Dawkins spends a great deal of time early in The God Delusion explaining the concept of NOMA, that is, “non-overlapping magisteria.” This simply means the classic argument that science and religion are two different things, addressing completely different issues. I agree with Dawkins that this is not actually true. The interests of science and religion often overlap and address the same issues, not the least of which being the whole question of how and why we got here in the first place. But Dawkins argument against the NOMA position is simply that religious propositions can and should be testable by science.
He uses the example of an experiment on the effects of prayer, conducted by the Templeton Foundation, which found that there was no measurable difference between patients who were prayed for and those who weren’t – at least if they didn’t know they were being prayed for. The ones who knew they were being prayed for actually did worse, perhaps, Dawkins muses, due to a sort of “performance anxiety”. Dawkins argues that this is one way that a specific claim of religion could be tested, and was. Therefore, he believes, science can be used to prove or disprove religion, or at least certain claims thereof.
But what he fails to understand in criticizing this position is the reason it is invoked by people of faith. He assumes, due to his own bias as an intellectual and a scientist, that NOMA is intended to keep science from messing with the sacred, probably because as soon as it does it will blow it out of the water. So fear, in Dawkins view, is the chief motivation. He is especially cheesed because whenever something comes to light as a result of scientific inquiry that seems to support religious positions, the religious seize on it and trumpet it far and wide in the hopes of proving themselves right.
I see it differently. I think the NOMA position is rather an acknowledgement that there is a fundamentally different and opposite assumption at the basis of each position. Science asserts that human reason is capable of understanding everything (at least eventually), while religion asserts that human reason can’t. Although I have yet to finish the book, Dawkins keeps coming back to this point, and it really is that simple: science emphasizes reason, religion emphasizes faith. I found this thoroughly disappointing. If I wanted such an uncomplicated argument, I could have gone to any fundamentalist church – there’s at least five within walking distance of where I sit this very moment, thanks to my home being in the oh so wonderful South.
You see, ultimately I disagree with the NOMA position precisely because I don’t think it’s true that science and religion never overlap. And in spite of his attempt to say that NOMA is untenable, when we find out the main point of his argument, Dawkins ultimately ends up using it himself, if it can be restated in the way I have restated it: that science trusts in reason and religion trusts in faith. So Dawkins cannot truly undermine the position of faith because he cannot understand it.
He fails to understand it because of all the abuses and failures of religion that he sees. And they are many, nor is he unjustified in pointing them out. He argues that the “God hypothesis” is ultimately no more than an excuse for intellectual laziness, as it encourages people to be content with lack of understanding. This, unfortunately, is true, but it seems to me a horribly un-Christian position to take, for reasons I will explain below. Dawkins also, inevitably, points out the horrors that have been carried out in the name of religion, which, also unfortunately, are many. But again, these are abuses of religion, and by no means endorsed by God.
Rather than taking the NOMA position, I advocate a position of overlapping but distinct magisteria. That is, while science and religion can and should address the same issues, they do so in entirely different ways, and based on entirely different, opposing assumptions, as we have seen. This is a position the religious can more easily take than the scientist, since they have no problem with co-existing but mutually exclusive phenomenon.
Here’s how this point-of-view would work, on a practical level. Christians would pursue the sciences with just as much skepticism and objectivism as the staunchest atheists in the field, even if that means operating under or even endeavoring to prove evolutionary theory. They would do so for the most religious of reasons: bringing glory to God. You see, God gave us our human intellects for the same reason He fashioned the heavens and the earth and administers all the laws thereof: to bring glory to His name. The chief way He does that, and the pinnacle of all creation, its very reason for existence is to bring humanity into relationship with Him. Thus, the intellect exists chiefly for us to contemplate the profound mystery of God. One way we do that is by contemplating His creation, and it is indeed, as Dawkins would argue, lazy and in fact irresponsible for us to say “God did it” and thereby stop asking questions about it. That does not challenge us to grow closer to God, nor to understand Him at a deeper level. It leaves our relationship with Him stagnant, when it ought to be dynamic.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Reflections, Part One: Islam and Christianity
With the inflammatory actions of a small, but vehement local church, I think this topic is vitally important. What is the reality of Islam and the beliefs of its practitioners, and how do they compare to Christianity and the words of the Bible? That's what I hope to answer here.
