Saturday, September 27, 2008

Yet another (temporary) farewell & Where is my home?

Third-Lieutenant Candidates at Packing
Next week is our Sugar (Ramadan) Fest- the fest we have after the fasting month (Ramadan) is over. That is why I have a 9-day-break to my military life!!. It is weird to stay somewhere else after staying in the same place for 45 days with the same people around.

One of my funs in the military service is to have short visits to the other bedrooms on our floor for short chats (There are 12 on our floor, each with 4 people). I was having one of such visits on thursday night when I saw some of us (ı.e. the third-lieutenant candidates) being busy with packing things to get ready for 9-day-leave: : luggages around in the room, some clothes on beds to be put inside; half-ambiguous looks with some happiness signs on faces.

Well, farewells always make me emotional. Packing is an obvious sign of a farewell (albeit a temporary one in this case). I went outside then, and had a sit in the dark in front of the building. "Why do you look so thoughtful?" asked Egemen, sitting accross with Ihsan. "Well" I said "you may find it weird, but witnessing people packing made me a bit sad"; and I got a big laugh from him in return, implying a "the weirdest-feeling-I-ever-heard" comment.

Where is my home?
Of course, all of us are happy to leave the military complex: we will be with our families/ beloved ones, away from the discipline-rich environment of military service. Everybody looked forward to be home: but it was a bit weird and confusing for me.

For sure, I missed to be away from the military life, I missed my family: but I was confused: living in the Netherlands just before my military adventure; I guess I have more missed to be in Amsterdam, at Funenpark 41 in my place, rather than to be at my home in Istanbul. I missed to have dinners with multi-national friends there, to be at BDA group at the university in Amsterdam or at UMC Utrecht and to chat with colleagues/friends there, to walk in train stations, in the city, to get on Bus 11 at Utrecht, or to take tram 26 to/from Rietlandpark in Amsterdam, to have visits to friends in Delft, in the Hauge; to spend some time in Amsterdam parks with water birds around, and all-in-all to cycle..

Poor me: I could not see Fiona :( :(
I guess those feelings explain why I had that dream in the very morning of that night: a dutch-associated dream.

I heard Suzanne saying something, and she was entering into a room on the other side of a corridor. I guess she was changing Fiona's diapers there. I shouted her "How is Fiona?". And made an attempt to see the little baby.

Poor me :(. I then heard the alarm of my watch: It is 06:15 : time to get up, shave and make your bed/ cupboard tidy, and rush for military gathering.

I was really sad for few minutes to miss the opportunity to see little Fiona in my dream :)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good to read you are ok there. Perhaps The Netherlands is a little bit your second home now ;)

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