Osman Chapter 10: Trials before Blessings

Here we are in chapter 10! This week many bad things will happen and then a good thing will happen at the end! If you want to start at the beginning then click here.

Nothing but blue to see, and the smell of sea.

The next morning there were no students at the level two six A.M. class per usual. With the free time I took the opportunity to go to the top deck. As I gazed out at the horizon the French warship was no where to be seen. The Ottoman warship was missing as well. I went back down to the bridge to do the daily printing and to learn about the most recent gossip about the warships.

Nothing but smiles.

Uzgur was smiling as I entered the bridge, he was talkative and in a jocular mood. The warships had agreed that both of them would leave and for now no military action would be made against Osman. I finished my printing and showed him the list of students who hadn’t come yet. He promised to take the list to the captain who would talk to the students individually.

The following day the captain came back with news that some of the students were too far behind and they didn’t feel comfortable being in the class. With the new crew, I had noticed that there were a couple of students that were so far behind that the class was almost impossible for them, so I wasn’t surprised. They would end up getting laughed at and teased by their friends and one of them had told the radio man that he couldn’t understand anything, so he didn’t want to come anymore as well. I decided that I would make an extra class on Saturday since there were no classes then. I called it “Beginner catch up class” or in Ottoman: “Super cok beginner ders”. I put up posters along with the normal crew list with their class times. I came up with a creative idea, but I made one mistake. I added two confused looking people and then speech bubbles where I wrote common English mistakes that Ottoman students make. I.E.: “How old are you?” “Fine thanks and you?” “I am very money” etc. The only problem was that this enticed some people aboard the ship to add their own bubbles.

The daddies of the coop right?

One person added “I love cock” and put it right above the confused girl’s head. I decided to report it to the radioman and asked him if I should write a focus card. These were cards where anyone on the ship could report a safety hazard or complain about something. He laughed and said “No, let’s tell the captain.” The captain also laughed and said there was nothing we could do because there was no way to figure out who had done it. He said to write back “Come to the OIM’s office (the captain’s office) and you’ll find the biggest one”. Then the radioman started to talk about how one of the helicopter pilots from Cameron had a large cock too and the captain asked him how he knew.

I decided to do nothing, I thought that writing a response might get me more responses and they might write on future posters for more entertainment. Half a day later the message was still up and the talk of the ship. One of the head guys on the ship asked me to scratch it out, but I had a better idea. You know if you turn the second “C” in “cock” to an “O” it changes the word to cook? So that’s what I did. Then I added “ing” on the end. “I Love cooking” it said, which was a little bit sexist since it was above the girl’s head, but it was better than cock.

The mess hall was like a frat hall, even though most of the workers were 40 to 50 years old.

I assumed people on the ship might write on the posters at some point, as whenever I heard the foreigner’s conversations, they usually talked about three things: “Women, cocks and masturbating”. These of course were the western foreigners on the ship. I sat with them a few times and it was silent when I sat down, that was until someone brought up one of the three topics. Then they could talk for hours. I still figured if cocks and raunchy conversations were the worst thing about the ship, then everything would be ok.

In theatre the broken leg is a great thing, on an oil ship: not so much.

However, there were soon injuries in successive weeks. First a guy broke his leg on the stairs. There were constant reminders in safety meetings about holding onto the rail, and in those same meetings half the focus cards focused on people walking up and down the stairs, with a coffee in one hand and a cell phone in the other. Perhaps they were holding the handrail with their foot and hopping down. This man was apparently carrying laundry down the stops and missed the last two or three steps and crashed down, and cracked his ankle, with a minor fracture. He claimed he was holding the handrail when he fell but nobody believed him.

These fleshy sticks weren’t meant to go in a grinder

I thought that would be the end of it, that maybe everyone would be on edge and extra careful about safety, but I was wrong. The very next safety meeting there were two more injuries. One man twisted his wrist and had to be taken to Antalya for X-rays. He returned in under forty-eight hours and was working again though. Then there was a man who got his finger stuck somewhere it didn’t belong. He also went to Antalya, but he wasn’t so lucky. Part of his finger was amputated after his glove got stuck in some part of a machine and tugged his finger in after it. It made me glad that I was an English teacher.

Cranky tears, know no age.