God
From my year spent in Turkey, one thing I learned about Islam is the very high view they have of God. Part of the argument against God being incarnate in Jesus Christ is that God is too holy, too far above mankind to lower Himself to become one of us. But there is a profound irony in this high view of God, which I will expound upon in the section on salvation. On the topic of Jesus unity with God, the Bible says many things, including the words of Christ Himself:
Jesus says:
John 10:30 “I and the Father are one.”
John 14:9 “He who has seen me has seen the Father.”
And in Paul's epistle to the Phillipians, we read:
2:5-7 “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”
Prayer
The Muslim conception of prayer is vastly different from the Protestant Christian understanding. It is repetition, and must be done in the same way, every time. When I went to the doctor, I chatted with one of the nurses for a while, who asked if I was a Christian. He said it must be hard for me, since there were no churches in the city, so I couldn't go anywhere to pray. As a Protestant, I have no need to go to a church to pray. I can pray anywhere and everywhere I am, and at any time of the day, not only the five times prescribed by Islam.
More importantly, the nature of prayer for us as Christians is actual communication with God. It is the chance to offer worship and thanks to God, and bring my problems or the concerns of life to Him. And though I have never physically heard Him speak, He does answer our prayers, whether through His word, His people, or His provision for the needs we bring to Him.
For examples of what prayer is, we can look to the prayers of Christ Himself, recorded in all four of the Gospels. Any look at these will show that prayer is an intimate, personal encounter with God. And the entirety of the Psalms, long before the incarnation of Christ, are examples that demonstrate the same thing. David, in the Psalms, was sometimes brutally honest with God, even accusing Him of failing to fulfill His promises. And though we can pray the Psalms or the prayers of Christ, and many of us do, those are not our only options. Prayer is a way of drawing close and growing intimate with God, something it does not do in Islam, if I understand it correctly. But of course, how can one be intimate with a God who is so far above and beyond mankind?
Salvation
Here is where the irony of Islam's high view of God, which I alluded to earlier, comes in. Muslims and Christians actually agree that God is great, and beyond human comprehension, even, if things worked the way they should, beyond human access. And yet Islam maintains that simply performing the actions that God revealed through the Quran – profession of faith, fasting, prayer five times a day, charity, and pilgrimage. But if God is so high and great, beyond human access, how can these simple actions impress Him?
Christians say they can't. For us, even the much more elaborate system of laws laid out in the first five books of the Old Testament are not enough. Even a person who kept every detail of these laws to the letter would still deserve damnation. God is too Holy to be impressed by human actions, no matter how well-intentioned. As Paul writes:
Romans 3: 20 “For by the works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”
In fact, he argues that all the laws in the Old Testament do is condemn us the more!
Romans 4:15 “For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.”
We cannot be saved by following the law, but only by the sacrifice of Jesus. In the same section of Romans, Paul argues that it was not Abraham's following the laws of God, but His faith that made Him righteous.
Romans 4:13 “For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.
That it is only by faith in Christ is further made clear in Paul's letter to the Ephesians:
Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Islam still seeks salvation through faith. It can be said of every religion (including Christianity at times in the lives of individual believers as well as particular types of it), that religion is humanity's attempt to reach God. But only bible-based Christianity argues that instead, God has come to reach man.
Community
Finally, on the topic of community of believers, my experience with Islam remained sadly silent. Certainly, believers form communities whatever their religion, and the doing of good works necessarily involves community. However, I have seen no evidence that the concept of community is inherent in the faith.
It is in Christianity. Ephesians is again an excellent source to point to in examining the role of the community in Christianity. It is full of metaphors of the body of Christ, and even suggests that Jesus' work of salvation was meant to draw us into a community. I think it is clear from the Bible that God's plan of salvation from the beginning of time was to save a people for Himself – in other words, to redeem a community of believers in Him. Jesus summed up the commands of God from the Old Testament in just two:
Matthew 22: 37 “And He said to them, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”
I think Islam would have no problem at all with the first one, given their appropriately high view of God. And though they would likely not say the second one is wrong, I know of nothing in their own writings that compares. It seems that, for a Muslim, the most important thing is one's own relationship with God.
But Christianity was never meant to be experienced alone. The work of salvation itself is a community affair.
