Wednesday, July 14, 2004
Part 1 - A Brave New World in Pamukkale
I know what's in store today, and I'm already exhausted. I've done everything I planned for Pamukkale - I'm ahead of schedule. So I sleep until it's too hot to bear and then take my breakfast.
"Today, web page?" Haçer asks as she serves me an extra-large slice of watermelon.
"Yes,” I say. “First pictures, then website." Last night I jotted down some rough promotional text on my PDA, based on the bizarre conversation I had with Omer on my first night, and I'm hoping I'll be able to copy it, along with photos from my camera, onto their computer - to save me typing everything again on the cruelly convoluted Turkish keyboard.
I hop around the pension, snapping digital pictures of the sign, the courtyard, the pool. I ask Haçer if she has any clean rooms to photograph, and she nods enthusiastically, leading me to each style of room. I take their pictures, along with photos of the bathrooms, the roof, the water heater... I only want to do this once, so I shoot everything I can think of.
They've had their computer for a while, but clearly it's still a little alien to them. They peck in their password and squint as they read their e-mail.
I realize, they're not entirely clear about the difference between an e-mail account and a website. I think they had another guest set up their Yahoo E-Mail account (which takes all of five minutes on even the slowest of connections) and they must think a website is about the same. Which is a lot like confusing the difference between signing up for a library card and writing a novel.
It's one thing to work in a stranger's living room, building "their" website as they all peer in over your shoulder, but I also have some truly grueling technical challenges to deal with: A painfully slow 36.6k modem. No photo editing software. No HTML editor. An operating system almost as old as the Roman ruins in the hills above. Not to mention the fact that they naturally have a version of Windows that's entirely in Turkish. So I have to navigate all the menus by memory (the memory of a version of Windows I haven’t used for 4 years). Shortcut-keys have been changed according to Turkish spelling, and are thus useless.
I use my Axim PDA to transfer the Nikon's digital pictures from Compact Flash memory to SD card. Wonder-of-wonders, there's a USB slot on the computer, hidden between the keyboard port and the external modem serial connector. I unplug the keyboard and the modem, plug in a flash memory reader I brought for posting blog entries (but have yet to use), download the drivers (very slow) then manage to copy the pictures and my text file onto the computer.
I then begin searching the web for photo software to resize and rotate the photos, working with the Yahoo-Geocities on-line editor to build a site, all the while trying to come up with text to fill out the page... It's nearly 100 degrees in the room, and no A/C. This proves too hot for most of the family, but still I have spectators, marveling at my skills, and how fast I type (on a Turkish keyboard, at that). They take it in shifts, unable to handle the stifling heat for more than 20 minutes or so. Then they go outside and cool off. Some nieces and nephews stop by to meet me and watch. A friend visiting from Anakara joins as well. They sit by the door and murmur about the "XXXAmerikan, çok güzel”
They kindly bring me some water, and bread and cheese. Say I am welcome in their home. Eat. No problem. Done yet?
As I watch the download progress-bars creep across the screen, I try to think of what rustic little hotel websites usually say. I occasionally check the clock – hours creep by. I’m not sure why, but for my 6:00PM bus, the agent suggested I be at the bus office by 4:45.
Finally I'm near completion. I've been given a little peace to work on my own. Maybe they can't take the heat. Or are already bored of the process; it loses its novelty quickly. I go out in search of them, and find everyone on the rooftop terrace, eating lunch family-style from giant metal platters. "Finished? Yes?"
I bid them come down to see. They look it over. Inspecting my work. They helpfully make a correction to the address, provide their fax number, etc. Then they ask the inevitable: "No picture of rooms? No picture of toilette?"
How do I explain to them that I'm still trying to download a photo editor to rotate the photos? That I then have to resize and upload them? That I've got a layout on the page now that sort-of works? And that I really need to pack and maybe eat.
