Sunday, October 30, 2011

Turkish Wedding - Part 2


Last night I attended the second day of a Turkish wedding..the actual ceremony. Both the wedding and the reception are typically held in the same venue and last night's was no exception. My friend Seda and her parents gave a ride to the wedding salon (salonu) and I was so appreciative to not have to walk in alone. This was a very large wedding..I'm estimating 500 people. The men and the women sat separately so when we walked in the salon, I saw only a sea of men.The men's reception line was near the front door. Seda's father joined his male friends and the three of us walked to the back of the salon to give Turkish kisses and hand shakes to the women's reception line and find a seat at a woman's table.

About 15 minutes after we arrived, large Roman candles (yes, the fireworks type) were lit to line the entry way. A video screen recorded the entry of the bride and groom and followed them to their seats of honor on a stage at the center of the room. At the wedding couple's table sat the mayor and three male witnesses. The mayor or one of his representatives attends all the weddings. The mayor welcomed us to the wedding, signed some papers, had the wedding couple sign some papers and said some words.. The bride said "evet" loudly. The mayor said some more words and the groom said "evet" loudly. Then we clapped and the groom kissed the bride quickly on the forehead. The mayor the turned his attention to the other men at the table and asked each if he was a witness and each said "evet" loudly. All this time was food was being served. Then the iman started chanting a verse from the Koran all while children were running wild and playing hide and seek under the tables. A wedding song was sung and a prayer was said and I could understand the frequent "amens".

We finished our meal, stood in line to greet the new couple, and left about 1 1/2 hour after we had arrived.

By the way, the bride was beautiful. She is a English teacher colleague at my school. A wedding is a five day paid vacation for the couple from work. Also, you can see the leaf-type floral arrangements behind the bride. There were probably 25 of these arrangements around the room. They are from friends and businesses that cannot be at the actual ceremony but send happy wishes via flowers.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Judging the quality of an apple


It's apple season here in Turkey. The Turkish name is "elma" and, like America, there are many different varieties. People tend to buy them by the crate fulls and leave them on their balconies to keep cold. I don't think many pesticides are used because the apples often have worm holes, but I've never been bothered by a little extra protein. And, they certainly are not waxed to look pretty like they are in America. But again, not a problem. What matters most to me is that an apple is very crunchy and a little tart. And, discovering that specific apple has been hit-or-miss for the past few weeks. However, one thing has been consistent. For every crisp, delicious apple I've savoured, I've broken the handle off a knife while cutting it. So, I've eaten three very delicious apples and today I need to go shopping....for knives.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Dinner with School Family



Last night I was invited to dinner at the home of one of my 4th grade students. The father is the head of the IT department at the university and he, his wife, and their two daughters live "on-campus" in the academic and employee housing of the university. It was a delightful evening of wonderful conversation and delicious food.

The father had been a visiting professor at Rensselaer and speaks good English, a plus for me. I learned that he is implementing ideas learned in America to increase worker productivity.

The mother is a high school math teacher. I learned that all students take the same math classes through 9th grade. Then they are separated by ability. Those academically able continue with math. The others are finished with math and focus on the social sciences. This "decision making" at 9th grade explains to me why so many students take extra classes in middle school on the weekends.

The dinner began with onion soup followed by what you see in my picture. I can't remember the name but it was delicious, meat, vegetables, all packed together and displayed on a serving platter that looked like a layered cake. This post wouldn't be complete without the mention of the "after dinner" latte. When I chose coffee, the wife said (and I understood this in Turkish) that she can make chai but her husband is the coffee maker. (sounds like our home.) Anyway, I mention the latte because it was made in an espresso machine with Starbucks coffee and it was DELICIOUS!