So, there are similarities in the two religions, particularly in the understanding of how great our God is. But really, I have to argue that Christianity has an even higher view of God's greatness: if only the work of God Himself (incarnate in Christ Jesus) is enough to earn God's favor, while all works of man are “like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6), Christians seem to believe that God is even higher and more beyond the access of humanity than Muslims. This only makes the access purchased through Jesus' blood the sweeter and more intimate, allowing prayer to be so much more than mere repetition. And it is an integral part of the Christian experience that we live in a community of believers. That is in fact the purpose of attending church. Not to recite meaningless prayers, nor even to experience the intimate prayer that only Jesus' death and resurrection permit to us. The church is where we go to connect to God through His people. We do that in part through prayer, yes, but also through collective worship, reading of the word, and just plain and simple fellowship – just hanging out with people who are as close as brothers and sisters because of our shared experience with the transforming power of Christ.
This is a fairly good summation of what I have learned from a face to face encounter with Islam. Feel free to comment, and especially is I've gotten something wrong, please correct me!
God
From my year spent in Turkey, one thing I learned about Islam is the very high view they have of God. Part of the argument against God being incarnate in Jesus Christ is that God is too holy, too far above mankind to lower Himself to become one of us. But there is a profound irony in this high view of God, which I will expound upon in the section on salvation. On the topic of Jesus unity with God, the Bible says many things, including the words of Christ Himself:
Jesus says:
John 10:30 “I and the Father are one.”
John 14:9 “He who has seen me has seen the Father.”
And in Paul's epistle to the Phillipians, we read:
2:5-7 “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”
Prayer
The Muslim conception of prayer is vastly different from the Protestant Christian understanding. It is repetition, and must be done in the same way, every time. When I went to the doctor, I chatted with one of the nurses for a while, who asked if I was a Christian. He said it must be hard for me, since there were no churches in the city, so I couldn't go anywhere to pray. As a Protestant, I have no need to go to a church to pray. I can pray anywhere and everywhere I am, and at any time of the day, not only the five times prescribed by Islam.
More importantly, the nature of prayer for us as Christians is actual communication with God. It is the chance to offer worship and thanks to God, and bring my problems or the concerns of life to Him. And though I have never physically heard Him speak, He does answer our prayers, whether through His word, His people, or His provision for the needs we bring to Him.
For examples of what prayer is, we can look to the prayers of Christ Himself, recorded in all four of the Gospels. Any look at these will show that prayer is an intimate, personal encounter with God. And the entirety of the Psalms, long before the incarnation of Christ, are examples that demonstrate the same thing. David, in the Psalms, was sometimes brutally honest with God, even accusing Him of failing to fulfill His promises. And though we can pray the Psalms or the prayers of Christ, and many of us do, those are not our only options. Prayer is a way of drawing close and growing intimate with God, something it does not do in Islam, if I understand it correctly. But of course, how can one be intimate with a God who is so far above and beyond mankind?
Salvation
Here is where the irony of Islam's high view of God, which I alluded to earlier, comes in. Muslims and Christians actually agree that God is great, and beyond human comprehension, even, if things worked the way they should, beyond human access. And yet Islam maintains that simply performing the actions that God revealed through the Quran – profession of faith, fasting, prayer five times a day, charity, and pilgrimage. But if God is so high and great, beyond human access, how can these simple actions impress Him?
Christians say they can't. For us, even the much more elaborate system of laws laid out in the first five books of the Old Testament are not enough. Even a person who kept every detail of these laws to the letter would still deserve damnation. God is too Holy to be impressed by human actions, no matter how well-intentioned. As Paul writes:
Romans 3: 20 “For by the works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”
In fact, he argues that all the laws in the Old Testament do is condemn us the more!
Romans 4:15 “For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.”
We cannot be saved by following the law, but only by the sacrifice of Jesus. In the same section of Romans, Paul argues that it was not Abraham's following the laws of God, but His faith that made Him righteous.
Romans 4:13 “For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.
That it is only by faith in Christ is further made clear in Paul's letter to the Ephesians:
Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Islam still seeks salvation through faith. It can be said of every religion (including Christianity at times in the lives of individual believers as well as particular types of it), that religion is humanity's attempt to reach God. But only bible-based Christianity argues that instead, God has come to reach man.
