Click below for part II of this edition of Toby's travel series.
Eastern Turkey Kebab Tour 2004 – Part II
From Karatas we went to Adana to catch a night bus to Diyarbakir, an ancient town on the banks of the Tigris. Before we left Adana though, we got to see an old student who had failed out a few years ago. We didn’t have much time, so we almost literally ran to his house, threw down a couple glasses of tea, and just made it back to catch the service bus to the bus station. One long, sleepless night later we’d found a hotel with air conditioning (a must in 100 degree plus heat) and started our exploration.
Diyarbakir is characterized by a complete circuit of Roman-era black basalt walls, and many of the buildings within the old city are also made from the same material. The people aren’t quite as dark as the stones, but they’re not light-skinned, and most of them would never dream of leaving the house in anything except long pants and a sweater no matter what the thermometer said. So the three of us made quite a group as we walked down the street: all in shorts, all carrying cameras, Celil in his baseball cap and Hasan with his cowboy hat and me with my “eyes of fire” reflective sunglasses on. It took the boys about five steps to realize they were in a whole different world. Kids followed us shouting, “Hello, hello. What’s you name?” Old guys with beards just watched and black clad ninja women grabbed their children and ran. I’ve experienced this a few hundred times, but it was something new on this scale for the guys, especially in their own country. What made it seem even more foreign was the fact that most of the people spoke either Kurdish or Arabic to each other, and if they spoke Turkish it was often mixed with words from those other two languages. Both Celil and Hasan seemed to get a kick out of the attention and were telling people they were from Spain, Germany, Ecuador, Mexico the US and maybe even Guam (that was my idea), but after about thirty minutes Hasan was getting annoyed. I told him welcome to my world, but for the rest of the trip he would usually drop the act pretty quick, if for no other reason than the little kids who would constantly be asking for money would usually leave us alone if they thought we were Turkish. Celil played along more, but even he had his limits. As for me, I was just happy to have someone else to share the hassle with and shoo the kids away.
One of our first stops was at the Ulu Camii, the great mosque originally built for Friday prayers. Every old town has one, and it’s often filled with poorer older people and kids trying to escape the heat of the day. When we walked into the courtyard where the ablution fountain was, Hasan immediately washed himself down and re-filled his water bottle (it was only ten minutes away from the hotel). He doesn’t do well in desert climates, which is surprising considering he grew up in such a hot and humid place, but Hasan in the fountain or sleeping in the shade whenever we stopped for more than thirty seconds became a constant theme of the trip. As we looked around, a man approached us and proceeded to tell us we were going to hell if we didn’t become Muslims. I said that I already had so many other reasons to go to hell, and it couldn’t be hotter than this place anyway. Celil just said he was crazy, and Hasan just refilled his water bottle again. Then a guy who claimed to be a student came up to me and started talking about the problems faced by Kurds in Turkey. I listened politely for a bit, but when he wanted us to follow him to sign a petition I said we had to go. I was thinking wouldn’t that be great to get the boys on some government black list before they even left high school.
We got lost in the maze of old streets, walked on the walls and saw where some terrorists had blown up a house only the night before. The PKK, a Kurdish separatist group, has recently become active again, and bombings seemed to follow us around for the next week or so. Luckily we had always just left before they happened. There were lots of police and soldiers around, which I’ve seen in lots of other places, but because I was responsible for two more people now, I didn’t really feel any safer. As we passed one group of kids who thought we were just a bunch of foreigners, Celil overheard them discussing whether or not they should rob us. One of them said no because the cops would never leave them alone then. It made me wonder how many other times something similar has been said right in front of me in some of the other countries I’ve been to. But I’ve always made it out fine, and this was no exception.
In the evenings we usually went to an Internet café or a movie. We had a choice of “Freddy vs. Jason” or “Cold Mountain,” that Civil War love story with Nicole Kidman. Freddy and Jason should have killed each other in the 80’s, so we opted for the war movie. It was actually very good and, judging by the salt trails on Hasan’s face, pretty sad too. We also ate at Burger King three straight nights. I told them that after Diyarbakir there would be nothing except kebab and pide places to eat at, and both seemed pretty willing (thankfully) to indulge in some good ol’ US junk food before having to go 100% Turkish for the next two weeks.
From Diyarbakir we took a couple of day trips. The first was to Mardin, another ancient city on a hill overlooking the long plain that stretches out all the way through Syria and Jordan to the Red Sea. This place made Diyarbakir seem cool, so Hasan was in extra pain. At least here we spent a good deal of time in the shade of alleyways, mosques and medreses (old Islamic religious schools). We were accosted by children yelling their hellos again, but we could usually lose them in the maze of streets. Mardin is small, but has tons of character. The entire place is built out of sandstone and from a distance it looks like a huge sand castle with minarets poking up here and there. We ate lunch at a little place off the main road that I noticed was full of locals and only had pieces of pink paper for napkins. That had to be a sign that it was good, and it was. The guys got Mardin kebab, which to me is just like any other kebab, but in a different shape. Most cities do this: they chop up some beef or lamb (or lamp depending on how well they spell), and then throw some spices in it and put it on a stick. It all tastes the same to me, and I don’t like any of it, but people will actually argue about the differences. I’d like to put them into a room with a bunch of stuffy wine critics and let them compare notes on judging techniques. I wonder what, if any, wine goes well with lamp?