That was until the new crew arrived. The classes went well and were pretty typical lessons, but one class came in and they were overly pushy. Immediately complaining about reviewing old content that half of them couldn’t do anyways. Demanding that the class be ended early because they were tired and more. I was happy to let them leave about five minutes early. I wondered if the last few weeks were just subsequent hell weeks. Then there was an announcement. “Do not use the elevator, maintenance is being done on it.” Well, I didn’t think anyone would be using it anyway since it hadn’t been working for almost two months.

Pretty close to how our elevator worked.

What I imagine the Scotsman on the radio looked like.

It wasn’t but a day later where the message “The elevator is working, I repeat the elevator is working” came across the PA system. A second PA announcement followed “WOOHOOOOOO”. Perhaps it was even more “O’s” than that. Something good had finally happened, and in relation to this week I had to say “it was about time.”

Osman Chapter 9: Crew Changes

Chapter 9 is here! This week, there are crew changes on the ship, which cause chaos and a French warship shows up!

If it’s your first time viewing the blog or story then click here to start at the beginning of the story.

Ship men leaving, much like they did on Osman.

Now everything was falling into place. My daily habits and schedule were working perfectly together. I also knew all the students; their names as well as their true levels, so it was much easier to plan the classes. I hadn’t messaged Darren for almost a week and had every part of my routine down, including doing laundry and eating. Yet when I went into the classroom and looked at the crew members from all the crews, their test dates and other information there was something looming over my head; “February 24th, 25th and 26th.” These were the days when the new crew would come on board and by the end of the 27th; they would be mixed in with the other classes.

Trying to figure out the crew changes and curriculum with mixed crews felt like entering a matrix.

Some classes were behind the others, and now there would be crews coming who had already completed certain units in the book that would be added to the chaos. Now it was time to send lots of text messages to Darren again. It was my first time facing the crew change, so no matter how much I talked about it or planned for it, it was impossible to know how it would go. Crew member shifts were also changing for those who would be staying on board, so I was also guessing when they would come to class. For the two classes that would still have Crew A members I planned three lessons and had them ready based on different scenarios. Scenario A: The same students come but no new ones. Scenario B: the same students do not come, only new ones come. Scenario C: the class is mixed with both crews.

Things getting serious

Darren recommended that I head up to the bridge and ask the radio man about the different students. He could tell me who was coming on which day and what the shifts would be for the students who still be on board. The radio man worked with me over the next fifteen minutes checking all the students work times and dates of arrival. When I was about to leave, he told me I should go to the top deck, because there was an Ottoman warship patrolling along side the ship. Apparently due to threats coming from Cyprus and the European Union, the Ottoman Empire’s leadership had sent a warship to protect Osman while it was doing its exploration drilling.

Looks scary or sexy, depending who you are.

As I exited the stairwell and was greeted with the smell of the sea, I could see the towering metallic structure of the ship, making its way almost to the top of Osman’s top deck. Gigantic guns ready for action, Osman men in camouflage patrolling and running about, and others standing at attention with rifles awaiting orders. All of the sudden, there was a radio announcement blaring out of the warship’s speakers. It was in Ottoman, so I couldn’t fully understand it, but they seemed to be pointing towards the horizon. I squinted and tried to peer through the piercing sun and the white water that was flashing and reflecting to see. There was a tiny black dot on the tip of the water, far in the distance, where the water met the sky.

I was awoken at four A.M. with a siren shrieking. There was an announcement about the dot on the horizon. It was a French warship, which was coming at full speed towards Osman and its warship. The radio man went on saying that we should be ready at all times for an abandon ship drill, should anything happen. When seven A.M. rolled around there had been no other announcements, but I was awoken by another shrill noise, my alarm clock. In the class I had a stroke of luck, no students came. Then when ten AM came, only old students joined the lesson. A bit more relaxed about the crew change situation I went to the bridge to see how the warship situation was going.

A lot of action on the top deck.

