I can see my old bedroom window from here.
I used to lean out of it at dusk, between the call to prayer and the call for dinner, trying to gather up fresh energy for the night of “what-did-you-learn-today” and sunflower seeds and three-hour soap operas ahead. During those first months as a student of all things Turkish, it took all my energy to stay engaged in mealtime conversation with my host family and try to make sense of the unfamiliar culture I was attempting to fit into. I so often wanted to hide away in my room, but the fact that I shared it with my extroverted eighteen year old “sister” made it quite the opposite of a haven. When she wasn’t moaning about having nothing to wear or whispering into her cell phone until all hours, she was peering over the top of the bunk bed we shared, asking why I had to study so much.
Those moments with my head stuck out the window were my salvation. Even when the air was thick with coal, they were breaths of fresh air to me - momentary escapes that gave me what I needed to go back inside and “be Turkish.”
Mold and rent hikes have prompted my Turkish family to move twice in the six years since we all lived together in that tiny flat, and their current apartment is just one street over from the first one. I relocated to a different city as soon as I finished language school, but I come back every chance I get. I stay with them before and after flying in and out of the country, visit for religious holidays, come up for funerals, and let them take care of me after ear surgeries, like the one that brought me here this time.
I am standing in my Turkish mom's kitchen over a pot of bell peppers stuff with rice, dill, onions, currants and fragrant spices. The family is always curious to know what local dishes I’ve learned to make, and I’ve been promising them I’d make dolma ever since I arrived for a visit last week.
Looking across the street at the back of our old apartment building, I feel like a completely different person than that girl who used to have to lean out the window, staring at this same view from the other side, trying to avoid being suffocated by life in this country. Now, being with them is like being home. I wish they wouldn’t smoke and they don’t understand why I like so much alone time, but we’re used to each other. Our nightly ritual of sunflower seeds and Turkish soaps are the most normal thing in the world to me. They even let me make the tea.
Whenever I arrive in town, I take some combination of train/ferry/bus/taxi from the airport to our neighbourhood, and as my suitcase wheels clatter over the uneven pavement, the sense of anticipation and belonging in my heart increases with every step towards home. I weave my way through football games and smile at women carrying empty water bottles to fill up at the fountain. I pass the veggie seller and the roasted nut guy, at least one eskici, with his cart full of salvagable “old things” and a handful of gypsies hauling their recyclables to the depot at the bottom of our old street. Men talk in huddles outside cafes as they puff away on cigarettes between games of backgammon and cups of çay. Just before turning onto our street, I particularly enjoy plowing right through the middle of the flock of pigeons that is always congregated in the square, sending wings scattering in all directions.
This is an old neighbourhood of blue collar workers, halfway between the slums and the suburbs, and while the number of headscarves is increasing, the number of piercings and laptop cases is as well. It’s close enough to the shopping-and-entertainment district of Kadıköy to enjoy it, but just far enough away so that the streets are still quiet at night, save for the occasional drunken fistfight. Neighbours still know each other by name, families can still run up a tab at the bakery, and judging by the number of keychains in the cash register at the corner store when I stop in to get the house key, trust has not yet been completely eroded in our corner of this city of 15 million.
On my last two visits I’ve noticed some disturbing new additions to the neighbourhood: signs posted on houses that have been sold to a developer planning to replace these humble homes with luxury high rise apartment buildings. There were just a few when I was here in November, but they’ve multiplied since then, and I was most saddened to see one on our own apartment building’s wall. In the end, the whole district is going to be bulldozed down anyway, so I suppose it was only a matter of time.
Progress and development and modernization are good for a city, I tell myself. Half of these houses are filled with mold and cockroaches anyway. And yet the sight of those signs - I can see four of them from our kitchen window - fills my heart with an aching sense of loss. Come Saturday, I will be on a bus home, and I hate knowing that this may be one of the last times I look out the window onto this street.
These are the streets along which three generations of my Turkish family have come home from work every day. My own family has lived in five different houses in this neighbourhood - three of them since I’ve known them. This is the neighbourhood where my dad smoked his first cigarette and my little sister said her first words. The neighbourhood where I ate my first Ramadan meal, learned to crack sunflower seeds and mastered past and future tense.
The neighbourhood where I first became a Turk.
I think I understand how the old man in "Up" must have felt, staring down the wrecking ball headed for his house, refusing to let his memories be demolished. I wonder how long it would take to blow up a couple million balloons.....
I haven’t decided yet if it’s a cruelty or a comfort, but either way, I’m grateful for the way the door to my Turkish family’s apartment building makes a low groaning sound like a ferry horn right before it slams shut. More or less confined to the couch as I recover from ear surgery and the cold that preceded it, this is about as close to the Bosphorus as I’ve been all week.
Okay, that’s not entirely true. Knowing that I might feel crummy like this my whole time here, I purposely flew into the farther-out European-side airport just so I could take a ferry back across on my way to my Asian-side home. I knew it might be my only chance to get out on the water and enjoy the salty sea breeze and the dance of the seagulls as they chase the bits of simit tossed by passengers from Eminönü to Kadıköy, and I wasn’t about to miss out on the experience that, more than any other, represents life in this incredible city for me.
