Turkey - A good wife serves diabetes
Hassan* (65) is a retired policeman who lives in a mountain village during the summer and in the close-by city during the winter. He and his wife Sevim*, a retired nurse, have a fruit garden, keep bees, raise chickens and have countless cats rummaging around their garden, trying to sneak into the house or wherever tasty food is being prepared. Hassan's favorite cat is a black and white beauty called Bekintash according to the Istanbul soccer team he is rooting for. Hassan's life consists mostly of driving in his pick-up truck to nearby towns delivering and picking up goods, and to work in his garden with the fruit trees or the beehive boxes.
From an outside perspective, he doesn't have much stress. But he protests and tells everyone how his relationship is causins him stress. Also, the people's interactions in the small mountain village seem to make his life complicated. His wife is constantly complaining (in mock or for real) – mostly about how he is ruining his health in front of her eyes. Hassan smokes one cigarette after the other, but ironically that's not his wife's concern – despite her nursing background. It's the sugar he puts in his tea that makes her cringe.
Turkey's national drink is black tea served in tiny tulip-shaped glasses with a large scoop of sugar. And it's what's causing his wife's worries. As a Turkish woman, she is the one in their household serving him the tea and if he demands sugar in it, cultural norms force her to oblige. With her teeth clenched and a pointy remark, she hands him over his tea, the large sugar crystals very visible at the bottom of the glass. Hassan laments that he's being denied what every Turk has the right to enjoy and the bickering continues. Later, he sits outside with the local imam** smoking a cigarette in one hand, and a chain of beads in his other hand. He flicks the chain through the air as his fingers run from one bead to the next in a rhythm. “Doing this relaxes me. I have so much stress. With these beads – what do you call them in English? - I can finally calm down again.”
* Names have been changed for patients' privacy.
** The imam is an Islamic leader of a mosque and the Muslim community.