At about midnight, I arrived home from my "school night" dinner.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Reflecting on an Earthquake

It's day two after the devastating earthquake in Van, Turkey and I've been thinking about how close I am to the epicenter, yet really how far I away I am from what I know and understand. No, I didn't feel any aftershocks. I don't think any prayers were said at school for the victims, although I might not have understood, if they had been said. I didn't seen any kids talking about it. And, the only fairly close impact on Malatya is that two teachers had friends at the university in Van and both of those friends caught the bus home to Malatya yesterday afternoon. I think officials in Van have asked many people to leave and seek alternate housing if possible.
I'm still processing the fact that I didn't even know about the earthquake until about 6 hours after the fact when I turned on my computer. In the United States, I would have known fairly soon, either from the "Breaking News" flashing across the bottom of the TV screen, from the radio while traveling in my car, from the TVs at the club while working out, or from my phone because I am often walking through, or sitting in Wi-Fi hots spots. Here in Turkey, I've mostly quit watching TV's in the mall because they are only showing soccer replays. The only radio I've heard is in my school transport and it only plays Turkish pop music. My health club doesn't have TV and has been playing the same CD for 2 months (speaking of which, one song uses the F bomb so frequently that I'm always tempted to ask them to fast forward, but then I get a little smile to myself when they stop the music during the imam's call to prayer on the loudspeaker at the mosque. The contrast is huge). And, I've yet to find a Wi-Fi hotspot in Malatya. I am really out-of-touch, but not sure if it really matters.
The updates I've gotten for this earthquake have all come from American news channels via my computer. Tonight, for instance a 10-day old baby was rescued alive and there is hope of finding more survivors! But the footage of the surrounding buildings has also impacted me. I am living in a building exactly like so many of those that crumbled to the ground in Van. I see many new apartment buildings being constructed near my house, but construction seems very rudimentary. I don't think this building would survive an earthquake..not even sure how I would get out if there were a fire. Then, I think about California and Seattle building codes and contrast that to my present reality.
Which reminds me to thank all who sent messages to me. It is nice to be remembered. But especially keep the victims of the earthquake in your thoughts and prayers. They have the difficult months ahead.

Friday, October 21, 2011

Paper Airplanes

Today is one of those days when I woke up and just didn't feel like teaching. It could be that I was starting the day with my least favorite class or that I had been kept awake by the grumblings of an upset stomach, but whatever it was, I thought to myself, "I need to show a movie." Unfortunately, I have not yet found or used any of the technology that might be available to me so a movie also seemed like too big of a task. Therefore, I settled for the next best thing...paper airplanes. I drew a target on the board, told the students to make an airplane, and held a paper airplane throwing contest. The prize for the most points was a piece of candy.
Here are the neat things about this type of activity in an EFL classroom. First, the students don't remember what a piece of paper is so they gets lots of vocabulary instruction for that word. Second, in Turkey, many students don't have lose sheets of paper, so we learn words like "share" and "yes, you can recycle the old homework assignment with an F on it." (I hope that's true because we threw a few F's.) Third, the most difficult behaving boys can make great paper airplanes and the smartest, most academic girls have no idea how to make a plane, so we get in some cooperative learning activities. Fourth, this activity works really well because each student only gets to throw their plane if they answer a question correctly. As you can imagine, many of the boys couldn't answer even one question correctly so they seldom got to throw their super-dynamic, pin-point accurate planes. And the girls who answered almost every question correctly earned very few points because their planes didn't fly. Fifth, each student only gets to answer a question if they hear me call their name the first time. That left out a few non-listeners who, by the way, started perking up towards the end when they realized their friends had already had several turns. And finally, this activity was a great assessment activity. It quickly identified those students who know this week's vocabulary and grammar and those who don't.
For you teachers out there, you can see how the bolded words work well in a lesson plan. And, as for my self-evaluation of ways to improve this activity, I think next time I will make boy/girl teams. Maybe the boys can learn the English from the girls, because they are certainly not learning it from me. And maybe the girls will learn that they can be a pilot if they want when they grow up.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Walk to the Mall