The day before my surgery, I did make it down to the seaside for a little while - long enough to have one last cup of çay at Haydarpaşa Station before they transform it from a glorious hundred-year-old railway station into something horrid like a mall or a bowling alley. But that day was more about bidding farewell to a building that holds an important place in both Istanbul’s history and my own. And besides, there was a crazy fog that day through which one could barely make out the tips of the minarets of the Blue Mosque through the haze, so it wasn’t much of a day for impressive views.
Today, after sleeping in til almost eleven (the doc says the anesthetic should be out of my system - when is this tiredness going to go away?) and slowly making my way through my breakfast and quiet time routine, I decided that even if I wasn’t up for a full-on gez (exploration, outing), I could at least handle a bus ride along the Asian shore of Bosphorus - just to remind myself that I’m here and it’s there.
I got all excited about taking the dolmuş (minibus) from Kadıköy to Üsküdar, passing familiar spots along the way, and then riding the bus up the coast to Beykoz for a cup of tea in the sleepy fishing village at the end of the line. It’s an appropriately gray day - the kind that’s perfectly suited to seagull cries and whitecaps and ferries gliding past steamed-up teahouse windows. All I was really going to do was ride a few buses, sit still, and ride those same buses home. Surely my body could handle that much.
But by the time I’d slurped down my soup and gotten myself dressed, the fuzziness in my head had overtaken the palpitating excitement in my heart, and I knew the only place I was going was back to the couch. In my pajamas once again, with a cup of tea in hand (Indian and milky, not Turkish and black like the seaside one I’d been anticipating), I dejectedly curled up under my blanket and sighed.
This was not how I wanted to spend this day.
For the past week I’ve been holed up at home, sleeping, reading and writing by day, partaking in the daily çay-and-a-dizi ritual by night. (“Dizi” is Turkish for “TV series with unbelievably convoluted plot that everyone and their mom are addicted to.”) In nearly every dizi (at least the ones set in the present day) there is someone who lives in a yalı (old wooden mansion) on the Bosphorus. And for those who aren’t wealthy enough to have a view of the sea and “the other side” from their breakfast table, they inevitably head down to a bench by the water to make out or make up with their boyfriend, deliver the ransom money that will save their kidnapped fiancée or shoot a bullet through their backstabbing brother-in-law’s heart.
The Bosphorus is at the centre of life here in Istanbul. At least it always has been for me.
But as I sit here reluctantly on the couch of my convalescence, the view from my window is entirely unlike that of the ladies on those dizis who call for a servant to bring them a fresh cup of çay as they read the morning paper and watch the freighters lumber their way down from the Black Sea. From here, I see smoke curling up from the chimneys of tiny houses warmed by woodstoves. Laundry flapping in the late afternoon breeze, soon to be snatched in before it is darkened by the coal-coloured haze that will settle over the neighbourhood at dusk. Little girls in blue uniforms with white collars and boys with loosened ties chasing soccer balls home from school.
And women. Everywhere, women.
The old lady with the black and white headscarf is sweeping onion peels from the flat roof of the two-storey house behind us, presumably having just cleaned several boxes-worth purchased at the pazar. A middle-aged woman is leaning out a window of the building across the street, shaking out a long, narrow carpet with the great skill that I envy but have yet to acquire. The clouds of dust sent flying by each strong flick of her wrists are sure to be followed by complaints from the lady whose laundry is hanging one balcony down. Further up the street, a woman is lowering a basket tied with string from the fourth floor to the bakkal below, for cigarettes or bread or both. Whether she has a baby sleeping in the house, food on the stove, or is just too tired to make the trek down the stairs and back, this basket system is the salvation of many a woman living on the upper floors of Istanbul’s tall apartment buildings.
All these women have gotten me to thinking.
My Istanbul and the Istanbul of my dreams, the Istanbul of those women in the wooden mansions on television....it’s a very different Istanbul than the one of the onion peel-sweepers and carpet-shakers and basket-lowerers. When is the last time any of the housewives in this neighbourhood took a bus up the Bosphorus just for the pleasure of a cup of tea and a little sea breeze? On a good traffic day, we’re less than ten minutes from the sea, and yet economic hardships, the demands of husbands and children, and that suffocating Turkish belief of “kader” (“destiny” or “your lot in life”) likely keep them from venturing much further than the corner store or a neighbour’s house, except on pazar day.
I have a friend here who owns a company that employs lower class women who make handcrafts to be sold at markets and fairs. I remember her once telling me that several of the ladies, even though they live in one of the world’s most cosmopolitan cities, had never been on a minibus before and don’t go anywhere they can’t walk to. Whether bus fare is too much or their husbands have defined strict limits on their comings and goings, the boundary lines of their worlds are drawn suffocatingly close to home. For some, staying within walking distance of their houses might be comforting; for others, it might be a whole lot like being in prison.
Even for the ones who work and are able to get out of the neighbourhood every day, a sit by the sea is not a commonly indulged-in luxury. If they’re anything like my Turkish mom, they get up while it’s still dark to head to the office and come home exhausted from answering phones or cleaning floors all day only to have to put food on the table before their husband’s complaining gets too loud. This past Sunday, my adopted Mom and I had talked about maybe taking a little field trip downtown to poke around a bookstore - something she’s been wanting to do for months - but a phone call from relatives who wanted to “pop by” meant she spent the day cleaning, dashing to the store for cookies, serving tea and emptying ash trays instead. A day off is just not in the cards for most Turkish women.
