Turkey was "delightful"

Ah, the pleasures of working in an international school...instead of being sent up the road to participate in a workshop in a neighbouring county/district or township, we have been sent to a neighbouring continent to share and experience other international school systems....sweeeeet!

It was high time I got qualified in International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programming, so I had the priority this fall to be sent to be workshopped. Gee, shucks...it was in a coastal town of Turkey on the Agean Sea: the town of Cesme, to be exact, at a 5 star hotel that fed us and housed us all (300+ deligates from Asia, Europe and North Africa) and also hosted all the workshops and IB conferences. It was a twenty minute time-span from classroom to coast, including getting changed into my bathing suit and collecting my colleagues to be playmates and witnesses to our adventures in the sea. Must be tough, you're saying, right? Ah, but you should have tasted all that mediterranean food...yummmmmm.....!

Now don't you get the wrong idea: it was work too...before I even left. It took me about three days to get ready to leave my classroom for the three school days we were absent, making sure my grade 5's were not left behind because I had them put their activities and projects on hold. Also to get childcare was an incredibly daunting task: recall that M. was still away in Cork and wasn't going to be back until midweek after MY return. I started my search the first week of school to get a substitue parent for our two boys: thankfully, one of my colleagues' suggested her son's girlfriend who worked out wonderfully (aged 22 and a child of five herself, she wasn't fazed by the exhuberance of our active two)...we trialed her for an evening about a week before I left, and the boys loved her--or perhaps more accurately, loved trying to "con" her into things they thought she'd be none the wiser about. She was clever enough to let them THINK they had conned her, but sneaky enough to get them to do what she wanted anyway--now there's a talent! They barely missed me, which I guess was good...they were glad to see me when I arrived with Turkish Delight: magical Narnia's Edmund's food of choice--magical to see their enthusiasm for this treat, too!

As for the course, it was dauntingly long and detailed: at the end of each day and particularly the last, I felt like my brain was going to melt from all the friction: lots to remember, understand, assimilate, apply and communicate...all while trying to be on my best behaviour since as someone had said during this course, "you never know if the next person you talk to might be your principal, head teacher or director next year!" It was then I realized that the trainers and coordinators of this international system do travel around and they are all very well affiliated and qualified. Woe to the two Brits that decided to go on a vodka bender the first night then groan into the a.m. session only to crawl back up to their rooms an hour later and miss the next three sessions of the day...they'll likely not last in this system if they continue misbehaving like that! Of the seven St. John's staff that attended, not a one of us acted up at all--we were just so thrilled to be a part of the party that we were good as angels the entire trip (hey, plus that $60 bottles of wine in the hotel restaurant definitely had something to do with us curtailing our partying--muslim country, ramadan observance and government levies had a LOT to reduce our access to the grape or grain).

Inspite of us being rather "parched" we still managed to have fun in our off hours. The same colleague who recommended her son's girlfriend had also come with us on the trip and had brought along her Turkish born husband...we were very well treated and toured by him, as he was able to advocate on our behalf, order taxis, negotiate with the merchants all the while giving us the local history and colour. He was immensely helpful in showing us the sites we'd have normally not stumbed upon until much later in our stay: the little ancient village featuring the famous "stretchy" ice cream; the merchantile stalls with hand made goods of genuine quality; the tucked-away Turkish coffee house in the shadow of a mosque just emptying from evening prayers; the tiny bakery that only made a dizzying array of baclava and cheese buns; the beach tavern quietly selling locally made pilsner accompanied by mixed nuts, squeeky cheese cubes and olives that even I tasted and loved...we all agreed that our 4 evenings and 3 full days felt like a week, since we were able to pack so much into our stay plus get sunburns and body surf in the waves--wow.

As a dear friend in Toronto said "oh, Maggie--you so deserved that!" I agreed: even though the efforts to get to Turkey: daunting; the workload while there: very intense; the play time was definitely refreshing and all that adult time after 5 weeks being a single parent: it was priceless.

Now where can I be off to next? Barcelona? Cairo? Moscow? Madrid? I could get used to this!