Tonight I decided to make the 45 minute walk to the mall for dinner for two reasons. The first was to postpone grading papers or working on lesson plans. But the second, more important reason, was because the mall is one place where I can eat dinner alone and not feel strange. The mall has an actual food court with Burger King, McDonalds, Sbarro Pizza, and myriad Turkish brands of fast foods..mostly kofte and doners. There are even two semi-fast food restaurants where they have actual waiters, the chairs are really comfy, and the menu has pictures so I have a pretty good idea what I'm ordering. Tonight I chose the semi-fast food restaurant and ordered an adana iskender because the picture was pretty. (For all you English buffs, I would capitalize Adana because it's the name of a city here in Turkey, but maybe the iskender is not really named after the city or maybe Turkish has different capitalization rules)..Oh, I guess more importantly, an iskender is like a long skinny kabob made with ground hamburger or ground lamb. The food was tasted fine...not amazing, not bad.
The best part of this restaurant was that they had a TV playing so I could engross myself in trying to understand Turkish. On the television set appeared to be either Brandi Chastain or Tiffeny Milbrett helping girls in Africa learn to play soccer. Two things struck me about this program: 1. the fact that girls were playing soccer and 2. location of the playing field which consisted of dirt and rocks, with a few tough drought resistant weeds sprinkled in as obstacles...very similar to here in Turkey...the fields, that is. I haven't seen many girls playing soccer.
Then I got to thinking about Ellen and all the soccer fields we've seen and soccer players we've met. So, I decided it was time to walk home before I made myself homesick.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

British vs. American English

There are many differences between British English and American English. Of course pronunciation of words like "tomato" (American -long a) and "tomato (British - short a..kind of stretched out for effect like bowing to the queen) and the spelling of American "color" and British "colour" are well documented differences. But the word that trips me up every day when showing students flash cards is the picture of an eraser. The students yell out RUBBER and I try really hard not to laugh. I really want to explain that it might not be a good idea to call an eraser a "rubber" if they plan on attending university in America. But where do I even begin...other than to say that "In America we call a "rubber" an "eraser?"

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Shoe Repair


About six months ago I threw away a pair of shoes in the Tri-Cities. I couldn't find a shop to nail new tips into the heels. Yesterday, I was dressed in jeans and high heels, (because that's what you do here) and had walked many kilometers with my friend Sema to help settle all the food we had consumed at brunch. All the cobblestones and the fact that my shoes are over a year old, left me clacking along the street on nails only. I knew I'd seen an alley in Malatya that consists of only shoe makers (it's actually really cool to see) so I figured a repair was possible. Not only are my shoes now repaired, I got a good price, too. My friend spent about five minutes negotiating the price down from 7 TL to 5Tl or about $2.50. It sure is a good thing I didn't go alone or I would have overpaid....

Friday, October 14, 2011

Classroom Vocabulary

We here at the English department are trying to enforce a "Speak English Only" rule during English class. For those of you who've studied a foreign language you know how difficult speaking in your L2 can be. But for second graders, this is next to impossible. I can give simple classroom room instructions like "Get pencil", "Cut", "Write" orally, with physical motion, and with pictures and a student will nod in reply "cut, ah ha" and then rattle off a paragraph in Turkish with the gist being "I don't have any scissors." So much for the Speak English Only rule. I could buy a classroom set of scissors to carry around in my already super stuffed portable office (a plastic basket) to avoid this frantic conversation, but instead, I decided we could use this opportunity to learn some manners and English at the same time. So, I made a poster with two hand-drawn students (OK, I lied...I traced some flash cards of students because I can't draw) and word bubbles. The conversation reads like this:
(Girl)- (actually, I should have made "her" a "him" because the "hims" never have any supplies and the girls always do, but I was trying not to be sexist) "May I borrow your_____, please?" (There are pictures of classroom supplies at the bottom of the poster below the boy.)
(Boy) "Yes."
(Girl) "Thank you."
(Boy) "You're welcome."

This poster actually works so well, that I will probably make some more conversation posters explaining things like the word "interrupt" as in "don't", and "throw pencils" as in "don't", etc.

Here's a poster I want to make, but, for obvious reasons, won't:
(Student) Teacher, Teacher!* (This means "I want to be your helper" but the student doesn't know any more words to explain his eagerness, and then that student scoops up all my flash cards, lesson plans, magnets, pens, pencils and dumps them in my basket and fights with another student to be my helper and carries everything out of the room)
(Teacher) Thank you for wanting to help, but I'm not ready to leave the class room yet, and when you scoop everything into a pile, even though you mean well, I won't be able to find anything and then I will lose control of the next class in the middle of an activity because I will be digging through my basket looking for a picture of a kite (the kids say something like "key tay"... the "i" in Turkish is pronounced like a long "e" in English and there are no silent letters in Turkish) and I won't be able to find the kite and then we won't learn this week's vocabulary word or have today's pronunciation lesson.