But in their faces I can see expectation, or is it disappointment? So I press on. I didn’t really think the photos were good enough to begin with, especially of the rooms, but when I pull up the rough version of their homepage, and there's a flashy photo of their pension - pool, restaurant and all, they ogle the screen as if seeing the future for the first time. They can't believe it's happened - what I promised (foolishly) has come to pass. And now they want everything. All my offhand suggestions. I pull up the bedroom photos. "Oh - very nice I think. Very nice. Çok güzel." And they point to a little space on the page where they think more photos would fit nicely.
In the end they get the photos. I'm astonished that they keep asking for more, after I've already spent three hours working, but strangely it doesn't seem demanding. I think there's just the expectation of helpfulness. The return of the generosity I’ve been basking in everywhere I go. They keep saying things like, "You are like Turkish. Very friendly to help." And I smile as I download another shareware application.
Now they can sense the end is coming, and they all gather round, hanging on to every click of the mouse, clapping when the final dim, slightly askew photo of "the big room" appears on the web-page.
I'm frustrated. Time has run out, but the text is functional at best, the layout has changed considerably under their supervision, pictures and text no longer line up. The colors in the photos aren't great. One is lower resolution than the others.
But they don't mind. I console myself by thinking that I've contrived to create a sort of artificially rustic quaintness. The website isn't unlike the e-mail reservations - charming in its simplistic enthusiasm. I'm now working at that level - I've made the website of an 11-year-old computer neophyte working in a foreign language. It's not really how I'd like to be remembered. But they seem happy. And it’s not the worst web-page I’ve ever seen. At least it doesn’t play the Turkish National Anthem when it loads up…
In the words of K's conference: it evokes a techno-folk aesthetic in the style of the rural youth dialectic.
But they're delighted. Now they have a web page to show to Pat Yale. They're still not entirely sure how it differs from e-mail (a distinction I explain again and again and again) but they knew that they needed one, and now they have one.
Haçer, the mother, starts to get very sad and tells me repeatedly that she will cry when I leave. I hope that maybe this is just a Turkish expression and dash up to my room to pack. I've made myself far too much at home, and must throw things into my bag to make my 4:45 appointment at the bus office.
Thankfully I'm spared the tears, but again I get the "you are like brother. We will never forget you." treatment. It’s nice to be appreciated. But I still have to pay my bill, and then I'm off to hike up the hill to my bus.
|
"Today, web page?" Haçer asks as she serves me an extra-large slice of watermelon.
"Yes,” I say. “First pictures, then website." Last night I jotted down some rough promotional text on my PDA, based on the bizarre conversation I had with Omer on my first night, and I'm hoping I'll be able to copy it, along with photos from my camera, onto their computer - to save me typing everything again on the cruelly convoluted Turkish keyboard.
I hop around the pension, snapping digital pictures of the sign, the courtyard, the pool. I ask Haçer if she has any clean rooms to photograph, and she nods enthusiastically, leading me to each style of room. I take their pictures, along with photos of the bathrooms, the roof, the water heater... I only want to do this once, so I shoot everything I can think of.
They've had their computer for a while, but clearly it's still a little alien to them. They peck in their password and squint as they read their e-mail.
I realize, they're not entirely clear about the difference between an e-mail account and a website. I think they had another guest set up their Yahoo E-Mail account (which takes all of five minutes on even the slowest of connections) and they must think a website is about the same. Which is a lot like confusing the difference between signing up for a library card and writing a novel.
It's one thing to work in a stranger's living room, building "their" website as they all peer in over your shoulder, but I also have some truly grueling technical challenges to deal with: A painfully slow 36.6k modem. No photo editing software. No HTML editor. An operating system almost as old as the Roman ruins in the hills above. Not to mention the fact that they naturally have a version of Windows that's entirely in Turkish. So I have to navigate all the menus by memory (the memory of a version of Windows I haven’t used for 4 years). Shortcut-keys have been changed according to Turkish spelling, and are thus useless.
I use my Axim PDA to transfer the Nikon's digital pictures from Compact Flash memory to SD card. Wonder-of-wonders, there's a USB slot on the computer, hidden between the keyboard port and the external modem serial connector. I unplug the keyboard and the modem, plug in a flash memory reader I brought for posting blog entries (but have yet to use), download the drivers (very slow) then manage to copy the pictures and my text file onto the computer.
