Motherhood, red tape and open seas
Güncelleme Tarihi:
by Kristen Stevens
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Mayıs 09, 2009 00:00
ISTANBUL - Life and motherhood in Turkey have been a departure for Karen Çiftçi, a classically trained ballerina and former marketing director in England. In the process of obtaining Turkish citizenship, she endures sitting for a criminal-style profile photo
After four days sailing from Dalaman to Antalya, British citizen Karen Holyoak-Çiftçi fell in love with her tour guide. They were married 15 months later and now live in Istanbul with their young daughter, Yasemin.
At the time of their meeting in Turkey, she was doing initial research for a book she plans to have published by the end of 2009, "It's The Law Ğ According to Florence Nightingale", which looks into the legendary nurse’s story and time in Istanbul. Praising her new city as "cosmopolitan London with the sass of the Orient that seems to hang off the Bosporus," Çiftçi lives in the marina town of Tarabya.
Even though they are continents apart, she says being in Istanbul has drawn her closer to her mother in England. "Being a mother myself has also helped me to appreciate and understand her, although I always thought she was pretty amazing and wonderful," she said. With her husband stranded in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea with a Christian tour group, her parents helped her give birth naturally in 2006. The health care aspect of being a new mother in Turkey came as a bit of a shock for Çiftçi. "Being British, I am used to order and control and customer service and health standards. I am not saying that they don't exist in Turkey, but the mother experience is really left to the families to arrange," she said. Having none of her own family nearby left her feeling frightened "with no idea what was about to happen."Çiftçi said that after baby Yasemin Florence arrived in 2006 she had no time to consider her feelings. "I have never been so busy, tired, happy, driven and skinny," she said. She made friends walking along the Bosphorus every day trying to put Yasemin to sleep. On one such walk Çiftçi met Tanya from Amsterdam, now her best friend whose son Elliot is a month older than Yasemin. "She really has been my lifeline..."
Finding a place to call home
Life and motherhood in Turkey have been a departure for Çiftçi, who spent 21 years in ballet school and was a marketing director for a software company for decade in England. Sensing that her daughter needed to be a bit more self-reliant, she found Eden’s Garden preschool in Yeniköy. She said Yasemin has since developed confidence and gross motor skills by climbing trees and running in grass, working with clay and doing dance and yoga. With the mix of kids speaking English, German, Turkish, French and Dutch, Çiftçi has seen her 2.5-year-old communicating by translating and using body language. While she says she is extremely happy in Turkey, home to "one of the most giving and accommodating people I’ve ever met," the bureaucratic tedium has cost her a degree of independence that she misses. Admitting that the lack of language fluency has compounded the problem, Çiftçi feels she has been forced to be overly reliant on her husband in the public sphere. Recently she bought a new car in her husband’s name because she couldn’t buy it in her name. "I don’t own anything here," she said. "I can’t even get my own credit card because the account fees for a foreigner make it not worth it. It’s like I don’t exist. I certainly don’t want to be a nomad."
In the process of obtaining Turkish citizenship, she had to sit for a criminal-style profile photo while holding a number. She explained the procedure and other bureaucratic maladies without seeming to notice that she is pantomiming each step of the process. Even as she discusses challenges, humor and good will seem to leap forth in spades.
As a practicing Christian she said she has found it difficult to trek across town to find one of the city’s few Christian churches to attend each week. "Things that are on your doorstop at home are harder to find here," she said. "You can suffer a kind of dying spiritually."
But her optimism remains sound.
No matter who you are in this life, she said, you find that people from other continents are having similar experiences. "So why do we ever feel like we’re alone? We share the same problems."
At the time of their meeting in Turkey, she was doing initial research for a book she plans to have published by the end of 2009, "It's The Law Ğ According to Florence Nightingale", which looks into the legendary nurse’s story and time in Istanbul. Praising her new city as "cosmopolitan London with the sass of the Orient that seems to hang off the Bosporus," Çiftçi lives in the marina town of Tarabya.
Even though they are continents apart, she says being in Istanbul has drawn her closer to her mother in England. "Being a mother myself has also helped me to appreciate and understand her, although I always thought she was pretty amazing and wonderful," she said. With her husband stranded in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea with a Christian tour group, her parents helped her give birth naturally in 2006. The health care aspect of being a new mother in Turkey came as a bit of a shock for Çiftçi. "Being British, I am used to order and control and customer service and health standards. I am not saying that they don't exist in Turkey, but the mother experience is really left to the families to arrange," she said. Having none of her own family nearby left her feeling frightened "with no idea what was about to happen."Çiftçi said that after baby Yasemin Florence arrived in 2006 she had no time to consider her feelings. "I have never been so busy, tired, happy, driven and skinny," she said. She made friends walking along the Bosphorus every day trying to put Yasemin to sleep. On one such walk Çiftçi met Tanya from Amsterdam, now her best friend whose son Elliot is a month older than Yasemin. "She really has been my lifeline..."
Finding a place to call home
Life and motherhood in Turkey have been a departure for Çiftçi, who spent 21 years in ballet school and was a marketing director for a software company for decade in England. Sensing that her daughter needed to be a bit more self-reliant, she found Eden’s Garden preschool in Yeniköy. She said Yasemin has since developed confidence and gross motor skills by climbing trees and running in grass, working with clay and doing dance and yoga. With the mix of kids speaking English, German, Turkish, French and Dutch, Çiftçi has seen her 2.5-year-old communicating by translating and using body language. While she says she is extremely happy in Turkey, home to "one of the most giving and accommodating people I’ve ever met," the bureaucratic tedium has cost her a degree of independence that she misses. Admitting that the lack of language fluency has compounded the problem, Çiftçi feels she has been forced to be overly reliant on her husband in the public sphere. Recently she bought a new car in her husband’s name because she couldn’t buy it in her name. "I don’t own anything here," she said. "I can’t even get my own credit card because the account fees for a foreigner make it not worth it. It’s like I don’t exist. I certainly don’t want to be a nomad."
In the process of obtaining Turkish citizenship, she had to sit for a criminal-style profile photo while holding a number. She explained the procedure and other bureaucratic maladies without seeming to notice that she is pantomiming each step of the process. Even as she discusses challenges, humor and good will seem to leap forth in spades.
As a practicing Christian she said she has found it difficult to trek across town to find one of the city’s few Christian churches to attend each week. "Things that are on your doorstop at home are harder to find here," she said. "You can suffer a kind of dying spiritually."
But her optimism remains sound.
No matter who you are in this life, she said, you find that people from other continents are having similar experiences. "So why do we ever feel like we’re alone? We share the same problems."