Maybe that’s why they’re all so hopelessly addicted to their dizis. Like this girl, confined to the couch with a bandage on her ear, the view out the windows of those rich ladies’ mansions is the only glimpse of the Bosphorus they can ever hope to get.
Kinda puts my own "confinement" in perspective.
When I was 17, I had the chance to experience a teenager’s dream come true: a day at Disneyland with sixty of my friends. We were road-tripping home from a youth conference and had stayed with host families the night before. In the car on the way to the Magic Kingdom, I wasn’t feeling so well and I threw up. Once we entered the park, I tried to shake it off and smile, but one disastrous ride on Space Mountain (which I otherwise love!) proved that my stomach was not up to the challenge, and I ended up spending the whole day in the nurses’ station.
I remember sleeping a lot, and appreciating the visits from friends as they ran between Splash Mountain and the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse but wishing I could’ve been outside with them instead of lying in that bed. The only thing that really stands out to me about that day is a Russian man was having a heart attack and there was a big panic as they tried to find a translator. A grand disappointment all around.
I’m experiencing those same feelings of “missing out” today, only my grown-up Disneyland is Istanbul and I’m stuck home on the couch with a cold.
I came here knowing I’d only have a day or two before my ear surgery, so I wanted to make the most of my time in my favourite city before pain killers had me konked out in bed. I had big plans for these days - friends to see, photos to take, favourite spots to visit, new places to explore. I always arrive with a long list of Istanbul bucket-list items (ride the ferry to the spot where the Bosphorus meets the Black Sea, go to Ara Güler's cafe and ask the famous photographer if we can go shooting together, finally explore the towers and dungeons of the Yeditepe Fortress....) and try to squeeze the life out of every hour I have here. But right now I don’t have the energy for much more than changing the channel to see what else is on during “Öyle Bir Geçer Zaman Ki” commercial breaks.
This morning I had to go to the hospital to talk over the surgery with my doctor and do the pre-op blood tests and paper work. I’d hoped to head down to Kadıköy early, have a Turkish coffee at Fazıl Bey’s, my usual coffee house, then walk by the sea a bit before heading to my appointment. But my head hurt so much I didn’t think I could handle the bus ride down, let alone anything fun, so I just took a taxi straight to the hospital. I was pretty fuzzy headed as I went from office to office and had a bit of a hard time understanding everything that was said to me - particularly when the anesthesiologist kept speaking to me in German-accented English when I was expecting Turkish. (Don’t they know how much that confuses me?)
My pre-sickness post-appointment plan had been to head down to Haydarpaşa Station and take some pictures and chat with some workers before the sad and fast-approaching day when the trains no longer come and go from that gorgeous building. But by the time I left the hospital, my energy was spent, so again, I again skipped Kadıköy and took a taxi home.
I felt a bit like I was betraying my beloved by not taking a dip downtown - like I’d become one of those people who moves away and then, when they return, they wonder how they ever loved the crowds and the craziness and the noise. Normally when I return, I’m eager to take my place in the dance and float along with the other millions of people surging down the streets. But today the horns and the traffic and the throngs that normally give me life threatened to swallow me whole and I just couldn’t do it.
I trudged up to the third floor of my Turkish family’s apartment, turned the key in the door, and then closed it on my beloved city. That Disneyland disappointment only increased as I crawled into my bed and got ready to sleep away the hours I’d planned to spend out amidst the ancient wonder and modern curiosities outside. As I listened to the cries of the seagulls and the horns of the Bosphorus ferries, I thought to myself, “Istanbul is a rotten place to be sick.”
An hour or so later, I woke up when my Turkish sister got home from work. I had her key, so I had to get up to let her in. She looked at my sleep-matted hair and drowsy eyes and gave me a big, comforting hug. Then she proceeded to brew me some soothing mint-lemon tea with honey, set up blankets for me on the couch, make a pot of popcorn and pop in a movie for us to crash in front of.
And as I lay there, so well taken care of, my sweet "sister" by my side, I thought to myself, “Istanbul’s not such a bad place to be sick after all.”
This morning when I walked out the door, I saw a bright turquoise scrap of fabric lying on the ground beside the car. There were leaves tangled up in its threads, and the elegant silk was full of snags and holes, inflicted, no doubt, by one of the neighbourhood strays. I sighed. It must have fallen out of my bag as we were unpacking the car in the dark last night. The scarf, while pretty, had been purely a pity-purchase. “Well,” I thought, “there’s fifteen lira gone to the dogs.”
*****
Living where we do, within easy driving distance of the Mediterranean, several gorgeous waterfalls and the ruins of countless Roman cities, my roommate and I are always looking for excuses to take weekend day-trips. Last spring, after reading about Köprülü Kanyon - a narrow gorge where a still-traversable Roman bridge spans the width of the Köprü River - we hopped in the car one Saturday and set out to see it for ourselves.
