Friday, April 28, 2006
The Little Red House
Despite having announced the wrong address for our event last night (Wednesday, 26 April), we were thrilled to be joined by so many enthusiastic supporters. For those of you who may have been knocking fruitlessly on the door of that cute little blue house at 1836 18th Street, we apologize! We were at 1536 a few blocks down in the little RED townhouse...
As soon as we showed up, there were television cameras pointed at us. Özge Ovun from Voice of America News interviewed us and filmed the event, which will air on Turkey’s national TGRT News (9:30PM on either 30 April or 7 May).
Also filming was Erju Ackman and his partner Goksin Carey. Erju is a filmmaker, as well as the owner of Mavi Boncuk blog. He and his wife began interviewing us in Istanbul in January for a segment they will air on Virginia’s Channel 10 (WSLS NBC) in the near future.
Organized by the ever-supportive Didem Muslu of the American-Turkish Association of DC, the event was held at the homebase of the Assembly of Turkish American Associations —the Türkevi (Turkish House), and was attended by ATA-DC president, Pelin Aylangan (who is currently penning a Turkish culinary history and memoir) and secretary, Patsy Jones (whose Fenerbahçe-loving Turkish inlaws are scandalized by her love of the rival football team Beşiktaş!).
Audience members included: Yalçın Sert, director of student portals at the University of Maryland and owner of various forums and web portals; Ralph and Linda, who are currently enrolled in US State Department Turkish language courses for Ralph’s impending posting to the US Embassy in Ankara as an FDA specialist (both Ralph and Linda told us they wished their entire Turkish class would have attended our event); Janet, who empathizes with EH contributor Catherine Yiğit as she also finds the dynamics of her large Turkish family daunting to navigate; Turks like Ayşe, a Crimean Turk, and Özge’s parents visiting from İzmit; and other daring American gelins, like Jetta Karabulut who has road trip adventures of her own to tell, like a trip from Istanbul to Mersin in 1968 with her two year old in tow!
