Facebook brings back old memories

Some weeks back I have been introduced to facebook.. I don't even remember by whom, but it became an addiction now. I found so many old friends that I didn't have any contact for many years. I found even two of my elementary school friends G.T. and M.S., and with G.T. we began exchanging messages, talking about our other classmates...

I attended Zühtüpasa Ilkokulu (now the name changed to Zühtüpasa Ilkogretimokulu; before elementary school was for 5 years, now they increased it to 8 years eliminating middle schools which were 3 years and thus making 8 years of education obligatory for everyone, which is a good thing) in Istanbul, from 1975 to 1980. We had a middle aged female teacher Z.S. who was not embarrassed to wash the brains of her little pupils by making them repeat the name of the then prime minister, evidently from her favorite political party. I had come to the conclusion that it was high time she got herself a pair of glasses when, on one occasion in 1975, she asked 'whose mother are you?' to my cousin who was, then, only 12 years old!!! She had her daughter Y. in our school, too, a little, roundish, always-smiling girl. All in all Z.S. was not a bad teacher, but we all hated her when she, in our last year of elementary school, asked for going on retirement, leaving us with a new teacher in the last months of our time in that school.

I don't remember the exact number of pupils in our class, which varied from one year to the next, with some leaving and some others coming in, but it must be a number around 30.. I should admit that I cannot remember all of them. My best friend was E.A., I shared a desk with her. She was a silent girl, rather tall for her age, and I considered her as my little sister since she was only one month older than my real sister (me and my sister have only 11 months difference in age, born in the same calender year actually). She came from a family with three children, with one older sister and a younger brother. Her father was a merchant of fabrics and I remember her mother made for her kids clothes from those fabrics as well... Her father was rather traditional/religious though her mother didn't carry the headscarf. E.A. had quite often ear-infections. She wore glasses. I don't remember which middle/high school she attended after graduation, but I know that she was studying medicine later at the university. We saw each other a couple of times, then lost contact. I had heard that she had begun using a headscarf. I don't know where she is now, or what she is doing, whether she is still 'covered' or not... But I still remember where she lived when we first met, and the apartment they bought years after and moved with her family; I had been invited to both.

Then there was S.Y., one of the two girls that were both called S. (the other one was S.T.; I will come back to her later). S.Y. had beautiful eyes, I remember. She had a little brother which, years later, attended my high-school. S.Y. was sitting at the desk that was orthogonal to mine, on my right hand side (we used to put three desks together, two facing each other, and a third one orthogonal to those on one of their shorter sides thus forming an 'island' with 6 pupils), with the only boy of our 'island' next to her. I considered her a beauty. She had long straight hair, I had short curly. She had colored eyes, I had dark brown. I wore glasses, she didn't. I liked her a lot and thought that if I were a boy, I would choose her as my girlfriend :-) I know that she attended an all girls school after elementary school, as G.T. and S.V. two other girls of our class. S.Y. was studying journalism at the university, if I am not mistaken. Now I have learned from my friend G.T. that she is married and has a family.

S.V. was the only blond of our island. She had long blond hair, light colored eyes (however, I cannot remember the real color of her eyes). She had a younger brother, M. Her father had a patisserie, 'lucky her' I thought ;-) Think that she could eat all the chocolate, the cakes and sweets she wanted, whenever she wanted. I think her father still has that patisserie at the same spot as it was over 30 years ago. They used to live near a pharmacy that my parents took me to get injections whenever they were prescribed by our doctor. Afterwards they bought a new apartment in a tall building nearer to our house. G.T. told me that S.V. is also married now and has a family. I don't know if she is working and what she has studied at the university.

Next to S.V. there sat a tiny girl, S.B., who seemed so thin and delicate that I was afraid she would break if I held her arm. She always spoke with a very low voice, she was very shy. She lived on a street right across the school. If I don't remember wrong there were some issues in her family, and I caught her crying many times. She got sick very easily and was away for long periods due to her sicknesses. I felt like her protector; not that I had done anything for her as a protector, but I felt that she needed protection. I would love to know where she is now, and how her life turned out to be...

The only boy of our island, M., was a silent boy as well. I don't remember much of him, not even his surname...