Community
Finally, on the topic of community of believers, my experience with Islam remained sadly silent. Certainly, believers form communities whatever their religion, and the doing of good works necessarily involves community. However, I have seen no evidence that the concept of community is inherent in the faith.
It is in Christianity. Ephesians is again an excellent source to point to in examining the role of the community in Christianity. It is full of metaphors of the body of Christ, and even suggests that Jesus' work of salvation was meant to draw us into a community. I think it is clear from the Bible that God's plan of salvation from the beginning of time was to save a people for Himself – in other words, to redeem a community of believers in Him. Jesus summed up the commands of God from the Old Testament in just two:
Matthew 22: 37 “And He said to them, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”
I think Islam would have no problem at all with the first one, given their appropriately high view of God. And though they would likely not say the second one is wrong, I know of nothing in their own writings that compares. It seems that, for a Muslim, the most important thing is one's own relationship with God.
But Christianity was never meant to be experienced alone. The work of salvation itself is a community affair.
So, there are similarities in the two religions, particularly in the understanding of how great our God is. But really, I have to argue that Christianity has an even higher view of God's greatness: if only the work of God Himself (incarnate in Christ Jesus) is enough to earn God's favor, while all works of man are “like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6), Christians seem to believe that God is even higher and more beyond the access of humanity than Muslims. This only makes the access purchased through Jesus' blood the sweeter and more intimate, allowing prayer to be so much more than mere repetition. And it is an integral part of the Christian experience that we live in a community of believers. That is in fact the purpose of attending church. Not to recite meaningless prayers, nor even to experience the intimate prayer that only Jesus' death and resurrection permit to us. The church is where we go to connect to God through His people. We do that in part through prayer, yes, but also through collective worship, reading of the word, and just plain and simple fellowship – just hanging out with people who are as close as brothers and sisters because of our shared experience with the transforming power of Christ.
This is a fairly good summation of what I have learned from a face to face encounter with Islam. Feel free to comment, and especially is I've gotten something wrong, please correct me!
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Top Ten Things I Will Miss About Turkey
10. Baklava
9. Music: Bağlama and guitar duos in every Teahouse.
8. The Bazaar
7. Buying dried apricots and figs from street vendors
6. The food!
5. The dancing
4. Çay
3. Travelling: Ancient, Classical, Byzantine and Ottoman ruins all over the place!
2. The language.
1. İnsanlar: My friends, co-workers, Ahmet the taxi driver, Ramazan and Suleyman the shopkeepers at the market, Mustafa one of their sons, and all the random people who come up to you to practice the six words of English they know!
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
One Last Trip
This past weekend I went with two of my co-workers to Mersin - or rather, Kız Kalesi, to be precise, a town near Mersin, named for the amazing castle floating out in the middle of the ocean a few yards from shore. The trip was amazing, and the timing of it couldn’t have been better, at two weeks before I leave the country. And I enjoyed the company of my friends Duygu and Selda.
We left at 1 AM Saturday morning, switched buses in Mersin, and arrived at about 7:00 AM I think. We slept until about 10, after the late night travel session, then spent the entire day at the beach. It was scorchingly hot and I got burned pretty bad, but it was sooooo relaxing and the water was the perfect temperature. I enjoyed the uniquely Turkish institutions of selling simit (a fresh baked roll of bread formed in a circle) as well as tea and coffee on the beach. The guys walk around with trays of simit or canteens of hot water with tea and instant coffee mix, which you can buy for about a lira each. Only in Turkey!
After dinner, we watched some of the world cup match that evening (Paraguay vs. Spain, Spain won), with the intention to go back out afterwards, but during the match, we all just fell asleep. We did get a chance to walk around in the evening before that, however, which was nice, but nothing out of the ordinary or notable happened. We did stop to buy magnets featuring aerial pictures of the castle, though.
On Sunday, along with one of the Zirve University staff folks, the head of security, in fact, who was also in town, joined us for a day long boat tour. This provided great views of the castle, swimming in coves, and a rather lively dance party on the boat. There was one cove in particular that had an awesome underwater cave on the other side of some overhanging rocks. You duck your head under and swim forward a few feet, and when you come back up for air, you’re inside an awesome cave, with the light from outside coming through an opening in the rock wall and bouncing off the water to reflect on the other walls. After that, we went back to our hotel, got showers, and met up with the security man, who gave us a ride home. On the way, we dropped off another passenger, who lived in Karamanmaraş, a city famous for its ice cream, which, in spite of it being after midnight, we made sure to sample. We arrived back in Gaziantep the same hour we had left - 1 AM.
