Joe’s Trip to Turkey 2000 – 4 of 6

The next day the British guy, (John) and a Swiss gal (Kari) and I piled into an aging Renault taxi and went on a fifteen-hour tour of various sights. We saw the famous Ataturk dam, which is a colossal ecofuck that has managed to piss off Syria, and we also saw the big heads on Mt. Nemrut. The big heads are famous, so famous that every postcard stand has postcards with big heads upon them. I walked up a mountain and saw what were indeed very big heads. Big heads aside, the highlight of the day was when we stopped to look at a castle (kale). The other two dutifully hiked up a path to look a what appeared to be a very old castle, while I decided that my appreciation of the castle would not be enhanced by walking in the noonday sun.

There was some commotion coming from an adjacent building, and I asked our driver if that might be a schoolhouse. “No school,” he said, “factory!” and so I took a look-see inside. What I found was a sweat shop with Kurdish girls, some as young as ten, knotting carpets. I asked plenty of questions about age, and took a few photographs of very cute, very shy, girls. They work from 10:00 to 7:00, I found out, but didn’t pry as to wages. There was, at least, a water cooler and plenty of light and ventilation.

The next day, the three of us joined up and decided to make our way to Harran, a town that has been continuously inhabited for over 4,000 years. This is the place that Abraham hung out, and it is mentioned in the bible. It also has the famous “beehive” houses, which is what you build if Home Depot is out of lumber. We went down to the Urfa otogar and caught a southbound dolmus, which let us off at the crossroads of nowhere and the road to Harran. An Arab gent named Ali was waiting there in a Renault, which is sort of a taxi shuttle. We quickly agreed upon a price to get us to town and show us the sights. The sights are cool, probably the coolest that I have ever seen in Turkey. Beehive houses and the oldest university on the world are what to see in Harran. This is also a town where the residents assemble manhole cover sized rounds of manure, left to dry in the sun, for use as cooking fuel during the winter. Pooh-pooh platter indeed.

Ali took us to his house, fed us chai and introduced his to one of his wives (he has two) and his children (he has six). Though wife two was present, she did not make eye contact the entire time we were in his living room. She did make some fried doughy meat and onion filled spicy thingies, a tasty snack that I know I would regret in a few hours. I did not get the recipe. We truly enjoyed our visit in Ali’s house and his wonderful hospitality. He was genuinely nice. I paid Ali another five million lira ($8.00) to take us back to Urfa so that we would not have to take another dolmus ride, and we soon arrived at the old bazaar.

Similar to the old bazaar in Istanbul but without annoying touts and high prices, we spent the afternoon watching craftsmen tap-tapping on metal objects and shopping. I bought some garden shears ($3.00) which I desperately needed and a couple more Kilims ($32.00). A new teapot set me back $3.00 and a sheepskin was $5.00. A vote was taken and a cold Pepsi won, so we set off to the middle of the bazaar for a respite from all the retail entertainment. This is the spot where men play board games, backgammon, dominos, chubby checker, etc. We drank Pepsi and chai, and ordered up backgammon set for Kari and John to use.

We were eventually joined by some Kurds that we had met earlier, and we spent the afternoon chatting about this and that. Politics were not excluded from our chats and these guys wanted for me to know that the army had gone to Kurdish villages and threatened locals with imprisonment if their votes were not correct. Some of these guys were just practicing their English, some were hitting on Kari in a obviously playful way, and some were just spending the afternoon with us. We discussed marriage, children, jobs, the economy and Clinton. They were very interested in my thoughts on Bush and Gore and what I thought of Clinton especially. I made it clear that I believe that Bush is a stupid crook and that Gore is smart crook, and they shared their dislike of Ecevit and their admiration for their team, Galataseray.

As it got past 5:00, it was time to leave so handshakes and e-mail addresses were exchanged with our new Kurdish pals. Kari, John and I piled into another Renault taxi (in Turkish, it is spelled taksi) and came back to the hotel Güven. Those guys headed off on a night bus to Ankara, and I was by myself again.

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