Our second day trip was to Hasan Keyf. It’s a tiny, and ancient (notice a pattern here?) and boiling-hot town also on the Tigris. It was scheduled to be covered by water when a new dam flooded the valley, but UNESCO talked Turkey out of doing it. It was just as dusty as I remembered it, and after a bit we were covered in white dust up to our knees. There are large cliffs all around the town that are honeycombed with caves, all of which were once inhabited, but which now contain only one resident and his goats. We walked past his cave house and, because Hasan had already drank all the water we’d gotten at the mosque fountain (where he’d also taken a nap), we asked this guy if he had any we could have. He invited us up, so we went to have a chat. I think he was a bit lonely and happy to have someone to talk to, but we didn’t mind for a while and he had a great view of the whole valley from his house. It was pretty amazing actually because he had electricity up there and even a refrigerator and a TV. He told stories about where he’d come from and then got out a pair of binoculars and a pellet gun. First we spied on some neighbors down in the town, and then he put some rocks on a log and had target practice. He would always hit the rock on his first shot, but it took the boys about three or four shots to get it. When it was my turn, I missed the first time, but I figured, “I’m an American, damn it. Guns are in my blood.” And I got a direct hit on the second shot. Not wanting to press my luck, that was it for me. We went into his interior room where he slept and raised birds. He must have had twenty cages in there, and he insisted on letting us hold one. Gee, thanks. He wanted us to have tea, but we’d had enough fun and had to be getting on.
We walked up to the old castle and almost fell off the cliff, Hasan went through a hole in the ground into a room in an old house, and we saw chipmunks with no sense of decency. I made the boys cover their eyes. Afterwards we went down to the river where there are numerous fish restaurants actually sitting on stilts IN the river. Hasan had a swim and Celil went across the bridge to get a picture of the whole place from a distance. When it came time to go we had to take a minibus called a dolmus (dole-moosh). It means “has been stuffed,” and that’s exactly what it had been. I got a chair, but the boys had to put little stools on the floor and sat almost on top of each other and leaned on me. And so we returned to our air-conditioned hotel and naps were had by all.
One thing that had been bothering me on this trip, and would continue to bother me, is the double pricing standard so prevalent here. Invariably, Turks get into places for less than one dollar, if not for free. All foreigners have to pay between double and 6 times that. I never did because I always made sure not to speak or speak very little, and I had one of the boys buy the tickets. I know that for some older tourists coming from Europe, even 5-6 Euros is nothing, but it’s quite a bit for many other younger tourists or tourists from countries no better off than Turkey. I’ve heard it argued that two prices are ok because Turks can’t afford as much, but I’ve never known any poor Turks to just hop in their cars and go off to visit museums and historic sites anyway. The Turks who do go off to visit these kinds of places are the ones that can afford all the cost of getting there in the first place. And poor locals usually know the gatekeeper, so if they want to get in there’s no way they’ll have to pay. I just find different prices based on nationality fundamentally unfair, especially after being someplace like Washington D.C. where all the museums are free for everyone. They should try to find a happy compromise somewhere in the middle.
But back to the trip. We continued northeast a few hundred more kilometers to a place called Van. It too is populated mostly by Kurds, so much of what I mentioned about the previous places held true here as well. When we got off the bus, we were intercepted by a tour tout, a guy trying to sell tour packages, but acting like he was just a lowly college student trying to earn a bit of money for the summer. This in itself shows how some things have changed in the five years since I was last out in eastern Turkey. Back then, Ann and I went days without seeing another foreigner, and tour packages were nonexistent. Although this time we still didn’t see lots of tourists, we did see more than I expected. And I’m sad to say that in another five years there may be enough tourists to support a Burger King even further east than Diyarbakir. We looked at a few hotels, but most of them either had bathrooms and showers in the hall or else only had “toilets-a-la-Turka,” those fun squatty kind. In the past, that may have been ok, but as I wrote this summer about my European trip, I’ve outgrown that and am moving into the middle-class tourist category. Must have hot water and proper bathroom in the room now. We finally found one, I bargained the guy down a bit and we moved in.
We went off to explore, Hasan with video camera at the ready. We took video of cheese making and women doing their laundry in a river. We went to old Van Rock, which is where the old city was until it was completely destroyed by fighting between Russians and Turks and Armenians in WW I. I had told the guys that when Ann and I were here last time children from a small ghetto near the Rock had come out to ask for money. When we refused, they pelted us with rocks. Hasan had collected rocks in preparation for a showdown, but to my relief the hooligans never appeared and we were allowed to explore peacefully. On top of the Rock is a lone minaret that we climbed for a great view of the area and Van Lake in the distance. Below we could see the outlines of the foundations of the old houses, now mostly covered in dirt. Later, we walked over those foundations and looked around. There were some guys cutting grass and putting it in a truck, and Celil insisted that it smelled like waffles. After a few sniffs I had to agree, and I asked him if he’d like to taste the grass to see if it was as good as the Eggos he was used to from camp. “No syrup though. Sorry.” Then Hasan got hungry thinking about bratwurst. That led to a discussion about what they’d eaten this summer in the States. I noticed that each had become a bit bigger. Too many double brats and pudgy pies (camp word), judging by what I’d heard. But aren’t pudgy pies and the creativity behind them what make the US so great? What are a few calories compared to that? And man, could I go for any of that stuff right now.