Taking this trip at this time proved more perfect than I could have realized (especially since I had originally wanted to go two weeks earlier). But I’m now in my last two weeks in Turkey, finishing class this week with exams next week. And due to this trip, instead of thinking about all the negative things and the problems we’ve had with the administration’s decisions, the cultural differences in running a university, and the mundane grind of working every day, I’m thinking about the good things about this country: the amazing places like Kız Kalesi, the amazing people like Duygu, Selda, and Hacer Bey, and the memories I have of all the trips I’ve been able to take since being here. And that is a great attitude to have while finishing up. It’s even got me thinking that I have to come back to visit - but I don’t want to ever work here again, if I can help it!
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Swimming Between the Sexes
Sunday, we went to a swimming pool just a short drive by taxi outside of town. It was a lot of fun, and much needed. Being able to immerse oneself in water makes everything so much better. But here, too, cultural differences abound.
In the first place, there were two distinct sections: a men’s section and a family section, which meant women and children could be there. We wanted the family section, which was a little bit more well-kept, and one of us was married with his wife, so we boldly strode forward into the family section. After a brief row with a security guard, who saw five men and one woman and didn’t like it, a local man came to our rescue and argued that we would not cause a problem, and that he should let us stay. So we did.
However, the male members of our group did make a few forays onto the other side, where we were stared at, asked to play basketball with, and more than a little discomfited by the absence of even a single female member of the species. However, the men’s side had all the best waterslides.
During the course of the day one topic of conversation that came up was how the reasoning behind such separation hinges on a supposedly Koranic teaching that men can’t control themselves, which is why women here are encouraged to wear full headscarfs and trenchcoats in 100-degree weather. If that’s the case, then why do these out-of-control men get all the privileges and status in society? It is, as our female companion put it, “rewarding bad behavior.”
If, as men, we are so incapable of controlling ourselves, why don’t you lock us away in the kitchen and home all day and let the more level-headed women deal with the business of life outside the home? The logic makes no sense to me. I say men sure are responsible for their behavior, and the heavier the consequences for behaving irresponsibly, the better!
Women ought to be treated with respect and dignity, in spite of whatever male urges we might have. Making them over up to the point of discomfort only hides the problem, it doesn’t deal with it. Only the heart-changing power of the Gospel can work to break the problem, and even then, it often takes quite a long time, as I can attest personally.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Getting Lost and Losing Money
Last Tuesday I went to Zirve’s business school, where I have been teaching Spanish to a woman in the export - import business. Usually there is a taxi for the people going home that the school pays for. However, there were so many people that particular night that we couldn’t all fit in the taxi. So, the alternative was to catch a ride home with a couple of the students, however, through a miscommunication and my lesson running a bit late, the students left with one other teacher, and without me.
The director apologized and gave me money for bus fare, which was a good thing, because I was quite thoroughly broke. So I waited and waited for the bus, but those going my way are rather infrequent from the nearest stop. The only one I saw that I thought would go that way was for Karataş, an area not too far from where I live - or so I thought! I took it, and after weaving its way through many parts of the city I didn’t know, I decided to ask someone.
“Üniversite çok uzak” were the oh-so-encouraging words I heard. “The University is very far.” Yikes! So, after a consultation that seemed to involve everyone on the dolmuş - that is, the small, tightly packed buses that travel just a bit faster than the larger public ones - they suggested I get off at a certain stop where I can then catch a bus going towards University. That is, I could catch a bus, if I weren’t so broke that I didn’t even have enough to cover bus fare!
So I walked. It was a bit of a hike, but not so far as I had feared, and after a block of walking in the direction the folks on the bus had pointed out, I found myself in familiar surroundings. By then, I was able to judge about how far I was, because I knew the area. It wasn’t close, but it could have been a lot worse.
The next day was even more frustrating. Because of not having any money, I was trying desperately to find ways of accessing the money in my American account. I have forgotten my PIN number because I haven’t used the card since I’ve been here. I realized I might be able to send money to myself through Western Union - I might get charged a fee, but that would be better than starving! So I tried it.