The radio man Uzgur looked serious. No smile was on his face and he was furiously typing on his computer. He couldn’t take it any longer and went out onto the deck to smoke a cigarette. He apologized for not being friendly when I came in. He told me to look out onto the water and there you could see the French warship, now only a hundred meters or so from Osman. Directly fifty meters from the French warship’s guns were the Osman warship’s guns, they were both pointed at each other. Neither ship had much commotion on it, with men standing at attention and ready to take orders. Uzgur said, there was a lot going on, on the radio. There were a mix of threats and commands which were mostly being ignored for now. The French ship was demanding that Osman leave Cyprus’ waters. The Ottoman’s were demanding that the French warship leave The Ottoman Empire’s waters. Then they went from demands to threats and from threats to commands. Then the cycle continued but there was still no movement on either of the ships.

The main sources of entertainment on the ship were the gym and sleep.

I wanted to continue watching the exciting stalemate, but it was about twenty minutes until my third class. I went back downstairs to the classroom. When one o’ clock arrived, there were only crew B students. I did my normal thing, going to the gym, showering and relaxing until dinner came. At the dinner table there was the latest gossip about the warships around the dining room’s tables. The French warship and the Ottoman warship wouldn’t budge. I finished my dinner as quickly as possible and headed upstairs for the final class.

Mixing it up in the class like this. Unfortunately there were no girls though.

Seven P.M. swung by and the class was a mix of one crew B student and three crew A students. It was also a class mixed with crew A students who were in different units. My plan for this scenario had been to do the unit that was the furthest behind, and the more advanced students didn’t seem to mind. As the students left the class at eight fifteen, I was able to relax. Now I knew where all the students were and planning the lessons would be easier.  The day was over and now I felt more comfortable with crew changes. The other ones would be much easier. The only problem at this point was the students who wouldn’t come to class, yet is extra free time on one’s hands ever a problem? I went up to my cabin for the night. The warships suddenly crossed my mind again, but then I relaxed. I was sure they wouldn’t do anything. Thirty minutes later I crawled into bed, hoping for a good night’s sleep.

Osman: Prologue

A story of my adventure on the Ottoman Empire’s first oil ship as an English teacher.

The Ottoman Empire in 1914.

The year is 2019 and The Ottoman Empire remains intact. In the year 1914 the Ottoman Empire failed to join the Central Powers even though they had a secret agreement with them. German and Austro-Hungarian officials were both shocked and angered by this but had their hands full with the Allied Powers. However, these Allied Powers were on edge due to the uncertainty of what the Ottomans would do. Thus, in the autumn of 1915 Mehmet V, the sultan of Turkey at the time, was assassinated by Greek and British agents. Ismail Enver Pasha took over the country and declared a state of emergency. While remaining neutral during World War I, The Ottoman Empire started to see a huge descent in their economy’s efficiency. In a meeting between military officials, including officers as low as lieutenant, they began to discuss the country, the economy and drastic changes. The first step of action was to give Arabic states autonomous freedom, while The Ottoman Empire still controlled their foreign policies. The next step was to modernize the country.

Mustafa Kemal

One young officer by the name of Mustafa Kemal, caught the eye of the grand pasha Ismail Enver and he was allowed to start a committee which worked solely on the modernization of The Empire. Over the next decade they improved their education, added more modern fashion and religious ideals to the country. In 1923 Ismail Enver Pasha retired as leader of The Ottoman Empire and appointed Mustafa Kemal the leader. Mustafa Kemal continued his work towards modernizing the country and also took up the path of secularizing it. He banned certain religious garments and put focus on less religious subjects in schools. He also created a more modern form of writing which made it easier for Ottoman people to read and write. With the death of Mustafa Kemal in 1938, the country decided to do away with their authoritarian government style and attempted to copy a western democratic system. From the 1960s to the 1970s they also gave each Arabic country their own true independence.

Osman traveling through the Mediterranean Sea

In the year 2019 The Ottoman Empire is on a quest to find oil in the Mediterranean Sea, under the orders of their new president Recep Tayip Erdogan. They have just recently sent out their first oil ship named “Osman” to do experimental drilling. The purpose of the drilling is to see what is in the waters near The Ottoman Empire and around the island of Cyprus. The country of Cyprus has complained but the European Union does not support them, and The Ottoman Empire ignores them. Half the crew on Osman is Ottoman and the rest are a mix of different foreign nationalities. Many of these Ottoman workers lack the English skills that are needed to communicate with the foreign workers. Therefore, they have created an English program on the ship and hired several English teachers to teach in the workers off hours. In this book I hope to tell you my tales of working and teaching English on The Ottoman Empire’s first oil ship: Osman.