Life: Idiotropic

April 23rd is the day on which the Republic of Turkey was founded and it is also celebrated as children's day. Attaturk, a Turkish commander and elected president at the time, loved children and declared the day a holiday where people exchange gifts. It is much like Christmas for the children, but they also celebrate cultures from around the world. It is a day of peace.

So, each year on the base, the Turkish here put together a celebration for all the children and their families. Luci, with her dance school, performed two times. Now Luci is perfectly capable of dancing. If she wants to dance, she looks fantastic and knows the movements better than most of the girls in her class. But, she's stubborn and hasn't wanted to dance these last few weeks. She especially didn't want to dance today on the stage, so while she was up there, and she did all the movements correctly, she was very robotic and performed a very emotionless, flat performance. Still, I have to be the silly mom taking photos. So, the first dance, she wore a colorful skirt and did a really fun jazz dance. The second dance she wore the white tutu and did a nice little ballet. Both times she was adorable in spite of herself. And... the photo with the thumbs up? Yes, that was on stage in front of a packed auditorium, during the performance, looking right at me.




When the long kick-off talent portion of the day finally ended, we all headed outside into the sun. Food was cookin' -- burgers, hot dogs, and cotton candy. Large inflatable jumping toys were set up with kids crawling, jumping, and climbing all over them. A simulator had a long line of kids waiting for their turn to try it, and the adults of all nationalities stood around in clumps visiting with each other.

A karate demonstration began and Kirk was happy to show the martial arts to the girls. Arianna, especially, was really excited about it and now wants to sign up. After that outdoor demo, a group of young German carnival dancers came out to do a silly dance dressed as animals and the 7 dwarfs from a very popular German comedy. Then, came my favorite part - the Turkish fold dancers. They wore the same costumes as last year and did the same dances, but it was still beautiful. The women danced well, but calmly. The true "bam" of the dancing came from the men, whirling, jumping, and dancing with such flare. I watched from behind my camera clicking constantly to capture as much of the movement as possible. (Check out the guy in this first photo - both his feet are above ground and the long part of his jacket is flying! The girls in the wedding dresses did most of their dancing on their toes wearing silver high-healed mary-janes.)







(The colorful costumes of the women in the second dance somehow looked absolutely brilliant. Looking closely, you can see colors and pattern juxtaposed that you'd never dare set foot from the house wearing, but somehow, they worked and looked terrific. Truly, it was a little bit of Turkish embroidery mixed with a few oversized florals from the 1960's grandma's closet. Add some crazy bright wool socks and you've got it. The young girl looking over towards me in the photo above was so sweet and fun to watch. Every time I had my camera poised near her, she'd look at me and smile.)

After the dancing, the food, lots of jumping, and a lot of play, we took the small train ride around the base hoping that it would lead us to the AWACS that was open. It didn't. Instead, we just did a big boring circle and missed the plane except for a brief view as we drove passed it. The kids still enjoyed the ride although Luci was so hot, she leaned her head on the train car door and starting absentmindedly licking her salty arm. Just before we left the girls got cotton candy - a sweet end to a fun, but exhausting day.



During the the entire post-dancing fun, Tiara had been having big girl fun at an ice-cream shop with one of her friends. We picked her up and the kids played for a bit on the trampoline before we left for the night.