I'm not saying these things are necessarily connected. But I can't help thinking that if I was sitting in New York or Beijing, the A/C would have been working flawlessly.
The wall-mounted air conditioner, known in Turkish as a klima, decided on the sweltering Friday night a week into the Games that, until further notice, it would be turning itself off and on when it damn well felt like it. All frantic button-pushing attempts to stop and/or start the klima would be mocked accordingly.
All right, I can't absolutely state that the air conditioner is possessed by the Satan. For now I'm willing to call it extreme mechanical freakishness and leave it at that.
Still, if the temperature control turns itself to 666 degrees, I'm telling you I'm out of here.
Meanwhile back on the TV screen, the Turkish Olympic coverage team -- which seems to consist of two guys with hand-held microphones and a studio host with his laptop computer standing in front of cardboard backdrop -- is asking yet another Turkish athlete yet another time why they finished 15th in a 16-man competition.This explanation is much the same as others previously offered: there is no explanation. And they feel really bad about it.
I don't know what happened the athlete tells the Turkish nation, and I'm really, really sorry. Or words to that effect. The klima turns itself on, blows on high for 10 seconds, then switches off again.
Thank you for those comments, the interviewer tells the dejected athlete before turning to the camera. Now, back to our coverage of medals being won by Mongolia, Moldova, Malaysia, and a Caribbean island apparently named after a four-door sedan from the 1980s.
You remember the Ford Granada. Sure you do.
* * *
By current estimates, Turkey has a population of about 75 million. That is significantly larger than the populations of France, Italy, Great Britain, South Korea, North Korea, Kazakhstan, Hungary, The Netherlands, South Africa, New Zealand, Denmark, Romania, Belarus, Cuba, Jamaica, Poland, Ukraine, Australia, Canada, The Czech Republic, Sweden, Kenya, Slovenia, Croatia, Switzerland, Lithuania, Colombia, Spain, Slovakia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Belgium, Armenia, Mongolia, Norway, Serbia, Guatemala, Malaysia, Thailand, Taipei, Greece, Moldova, Hong Kong, Qatar, Singapore, Tunisia, and Uzbekistan.
After the first week of competition, all of these countries had won at least one Olympic medal, in something. Meanwhile, Turkey was still waiting for its first. In anything.
Anything at all.
Judo. Fencing. Synchronized swimming. Women's Weight Lifting. Broomball. Please, we'll take anything. Have mercy and just throw us a bone.
Tunisia, a country of 10 million that just last year went through the turmoil of a revolution, already had won a medal. Georgia, a country of 4 million on Turkey's northeast border that most people would mistakenly place between Florida and South Carolina, already had a gold.
On the other hand, in Turkey's defense (I guess), Bangladesh, the world's eighth most populous country with 130 million people, had yet to win a medal, either. And India, with a population more than 10 times that of Turkey (around 1 billion), itself had taken only three.
But that kind of makes it worse, doesn't it? It's hard to whip up much national pride with a rallying cry of, "Yay! We're tied with Bangladesh! With zero!"
Yet as the week goes on, the medal drought continues. The woman's volleyball team, featured as a serious medal hope in bank and MacDonald's ads on Turkish television, gets bounced after the first round. The woman's basketball team, also counted on for medal contention, is ousted shortly thereafter.
On Day 6, Nagahan Karadere, a female sprinter who holds the Turkish national record in the 400-meter hurdles, leaves the starting block early, disqualifying her from her event. She is unceremoniously led away from the track by a race official (dressed, inexplicably, like a leprechaun), to the waiting microphone of the Turkish TV sideline reporter.
If they handled out medals for self flagellation, the Turks would be raking them in.
"I don't know what happened," Nagahan tells the reporter as she wipes tears from her face. "I worked so hard ... and I'm really, really sorry."
You're sorry, I'm thinking, as the klima switches itself off again. It's the middle of August, and my air conditioner doesn't work.
And I don't know whether to contact an appliance repairman, or an exorcist.
* * *
And I don't know whether to contact an appliance repairman, or an exorcist.
* * *
It's hard to get a consistent answer on what exactly the Evil Eye does, where it comes from, or what is necessarily evil about it. But it's pretty commonly accepted that whatever the Evil Eye is, it's not a good thing.
Bad things happen. Weird things. Inexplicable things.
And if you can a stave off a curse, or even run-of-the-mill bad luck, by hanging a 75-cent piece of blue glass around your neck? You know, what the hell, you probably should do that.
At my previous apartment in Istanbul, a nazar hung over the outside door of the building, and on a door frame inside the apartment. Not once in the entire six months I was there did I have a major appliance adversely affected by demonic possession.
There are no nazars in my current apartment, however. And from what I can see on my TV screen, the Turkish athletes aren't wearing them, either.
You can call it a ridiculous superstition if you want to. But if I was the head of the Turkish Olympic Team currently 0 for 778 in medal attempts?
You know what I'd be going out and buying at the trinket store.
* * *
Here's the scary thing about the current state of the possessed air conditioner: it can not be unplugged. There is no plug. It is mounted in the wall without any controls, or even a simple on/off switch.And before you ask, this is not a case of the remote not working because the batteries are dead. I have taken the batteries completely out of the remote, and the klima still turns itself on. And off. And on again.
I eventually figure out that the only way to stop the madness is to cut off the electricity entirely, by throwing Switch Number 3 at the fuse box. Yes, this cuts off the electrical current to the klima. It unfortunately also takes out the TV, the hot water heater, and half the lights in the apartment.
As the weekend starts, the klima is turning itself off and on every few minutes, signaled each time by a series of happy little chirpy chimes.
Biddledy, biddledy, bing!
(Air conditioner is on).