The trouble with our little road trips is that getting on the road early is not our forte, and once we’ve set out, we like to stop at every little distraction along the way. Roadside honey-sellers and strawberry stands, bakeries selling heavy Trabzon bread from the Black Sea, statues of larger-than-life animals - all are acceptable excuses for a snack break or a photo stop. As it was, we got off to a late start (the luxury of Saturday) and by the time farming villages and orange groves had given way to pine-blanketed mountain and glimpses of the seafoam green river, it was well past lunchtime.
When we reached the town of Beşkonak, home to twenty or so rafting companies lining the riverbank, our best Google Maps guesstimate told us we still had a good fifty kilometres to go. Since we didn’t know if there would be food up ahead, we decided it would be best to fill up before reaching our destination and settled in at a table overlooking the river at one of the town’s fish restaurants.
The fish - trout rubbed with garlic, wrapped in laurel leaves and grilled over the fire - was delicious, and after a steaming cup of Turkish tea, that pleasant post-meal drowsiness set in. As we chatted with the proprietor and amused ourselves watching groups of rafters struggle to get their life-jacket-clad selves into the boats without taking each other out with their paddles, rain clouds that hadn’t been in the sky when we’d set out began to roll in. Another cup of tea seemed the best way to wait out the drizzle, so we sat a little longer, comfortable under our shelter and enjoying the view.
In the end, thinking we still had quite aways to drive and wanting to be safely out of the mountains by dark, we decided to declare the riverside restaurant the “destination of the day” and head for home. “It’s close enough,” we told ourselves. “We’ll come back.”
As so often happens with places that are “close to home,” it took us another two years before we finally headed back to Köprülü Kanyon yesterday. Some friends had visited there recently and they raved about the dramatic setting. This time, armed with snacks, overnight bags (in case there was so much to see that we decided to stay) and another friend by our sides, we got off to a (slightly) earlier start and determined that this time we’d make it all the way.
Our stomachs got rumbly right about the same spot as last time, so we stopped in Beşkonak for a rather familiar meal and view, though this time without the bustle of activity as it is just barely spring and far too early in the season for rafting. After lunch (but no tea - apparently it was too early in the season for that, too) we set off again for the canyon, and were surprised when, after driving no more than three kilometres, we came upon a sign for the canyon turnoff. (Surely there must be new signage since two years ago, or they fixed a glitch in Google Maps, because it’s always their fault, and never the navigator’s!)
Rounding a corner towards the river, we found ourselves behind two tractors waiting to cross a short stone bridge. “Is this it?” my roommate asked.
I strained to see the bridge. “It can’t be. It looked so much bigger in the pictures...”
But sure enough, as we neared the entrance to the bridge, a sign proclaimed that this was indeed the famous “Oluk Bridge,” built by the Romans during the “antique period.” (Translation: very old. Second century AD, to be exact.) As we made our way across the (surprisingly short) span of stone, recently reinforced with concrete, we started to chuckle, and then full-on laugh.
The bridge was a royal Roman disappointment.
Sure, the scenery was beautiful. The river squeezing its way between the rocks a dizzying distance below, framed by tall cliffs and lush green vegetation, was certainly photo-worthy. And, yes, the twenty-two metre bridge was an impressive engineering feat, both in its arch design and the fact that it is still useable.
I’m a firm believer in the journey being more important than the destination, but this with the price of gas and the preciousness of a day off, this destination just wasn’t worth driving two hours for. Twice.
At that point, all we could do was laugh at the fact that we’d been so close two years ago and yet turned back. Had we asked someone at the restaurant, we would’ve driven the three kilometres, snapped a few photos, checked it off the list and not come back. I made a mental note not to give too much weight to the ravings of newly arrived expats who have only seen a handful of Roman ruins and declare everything as “must-see.”
There was, however, a redemptive turning point in our misadventure. A sign on the other side of the canyon informed us it was eleven kilometres to Selge, which previous research had told us was an ancient Roman city that is now home to the Turkish village of Altınkaya. While my roommate hadn’t been so keen on seeing “yet another Roman city” when we’d first set out, we decided we’d better make this trip worthwhile, so off we went.
The road - a nightmare for the carsickness-prone - wound ever upwards, rewarding us with a stunning new view at every turn. We were surrounded on three sides by snowcapped mountains, and at the higher elevations, cypress trees grew in between and out of curious rock formations that a posted sign likened to the “fairy chimneys” of Cappadocia, presumably due to their wind-whipped, column-like shapes. Goats munched and cavorted on the hillsides and here and there determined spring wildflowers pushed through the crevices of the rocks.
When we were still several kilometres from Altınkaya, we encountered a village lady in baggy şalvar pants and a loosely tied headscarf making her way slowly up the steep road with a sack slung over her shoulder. When she caught sight of us, she began calling out something incomprehensible. Assuming she was one of the overzealous “souvenir-selling vultures” we’d read about, we carried on. But as we passed her, I caught her heavily accented Turkish: “Selge! Take me, too! Take me, too!”
Shoving jackets and half-empty bags of chips aside, we made room for her in the backseat. She smiled a grateful, almost toothless smile and informed us that she’d taken her goats down to graze and was now returning to the village. (I assumed the goats knew their own way home.... We certainly couldn’t have fit any in the car!) It was still three kilometres to the village, she told us. I glanced down at her plastic slip-ons and wondered what kind of calf muscles this woman must have.
