i haven't forgotten about mr. punduk and my last post. i'll get to them this weekend.

today, probably more for myself than anything else - a part of a skype conversation i had early wednesday morning with a friend in sri lanka.

5:21 AM
it's looking GOOOD!!!
as in 
obama has unofficially won

5:22 AM
whooohooo

eb
5:32 AM
It's not over until it's over!
See last formula 1 race, last lap, last curve!

me
5:36 AM
mathematically, it's over

eb
5:39 AM
What is your source? BBC: 207 - 138 CNN: 207 - 135

me
5:39 AM
bbc has been behind most of the night but we are watching cnn
and when you look at the states left - mccain can't win

unless something insane happens in washington, california and oregon

me
5:40 AM
cali has 55 electoral votes

eb
5:40 AM
Let's wait for Florida and the 500 dispatched lawyers

me
5:40 AM
yeah. i wish it wasn't so close in florida

eb
5:41 AM
Well, I am there with you with the enthousiasm, but I rather wait out the end

me
5:44 AM
i won't celebrate until they are called
but i'm feeling a lot better than i did 6 hours ago

5:53 AM
california polls close in a few min

5:54 AM
looking at ny times site

5:55 AM
220 electoral votes now
50 more needed

5:59 AM
oh yes
it was virginia that voted for obama to bring the votes up to 220
for the first time the state has voted dem in 45 years!

6:00 AM
cnn just called it! 
obama

eb
6:01 AM
Oh my gawd!

me
6:01 AM
oh my gawd

eb
6:01 AM
Imagine that celebration!

me
6:02 AM
unreal
npr just declared it obama too
it is over
i hope you are all dancing your tails off in sri lanka!

eb
6:03 AM
Well, I am sick, but as soon as I get ok, I will just do that!

me
6:05 AM
ohhh.... take care of yourself
hopefully, this will help you recover faster

eb
6:05 AM
Insh'Allah!

me
6:34 AM
we just had champagne!
the first call to prayer was just a little while ago
and now the sun is rising over sultanahmet, the bosphorus, topkapi palace.... amazing.

eb
7:15 AM
That is beautiful!

yes, i really did stay up all night, obsessively glued to the television watching cnn (ok, with occasional forays to al jazeera and bbc) and compulsively hopping from one news website to another. npr, ny times, washington post, fox news, cnn, bbc...

about 15 of us gathered at a friend's house - some people arriving early and leaving after a few hours, a few arriving much later after having taken naps, some of us clearly with no sense staying up all night. we drank copious amounts of coffee (mine laced with baileys) and just watched and waited. our collective breath held, if only just a little, unconsciously, waiting to see which way history would go.

i'm hopeful. cautiously so because so many things can happen and while a person can campaign to be one kind of president, the realities of the office can push events in directions few could expect. but for the first time in a long time, i'm hopeful.

i've heard people say they are not so embarrassed to admit they are from the us right now. i kind of understand that. however, i am, and always have been, proud of where i come from. i am not always proud of the things my government has done nor the way we have behaved at times as a whole. but at the end of the day, it is my country and i have had the pure dumb luck of having been born in a country and a time when so much is possible. i have had the stunning fortune to be from a country that can be unbelievably warm, genuine, creative, inventive, determined, funny, generous, unique and unbelievably amazing in so many ways.

it's easy to criticize and complain and our country has certainly provided us many reasons to do both in the last few years. it's not always so easy to recognize and acknowledge the good - especially in times of great trial. i am happy that american voters cared enough about the challenges that currently face our country to participate in the election process. i'm so happy people got out to vote to set our country on what many of us hope will be a better path than the one we have been going down for the last several years. i'm glad people haven't given up and still believe.

i believe.

i'm even clapping my hands.

oh... we celebrated with a great big american breakfast at 6:30. scrambled eggs, hash browns and a huge ol' pile o bacon! and mimosas. mmm... bacon.... mmm... mimosas.... mmmm... american breakfast.....mmmm.....

here's breakfast -

well, i've already managed to screw up nablopomooooo.... i totally forgot it was november. a little hard to understand how that could happen since even here i hear "election! election! election! vote! vote! vote!" many times a day.

a couple friends and i decided on saturday morning that the best way to get over being out dancing late on halloween night was to go for a long walk through part of the city. i walked from my flat in cukurcuma to the galata bridge where i stood and watched men and boys fishing. the top deck is for car traffic and the light rail train and has wide sidewalks almost continuously inhabited by men fishing in the bosphorus. the lower deck is filled with fish restaurants and bars that offer narghile (aka water pipes or hookahs) with a wide range of flavored tobaccos. even though you can see the fishing lines hanging down in front of you while sitting at any of the restaurants, somehow, no one ever seems to get caught by an errant fishing hook swaying in the breeze before finally hitting the water with a little inaudible plop.

once over the bridge, we headed east towards the greek patriarchate (where the head of the greek orthodox church is). we passed masses of traffic, a heaving bus station and then through waterside parks where people and stray dogs were lying and sitting on the grass enjoying the amazing november day.

