Turkish Tongue Twisters

So this week, the curriculum (as Alex and I decided to interpret it) involved two activities: making the kids say various tongue twisters, and then role-playing skits. I started each class with "Peter Piper," picking on five or six students and making them say it, then moved on to "How much wood can a woodchuck chuck," "She sells sea shells.." and the hardest one, "If two witches were wearing two watches, which witch was watching which watch?" Of course, the kids all wanted me to try Turkish tongue twisters- which I did, and they all got a good laugh out of it, and I made them translate the little nonsense rhymes into English. Some of the more common ones-
"Kartal kalkar dal sarkar, dal sarkar kartal kalkar." (something about an eagle flying off a branch)
"Şu yoğurdu sarımsaklasak da mı saklasak? Sarımsaklamasak (yes that is all one word) da mı saklasak?" (something about yogurt with garlic)
My personal favorite was "Şu köşe yaz köşesi, Şu köşe kış köşesi, ortada su şişesi." - "In this corner winter, in this corner summer, in the middle a bottle of water." The hardest part about reading these aloud is that I had to remember pronounciation- the "Ş" letter is pronounced like a "sh" sound, "ğ" isn't pronounced, but istead lengthens the vowel before it, etc- while trying not to lose my place/stumble over the sounds. Piece of cake.

So after they got the giggles out of their systems, we moved on to skits. I came up with a bunch on Tuesday morning, in the 20 minutes between when I got the curriculum (at 8:30) and had my first class (8:50). Panic? Just a little. So these are some of the better ones-
Waiter serving a vegetarian/carnivore couple
Disgruntled customer attempting to return an item
Business owner interviewing two people for the same position
Teacher catching one or more students cheating
Tourist and a lost/confused taxi driver (guess where the idea for this one came from)
Police officer breaking up a fight between 2+ people
Travel agent and customer

etc. etc. Pretty basic but the more creative kids came up with some funny stuff.


Now, this all seems relatively uncomplicated. Nothing controversial or risky. Right.

So in the tongue twisters, I let kids write the Turkish ones on the board, and then I'd say them out loud. In one of the classes, the kids were very enthusiastic- so while a few students were writing at the board, I talked with the others and tried to repeat the tongue twisters as they recited them for me. So one of the students, an overenthusiastic, popular 20 year old boy, had spent the whole class teasing and calling me "sweetheart" and "pussycat" (their books, a bit out of date, teach that as a term of endearment, and don't clarify it- so it's not unusal to overhear boys calling each other pussycats. A little disturbing, to say the least.) I'd been mostly rolling my eyes and laughing at him, until he called me over and asked if he could kiss me. Literally.
"Come here!"
"No. ...Why?"
"I want to kiss you- because you are so sweet!" (remember, broken english.)
At which point I began ignoring him. However, in the midst of the tongue twisters, I wasn't thinking- and repeated one as he said it. Of course, what he was actually saying was something closer to "I love Bhutan (or however his name is spelled) because he is the best" and such things. He seemed innocent enough so I'm hoping none of it was dirty, but honestly I'd rather not know. So of course, the class overheard this and roared with laughter.

Aside from that, I had a skit- three boys, with the assigned police officer/arguement skit- who reenacted the Bush-shoe incident, and a couple of kids who attempted to use English curse words (mostly just "shit") in their skits, usually in the wrong context.

But the most memorable moment goes to one of my B level classes, where a student wrote a "Turkish tongue twister" on the board that was clearly not a tongue twister. I looked at it suspiciously, mostly because half the class giggled and the other half seemed nervous.
"What does it mean?" I asked the boy who wrote it.
"Say first- meaning after!" He grinned.
"Uhmmm.... No." I guessed.
"No, no! Say! Very funny!" He insisted. I chose to ignore him and moved on with the class, and later asked the teacher what it had meant.

Turns out, he was trying to convert me. It was the line- originally in arabic, actually, but I didn't recognize the Turkish form- that you repeat in order to accept Islam. I caught that it involved Muhammed but that's not an uncommon name here, so I didn't think anything of it. The teacher explained (also in broken english) the meaning, and I had to choke back everything I wanted to say and just nod, unruffled. Apparently, despite Christian evangelism being illegal here, it is perfectly acceptable- even funny- to trick people into "converting" to the popular religion. I'm trying really hard not to be frustrated... not sure if I'm succeeding.