Her house was near the entrance to the village, and when we deposited her there, she pointed us in the direction of the ruins. A deeply rutted dirt road led us between broken-down wooden stables and humble stone houses with red-tiled roofs, many of which had boulders on top to keep the tiles from flying away. Sheep and the occasional cow peeked their noses through ramshackle wooden fences to greet the foreigners, and a pack of little boys with homemade wooden “guns” paused their slaughtering of each other to “Hell-o!” us as we passed. There were maybe thirty houses altogether, and an elementary school, but no market or corner store. Signs written in German and English outside several front doors told us that the villagers welcomed people into their homes for tea and ayran (a salty yogurt drink) during tourist season.
When we reached the imposing amphitheatre, we were instantly swarmed by the Teyze (“Auntie”) Tourist Welcoming Committee - a colourful gaggle of floral şalvar and sweater-vest bedecked ladies eager to show us where to park. Mismatched headscarves were tied under the chins of sun-darkened faces and gold fillings glinted from behind boisterous smiles. Each woman had a cloth bag or bundle under her arm. I immediately noticed that they were all wearing the same cracked plastic shoes our hitchhiker had been wearing, either in blue or in green. I wondered how often the shoe-seller’s truck made it all the way up the mountain.
We were greeted as if they’d been waiting all day for our arrival. In truth, they probably had. Thrilled to discover that we spoke Turkish, hands were clasped and names exchanged. When I introduced myself to Emine Abla, a shy, round-faced middle-aged lady in a green polka-dot sweater, she exclaimed, “That’s my daughter-in-law’s name!” And from that moment on, she barely left my side.
These teyzes sure didn’t look like vultures to me.
It was clear from the get-go that they were going to be our self-appointed personal guides to the ruins, and they’d clearly rehearsed for the role.
“This amphitheatre can hold 10,000 people.”
“Over there is the temple of Artemis, and down there is where the ancient bazaar was.”
And the obligatory teyze-esque, “Be careful, you’ll fall!”
The amphitheatre really was impressive. While the front wall now lies in a heap of stone blocks, save for a few engraved pillars, the rows of seats are still very much intact, with staircases rising up to the “thrones” from where royalty would view performances and competitions. The backdrop of snow-covered mountains increased the sense of drama.
Surprisingly fit teyzes in tow, we climbed to the top of the arena where the ladies pointed out various graves on the hillside, ancient wells long dried up, and their own houses. They were pleasant and kind, and I found myself glad to have them along to add colour and a human face to the experience.
“What do you grow up here?” I asked.
“Wheat,” came the reply.
“What about vegetables? Do you take tomatoes and cucumbers down to sell at the pazar?”
“Too cold to grow vegetables. Just wheat. And sheep, before the Sacrifice Festival.” I hadn’t noticed until then that, unlike most of the rest of the province, there were no greenhouses in sight. Just a few barns and several plots of striped land in the centre of the village. The Romans must have had a good reason for building a city this high up, but for the Turks who call it home today, its inaccessibility and inhospitable soil seemed to keep it destined to stay bound up in subsistence living.
“Getting drinking water up here is a real problem, too.” Yes, I didn’t suppose they could just pick up the phone and have someone deliver a nineteen litre jug within the hour like we do in the city.
“What would it be like to live somewhere so isolated, where the simplest of tasks might take all day?” I thought.
When the ladies of Altınkaya had exhausted their tidbits of information about the ancient city of Selge, they good-naturedly posed for photos and stood quietly as we admired the view. Then, completely in unison, as if someone had given a secret hand signal, they all began to untie their bundles, revealing stacks of silk scarves, tangles of beaded necklaces and knit woolen slippers.
Inwardly, I chuckled. These ladies were smart. They had us cornered on a platform at the top of the amphitheatre and it was clear that the only way out was to cough up some cash. And they were asking at least double the already ridiculous prices the same items go for downtown.
“This blue matches your eyes.”
“Come look at mine!”
“I’m old and poor and have no other way to put food on the table.”
The thing was, while I hated being manipulated, they really had won my sympathy. In spite of my normally merciful nature, years of living here have made me somewhat calloused to the tape-recorder mumblings of beggars and the dirty-faced kids selling roses and Kleenex in the park. But looking around at the village’s rundown shacks and forgotten-by-time poverty, I could hardly blame these women for looking at us with lira signs in those kind but desperate eyes.
No wonder they sit around waiting for tourists all day.
In much the same way that an owner coos to his dog, “Okay, you’re going to have a bath now” we used our best “oohing and aahing voices” to make a plan in English to divide up our purchases and try to buy something from everyone. Headscarves and doilies were definitely not high on my list of gifts to bring home, but I managed to find a necklace I might wear, and a beaded bracelet for a friend.
Having already spent more than I wanted to, I turned and realized I hadn’t bought anything from sweet Emine Abla. Nothing in her outstretched, sandpaper hands really appealed to me, but I chose a bright turquoise silk scarf anyway, and for my fifteen lira was rewarded with a broad smile that made her dark eyes twinkle.
When we’d made our purchases, there was a little more pleading and attempted arm-twisting, but in the end they politely accepted our “no”s. As soon as the bundles were retied, we were switched out of the category of “customers” and back into “friends,” and they happily chattered away all the way back to our car, careful to make sure their guests didn’t slip on the rocky path.