Here's the conversation that really occurs:
(Student) Teacher, Teacher! (same scooping action as above)
(Teacher) Thank you for your help. That's so nice. (forced smile)

*The phrase "Teacher, Teacher" can mean just about anything depending upon who's bored and needs a trip to the bathroom, who hasn't listened to one word of instruction, who's crying, or who has just suffered an grave injustice.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Bake Sale for Charity

Today the 2nd graders had a bake sale to earn money for charity. At 9:00 am I accompanied my 4th grade class to the indoor gym area in the basement of the school where each of the 4 second grade classes had set up tables around the perimeter of the room filled to the brim with Turkish baked goods. Most everything I'd never seen before: cakes, cookies, stuffed apricots, countless delicacies decorated with pistachios, corn bread soaked in honey, stuffed grape leaves, puffed pastries filled with cheese and herbs...there could be an entire dictionary dedicated to names of only Turkish sweets..Standing behind each table was each of the second graders wearing a rubber glove (yeah for that!) and "selling" their baked goods (or rather their mother's culinary skills.) Each child had his or her own "sales pitch" and plastic baggie to collect the money from their sales. Many of these kids were very persuasive and their persuasiveness led me to an orangeish/greenish pastry that I would never have chosen on my own, but which, indeed, turned out to be delicious!

While I was savoring my purchases and talking with one of the other English teachers, we were interrupted by a very friendly and thoughtful second grade girl. According to my English "translator" this girl wanted to know how I was able to buy some treats. She thought that since I don't speak Turkish and I come from America that I don't have any Turkish money. She wanted to know if I needed some "charity".

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Look-out Men

My transportation to school is a 20 passenger white van provided by a private service. There are two teacher vans and I ride van #40. The bus stop used to be conveniently located right in front of my apartment building, but now I walk about two blocks away and wait with another teacher. Occasionally, like this morning, my colleague will point (she doesn't speak English) to indicate that we are meeting the van at another location. How she knows where the van will pick us up is a mystery to me because I never know where, but I think there is an intricate system of calls and text messages from the look-out men in the front seat of the van. Aside from being teachers, I think their job is to watch for closed roads and police officers doing random traffic checks, and to remind the driver to go back and pick up passengers who missed the van on the first drive-by because the first pass was 20 minutes earlier than said passenger was told..(just in case you're wondering, that passenger was me...)

Anyway, back to today and a little back ground information...the city has been modernizing the roads by my house for as long as I've lived here, but I think it's been more like two years according to my boss. It's a mess: dusty, noisy, random pieces of equipment left out to trip over, random power outages and internet disruptions as the wrong wires are cut or attached or whatever. And, at random times the city workers will stretch some tape across the road (kind of like crime scene tape) to indicate that the road is closed. (There's no such thing as the American digital signs indicating that on X date the road will be closed for x number of days)... Anyway, this morning was one of those days for a closed road and some road construction work. Often passenger cars just disregard the tape, send out the person riding shot-gun to hold up it up, and then proceed on through the construction zone. But today a police car with flashing lights was enforcing the stretched tape across the road.. thus the new van pick-up location.

Last week the look-out men had gotten some kind of word from fellow van drivers that there was a random traffic check on our route to school. All vans and cars were being stopped, all papers were being checked, and entire vans of teachers and students were late to school. But, thanks to Van #40's look-out men, our driver made a quick left turn, crossed a major highway, geared down to go up a steep hill, and raced through some farms and down a dirt road to avoid the traffic stop. I'm not sure if the look-out men were joking or if something was lost in the translation, but I understood them to say that our driver did not have a license and it would be a problem to be stopped.

Unfortunately, yesterday our look-out men must have been chatting because they did not see the police officer pulling over all the speeding school vans just in front of our school. (There were at least four of them!) We were stopped for speeding I think,(I would estimate 20- 30 km/hour over in a school zone.) The driver's papers were taken, the police officer gave a quick glance though our van (so glad I did not have to show my papers...my heart always skips a beat when I see a police officer) and we were allowed to be driven on to school. But I'm sure the driver had to go back to retrieve his papers and/or pay some money...

In spite of not knowing where to meet the van, the service is a memorable experience, and the look-out men are quite entertaining. Oh, and did I mention that the van leaves exactly 10 minutes after school lets out? So much for working late....