That night we had a Counterstrike tournament. It’s a first person shoot ‘em up game. It was round-robin style, but they coined the term round-Tobin. I wondered if perhaps I’d eaten too many ham and bacon pizzas this summer in Europe and really was round Tobin now. But my pants still fit, so I guessed it was just a term they used. I hardly ever play that game, so I wasn’t up to the challenge that evening, but I learn fast and there were many evenings ahead that I killed many a terrorist.
The next day we took a bus out to a little place called Akdamar. It’s basically one restaurant and a ferry landing on the side of the road, but out in the middle of the lake is a small island with a very old Armenian church on it. The last time I was here we took the boat, but this time the boys wanted to swim. Hasan insisted that it was only about a kilometer at most. Celil didn’t disagree and, since he’s usually up for anything, he said he’d do it. I figured I’d warned them, but if they wanted to give it a go, why not? So we started. Van Lake has a very high alkaline content, and it’s like sucking on a battery while you swim. It’s also reputedly the home of a water monster (cousin of Nessie), but he must not have been there this summer because we sure stayed in the water long enough to have seen him if he had been there. After an hour and a half of continuous swimming we were still about 800 meters from the island. We had been making ok progress, but a current came up against us and slowed us down. Since I had had to drag Celil about half the time while he floated, we decided to bag it and turn back. Along the way I spotted a large water bottle floating along. It was one time when I was happy that so many people here just toss their trash wherever they feel like it. I grabbed it and told Celil to stick it in his shorts. So now he had a floatie. After two hours of swimming, a ferry coming back from the island came up along side us and fished Celil and me out, but not before he had removed the bottle. Hasan was several hundred meters ahead of us and quite close to shore, but we got him too. That’s probably the longest I’ve ever swum continuously, and we all paid the price. The alkaline had burned our tongues, our eyes and some other things that hurt even worse. So what did we do to celebrate our having escaped both the lake and the monster? We ate salty, spicy food for dinner like any other geniuses would.
We had discovered a little restaurant the night before on a side street. The guys who ran it were nice and the kebabs were very good. Then there was the entertainment. We sat at one of those short-legged tables on the street and watched the people go by. We also convinced the shoeshine boy sitting on the ground near us that we were from some other country. Then there was the gofer boy who brought us water and bread, and he had a shirt on which was written “Boy Watcher” in large pink letters. This is not an uncommon sight in Turkey or any other country in the Middle East. People buy shirts with English writing on them and have no idea what they say. There was another boy later in some other town that had a shirt that read, “Don’t hate me because I’m gorgeous.” I wrote that down so I wouldn’t forget it. Not that I could. But we figured that it would be best not to tell this boy watcher kid what his shirt said and let him make up his own mind on which way he felt most comfortable…being.
We took another day trip from Van to see a very old castle in a little town called Guzel Su (Beautiful Water). The castle was called Hosap (“ho-shop.” Kind of like Pamela Anderson buying something). To get there we had to take a minibus, but when we asked where the station was, we got pointed to a stop where the guy in charge said the bus wouldn’t leave until 1 o’clock in the afternoon. It was 9 in the morning and we had to catch a bus later, so that was not an option. He then told us we could take our own bus but we’d have to pay for all the empty seats. And that was not an option either. We asked if there was any other way and he said no, but as I was getting a bit down it suddenly occurred to me that there was a large village past Guzel Su that other buses must go to regularly, and one of these could drop us off. I looked on my map and sure enough, there was a larger village over near the border with Iran. So I asked him where that bus stop was and suddenly he was so helpful. Oh yes, you can do that. Oh great. Jerk. As bad as a taxi driver trying to scam people by telling them there’s no other way of getting somewhere. So we got on the other bus and off we went. The castle itself was nice. I’ve seen better, but the setting for this one is nice because it’s in such a desolate place and surrounded by houses built out of mud brick. It was the first place I’d ever seen women doing laundry in a river and they were still in the same spot doing some more. I can only assume they moved in the last five years to make dinner for their husbands, clean the house, raise the kids and teach their daughters to do laundry at the river too, but I couldn’t guarantee it. After looking around and letting Celil climb a few walls (this was the other theme of the trip. While Hasan would sleep in the shade, Celil the monkey would find something to climb. Many a time I’d turn around and think that I was about to have to call his mother with the news that no, he cannot fly, but I’ve got what’s left in this matchbox), I said it was time to go. But there was no easy way to leave. The few buses coming back from the Iranian border were full, even by their “stuffed” standards. There were numerous trucks passing through, but most of them smuggle oil and aren’t in the habit of picking up hitchhiking tourists. Hasan asked some guys with a brand-new Chevy truck if we could sit in the back, but they blew him off. Finally, a couple of Kurdish guys from Hakkari pulled up in an old meat truck. We ran up and asked if we could get a lift. They asked us if we had ID cards because the Gendarme checkpoints wouldn’t take kindly to people transporting unknown passengers. We said we did, they said get in and we were off. These two could have been a comedy team. They were like some old married couple arguing about all kinds of stuff. But worryingly, one of the things they argued about was whether or not the truck they just missed by five inches was actually at fault because it hadn’t driven into the dirt while they were passing another truck on the wrong side of the road. There were only two back seats in this thing, so Hasan very happily stretched out on the floor in the very back with a spare tire for a pillow. They asked us if we could still smell meat in the back, but we said no. They said we were lucky it was hot because when they had to turn on the heater it smelled like a rendering plant. I was happy when we made it back in one piece and didn’t smell like week-old road kill.