Biddledy, biddledy, bong!
(Air conditioner is off).
You wanted to sleep? Biddledy, biddledy, bing!
Oh no. There will be no sleep. Biddledy, biddledy, bong!
You might want to invest in some earplugs. Biddledy, biddledy, bing!
Talk to you in few minutes! Biddledy, biddledy, bong!
Gradually, like a glue-sniffing mental patient, the klima begins to pick up the pace of its mood swings as the weekend progresses, until the off/on sequence comes in seconds instead of minutes, eventually becoming instantaneous.
Biddledy, biddledy, bing! Biddledy, biddledy, bong! Biddledy, biddledy, bing! Biddledy, biddledy, bong! Bing! Bong! Bing! Bong! Bing! Bong!
On TV, another Turkish athlete, this time a weight lifter, is being asked why he failed to qualify and is going home early. I already know the answer, having heard it so many times before. I head for the fuse box to shut off the chiming madness.
Because the TV and the klima share the same breaker switch, this will end our Olympic broadcast for the day.
Or at least until I can go down to the amulet store.
* * *
Clearly watching the Olympics in Turkey is not the same as it is in the U.S., China, or Russia, countries that expect to count up their medals like dollar bills at a cock fight.
"What'da we got now? 95? 100? Crap, only 95?"
Of course the Turks know they are not going to out-medal the super powers. Still, being shut out of the medal table entirely is not something that going down the national gullet particularly well.
The hunt to televise a national athlete being competitive in something does lead to some odd event coverage decisions for the Turkish national network, TRT. Early on a U.S. men's basketball game is pre-empted to show women's weightlifting, where the Turkish women were given an outside shot at receiving a medal.
They didn't.
Likewise women's gymnastics, which receives nearly round-the-clock coverage on U.S. television because of the success of the American team, is almost impossible to find on TRT, especially when the Turkish athletes might possibly, maybe, still get a medal in boxing!
They didn't.
The overall lack of competitiveness does seem to defy explanation. If Belarus can produce a 300-pound woman to throw the shot put 50 meters, is there any rational reason why Turkey can't do the same?
Some Turks are criticizing the government for the poor Olympic record. Others are claiming the athletes don't receive enough support from the public in general.
I don't know, maybe. But I'd be looking into the Evil Eye thing all the same.
* * *
New batteries now have been placed in the remote control of the klima, and I flip the electric breaker back on to see what happens. Sadly even with the new batteries, the klima continues to operate on its own accord.
But there is some improvement. Now at least, I find that if I point the remote and randomly push enough buttons, I can silence the bings and the bongs for stretches of five or ten minutes before it starts chiming again.
I sit watching the Olympics with the klima remote in hand, like a nurse armed with a hypodermic and a strong sedative at the bedside of a schizophrenic metal patient.
I've even begun talking to it now, attempting to soothe it into submission.
"Shhh. (Bing) Shhh. (Bong) It's aaall right. It's aaaaall right.
Yes, that's it. Shhhhhh.
Now calm down and let me watch the hammer throw."
* * *
On Day 11, I watch as a Turkish Roman-Greco wrestler named Rıza Kayaalp grabs a large Georgian man by his hairy shoulders and pushes him a half-step outside of the wrestling ring. This gives the Turk the lead in the match, 1-0.
Apparently this is the Roman-Greco wrestling equivalent of a slam dunk, or a right cross to the jaw. The Turkish commentator on TRT is getting more and more excited as seconds tick off the match clock."We are just seconds away!" the commentator yells in Turkish, anticipating a victory. "Just seconds away!"
Cheers go up from the arena's Turkish cheering contingent as the clock hits zero. Rıza Kayaalp has just taken bronze in the 120 kg (265.5 pound) Roman-Greco Wrestling weight division, Turkey's first medal of the games of any kind.
The country's long national nightmare is finally ended ... by a 265-pound, baby-faced 23-year-old kid in blue leotards.
The next day Turkey wins a second medal -- this one a gold -- by 23-year-old Servet Tazegül in the taekwondo flyweight division. Granted, most Turks would have trouble pronouncing taekwondo, let alone tell you exactly what it is, but a medal is a medal. And this is a gold one at that.A day later, Turkey gets a second taekwondo medal when a female welterweight named Nur Tatar takes a silver.
Then on Day 13, Turkey shocks the world -- or at least the part of the world that includes Turkey -- by placing first and second in the Women's 1500 meter run. Aslı Çakır Alptekin takes the gold, while the woman with my new, all-time favorite name, Gamze Bulut -- which in Turkish literally means "Dimple Cloud" -- wins the silver.
With not one but TWO Turkish women at the head of the pack of runners sprinting to the finish line, I am almost sure the announcer on Turkish TV is going to hyperventilate and/or have a heart attack.It is the first Olympic gold medal for Turkey in a track and field event, EVER. I don't know much about history. But I do know that ever is a really, really long time.
Yes, it took a while to see it. But in the end two tiny Turkish women named Aslı and Gamze blew away the competition and proved that, at this moment in time, at this particular thing, they are indeed the very best in the world.
This a pretty astonishing feat for anyone, from any place. But maybe it's easier to appreciate in a country that is deliriously happy when its athletes win one medal, in contrast to those that are disappointed when its athletes fail to win them all.
* * *
As I watch the ecstatic TRT reporter interview Aslı and Gamze (when was the last time you ever saw Bob Costas congratulate an American athlete by hugging them?), I look up to see the klima is humming away without incident. I push the "on" button it goes on; I hit the "off" button it goes off.
As quickly as they came, the air conditioning demons that tormented me for days have moved on. I have no idea why. Some things you simply can't explain.
But for now it's safe to put the amulets away. Until further notice, I think the curse is over.
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