Dispatch from Ankara - So far so good, plus Turkish president sighting

Things in Ankara couldn’t be going better.  I was worried that the meetings I’m observing would amount to short rubber-stamp sessions, but they’ve actually been really lively and fun to watch.  I don’t know how these guys are holding up though since it’s Ramadan and they’re all fasting.  You thought your office meetings were rough?  Try doing five hours one day and then another five hours the next with no snacks, coffee, or water.

In fact, they did get pretty worn out and decided to continue next Monday.  Rather than return to Istanbul and come back next week, I’m just staying the weekend so I can attend that meeting as well.  It helps that one of the Diyanet employees introduced me to an cheap but clean hostel/hotel (there are two separate sections) where he’s been staying.  It’s actually a hotel where high school students studying tourism and hotel management do their internships, just like what Jeremy wrote about but with more acne and no turndown service.  What do you expect for $10 a night?

The assistant mufti in charge of the sermons has been a very gracious host.  During the break on Wednesday he gave me a quick tour of Kocatepe Mosque (which I’d been to before) and also bought me some food from the huge supermarket (under the mosque).  I didn’t want to eat in front of anyone because they were fasting, but we went back to his office and he insisted that I eat; he even had his assistant make me a cup of tea.

State Funeral and the Turkish President

After the meeting on Wednesday I was hanging out with some staff when we noticed a lot of television camera crews out back.  The building is right next to Kocatepe Mosque and that’s where they have official state funerals.  It turns out that a Turkish soldier and cousin of the Foreign Minister was killed in a PKK attack in the southeast.  The foreign Minister, Ali Babacan, was just arriving in the U.S. when he learned the news and wasn’t able to make it back in time because Islamic funerals are usually held within a day of a person’s death.

The newly elected Turkish President, Abdullah Gül, however, was able to attend along with the commander of the Turkish military and hundreds of soldiers.  All of them passed 30 feet in front of me as they walked behind a military band and a truck pulling a carriage that bore the flag-draped coffin and a canon.

Police lined the street and there were secret service agents walking in front of Gül, but I was really surprised that I could just pop outside for a minute, stumble across a state funeral, and casually watch the country’s president walk by.

Ramadan Program

I caught a ride over to Diyanet headquarters after the funeral and learned that they were going to have their annual Ramazan dinner for all the staff that night.  Several people invited me to join them, so I did.  It was a huge affair with some 900 attendees, and one American party crasher.