Continuing northeast, our next city was Dogubeyazit. (do-oo-bay-a-zit). There’s absolutely nothing redeeming about this dirty city, except that it has one of the greatest examples of Turkish palace architecture about two miles outside of town in the foothills of a mountain chain that eventually climaxes in Mount Ararat. Ishak (Isaac) Pasha’s Palace is something that everyone who has spent any extended amount of time in Turkey should have already seen. The palace has been well restored, but the carved stonework is all-original. The large entrance portals to both the outer and inner courtyards are tremendous works of art, and the interior rooms range from bathrooms, bedrooms and the kitchen to an amazing dining room, mosque and underground storerooms and dungeons (where Celil climbed the wall again). But all that isn’t what makes this such a special place. What really sets this palace apart is the location. Behind it and across a small ravine is a large mosque. Above that are the ruins of a castle that defies the imagination. It is undated, but it’s old and big and it sits, quite literally in some places, on vertical cliffs. Off in the distance to the east you can see the snow-capped peak of Mount Ararat, the supposed resting place of Noah’s Ark (they offer tours for this now too, I’ve heard. And people have started to climb it again after years of it being off limits because of terrorism). There’s nothing quite like it anyplace else in Turkey, but it’s a long long way from civilization.
We had decided to walk instead of taking a taxi. I figured that if Ann could make it these guys could too. Along the way we passed a tank base. The boys were very impressed and more than a little nationalism showed through. That’s alright, they’re still not as bad as me. A few kids also came over from a house and talked to Hasan for a minute. They asked him a question that surprised me though: What tribe are you from? I had thought that all that tribal stuff was pretty much dead and buried here in Turkey, but after getting back here to Istanbul and talking to Ahmet about it, I learned that it does still exist to a degree out in the east. Hasan didn’t know his tribe, but I thought he could have told them he was a Y-Kodite. That would have sent ‘em for a loop.
After looking around in the palace, we ate the lunch that we had brought with us: tuna and cheese sandwiches, chips and a cake in a bag. I was surprised to learn that neither Celil nor Hasan knew that tuna could be packed in either water or oil, nor did they know that when you opened it all that packing liquid would come spilling out. Luckily I’d insisted on the water kind or we would have all been an oily mess. As it was, we smelled like fish for the rest of the day. I would have cleaned it off, but earlier I had gone to the bathroom and washed my hands but the water I’d used was of dubious cleanliness, and I didn’t want either of them to get more video and photo evidence to use against me later. After lunch we climbed up the hill to the fortress, and Celil climbed up the cliff. I took a picture just in case it was the last one his mother would ever get to see of him.
That night Hasan did laundry in the sink and then the power went out again. It was that way all over town both nights we were there. It didn’t leave us with many options except to walk on the same street we’d already seen a dozen times already. We ate ice cream and baklava, debated on such important issues as belly-button lint removal, and eventually just went back to the hotel. We sat in the lobby with Celil snapping unflattering photos with his brother’s digital camera (we got it away from him later and deleted most of them) until the power came back on. We went upstairs and I decided it was time for me to shave. I hadn’t shaved in nearly two weeks, and it was starting to bug me. The guys wanted me to take it off in stages so they could see how I looked with first a goatee (unemployed coffee house poet from New York), then a mustache (pimp from Puerto Rico) and finally back to baby-butt smooth. They were surprised at how young I looked, but by the next day I was back to old guy again. But I have to say, I look good whatever hair I’ve got goin’ on.
After Dogubeyzit, the plan was to continue north to Kars (that’s pronounced just how it looks). We got halfway there when Hasan decided it was time to come back to Istanbul to go to his dershane. I will discuss dershanes and their destructive force on the Turkish educational system later in a separate letter (something to look forward to, eh?), but for now it will suffice to say that I was caught by surprise and none too happy that he would give up a (probably) once in a lifetime opportunity in order to go back to Istanbul three days early to memorize test questions. But I was on vacation and not in the mood for a fight, and so I let him go. But Celil was more than ready to motor on, and so we did. Right up to the Armenian border.
Nothing too interesting going on. I've been watching Alias recently on DVD, catching up to where they are at now in the series. Its a really really good show. I'm going to see Skycaptain on Saturday with Chris and Chuck, really looking forward to it.
Behind the cut you can read Toby's latest travel letter.
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Subject : Eastern Turkey Kebab Tour 2004 – Part I
This summer I have regaled you all with tales of three weeks spent in Eastern Europe: from sex shows and kebab on the same corner in Poland; to a voyeuristic park on the banks of the Danube in the heart of Budapest; to gypsies drinking beer at 8 o’clock in the morning in Romania from a mug with a little vampire on it. And what could top all this for sheer entertainment value? you may ask. Well, all that was only less than half of my total summer vacation. And after having just about satisfied my lust for pork (read into that whatever you will), I was ready for something new. And so it was that I did a 90-degree cultural turn and came back to Turkey on July 17th (I would complete the other 90 degrees shortly in eastern Turkey).