There was one girl, D.A., very thin, tall, most of the time with short hair, very straight hair. She wasn't in my circle of friends, and I didn't have much to do with her then. But later, after many years our paths crossed in an awkward way.. I knew that she was studying law since my sister had met her many times at the law faculty of Istanbul University. I was seeing her brother H., who was two years older, at my university in Istanbul, and I had heard that he had gone to Norway to study, as I had done a few years later.. During my first year in Norway I met a Turkish guy with whom I shared the kitchen at the dormitory, and I began to be quite fond of him. He wasn't interested in me, but that didn't matter ;-) He was a graduate of Bogaziçi University, my old university in Istanbul, and was studying towards a master's degree in sociology in Bergen. That same year when I went to Istanbul during X-mas vacation I went to visit my friends at my old university, and was sitting at one of the cafes, when this guy entered (not totally unexpected for me because I was hoping to see him there, I knew that it was his favorite cafe) hand-in-hand with D.A.!!! Do I need to try to explain how I felt?? :-) I don't know how but they knew each other and apparently it was more than friendship. I pretended not to see him and not to recognize my classmate from elementary school. After that incident I didn't even think about D.A. let alone ask anything to our 'common' friend about her. This week I learned from G.T. that D.A. had become a very good lawyer, that she has a son and is probably divorced.

D.A. was the best friend of A.E.A., another nice and silent girl in our class. If I am not mistaken she had an older brother, and she had lost her father quite early. I know which high school she attended afterwards, but no more than that...

D.K. was a very cute little girl, with huge, sparkling, dark eyes, and she was ready to smile all the time. She began school with some days' delay because she was visiting her aunt who lived in the USA. Now, that was something, having an aunt in USA :-) She had an older brother, in the same class with the brother of D.A. She wasn't particularly smart, but she was loved, because she was really sweet. Many many years later, when I moved to Florence, I was looking for a translator for my wedding ceremony, and I met a girl at the honorary Turkish counsel's office. After some hours of talking with my new friend we found out that D.K. was her cousin! The world is small, or what! She told me that D.K. didn't study after high school, went through a wrong marriage, divorced, and now is married again with a good guy, and is still in Istanbul.

G.T. was one of the hard-working and silent girls of our class. I remember her always with a smile on her face. I found her on facebook a few days ago, and seeing her pictures I should say that she hasn't changed much. She still has that nice and kind smile. She has become an engineer and is working at the same company for 12 years now. I cannot believe that such an intelligent and nice girl is not married yet. Hey guys, what are you waiting for??? Oh, I know, being nice is out, being a bitch is in nowadays ;-) If you are too good, they don't like you....

M.S. is the cousin of G.T. and he was also in our class. I remember him with his roundish glasses, and I remember his sister, N., who was in my sister's class. Some years ago, during one of my trips to Istanbul, I saw a picture of M.S. next to his article in a newspaper . He has become a journalist, a very successful one. I was so proud to see that a classmate of mine had become a loved figure in Turkey.

Then there was T.G., a not-so-thin boy, with dark hair and dark eyes, one of the most hardworking ones like myself ;-) I felt that there was some kind of a race between the two of us. I was playing mandolin and he was playing the guitar. If he was the class-head, I was the vice-head, or the other way round. I remember him saying 'you are my secretary, since I am the head, you should do as I tell you' :-) His grandmother used to live in an apartment just across ours and when he visited her we went out to the balcony and waved at each other. If I am not mistaken his mother was working and it was usually his grandmother that came to take him from school. Later he also had a sister, E. After elementary school he was also successful in the high-school entrance exams and got in to a French school. I lost track of him afterwards.

I liked a boy more than the others. His name was K., and even though I try hard, I cannot remember his surname. The only think I remember about that boy is that his mother always went around with dark glasses. Rumor said that she had two different colored eyes, one brown and one blue. Isn't it strange that about the person I cared most I remember the least?

G.T. reminded me of a boy named T. I think it was that boy with the open ears and open mouth .. His saliva was running all the time, right G.T??

The last year of school we had a new friend in our class, from Van. He was so different then all the kids that I was used to seeing around me. He seemed so rough, so macho. One day he made me very angry and I cannot remember why, but I was really furious, so furious that I wanted to hit him. But I knew that he was stronger than me, and he was from the east, meaning that most probably he didn't know how to treat girls and could hit me back, so I needed to find a way to hit him and get away with it. When our teacher entered the classroom after the break, everybody sat at their desks and this guy was standing next to the teacher, talking, I just got on to my feet, ran to him, hit him many times on his arms, crying, and went back to my seat. I cannot forget the surprise on the face of our teacher who would never expect anything like that from me, the pupil of her eye, and to tell the truth, neither did I.... :-)

Well, folks, if you also want to dwell in old memories come and join us in facebook. Who knows, maybe we are related, as friends of friends of friends..... ;-)