Although we left Turkey 10 days ago we can't stop talking about the wonderful people that we met there. Turks, Kurds, and a Kiwi transplant all made us feel like family coming home to Turkey. In Istanbul we had the good fortune to stay with two sets of great Servas hosts and hang out with new friends who we'd met earlier in our travels. It was a cool experience to get to know these great locals. Our hosts in Istanbul encouraged us to visit southeastern Turkey to see a completely different slice of Turkish life, despite the news of PKK activity in that region we flew from Istanbul to Mardin to see how Kurdish Turkey felt. In Mardin and two neighboring towns we were taken care of in the most complete way by two other Servas hosts and their friends and family. Over and over again we were dumbfounded by how warm people were and how much people went out of their way to help us and smooth the traveling path for us. When we asked people on the street to help locate ourselves on the map or direct us from here to there they inevitably started by saying "no english" and then they'd dive right in to pantomiming with us to get us squared away. We stopped one guy in the middle of Istanbul while we were searching for the marathon office and he grabbed our map and went around to a few taxi drivers to get their input on where we needed to go. It was striking how people went way out of their way to help us.
Even when the language barrier seemed impenetrable, folks had creative ways of getting around it. Our host in Mardin, Resat, collected us "virtually" from the airport via the command center of his cell phone. For about an hour, we checked in with each other and he had us hand our cell phone to various strangers so that he could explain to them what bus he wanted us to get on and where he wanted us to get off, then these strangers would shepherd us along to the next point of hand off where we'd call Resat again and find another helpful stranger. When we finally reached Resat he told us that he could not host us at his house because he had family in town, but he had found a special place for us to stay in a government hotel that was not open to the public. We were absolutely drop-jawed, Resat could have so easily just said "no, I'm too busy to host you," (his sister was in the hospital having a baby and he was hosting all the out of town family) but instead he gave us royal treatment and introduced us to so many wonderful people. Our visit to Mardin was one of our richest cultural experiences and it was all because of Resat and his friend's hospitality.
Our next host, Selcuk, gave stiff competition to Resat's hospitality. We had an almost complete language barrier, so our pre-meeting communication was all through text messages. We texted our bus arrival time to him and he texted that he would pick us up. A bus station pick up? What a treat! We had no idea how special it was. After our bus arrived 20 minutes late, Selcuk and his friend hurried us into his friend's car, and sped off through the dark Gaziantep streets. Through a halting conversation we discovered that Selcuk is a DJ and he was on the air at that very moment. Before leaving the station to fetch us he started a set of music to bridge the time but the set was almost up. We pulled up to the station and Selcuk ran the 6 flights to the broadcasting room, he took the helm just in time to switch from music to the live guest he had in the sound booth!!!! What? It was absolutely crazy. Before this trip I could never have imagined anyone going out of their way so completely for absolute strangers. But that wasn't all. After the live guest was done and after a good bit of sitting around smiling at each other through the glass wall of language barrier, in walked a super hip friend of Selcuk's. He spoke beautiful english and whisked us off to dine at a posh restaurant and later to a coffee shop for a nightcap espresso. Such a treat!
Through our friends in Turkey we were able to experience so many sides of the life there, the work-a-day world in Istanbul (or at least the commute to and from work), family life, conversations about religion, politics and history, an amazing 14 person family dinner / folk music jam session with everyone, including us, wielding an instrument, a great lunch and shopping exploration through our friend's quiet Istanbul neighborhood, participating in an English class for 9 year-olds in the school where Resat was principal, seeing a Christian Monastery in the fabulous care of a couple of young Kurdish guys who spoke no english but were some of the warmest people we met, being treated to dinner at a lovely restaurant in Gaziantep with some of the world's best baklava... the experiences go on and on, so I will leave you with that sample.
The bottom line is that the people we met in Turkey set a new standard for hospitality and kindness. We were inspired by the active conscientious Servas hosts we stayed with, we adored the engaging friends we met and we fell completely in love with the warm laughter filled Kurds that enveloped us into their lives. Turkey taught us to release our sense of control for the course of our days and instead give ourselves over completely to the kindness of the people around us and the bends in the stream of our journey. We learned fast and were well rewarded with incredible friendship and care. Thank you Turkey!
More pics here
1 comment:
The turkish hospitality does indeed sound inspiring. I feel like a have a window to the world you are wandering through & love it! Sounds like only a few months after leaving home, you have found it in the world. Perhaps it has found you. It brings me a teary smile to think of how it is cradling you. It really sounds like pure living, focusing not on routines and responsibilities, but on experience, relationships, and the excitement of the unknown. Perhaps it is even sustainable. . . if not the living-out-of-a-pack, the perspective. I love you two! Warm hugs from a snowy evening in Colorado, Mara.
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