On July 18th I did about four loads of laundry. Every inch of my house was covered in wet socks and undies, each item emitting the sickening scent of what was supposed to be spring rain, but what usually smells like rotten flowers to me. So I took off for a gab session with Ahmet Kusi. He’s the campus manager, and when I’m not doing something with the kids we’re usually BS ing in his office or engaged in a truly epic tennis match. This time we recounted our summer adventures to each other. He spent his time at a Turkish beach shooting and eating fish, and I spent mine on Danube beaches observing fat topless Germans who smelled like fish.
On the 19th Celil and Hasan arrived from their month-long Camp Y-Koda experience in the States. I went to the airport with Celil’s brother Halil to get them. They arrived bearing many gifts from Mom and Dad, which I have since been enjoying immensely. You’d think I’d have gotten enough ham in Europe, but it’s just so damn good in an omelet. And there’s nothing classier than good ol’ white trash beef jerky and macaroni and powdered cheese. We were all so caught up in talking about how the summer had been that we didn’t bother to look too closely at the bags. On the subway back to the city, Celil suddenly said that the big black suitcase he had wasn’t mine. Celil often tells silly jokes, so I blew it off. It wasn’t until he opened it and I saw bras and panties that I figured either Mom was now riding bareback and had decided that maybe I could use her old undergarments in some freakish drag show, or else it really was someone else’s suitcase. I had been told about all the goodies that were packed into my suitcase, and even though, upon closer inspection of the contents, I saw some Pepperidge Farm cookies, I decided that even those weren’t enough to make-up for my missing macaroni and cheese and peanut butter cups. We called the number on the nametag and, after a bit of messing about, managed to straighten everything out. The lady was happy to have most of her panties back, and I got my chocolate. After we had secured the cheddar cheese and brats in my refrigerator and watched the video that Hasan had taken of the boys’ various summer adventures, we went to dinner for a real Turkish meal. And for most of the night they were singing camp songs that didn’t make much sense (“The alligator is my friend, I wear him for my shoes.” Do you treat all your friends so well?), but were impossible to get out of my head.
The next day we began The 2004 Summer Adventure Part II – Eastern Anatolia. Our first stop would be Duzce, Celil’s hometown. To get there we crossed to the bus stop on the Asian side. Halil called ahead and asked them to wait, and when we got off the boat he ran while the rest of us struggled with Hasan’s overstuffed bag. A few minutes and three hernias later we were in our seats. Halil sat next to Celil and talked about his time in France (I had heard quite a bit already, and there’s only so much to say about cheese, wine and snobbery), and I sat next to Hasan and heard stories about Wisconsin (brats, beer and cardboard boat races). There was some old coot sitting in front of us, and he kept trying to put his seat back all the way. Fine. It was the middle of the day and the sun was bright, but his choice. Then he started giving us dirty looks because we were talking, so we actually tried to talk very softly, but we weren’t about to stop and just stare out the window so he could get his beauty sleep. He continued to look at us so we just ignored him until, after about two hours, he finally got up, yelled at us and then made a big production about moving to an empty seat in the back (why couldn’t he have done that two hours ago?). Then he got the bus steward to come and try to get us to shut up. Being the nasty foreigner I am, I made some hand gestures and blew them both off. But that only seemed to arouse every other geriatric on the bus and before long there were two old ladies who had told us how uncomfortable we were making them. Halil is very diplomatic and tried to play peacemaker, but it was too late. Soon after, we got off the bus to a flurry of hisses. I got off last because I didn’t want any witnesses when I gave the old guy who started the whole thing a very genuine and heartfelt farewell. I’m sure the gesture I made went a long way to winning over his troubled mind.
It wasn’t the most auspicious start to our trip, but I figured it could only get better after that, and indeed it did. We took another bus up to the village where Halil and Celil’s family live and then walked the last few hundred meters to the new house. They had just finished it a couple months ago on the old family plot of land, and it sits on a little hill surrounded by fruit trees. Across a small road is the family hazelnut grove that extends up a bigger hill so steep that you practically need Alpine climbing gear to get up it. As we got near the house we were spotted, so there was a greeting party when we walked through the gate. Lots of kiss-kissing and hugs and then, of course, we had to eat something. Now I have to say that Turks in general are quite hospitable when you get into their homes (unfortunately that often doesn’t translate to customer service in businesses), but it’s hard to beat the Sari family for a good old-fashioned welcome. Hasan left that same evening because he hadn’t been home in months, but I stayed at Celil’s house for five more days. In that time I probably gained five pounds and was scolded a hundred times for even trying to carry my own plate to the kitchen. My job was to sit on a cushion on the porch and read a book, play with one of the cousins (I can’t tell you how many there were because every other person I met that week was a cousin) or try to talk to grandma. Grandma wasn’t easy to understand, but we both made some valiant attempts at conversation. She didn’t catch-on to the fact that I wasn’t Turkish until Halil told her flat out. I liked her even though she called me a “gabur,” which is an unflattering name for a non-Muslim. Basically an infidel with two heads, a tail and horns. But she meant it in a loving way, I’m sure. She claimed to have never met a “gabur” before, so I tried to make her see that we weren’t all evil crusaders. I didn’t mention I ate pork though or it might have given her a heart attack.