Regrettably, we had to turn down their offers of tea as there was no way we were going to try to navigate that switchback road down in the approaching darkness. Thus began the ritual kissing of withered hands and leathery cheeks. But when I got to the most wrinkled face in the bunch, she turned her face away and spat, “You didn’t buy anything from me.” With that, she squared her bony shoulders and huffed off towards home as quickly as her frail frame would take her.
Turks are famous for “kus-ing” each other - getting offended to the point of not speaking - but I’d never been kus-ed by someone I didn’t even know, and I wasn’t sure quite how to handle it. Shaking it off by telling myself I can’t hope to please everyone, I carried on with goodbye-ing.
As we pulled away from the ancient city of Selge, our band of teyzes waved us out of sight before returning to eking out their small existences against the backdrop of history. Aways down the muddy lane, we passed The Old Lady as she walked through her gate. I waved and gave her my friendliest smile, but she turned defiantly towards the house, her bundle of unsold trinkets under her arm.
*****
Fingering a hole in my tattered silk scarf, I pictured Emine Abla’s warm face. After I’d bid farewell to all the ladies, I’d gone back to plant one more kiss on those smiling cheeks, finding myself genuinely sad to say goodbye to her. Maybe when it’s warmer I’ll go back and stay for a week and let her teach me how to milk goats.
I wonder how long fifteen lira worth of coal can heat a little stone house on the top of a mountain. And how long it will be until the next carload of tourists pulls into Altınkaya.
I hope that car arrives before the next snow.
And I hope someone in that car buys one of The Old Lady’s scarves.
I never used to understand why my mom would cry over something she saw on the news. I had an empathetic heart when it came to my friends, but I just didn’t connect to strangers’ tragedies in the same way she did - especially not when they flashed across the screen between budget cut stories and Jello commercials.
But apparently I’ve turned out just like her. (And I’m glad.)
Last night during the news, I couldn’t stop the sobs from coming as I watched a clip from the funeral of our police chief who was killed Wednesday while trying to wrestle a gun from a man who had held up a gas station. They played the moment of his shooting over and over, in true Turkish sensationalist fashion, and interspersed it with scenes of the family, his fellow policemen and government officials mourning at the ceremony.
What broke my heart was the image of the man’s eight-year-old son lifting his tear-streaked face from his mother’s shoulder and standing up straight to sing the national anthem. He started off strong and stoic, but a few lines in, he began to weep. Singing along with him, I dissolved into tears when he did and couldn’t carry on past the first verse. Still, he pushed on, through his “heroic race” and “the blood we shed for it”, bravely mouthing the words in between sobs as drops of grief coursed down his chubby little cheeks until, with the final proclamation of the “freedom of his God-worshiping nation” he crumpled into a puddle of fatherless sorrow.
(Click here to see the video.)
The scene reminded me of little girls who welcome their fathers home from Iraq and Afghanistan in caskets, standing courageously beside their mothers as they receive the star-spangled gift they never wanted, a three-volley salute echoing with cold finality in their hearts.
Whether a father is laid to rest under stars and stripes or crescent and star, grief looks the same on the face of any child.
A day later, I can’t get those tear-stained cheeks out of my mind. I think what affected me so deeply was the way he was unabashedly weeping for all the world to see. For a boy, I think that took more courage than it took to make it to the end of the song. If he can grow into a man without losing that mixture of tenderness and resolute strength, this country will know a hero of a different kind. And considering the life and death of his father, I’d say there’s a good chance it’s in his blood.
It was the cobblestones that gave me away.
As I left the bustle of the main drag for the narrow alleyways of the Old Quarter where I'd be spending my writing retreat, the sound of my suitcase wheels clattering over the newly-restored-but-still-nostalgically-bumpy streets broadcast the announcement: "Make way! Incoming tourist!" Just the sort of attention I love to draw to myself.
What is it that makes me react so allergically to being mistaken for a tourist? I know, I know, it's pride, plain and simple. It's just that I've worked so hard at learning Turkish and blending into the culture, so when I leave my neighbourhood where I am "the girl who hangs her laundry wrong, pronounces her "ü"s a little funny and still sometimes forgets to give her guests slippers but is basically one of us" and head downtown to where my blue eyes and confident gait immediately label me as "Lady, lady, yes please, I have a cousin who lives in Canada," it can be more than a little annoying.
Tourism is good for the economy. Tourism provides many of my neighbours with jobs. Tourism lets the rest of the world get to know this fascinating country that I love so much. And, heck, when I'm anywhere else but here, I am "that tourist" with the Lonely Planet in her bag, the camera around her neck and the wanderlust in her eyes.
I seriously need to get over my snobby prejudice against tourists.
Maybe it's just that I don't want to be lumped into the same group as the family I saw today bartering for Atatürk cigarette lighters in tank tops and shorts. All the Turks passing by - dressed, as Turks do, according to the date on the calendar and not the temperature of the air - turned to stare at these “misfits.” And I, bundled up in my winter coat despite the warmth of the sunshine, stared right along with them. This may be the Mediterranean, but one simply does not wear flip-flops in February.