I then begin searching the web for photo software to resize and rotate the photos, working with the Yahoo-Geocities on-line editor to build a site, all the while trying to come up with text to fill out the page... It's nearly 100 degrees in the room, and no A/C. This proves too hot for most of the family, but still I have spectators, marveling at my skills, and how fast I type (on a Turkish keyboard, at that). They take it in shifts, unable to handle the stifling heat for more than 20 minutes or so. Then they go outside and cool off. Some nieces and nephews stop by to meet me and watch. A friend visiting from Anakara joins as well. They sit by the door and murmur about the "XXXAmerikan, çok güzel”
They kindly bring me some water, and bread and cheese. Say I am welcome in their home. Eat. No problem. Done yet?
As I watch the download progress-bars creep across the screen, I try to think of what rustic little hotel websites usually say. I occasionally check the clock – hours creep by. I’m not sure why, but for my 6:00PM bus, the agent suggested I be at the bus office by 4:45.
Finally I'm near completion. I've been given a little peace to work on my own. Maybe they can't take the heat. Or are already bored of the process; it loses its novelty quickly. I go out in search of them, and find everyone on the rooftop terrace, eating lunch family-style from giant metal platters. "Finished? Yes?"
I bid them come down to see. They look it over. Inspecting my work. They helpfully make a correction to the address, provide their fax number, etc. Then they ask the inevitable: "No picture of rooms? No picture of toilette?"
How do I explain to them that I'm still trying to download a photo editor to rotate the photos? That I then have to resize and upload them? That I've got a layout on the page now that sort-of works? And that I really need to pack and maybe eat.
But in their faces I can see expectation, or is it disappointment? So I press on. I didn’t really think the photos were good enough to begin with, especially of the rooms, but when I pull up the rough version of their homepage, and there's a flashy photo of their pension - pool, restaurant and all, they ogle the screen as if seeing the future for the first time. They can't believe it's happened - what I promised (foolishly) has come to pass. And now they want everything. All my offhand suggestions. I pull up the bedroom photos. "Oh - very nice I think. Very nice. Çok güzel." And they point to a little space on the page where they think more photos would fit nicely.
In the end they get the photos. I'm astonished that they keep asking for more, after I've already spent three hours working, but strangely it doesn't seem demanding. I think there's just the expectation of helpfulness. The return of the generosity I’ve been basking in everywhere I go. They keep saying things like, "You are like Turkish. Very friendly to help." And I smile as I download another shareware application.
Now they can sense the end is coming, and they all gather round, hanging on to every click of the mouse, clapping when the final dim, slightly askew photo of "the big room" appears on the web-page.
I'm frustrated. Time has run out, but the text is functional at best, the layout has changed considerably under their supervision, pictures and text no longer line up. The colors in the photos aren't great. One is lower resolution than the others.
But they don't mind. I console myself by thinking that I've contrived to create a sort of artificially rustic quaintness. The website isn't unlike the e-mail reservations - charming in its simplistic enthusiasm. I'm now working at that level - I've made the website of an 11-year-old computer neophyte working in a foreign language. It's not really how I'd like to be remembered. But they seem happy. And it’s not the worst web-page I’ve ever seen. At least it doesn’t play the Turkish National Anthem when it loads up…
In the words of K's conference: it evokes a techno-folk aesthetic in the style of the rural youth dialectic.
But they're delighted. Now they have a web page to show to Pat Yale. They're still not entirely sure how it differs from e-mail (a distinction I explain again and again and again) but they knew that they needed one, and now they have one.
Haçer, the mother, starts to get very sad and tells me repeatedly that she will cry when I leave. I hope that maybe this is just a Turkish expression and dash up to my room to pack. I've made myself far too much at home, and must throw things into my bag to make my 4:45 appointment at the bus office.
Thankfully I'm spared the tears, but again I get the "you are like brother. We will never forget you." treatment. It’s nice to be appreciated. But I still have to pay my bill, and then I'm off to hike up the hill to my bus.
|