after a great lunch in balaat of spicy kebabs wrapped in lavash (these are pretty much the same thing tortillas), we headed up the hill toward fatih.

this is known as being one of the most conservative neighborhoods in istanbul and most of the women were covered. some wore headscarves and long coats but the vast majority were covered from head to toe in black hijabs. seeing one or two at a time tends to have little effect on me. however, seeing group after group of women all dressed this way is sort of eery. it felt like i'd suddenly been transported somewhere quiet alien and foreign. i found msyelf wondering what the women thought of me. i'm clearly a foreigner so they don't expect me to be covered but i still wonder if they are offended by my jeans and t-shirt. disgusted? envious of my freedom of movement? do they even care?

from fatih, we worked our way over to a neighborhood called sulukule. this is claimed to be the oldest romani (roma, rroma, gypsy) community in the world. several years ago, the turkish government began informing the residents that they needed to leave. the government has decided to have the area completely "renewed" with brand-new ottoman-style buildings. that means making all the residents move and knocking down their homes and apartment buildings.

i have never been to sulukule before and didn't know quite what to expect. we turned a corner, walked a few metres and suddenly, i realized i was looking at a building that had been partially destroyed by bulldozers and wrecking balls. again, i felt momentarily displaced, as if i had been suddenly swept away to one of many towns in bosnia that still bear the scars of bombing. i actually didn't comprehend what i was looking at as i walked down the quiet, dusty street.

then it dawned on me. the five or six-storey building in front of me had, until just a few months ago, been the home to dozens of families. we walked a little further and turned down another street that was almost entirely rubble on either side of the roadway. we stopped and stood there looking around, trying to process what we were seeing. as we stood there, a little boy of about 3 or 4 came up to us and sort of yelled something at us. it wasn't in turkish and we definitely didn't understand. however, that didn't stop him - he just kept yelling it at us, even as he flirted and played and rammed into us with all his little boy energy.

as we stood there playing with him, we could see across the street that there was a family living amongst the piles of brick, cement and steel. the little boy was pretty dirty from playing outside and his sister, who is probably about 8, was even more so, covered with great big smudges of henna on her hands, face and feet. her hair even looked a little orange from all the henna she had on her.

we finally started walking again and came across a man who gave us directions to the neighborhood community center. he warned us that continuing in the direction we were headed probably wasn't a good idea. he said there were prostitutes and junkies who go into the partially destroyed buildings at night.it's always hard to tell when getting advice like that if it's true and helpful advice or simply a projection of someone else's fears and prejudices - cloaked in helpfulness.

we soon found ourselves in the part of sulukule that hasn't been destroyed - at least not yet. it was dusk as we walked down the street and there were lots of people out. cars occasionally rolled past on the narrow road leaving a small wake of dirt floating in the air. children were out playing and shouting. people were shopping before they headed home for the evening while men sat on chairs outside stores and people leaned out their apartment buildings, leaning on their arms on pillows set in the window frames as they rested their bodies half in and half out to watch the evening unfold and talk to their neighbors.

tomorrow - mr. punduk, the sulukule orkestrasi and an unbelievable situation.

been gone almost a year (at least six months) and i'm going to start with a little rant.

i think not voting in federal and state elections, as a form of protest, is understandable. fair enough – why participate in something you cannot support?  i also understand the argument that a single vote makes no difference. mathematically, i doubt it's probable (or even possible) that my vote in a national election be a swing vote. or your vote, for that matter.

however, when those two arguments are combined, it strikes me as either laziness or nonconformity just to be able to say one is not conforming (which isn’t being much of a rebel, is it?). that’s silly. here’s how it works – if you don’t vote as a form of protest AND you believe that your single vote doesn’t count, how does your single non-vote say anything at all?

i admit that the idea that we have any say as individual voters in what happens in our political system is a bit naïve, or at best, idealistic. however, when i consider the alternative, not even a pretense of representation, i figure it’s worth the effort to vote. maybe the system needs to be fixed but not participating seems a pointless way to to try to make that point.

as for the people who say that those who choose not to vote have no right to complain, that’s crap too. the people who have no right to complain are the apathetic masses. the people who vote without knowing for what or whom they are voting and the people who don’t vote because they simply don’t care. they can all just shut up. now.

an iraqi dentist in baghdad had this post today. it's a bit of a long read but i found it interesting and the final thoughts seemed an echo of what i said this morning.

i've thought a lot about what i wanted to say today and have come to the conclusion i don't, for once, have any words. i don't know how to express my sadness, frustration, anger and confusion. i also don't know how to say how much respect i have for all the people who have been so deeply and permanently changed - in a long list of ways both good and bad - for the things they have faced and endured and, at times, overcome.

i ask only one thing today even though i know it sounds completely sappy. be kind. be kind to the people you know. the people you don't. the people you encounter every day at the store or the office or on your walk. be kind to the people you love and somehow forget to show that to. be kind to the people you don't like and don't understand. to the people who make you angry and crazy with frustration - even to the people who provoke you.

and if you can, do it for more than one day. we could all use a little more kindness and understanding these days.