Celil spent his time play fighting with his sister-in-law, Elif. And when he wasn’t fighting with her, Halil usually had him pinned in an arm-lock. I’d jump in every now and then, but it’s not nice to beat students, so I mostly just videotaped his misery and egged the attackers on. Actually, his fights with Elif often reminded me of my fights with Holly when we were growing up, except here they weren’t out for blood. Halil and Celil took me on several tours of the area and visits to lots of other family members. The best thing though was what I like to call a “fruit hike.” I’ve done lots of them here because there are so many fruit trees and berry bushes in Turkey that it’s quite easy to go for a walk and just pick different kinds of fruit as you stroll down a country road. That’s what we did one afternoon. As we’d pass a tree we’d send Celil up it to knock down whatever fruit he could. Then we’d pick it up and put it in my camera case and munch on it until we came to the next tree. And so we made our rounds and the guys pointed out different things they remembered from when they were growing up. Back at the house, Mom was always cooking something, taking care of the baby chicks or sending the cow our for her daily moo session with the other cows. And of course, every morning she was the first one up and had a cucumber fresh from the garden waiting for me. I never had the heart to tell her that I don’t really like cucumbers, but I think if I’d stayed there much longer I may have developed a taste for them. I was getting too comfortable though and Celil was ready to go, so it was time to move on to Karatas, Hasan’s town.
Celil and I took a night bus to Adana (14 hours, and for a geographical note it’s in southern Turkey. If you want specifics, see Hasan’s map that he made of his summer trip), and from there a minibus down to Karatas. This was my third trip to Karatas; it’s become something of an annual getaway for me. It’s a small town right on the Mediterranean, and it’s the only time I ever really just relax and spend time at the beach without getting bored. Hasan’s mother Ozel is always very nice to me and, like at Celil’s house, I’m not really allowed to do anything except clean crabs, which I do voluntarily. Hasan’s brothers keep things lively, and this year I had a special treat: the municipality actually started spraying for mosquitoes. I only got a few of the little bloodsuckers taking samples from me this year, which was a nice change from past years when I needed blood transfusions every other day to replace my nightly losses. Now if the government could just figure out a way to reduce 95 percent humidity I’d spend all summer down there.
Hasan had planned out several activities, but we had messed up his schedule by arriving a day later than expected. But he readjusted, and everything worked out ok in the end. First up were a boat trip and a swim. There’s an island about 800 meters off shore, and one of the neighbors knew a guy who knew the barber of the ferry driver or something like that. In the end we got a ride to the island and swam around out there for a bit. Hasan and Celil swam back in, and Hasan’s brother Mehmet and I brought the stuff back in the boat. That night, we did the typical Karatas evening stroll through the park on the shorefront. Everyone goes there and it’s book ended by two bars/clubs that hold seemingly constant weddings and parties that can be easily crashed just by walking on in. After Mehmet had finished showing off his pet foreigner, we settled down to a game of okey at a beach bar. After my team had lost it was time to go home.
The next few days we spent at the beach and even going for a swim at night. I suggested we do that, and even though we got lots of weird looks (nobody swims at night there) everyone agreed that it was fun. One afternoon we walked out along what I like to call “Cess Beach” because it’s the place where whole families come, pitch tents right on the sand and live for the summer in their own trash. Dads may stay in the city during the week, but they come back on the weekends. It’s always interesting though because these tents are like houses and the entire place is like a temporary village complete with markets, bars, restaurants and home decorating. Except instead of white picket fences, they use upside down beer bottles stuck in the sand to mark boundaries.
The most memorable thing that happened in Karatas this summer however was when we took a trip to visit Ali, Hasan’s other brother who works at a dalyan, a kind of fish trap. This dalyan is about 35 km away from Karatas, and to get there we needed transportation that could carry me, Celil, Hasan’s mother, Hasan and Mehmet. Mehmet has a motorcycle (which we used, dangerously overloaded, to get around town), but it wasn’t going to be easy to fit all of us on the handlebars. So he borrowed a truck from a guy at work. You really would need to see this thing to believe it, but I’ll try to do justice to this wannabe Flintstone vehicle. It had an engine, but the hamsters inside were not happy about being made to work. The body was made of some sort of plastic, which surprised me because I didn’t know they had plastic in 1875 when I think this thing was built. I was going to try to drive it because I was the only one with a driver’s license, but when we actually put the front seat in (removable for easy cleaning!) and I realized I would have to drive with my knees up around my neck, I had second thoughts. I did try, but it bothered me that to turn 10 degrees I had to turn the wheel 180 degrees and still cross my fingers, and to stop I had to pump the brakes and still look for a nice brick wall to use in case of an emergency. So I figured that license or not, the best thing to do was just shut my eyes and let Mehmet drive. Everyone else was in the back. There was a fan on the dashboard and a radio that was worth more than double the value of the truck, but the only thing it played was Arabesque music. If this thing had been painted in bright colors instead of the rust it was sporting, we could have been mistaken for escapees from some Bollywood production.