I left work early to send some mail, go to the Western Union at the bank, and go to the doctor. The doctor and the post office went off without a hitch, but getting my money didn’t happen. I sent $100 to myself, which was more than I really needed, but sending less didn’t seem worth it. I went to the bank and it turned out that I needed the number I hadn’t written down. So I came back home, got the number, and went back. Once I had the number, it turned out they couldn’t give me money because my middle name is on my passport, which I was using to verify my identity, and it wasn’t on the information about who would pick it up! So I tried to correct the problem by resending it, with the intent to call customer service and work out the details later. Resending resulted in a separate transaction, and did not allow me to add my middle name to the pick up details. So now I was out $200, and couldn’t pick it up.
So of course I called customer service, but they naturally suspected some kind of fraud and were evasive in answering my questions. Moreover, the only way I could make any changes to the transaction would be for them to call the phone number that they have on file, and speak to me. The phone number they have on file is my Mom’s number back home, where I’m obviously not! So they couldn’t add my middle name to allow me to pick it up, or cancel it without speaking to me at that number!
And now there is $200 sitting in Western Union with no possibility of being picked up. Quite frustrating, really, and nothing I can do about it, it seems.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Monday, I felt like my ear was a little swollen, so I decided to go to the doctor after work. And boy, was it an adventure!
I went to the Gaziantep University hospital, asked the information desk where to go for an ear problem, and was pointed to the ENT on the fourth floor. The ENT (or KBB, for Kulak, Burun, Boğaz) office secretary actually spoke pretty good English, but not well enough that there weren't problems communicating.
I will give the rest of the story from the Skype conversation I had with my girlfriend, copy/pasted below:
[17.05.2010 18:18:25] Jeremy Graves: then at one point, while I waited for an hour and a half, a lady from the public relations office came by, and he told her about me, and she hung around helping translate what the other guy couldn't say
[17.05.2010 18:18:41] Jeremy Graves: even though I'd figured most of it out by context
[17.05.2010 18:19:07] Jeremy Graves: oh, and I was waiting BEHIND THE SECRETARY'S desk this whole time!
[17.05.2010 18:19:17] Jeremy Graves: because that's where they invited me to sit
[17.05.2010 18:19:35] Jeremy Graves: then the secretary took me to the staff lounge or something for tea
[17.05.2010 18:19:41] Jeremy Graves: we chatted for a bit there
[17.05.2010 18:20:19] Jeremy Graves: then I finally saw the doctor, confirmed that it was an ear infection, got cleaned and vaccuumed out, and a prescription
[17.05.2010 18:21:01] Jeremy Graves: had to come back home, sort through old e-mails to find the number to give them for insurance
[17.05.2010 18:22:02] Jeremy Graves: went back, dealt with the PR lady again to get that worked out - it wasn't working (I guess from context), she apparently called Zirve, got it worked out
[17.05.2010 18:22:35] Jeremy Graves: then we wait for the secretary (his name was Mehmet), to physically walk me to the pharmacy across the street so I can get my meds
[17.05.2010 18:23:05] Jeremy Graves: only to find out the internet isn't working so they couldn't work out payment with insurance and I have to go tomorrow
Mehmet invites me for tea again, and I thought, what the heck, so I joined him for a while, he practiced his English and then he had to get back to work and I came home
But the story doesn't end there, actually. I went back to the pharmacy the next day, taking a taxi from work since there were no buses in the middle of the day because there were no students (exams had been finished that morning). The taxi driver who we've all used frequently invited me for tea, and at first I protested, but again decided "Why not?" and agreed. So he drives me to the pharmacy, waits for me while I try to get my meds. I was waiting for a long time, uncertain what was happening, when finally Ahmet, the driver, comes in to see what the problem is. He finds out the internet is down again, and finally convinces the pharmacy tech to take down my information and a telephone number (I gave them Zirve's, since I don't have a cell phone here, and am not going to get one with only eight weeks left), so that they could process these things later. Then we went and had tea.
And as always, a seemingly simple task turned into a huge ordeal. But that's part of the fun of living in a foreign country. And because of that, I didn't feel stressed or upset, just amused.
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