It's the same fear of my own prejudice that kept me from riding the camels at the park down the street from my house for four-and-a-half years. A couple of times a month, I'd head to the park for homework or solitude. And every time, I'd stand outside the gate, turn to watch a bunch of Germans wearing matching wristbands pile off a tour bus and climb onto the camels, shrieking as those knobby knees straightened and lifted them high into the air. Then I'd turn back to the ticket booth, pay my "special local price" (which often means "free," depending who's working) and head inside to do my thing, as far from the camcorder crowd as I could get.
It really is silly to live that close to camels for that long and never ride one for the sole purpose of "not looking like a tourist." One of them belongs to my language helper's landlord and he was always offering me a free ride. A more humble person would've taken him up on it years ago.
I am happy to report, though, that last weekend, accompanied by several friends who were delighted to share the experience with me (and who apparently don't suffer from the same "anti-tourist hang-ups" as I do) I finally gave in and rode my first camel. Now I know why the tourists pay to do it - it’s a lot of fun! (And now I know why they shriek, too. When my camel suddenly sat down, it really did feel like I was about to be catapulted off!)
May this be the first of many times when I let go of my silly pride, stop worrying about whether or not I blend in, and just enjoy this place that people pay thousands of dollars to visit and that I am fortunate enough to call "home."
Did you ever play that game as a kid? (Or a road-tripping big person?) It's the one where you start with the letter "A" and take turns saying, "I am going on a trip and in my suitcase I will take.....everything everyone has said before you, plus a new item that starts with the next letter of the alphabet.
Well, I am going on a trip (not far - just the forty minutes it takes to ride the bus downtown) and my suitcase is looking something like Apples (both the computer and the edible kind), Books, Chai, Dark chocolate....
I am going on a writing retreat! Not the kind where twenty people gather at a retreat centre for a weekend of yoga, inspirational speeches and alone time under a tree with a notebook. The kind where, thanks to the thoughtful generosity of a friend back home, I get two nights away at a guesthouse in the Old City, far from the distractions of laundry and menu planning and emails and neighbours to focus completely on writing and really let those creative juices flow. I've got a couple of half-baked stories that need tweaking and re-tweaking, and several ideas for articles I want to pitch to a local travel magazine, and I'm hoping that this time out of my everyday environment and "in the zone" will be just what I need to churn out some good writing.
So, you wanna know what else is in my suitcase?
A handful of Staedtlers - the only pen I'll ever love.
My other favourite writing utensil.
My passport - for calling to mind trips past and trips I'm still dreaming of....and because I need it to check into the hotel.
Snacks. For when I'm holed up in my room late at night and get the munchies.
The various writing notebooks I currently have on the go - you never know from which one inspiration will strike!
Oregon Chai. For whatever reason, coffee makes my heart happy, but chai makes me want to write.
My trusty travel mug. Starbucks should seriously pay me to do commercials for this thing - it's incredible! It's double-walled steel and keeps drinks warm for a good five or six hours! This way I can hunker down in my room and not have to worry about emerging for refills.
Reading material. One for fact-checking and memory-jogging as I write about my autumn trip to Mardin, and the other for when my hand hurts or my brain gets stuck and I just need to read what someone else wrote for awhile.
My wooly socks (in case the room is chilly) and my Vanilla Bean Noel Lotion (cuz we all know soft hands write better stories.)
Dark chocolate. I don't think I really need a reason.
My Starbucks card. Between freebies I have on here and the free drinks I'll get for the beans I'm going to buy to take home, all my caffeine needs for the entire weekend are taken care of. :)
Books by people who know much more about travel writing than I do. (I actually didn't pack these books, cuz they wouldn't fit in my already overfull little suitcase. I just mined them for writing prompts and ideas.)
There you have it - the ingredients for what I hope will be a prolifically productive weekend of pen to paper and fingers to keys. (And, yes, in case you were wondering, I did pack clothes and my toothbrush, too.) :)
"Don't you think daisies are the friendliest flower?"
I'd have to agree with Kathleen Kelly (of You've Got Mail fame) on this one. There is just something about daisies that makes me smile. We've had an unusually cold winter for the Eastern Mediterranean - the kind that makes me work from under my covers with the heater on full blast even in the middle of the day. So when I was walking to the grocery store last week, mittens on my hands and a fuzzy scarf tied tightly under my chin, and I saw a patch of white daisies bobbing their heads in the biting wind, I had to laugh at them. "Who told you it was time to show your faces?" I asked them out loud. "Go back to sleep until spring."
But today those precocious daisies are the ones laughing at me - good-naturedly, of course. The weather has taken a sudden turn for the warmer, and it's practically spring-ish outside! The sun's shining brightly - not the "liar-sunshine" that tricks you into wearing your autumn coat and then mocks you as you freeze at the bus stop, but the kind that means hot water for dishes and clothes that dry in just a few hours and cheerfulness itself streaming through the windows. I daresay the snow on the mountains has even receded an inch or two.
Perhaps it wasn't quite warm enough to keep the windows open all day long, but oh, that fresh air did my heart good! Carried on it were the sounds of birds chirping and children playing and the scent of hope and anticipation and fresh life.
See! The winter is past;
the rains are over and gone.
Flowers appear on the earth;
the season of singing has come...
