The Beds in the Alley

The students got settled into their apartments the first night we got here, but the Mallery family had a temporary apartment for a few days and then moved into our permanent place once it became available. Yesterday was moving day, and when we arrived at the new apartment the landlord told us that he had ordered new beds, but they hadn't arrived yet. Because we were going to be out for the rest of the day, he waited for the delivery and had them installed in the apartment. When we arrived home we noticed two things: a) the new beds were in the apartment and b) the old beds appeared to have been left in the alley across the street. This started me ruminating about why he had left the beds in the alley. Is it appropriate to leave your old things on the street or is he violating a social rule? Is there an expectation that there are enough needy people in the neighborhood that someone will make use of it? Is there someone who cleans the area whose job it is to remove discards? If it's near a dumpster will the trash collectors pick it up? We kept an eye on the beds in the alley. Two trash trucks came and went (the same day) and the beds were still there. This morning when we got up the beds were still there, but after breakfast they had been scavenged. I have been trying to encourage the students to keep their eyes and ears open and become active observers of the world around them. It takes a while to get used to paying close attention and asking questions about your environment, but once you get used to seeing this way you find that you benefit so much from it you don't want to go back. So far my gentle encouragement of the students has only been moderately successful. When I asked them what the sign on the mosque across the street from their apartment said, none of them knew (it says something to the effect that when you come into the mosque, whoever you are, you become part of our community. Please dress in a way that is appropriate to community standards so you don't disturb other community members). Today I decided that the students needed a little shove, so I asked for their hypotheses about the bed incident. We talked about that and about some of the other puzzles of life here (why won't the landlord let us cook our own eggs at breakfast? Why is there a child care room on the hippodrome during Ramadan? I gave them an ethnographic assignment to help increase their ability to observe the world actively. We'll see what they come back with. They are visiting more "Turkish" neighborhoods and have been expressly instructed to look, listen, ask themselves questions, and form possible hypotheses. They learned how to find culture informants to help them interpret the culture, and they have several people they know they can fall back on for help with understanding things they observe. Already I think we're on the right track, and I hope we will all learn from each other on this adventure.