aiding and abetting criminals and monsters then if you allow it to go on. Go on! Be weak and silent!

I am back, my friends. There may be a break in my blogging again in the coming weeks because I will be moving into my own apartment. A lot moves slowly here. Where I end up will probably not have wireless. I am setting a date. If I disappear again, I will come back eventually.

Wait for me…