Monday, October 10, 2011

B-fit

I joined an all women's health club when I first arrived in Malatya. I chose it, not because it has the best equipment, or even the equipment I wanted like a tread mill or exercise bike, but because of Sema, the cleaning lady, who is so nice and did her best to make me feel welcome. So, I've been using weight machines very regularly every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I'm usually the only one in the gym and, because Sema has to turn on the lights and the music for me, I've often wondered if anyone even uses this gym. But, religiously, I go through the motions of trying to stay healthy while Sema watches me exercise.
Fast forward to today when there were not one, not two, but three other women using the machines. And even more exciting, one of the younger women was really putting her heart and soul into her work-out. This was great news for me as I've really needed to amp up my routine. Seeing this other women giving her best effort was just the motivation I needed. Just ask any of my family and they will tell you that I'm just a little competitive. If someone puts 40 pounds on a machine, I'm going to put 45. If someone does 10 push-ups, I'm going to try and do 11. So having some competition was good...
Bottom line...a big THANK YOU to the stranger at the health club and please come back soon! I really needed you.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Ironing


About a week ago someone commented that I need to iron my white work jacket (lab coat), so I joked back that if they want me to iron, then the school will need to buy me an iron. I said it with a smile, but didn't really give it a second thought. You see, I haven't ironed anything more a seam on a sewing project in years. Ironing is not really my thing. But that may change. You see, last night some co-workers delivered a brand new iron and pink ironing board, both still in their wrappers. Unfortunately, now I may have to buy some hangers...

Fast forward to now, Sunday night, and it's ironing time. I've removed the wrappers, set up the ironing board...(did I mention the pink ironing board cover has camels printed on it?..now that's a metaphor!) and spent the past 20 minutes trying to figure out which way is hot. No matter which way I turn the dial, I can't get it hot enough to do any good on my wrinkled cotton or even polyester for that matter.

Currently, I am turning the knob one notch clockwise and writing one sentence for this post in a scientific method to find hot. I still haven't discovered the setting for that good "ironing sizzle" from my childhood. At this rate, I'll be fine with my current supply of hangers...

Ok, the iron's getting a little hotter, and I just discovered bird poop on the sleeve of my white lab coat...I wonder if it's from the same family that left a present on my tea pot?

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Turkish Wedding - Part 1


The Henna Party

My friend Sema invited me to her relative's wedding this evening. Apparently it doesn't matter if I'm related or know the person getting married to attend a wedding. So in pouring rain, we walked across town to the apartment of the bride. The 4th floor flat was packed with women greeting the bride who was perched on a chair in a sitting room waiting for well-wishes from family and friends and me..a total stranger. The bride was more than willing to pose for pictures so I quickly tried to snap a few but the family insisted that I be in the pictures, so here I am.

Soon, everyone stood, walked downstairs, and started dancing in the street to Turkish music provided by a local DJ. There was some clapping after the mother of the groom placed four gold bracelets on the bride's wrist and then some more dancing. I never noticed the bride leaving the parking lot, but apparently she did, because pretty soon all the children held lit sparklers and candles and formed a little path for both the bride and groom to walk. Each was wearing a red cloth over their head, and the bride was wearing a new outfit similar to Jasmine in Walt Disney's Aladdin. Everyone formed a circle around the wedding couple and danced for several minutes until the rain started falling again.

The bride party disappeared down a dark alley, but the rest of us hopped on a Dolmus (a small bus) and drove through some different back alleys of Malatya until we arrived at a different street dance with live music. Things definitely got more lively here at the house of the groom with some very entertaining drummers and a few Turkish women and men who really got into dancing. I should mention that the wedding couple took the first dance and looked about a uncomfortable as most middle school students at their first slow dance, straight, locked arms, plenty of space between the bodies, fear of looking each other in the eyes, and no smiles. In addition, Turkish men were lighting off fireworks more powerful than anything sold in Wyoming at distance of about two feet from the dance area. I noticed this because I was thinking that one spark landing on the bride's dress would burn to a crisp. And, one girl did come crying too her mom to say she had gotten a spark in her eye.

I am understanding things correctly, the frown on the bride's face could be caused by fact that the father of the bride who left Malatya 14 years ago and took a second wife and had two children with her in Lithuania, showed up in Malatya last night just in time for the wedding. That could be cause for some tension...