But we made it to the dalyan and had a good seafood lunch with Ali and Hasan’s uncle. After lunch we went out to the house on sticks in the middle of the bay where Ali and some other fishermen live for days at a time. They spend their time checking the labyrinthine traps for fish and crabs. Celil and I both agreed that we wouldn’t last more than a few days out there, but it was peaceful for a bit. And all you can eat seafood. Hasan’s uncle told me they sell the fish locally, but the crabs get exported, even to the US. On the way back we stopped at Ozel’s family village where her brother still lives. Hasan chased geese (trying to make them hiss-he does a pretty good imitation too, although he could be mistaken for a snake or some kind or a leaky tire) and we all ate grapes from the bower of his deceased grandmother’s now abandoned house. I also saw a very strange sight. It seems that there is one village cowherd who takes everyone’s cows out to pasture for the day. In the evening he brings them back, and as he walks through the village, each cow just breaks off from the herd and goes its own way back to it’s own house. He doesn’t have to do or say anything. They’re just trained. Smarter than some of the kids I’ve taught anyway.
That night we also took a big box of live crabs back to Karatas with us, and Hasan, Celil and I set up a kind of cleaning assembly line. Celil would pin one down with a stick, I’d grab it and pull off its claws and back shell and Hasan would clean out the guts with a hose. Celil slacked off once though and one of the buggers got hold of my thumb. That one was the first on the fire, but the bruise under my nail is still growing its way out. And Malek, you’ll be happy to know that we relived your crab cleaning experience from last summer. As we remembered, you weren’t really into the whole gutting experience and after one half-hearted attempt you had gone inside to take a nap. By the time you woke up, we’d eaten most of the catch. Moral: stick to Red Lobster if you’re squeamish about crab guts.
We were having fun, and I hope to spend a bit more time there next year, but we had other plans, other places to see and the clock was ticking. So after a few days, we decided to head off into the wilds of eastern Anatolia, where a completely different part of Turkey awaited us. It was to be a re-examination for me (I had gone to all these places five years ago with Ann or three years ago by myself), but it would be one more new experience for the boys. I always get a kick out of playing tour guide, but I also wanted to return to these places before I leave Turkey at the end of the year. This would be a good way to go out.
For those at all interested in comic books characters/cartoons I have to draw your attention to the latest season of Justice League, known as Justice League Unlimited. It is really really well done. The latest episode was mind blowingly good.
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Toby is spamming me with large letters again, so of course I'm going to be passing the letters your way as well! He has written an introduction letter this time around before we get to the meat and potatoes. Read it behind the jump.
Read Me First
What a summer. Four countries in Europe, another swing through Turkey and all the while trying to distance myself from the happenings here at school. I didn’t take my longest trip ever this summer, nor did I see the most stuff or have the most adventures (but I think I broke my picture record: more than 1000). But overall, between getting out of the Middle East for a bit and then getting a chance to travel again with Celil and Hasan and seeing their families again, I’d have to rank it up near the top. It was more relaxed than I was used to, but that was ok too. Not everything needs to be a mad dash. The recounting of our trip through Turkey is contained in a three part series (available on CD ROM for only $9.99 + postage and handling-the perfect Christmas gift). It will be filling your inboxes shortly. This is a kind of an intro on what’s been going on around school from the beginning of the summer until now. It reads like a soap opera and may not be quite so interesting if you don’t know any of the players, but it is cathartic (and depressing at times) to write about, so bear with me.
To begin with, we had our 131st school graduation in June. Teachers gave out diplomas and I was happy to be able to give one to one of my old swimmers. Everyone gets all emotional (except for me since I’m a cold-hearted bastard), and there’s lots of kissing and hugging and the realization that there won’t be any more free food from the school anymore. I think that really hurts. I may have a bit of a stirring in my heart at the end of this year since almost all of my favorite students will be graduating and it’s my last year here, but I’ll try to keep it in check. At the post-graduation party at the sports club the general director of the school came up to me and tapped me on the back (and yes, mother, it’s the same guy you met all those years ago, but he liked me then). I almost fell in the pool from shock. He hadn’t talked to me in six months because I had had the audacity to write a nice letter stating that I didn’t think a few things were fair and it would be nice to get equal treatment. He wrote me a nasty reply and then would actually duck into doorways to avoid having to look at me. I’d always known he was a lying, weasely, backstabbing micro-managing coward who couldn’t handle confrontation or even a second opinion, but seeing him act like that just so he didn’t have to see me only made me laugh. So when he started talking to me as if nothing had ever happened I knew something was up. He made all kinds of promises about what I could do this year, and I told Mujde later that I bet he was only doing that because he knew he was leaving and wouldn’t have to follow through on any of them. Sure enough, all the vice principals that he had appointed and supported him were fired over the summer and he took the hint and resigned. Now the board of directors is in direct control of the school. They’re really no better than he was, but at least now we have more direct access to the big bosses. As for the school, it’s kind of on autopilot now.
The board has been trying to win hearts and minds and show that old guys completely out of touch with reality can still care, but in a typically haphazard and unproductive way. They organized a party and ordered four thousand balloons to be dropped from the windows of the school. Two guys who had never blown-up balloons showed up with a little air pump and got to work the day before the event. Ahmet set them up in two rooms on the top floor overlooking the yard, and all day you could hear the little pump doing its job. In the afternoon we went up to check on their progress. One whole room was filled and they were working on the second. I went for a dip in the latex sea. One of the guys had cut his finger from tying so many balloons, but they still weren’t even half finished yet. The next day, we had a special lunch with our special guest: the head of a large newspaper who is more famous for being a mafia boss and scamming investors in his failed bank. But we have an equal opportunity policy for criminal donors, and so as long as the money flows, they get their special seats at whatever function they want to attend. So the balloons were dropped, the kids popped them all and then we went back to class while the cleaners scampered about picking up the trash.
