Turns out I don’t have to worry about that 5th grade class anymore because Isikkent just got a college intern from California for the next 3 months! One Mr. James D., age 19, of San Mateo, California, arrived in Izmir on Friday afternoon. We didn’t know where he was going to live at first, and for a while we thought he’d have to spend the next three months living on our apartment balcony, but we convinced Ralph that this was not the best of ideas. We threw it out there as a last resort and suddenly that became option number one for the administration, much to our dismay. Ralph asked around the school to see if anyone would be willing to take this guy in, and a young girl from the Sports Club office, Ceyda, volunteered to give him room and board for 3 months. He stayed with us for the weekend and he moved in with Ceyda and her family last night.

Nobody at Isikkent knew what to expect from this James fella. Who was he? What was he going to do here? And why was he coming here of all places for a 3 month unpaid internship? On the service bus, we came up with all sorts of different monikers and nicknames for him. Jen called him Mr. D., Maddy called him Jamesey, and I referred to him as JD. Other names thrown around included Jamie, Saint James, Jim, Jimmy, and even Jiminy. The school, or at least the passengers on the karsiyaka service bus, were abuzz, and we really milked the new intern’s arrival for all it was worth. In the midst of all this pre-arrival chatter, I learned that everyone went through this same process before I arrived back in December.

So who was this new guy? He was supposed to arrive at noon on Friday, but the school’s front desk attendant and copy clerk went to pick him up at the Izmir Airport and he was nowhere to be found. Hmmm, had he gotten the scoop on Isikkent and decided to bail on us before it was too late? Not exactly. Turned out he arrived in Istanbul with nothing but traveler’s checks, and he couldn’t find anywhere to cash them. He spent the night in Istanbul and when he went to cash one of his checks the next day to pay for cab fare to the airport, he had to visit 8 banks before he could find a branch willing to cash his checks. Obviously, he missed his 11am flight and had to catch a 5pm flight instead.

I stayed at school and joined Ralph in picking him up at the airport. After Ralph got himself into a pickle of a traffic jam in the airport parking lot, I ran inside and met James at the arrivial gate. A mere lad of 19, James was tall, over 6 feet tall, and quite slender. Lanky yet limber, he spoke with a soft California accent. At first he was quite reserved and soft-spoken, and I wondered how he’d fare in a class full of Isikkent children. He explained on the car ride home about the program that sent him over here for 3 months. For three weeks he went on a kind of hippy, religious retreat where you do a lot of yoga, meditate, go a whole day without talking, stay up an entire night with a group of peers while continuously banging a drum, and spend considerable time in a sweat lodge. I know very little to nothing about retreats, so I found it very interesting. After the three weeks are up, you’re sent out to somewhere in the world, where you live with a home stay family, absorb the culture, work or study, and spread the knowledge or wisdom you learned from your time at the retreat.

Jen was going to Olimpos for the weekend (a southern coastal town about 7 hours away by bus, she made some friends down there during semester break, and plans on going down every other weekend or so), so at least James got a proper bed for his first few nights in Izmir. Before she left, we took James out to Kerkichey for some genuine Turkish food, and he properly order some kuzu shish (lamb kebabs).

On Saturday, I took James across the bay on the ferry to Konak, where we ventured through the ginat bazaar known as Kameralti. It was raining and a bit chilly, but we didn’t let it interfere with our day of exploration and sightseeing. Kameralti is still such a maze to me, so we just wandered around, hoping to come across my favorite pide place. After much wandering and browsing, we finally stumbled across it, and we had some pides custom-made and fired up in the oven for us. James’ first pide and he loved it- a good start.

We eventually made our way back to Mavesehir, where we regrouped and went out to dinner with Maddy and Ceyda, who had offered James a room in her family’s apartment. Before any arrangements were finalized, I think they both wanted to meet each other first, so we went out for Chinese Food. Yup, that’s right- Chinese! Peter had told us about this new Chinese/Japanese place he found near his house. They didn’t do any business, but he really liked the food, so he was referring as many people as he could to go there so it wouldn’t close any time soon. It was raining pretty steadily, so the four of us took a cab to the restaurant, only the cab took us to the wrong restaurant. It wasn’t even in the right neighborhood! After another cab was called, we found the right restaurant, and we enjoyed a delicious Chinese meal. And I thought I wouldn’t get to taste Chinese food until July. I dined on chicken fried rice and chicken chow mein and it was just what the culinary doctor ordered. And the Asian waitress there even knew English!

James has turned out to be a really interesting, diverse, laid-back fellow. He’s led a fairly interesting life- he recently got back from a vacation to the Galapagos Islands and three month tour of India, where he got to sleep in a bedroom with a ceiling no more than five and a half feet tall (he’s 6’2”) that was filled with large, creepy spiders. I figure our balcony must have looked like a shangri-la compared to some of his past living conditions. He has an offbeat sense of humor, and you never know quite what he’s going to say. I think Jen and Maddy have taken to him very quickly, as he’s quite affable and comfortable around everyone. While we were all a bit tentative when we first heard a teenage American intern was arriving, I think we’re all thankful for the wrinkle James’ arrival has made in weekly Isikkent grind. No chance to get complacent or into a routine here, and that’s the way I like it.