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Bike for dinner


Last night I hopped on my bike for a quick fall ride before the sun set. I found some new roads, actually more like paved donkey cart paths, winding up the steep hills behind my house. On several occasions I was approached by one or two brave children asking me to stop and talk. At this point, the original 2 children often morphed into 10 or 15 children within seconds. After learning that both boys and girls like football and basketball, the girls love Justin Bieber, and the boys like video games, I usually say my goodbyes and start pedaling. But last night was different. A 16 year old girl asked me, mostly with sign language by rubbing her tummy, and saying "yekmek" if I'd eaten. The easy response would have been "yes" but I decided to tell the truth "yok" (no) and see what happened. Well, she managed to tell me her mother was a very good cook and that I must come home to dinner with her. I contemplated asking the polite "Are you sure it's OK with your mom?" but realized I have zero vocabulary for that type of sentence and also figured it's not my problem (a very new me!) I also pictured my empty cupboard at home...

So, yes, I followed a 16 year old stranger home for dinner where I was greeted by like royalty with a kiss and an extended Turkish hug. I was presented with delicious leftovers on a tea tray in the living room with everyone watching me eat, the TV blaring in the background making it very difficult for me to concentrate and hear the very little Turkish I even understand, and the most beautiful and kind family you can imagine. I was treated to a look-see of the father's passport and his many stamps as a chauffeur...Bulgaria, Romania, Syria, Croatia, etc. I played a new marble game with the 7 year old little brother who also, by the way, treated me to a showing off of his new trick...lighting a match and putting the flame out in his mouth. I carried on a conversation about computer games and math with the 16 year old cousin as he lit up his second cigarette. And, I practiced speaking English with 16 year old Rabia who really LOVES America and wants to visit someday. The mother, as you can tell from the photo, is a beautiful, kind, loving, and generous person. And, she IS a good cook, just like Rabia said.

I may have to take a bike ride every night!

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Confused....

When my printed schedule says school ends at 4:10 and the bell hasn't yet rung and all the class periods are 40 minutes long, which would make for a 4:10 departure, and I have 40 minutes of lessons planned, but at 4:00 all the children are saying "home Mrs. Jansen" and begging to go to the "toilet" and then coming back with their coats on, and then dragging me to the door to show me that the custodians are already cleaning the other rooms and the hallway is dark, quiet, and void of children, what is the point of a bell and a schedule? Either all the other classes were at specials like music and PE and the students are clever and playing me for a clueless English, or some teachers are calling it "quits" early. This will require some detective work. If the other classes have specials, then I can explain to students. If the other classes are just leaving early...that puts me in an awkward position.

PS. The run-on sentence was intentional...it matches the constant stream of noise and people from 8:20 a.m - 4:10 p.m. (well actually 4:04 today )

Saturday, October 1, 2011

From City to Country in 2km

(For my Tri-Cities Friends..the scenery is very similar )
Thanks to Eric's getting some mechanical fixes on my bicycle, today I was finally brave enough to ride out of town. After pedaling for about 10 minutes, I left the noise, dirt, and bustle of the city and found myself in the heart of apricot farmland, sharing the one-lane road with, donkey carts, tractors, chickens, stray dogs, and numerous children playing in the road
There were a few sights that left impressions. First was a Turkish woman struggling to keep upright a wheelbarrow that was loaded with a 6-foot tall load of sticks while her husband stood right next to her and supervised. Next was the group of boys playing out in a meadow who came running across a large field to say "Hello, What's your name?" and when I ask the same question in return and I could actually pronounce their names. (thanks to a week at school trying to pronounce names.) Last was the disappointment at not being able to stop for a chai in the beautiful town square at Battlegazi because it was completely dominated by men. Being a Saturday morning, all the women were home pushing wheelbarrows and plowing fields by hand with a hoe while the men were out sipping tea and playing backgammon.
Also, I got the answers to two burning questions. I've been wondering where the pide bakeries (bread) located every block or so get all the wood for their brick ovens that run all day and night. There aren't many trees around here. And, second, I've been wondering it the apricot orchards use chemical fertilizers. Based upon what I saw today, the wood for the furnaces comes from the pruned apricot trees, and the apricot trees are fertilized with mounds of natural cow fertilizer from the dairy farms.