For the first time in my history at this school, I reported on time. I simply had nowhere else to travel to and was bored, so why not? They always want the teachers back three to four weeks early, which is completely ridiculous, and because I put every bit of energy I have into this place during the year I always figured I was entitled to a week or so of leeway. So on the first day I was surprised to learn that I had not been given any of the senior classes I had wanted. The head of our dept and I don’t see eye-to-eye on anything anymore, and she had made sure to do a good number on me in terms of scheduling. We had gotten a new teacher (whom I had yet to meet, but whom I’ve since become pretty good friends with) from Australia and he’d been given the classes I wanted. Seniority and hard work count for nothing here. Then our illustrious Head threw me a sop and told me that if I wanted to take extra hours I could teach one senior class, but not the elective I had counted on to keep me sane (and had been promised when I got here six years ago). I left for a bit and went to Ahmet’s office for some chocolate and a tea (no whiskey available). I’d really had enough (six years of this kind of thing finally caught up to me all at once) and just wanted to pack it in and leave then, but in the end I thought about the kids and decided to give it one more go. So I took the extra hours and even added a new club to my list of activities. Damn the administrators, full speed ahead.
I’d like to say thanks to Mom for getting a hold of two good tether balls that have since become the most popular lunchtime activity in school. Ahmet added a second pole after he saw how long the line was to use the one we already had. I’ve even started leaving them up all day from morning until night because the kids come out and play at every break time and after school. What’s so great about it is that kids from every grade play, from the youngest to the oldest, and there doesn’t seem to be a stigma that it’s a baby game. Unfortunately, girls don’t often participate (opposite from the States where the girls were always better than the boys when I was younger), and a few older students won’t play because it’s not a “Turkish” game, but as someone pointed out, if they really only played traditional Turkish games here they’d be reduced to riding horses and chasing after a goat. Some people just can’t loosen up, but it’s their loss.
And that’s pretty much the state of affairs now. Ahmet and I have renewed our tennis battles and I’ve been taking kids to the pool regularly to enjoy the last few days of summer before we get chased inside by the cold. I saw the Michael Moore movie “Fahrenheit 9/11” and was extremely surprised that, although I still think he’s a lunatic, he did bring up some very interesting and poignant issues that I think should be addressed and explained. Not about the events in New York and DC themselves, but about the relationship between the Bushes, their cronies and the Saudis. If even 15% of what is mentioned in that film is true, then it is disturbing to me as an American who is tired of seeing other countries who hate us continue to be welcomed by our President and treated as allies. I don’t think it will change my vote because the alternative is even worse, but I won’t be quite so happy marking that ballot as I would have otherwise been.
And now that I’ve thoroughly upset Mother, it’s time for me to send “Eastern Turkey Kebab Tour 2004: Part I”. So here goes.
Notes on the Founding Fathers and the Separation of Church and State
Nothing too interesting going on. I went and saw Hero for the first time in the theater's(I already own an import DVD) and it was of course fantastic. Chuck and Chris also agree that it rocks.
I finished the Harry Potter books. The fourth and fifth were fantabulous and I can't wait till the next book or next movie comes out now, whichever is due first.
I saw Collateral with Linda the other night, I thought it was great, Linda didn't like it. So there you go, let the watcher beware I guess. ;)
In rented DVD news, for the record In America, Shattered Glass, and The Triplets of Belleville are all definitely worth a watch, but not everyone will like Triplets since it is soooo very strange. Very french I suppose.
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Mad Magazine Bush Campaign ad against Jesus
I'm back.
I had a great trip. The wedding was really awesome of course, as all Arabic wedding's tend to be. I got to hang out with a lot of family over the course of my trip of course as well as did some exploring of downtown LA. Little Tokyo is really spiffy. New wall scrolls and much pocky was purchased by me.
The last day I was out there was my 30th birthday. I ended up getting thrown a surprise party(possibly the first, or at least the first I've been surprised by). Was pretty cool, although I felt really guilty at all of the cards/gifts, since I am not often around to return the favor. :(
When my flight back landed everyone on the plane was detained for an extra hour due to some kind of security issue. They ended up busing us back to the security section of DIA to be rescreened. So I was a bit late to work.
In addition to cards and such, I also got a cold or something from my family in California...bastards. :) Luckily today is my friday, so I can hopefully get well over the weekend.
In the height of stupidity department, I actually forgot my camera. Luckily Joe had brought Nick's camera along, so as soon as he makes the pics/videos available to me, I'll be sure to post some.
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I saw a movie called "What the fuck do we know?". I highly recommend you do NOT see this. ;) It had a few high points, but mostly it was far too much mumbo jumbo new agey crap and not enough actual science. Really poorly strung together too.
I also saw "Mean Creek." This was actually a really good film and it makes you think.
In other entertainment news, I'm currently reading the Harry Potter books finally. They made good airport reading and I am now on book 3.
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New trailer for the upcoming Farscape Mini-Series is now available!