- Song of Songs 2:11-12
In the spirit of trying to be a more keen observer, to be more awake to the world around me and being able to write with more colourful details, I decided to keep track of all the smells I smelled today, from home to town and back.
- The rich aromas of my Turkish Mocha Body Scrub and Vanilla Bean Noel Shower Gel. (The bathroom smells like a coffee house when I get out of the shower!)
- The overpowering scent of our "new and improved fabric softener." (Mental note: never buy the "ultra" stuff again. The only thing that's concentrated is the smell!)
- Freshly baked bread as I waited for the bus outside our bakery.
- A whiff of floral perfume as the lady in front of me took her seat on the bus.
- Burning garbage as we passed by some kids who'd lit a fire on the side of the road.
- The tantalizing aroma of roast beef at Arby's (It tasted as good as it smelled!)
- The unmistakable smell of books as I leafed through several in the bookstore. (For someone who wanted to be a librarian as a kid, this smell is synonymous with happiness!)
- A sickeningly sweet orange smell from the sample of Vitamin C drink the lady at the vitamin store gave me.
- The homey smell of woodstoves in the Old City, mingled with the welcoming aroma of (filtered!) coffee wafting up from my cup as I paused for a break at a sidewalk cafe.
- Cigarette smoke in the air....pretty much everywhere.
- Exhaust fumes in the congested area where I waited for my bus home.
- The stench of body odour, bad breath, and stale cigarette smoke invading my nostrils as I fight to keep my footing amidst stinky men on the bus. Combined with this is the faint odour of mildew from clothes that never had a fair chance at drying in this wet winter weather.
- Someone else's yummy dinner cooking as I walked into the entrance of our complex.
- The visible smell of coal in the air as I went out onto my balcony and brought my laundry in. (Thankfully I rescued it in time before it began to smell like coal, too!)
This was the piece I wrote for an assignment for my writing course on "My hometown in 500 words." (I know, I know, Istanbul is not my "real" hometown, but I like to pretend.) :)
........................................
A chaotic choreography is performed daily on the streets of Istanbul. Every person, every vehicle has its part in the ensemble. I step out my front door and take my place on the stage.
I’m “home for the holidays,” spending the Sacrifice Festival with my “Turkish family.” It was on this street five years ago that I took my first wobbly steps in the dance. I’d like to think I’ve become more graceful since then, that I have improved my sense of Turkish rhythm and no longer have two cultural left feet.
The crisp November wind sends rainbows of laundry aflutter, carrying on it the smell of freshly baked bread and the lingering scent of the woodstoves that kept the neighbourhood warm last night. Yaşar Abi is selling roasted chestnuts on the back of his truck. “I’ll stop on my way home,” I promise. Accompanied by the clatter of backgammon dice and the low voices of the men huddled outside the cafe puffing away on their cigarettes, the junk-collector calls out a nasal “Eskiciiiiiiiii” as he lumbers up the street with his cart of broken treasures.
Wedging myself between a laptop, a grocery cart and the door, I punch my Akbil to pay my fare as my bus swings out and creates a space for itself in the morning traffic jumble. We weave our way through clouds of exhaust fumes down the hill into Kadıköy, braiding paths with overcrowded minibuses and grouchy taxi drivers, past the median where the pigeons congregate, the dilapidated wooden Ottoman mansion that I’ve always had a crush on, and the grey-haired pastry-seller who once wrote a poem about my friend Mandy’s blue eyes.
At every stop, as the bus brakes just long enough to inhale more people than it spits out, a hierarchical reshuffling occurs. Texting teenagers in Converse give up their seats for old men with canes. Spots are swapped to prevent a covered woman from sitting beside an unrelated male. Those of us hanging onto ceiling straps with one hand and guarding wallets with the other struggle to move back a few inches without landing in any unsuspecting laps.
Wriggling my way to the middle door, I am ejected onto the crowded sidewalk. I join the crush of shoppers inching their way through the Fishermens’ Market, scouting delicacies to spread before their holiday guests. Miniskirts from Moda meld with headscarves from Üsküdar, bobbing and twisting to avoid colliding with henna-haired gypsies selling roses, hamals shouldering baskets full of old ladies’ groceries and çaycıs deftly swinging trays of steaming tea cups.
Sidestepping puddles of fishy water and ducking under strings of dried peppers, I dip in and out of the throng. At the Ecevitler deli, with its singing butcher and nineteen varieties of olives, I purchase smoked eggplant salad and cabbage dolma and pause to watch a shopkeeper toss a fish to a cat perched on a striped awning. The call to prayer momentarily silences the music floating down from the rooftop cafes, but the chattering seagulls and Bosphorus ferry horns pay no heed.
Several hours and multiple shopping bags later, the grainy remains of a Turkish coffee break still on my lips, the bus deposits me at my stop. I measure the rhythm of the evening rush hour, plotting the lane by lane dash that will get me safely across the street. Two others join me on the curb, and we share glances of “us-against-the-traffic” before charging into the first available opening. With a grand finale of “car-step-step, car-step-step,” I nod to my partners and exit the stage. Yaşar Abi trades me three lira for a bouquet of steaming chestnuts as my reward for surviving another performance, and with a mental bow, I head for home.
1 comment
