Hospitals, Weddings and Urfa!

     Dear all, I'M SORRY that I have been so off the radar lately!  I was sick for a good 5 days and have been playing catch up.   Many of the days from the past week and half sort of run together, so this post may be a little random and sporadic.  Sorry!  As always, the newest days are first and here is the link to my pics on Facebook.  Also, I will post about the last couple days shortly. Preview: Hiking to Mt. Nemrut to watch the sunrise with beheaded gods! 

Wednesday (06/12)
     Best thing that happened on this day: I was passed a 5 month old baby in a car moving through the city at speeds of 40-60 mph.  No one had seat belts on.  It felt so... dangerous!  My friend's host family was driving me home from dinner.  It was cool to visit another home and see how they do things.  Here, they eat dinner on the floor, so that was a new experience.  They also live in a farm, so there are tons of goats and chickens.  

Monday (06/10)

     Monday and Tuesday: nothing too special happened, but I did finally take some pics of the school!  And, also, some of the kids.  To the left is the front door of the school.

     I walked around and took pictures of some of the kids playing, but this picture is my favorite!!  This boy on the right posed for me by a graffiti wall.  So, I was basically just taking senior portraits, haha. 

     Also, I went to another hospital Monday morning because I still wasn't any better.  I stopped taking the meds because they were making me so nauseous.  Another IV later and then I started taking some fiber pills that my mom had given me.  I thought this might be the best thing to settle my stomach.  I haven't had any problems since, so that's pretty cool. 

Sunday (06/09)
     I spent all day Saturday at home resting, so there isn't much to report there.  I did see a doctor neighbor-friend of my family's since I wasn't feeling any better.  He prescribed me something else.  So, at this point, I was taking like 3 medications.  
     On Sunday my family decided to take me to Urfa!!  Some of you already know this, but I was actually supposed to teach in Urfa instead of Adiyaman--this was before LE decided to place all the volunteers in the same city to be together.  So, I was really really pumped to visit here.  Urfa is the birthplace of Abraham and it was really awesome.  We visited "Fish Lake" and saw some other touristy stuff.  These are pictures of Fish Lake and SO many fish that you could pay to throw pellets at:

       
   









     We also visited a dam that my host father used to work at.  It controls the Tigris and the Euphrates.  I've also been told that Syria and Iran have to be nice to Turkey or else they have the power to shut off their water supply.  So, here it is:

Friday (06/07)

     Turkish wedding. Do want. So we were sort of invited to a wedding...through the grapevine.  When we showed up, I looked over at the bride's table.  I have never in my life seen such an unhappy bride.   I'm really just hoping that she preferred to hide her emotions or something, but she was actually sort of frowning.  Anyway, we started dancing and it was SO fun!  They dance in circles by linking pinkies.  After a bit, an old lady came up and grabbed my shoulder, spun me around and made me dance with her.  I thought it was hilarious.  She also followed me around the entire night snapping pics of me on her fancy camera phone.  Then as she was leaving, she ran up and got a pic with me.  I'm not entirely sure why she was so obsessed with me but it was flattering I guess.  Here is a pic of the bride with a huge cake: (I hate to admit this, but the cake isn't real)

     Also, my older brother sent me message in celebration of national doughnut day--how cruel!  Doughnuts don't exist here.  Plus, I was sick to my stomach.  Just bad all the way around.

Thursday (06/06)
     This was the second day that I was sick so I let them take me to the hospital.  I was SO glad that our program coordinator was with me!!  Adele is the greatest.  And she speaks Turkish, so she was able to translate!  I had woken up with a fever of 101.9 and felt nauseous, weak and just all around horrible.  At the hospital they drew blood to run tests and gave me an IV for rehydration.  After the IV was done we left and rejoined the rest of the group here at this cool place:

    This is a cafe sort of place all the way above Adiyaman.  The view was fabulous and we had a lot of fun learning to dance like the Turks do.  
     Also, free-est day ever.  Ever.  First of all, Serdar covered my medical expenses at the hospital.  I tried so hard to pay and he wouldn't let me!  He even picked up the medication for me that the doctor had prescribed.  After we made it to the school to teach that day Adele and I walked to a local pharmacy to pick up some aspirin because I still had a headache.  When I tried to pay they said no and to take it.  What??  It was so so nice of them!!  While we were walking back to the school we decided to stop by this all-natural, organic hippy sort of place (well, hippy to Americans, but totally normal here).  Adele wanted some weird syrup stuff and I wanted a jar of rose jam (made from roses, duh).  The man in there refused to let us pay too!  I think I ended up spending a total of 1 Turkish Lira on this day, which is like 50 cents.  Insane!

Wednesday (06/05)

     Sick, so sick.  The janitor from the school chilled with me while Adele taught my class for me.  He was so hilarious!  First off, he offered me pumpkin seeds when he saw me sweating off a fever.  I didn't know what to do with them but I definitely didn't want to eat them right then.  So, I waited until he walked away and I shoved them in a random pocket in my backpack.  He didn't know a lick of English but he kept trying to make me take tic tacs because he thought they were my headache medicine, hahaha!  Then he took me to the bathroom to splash water on my face.  I had a really bad headache and was super hot and everything I was eating was going right through me. Sorry y'all, this post is gettin' real.  Several people kept asking if they could take me to the hospital but I didn't understand.  In America, hospitals = surgery, cancer, or something really serious, so I didn't think it was necessary.  I found out later that they just casually show up in the ER for absolutely anything.