So without further adieu, I shall attempt to do just that.
Greetings from Turkey! Right now I am sitting in the Bowers' apartment on the edge of Izmir surrounded by olive, fig and pine trees all around, more apartment buildings out front and big mountains and national forest out back. Needless to say, the view out back is my favorite.
City life is different, but not the extreme torture I always imagined it to be since the day I realized not all people lived way out in Bethel with plenty of space, grass, trees and just personal air for breathing. Since community, family, hospitality and socializing are all very important to the Turks, living so close together only makes those values easier to maintain. Although I understand their viewpoint and appreciate it, I'm still a big advocate for country life.
A few days after arriving in, we set out on a journey that would take us all around Turkey. I feel so blessed to be able to see so much of country during my relatively short stay here. People kept telling me I saw more of Turkey than most Turks! The geography of Turkey is very diverse which makes for fascinating traveling. We camped almost the entire trip, save a few days where the weather didn't permit. We camped in a field dotted with wild saffron flowers surrounded by dark, looming fir trees located off a sketchy logging road wayy up in the mountains, we camped on the Black Sea and woke up with the sun for an invigorating swim, we camped in a campground with such terrible bathrooms that is all that comes to mind when I think of the place, ect. ect. One of our most memorable camping adventures took place in a very small cow-herding village in mountains that equaled the Tetons and Rockies. We had hiked from the village to a glacial lake earlier that day and planned on camping in the area. But during our descent thick fog and rain rolled in and squelched our camping plans. We started to head out of the village when a group of old village ladies came and crowded around the car talking to us. Jack decided to ask if there was an empty house or somewhere dry in the village we could just put down our sleeping bags and spent the night. We were soon hooked up with the village "cafe" that resembled a good sized shack. We found out the next morning the place had been partially destroyed by an avalanche the year before and I'm pretty sure it didn't quite get put back together right. Although this turned out to be one of my favorite memories, I was kinda grumpy about the whole situation at first. I will post a couple journal entries to finish the story.
September 4th
"Jack inquired about a place to stay in this mountain village we are in today and we are staying in some cafe. 20 lira a night ($10) to bed down in this random shelter. (Side note, this old guy just took a bunch of pictures of me and announced in turkish he was putting them on the internet, great...) So here I am in a cowherding village surrounded by curious people loudly speaking a language I can't understand. The only bathrooms are pit toilets in a shed a walk around back. There are also 5 young guys who won't leave so I am sitting in the corner trying not to make eye contact. This crazy old lady keeps stealing my Dutch Blitz cards too.. The Turks are extremely hospitable though, you have to give them that. Well, it just started pouring rain so I'm glad I'm in this primitive shack. It is sooo cold though, our makeshift wood stove fire keeps dying..."
September 5th
"Back to the end of our adventure last night. Our sleeping place continued to be invaded by locals and I embraced the saying, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." I quit trying to be the invisible girl and played a rowdy series of Dutch Blitz with all the guys. They tried to teach me Turkish words and told me different meanings for the same work which was pretty suspicious...Later, we told everyone to go home and crawled into our sleeping bags along the cushions around these bench lie chairs all around the "cafe". The rain was pelting on the leaky, tin roof and blowing through the cracks of the walls (and onto my face) CLUNK, Lydia fell of her makeshift bed onto the hard concrete floor. The noise woke us all up. The room was freezing cold. Our fire that was supposed to "last all night" had long since died. Katie, Lydia and I all headed to the pit toilets glad we were al awake since we didn't want to go alone in a strange village in the dead of night. Jack was outside searching for wood (to no avail) and we were shocked by the cold. Katie shined the flashlight towards the path and we all said, "That looks like....snow!?" Sure enough, the entire village was blanketed in about an inch of fluffy snow. I had on chaco's and capris...There was nothing left to do but laugh at the craziness of it all and crawl back in out sleeping bags; trying to ignore the snow blowing through the cracks..."
As I mentioned briefly in my journal, Turks are so hospitable. We met so many giving, loving people along the journey. One family we met at a roadside fruit/veggie stand totally took us home with them and adopted us for a day, feeding us delicious food and putting us up for the night in their house.
One of my favorite places we traveled to was Cappadocia. People 1000+ years ago carved dwellings and churches in the soft-rock cliffs. Many Christians lived there during the time of persecution in the Roman Empire and later the Byzantine. In fact, Cappadocia is mentioned in 1 Peter 1:1, and the book of Peter was written to the people there. We read Peter while were were there and it was amazing reading a message written for the inhabitants of that very place so long ago.
We have been back from traveling for about a week and half now and it is nice to be in one place for awhile. I traveled for 5 weeks straight.... Now I am staying pretty busy teaching public speaking and doing organized PE with the foreign kids, teaching Primary, babysitting and hopefully starting English conversation classes soon. I am loving this opportunity to be in a foreign country and loving spending time with the Bowers. They have quickly become my second family!
Please keep in touch, I DO miss home and really love hearing from you all!
-Chloe May
