It feels very familiar here.. kind of like "my neighborhood." After breakfast and our group morning meeting I went for coffee with a friend --Turkish coffee in a Turkish coffee house, sekerli (sugared) with a tiny little cookie the size of an American nickel. I did the last minute shopping (you know, the things I meant to buy and didn't the first time round!) Then I just walked, said good bye to the familiar kitties, admired the architecture.
I'm pretty much all packed... hopefully no overweight charges, but if there are, there are. I was pretty disciplined about not buying too many books, though I did order some from Amazon and Don says they are all waiting at home. :)
Tonight we are booked to go see a performance of the whirling dervishes... supposedly authentic. Last night some of the crew went to see a belly dance/traditional music performance, and it was highly touristic. Except for sadistic taxi drivers who booted them out blocks from the hotel they had fun, but I'm okay with not having gone.... when we lived here we saw many belly dance performers and it is a neat art form, but I really wanted to get packed and just rest up. The trip home will be grueling.
I still need to process a lot of what I have seen. Compared to 25 years ago there are many changes in Turkey. It is cleaner; the drivers are not quite as terrifying, except taxi drivers. By the way, my advice, should you come to Istanbul.... pick the oldest taxi driver you can find. My theory is that they have learned survival skills, have earned their stripes and thus have less to prove. AND, they are more likely to know where they are going. The driver Lisa and I had yesterday coming home from the bazaar had to stop and ask directions to get us back here and we certainly came a circuitous route. He was a young driver. Back to the old guys!
On this trip we have been in the developing world and in highly developed, modern areas. Turkey has made great strides. Probably the least developed places were Montenegro and Albania. I won't dare tell you what we overheard the Albanian bus driver saying to the Albanian guide about Montenegro, but it was both profane and possibly accurate. Yet people everywhere have been kind to us and hospitable. At no time whatever did we have any experiences that felt anti-American. Quite the opposite in many ways. At times, when we were with educated people, they delicately indicated a distaste for some of our governmental policies over the last decade, but all expressed a feeling that things would now improve.
What stands out though, in the background, is a sense that we're all alike in most important ways. Family matters, friends matter, following dreams matters. Every time we got to know someone we found that our values meshed in most ways. There is great respect here for education and most of the people we met saw education as a necessity and something for which to struggle and be thankful. I worry that many are losing that at home. That may be a societal thing we need to grapple with.
If anything I saw worried me it was the bumps here and there of resurgent nationalistic extremism. Patriotism is one thing,and a good one, but it would appear that everywhere there are those who for their own purposes are fanning the nasty flames of nationalistic passions. One example in the Balkans. The Serbo-Croatian language is mutually intelligible with minor pronunciation differences and some minor vocab substitutions thru Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia. It can be written in both our alphabet and in Cyrillic. In Serbia we saw many signs that were in both; as we moved into Bosnia it was in both but on the borders toward Serbia, the bi-alphabet signs had the Western spellings crossed out with spray paint, etc. As we approached Croatia, the Cyrillic was defaced. Subtle but maybe alarming in the impact.
There was humor everywhere, too... sometimes black humor, sometimes raucous. Sometimes for survival. There were smiles and hospitality but different approaches. In Turkey there is much customer service. Our luggage miraculously appeared in our hotel rooms. That did NOT happen in the Balkan nations! Breakfasts showed a difference.. throughout Turkey the spreads were generous and open but in other countries the selection and quantity were very limited. Yet, I had the sense of being given their best. In one Balkan hotel the first cup of coffee was free.. then you had to pay for additional cups, even though we had paid full board for breakfast. In Turkey it was very laissez faire.. when we came to breakfast it was there, but in the hotels in some of the other countries, it was made clear we all had to be there at a certain time and eat together. No worries... we did as we were told.
And more... but not now. I will put up one more kitty picture...and one last cup of Turkish coffee!
I am homesick and ready to come home. I miss Don, my friends, my colleagues, the swamp, the cats, the dog and my own bed. I feel like I've been gone too long but I wouldn't have missed it for anything and I am grateful for the new friends, the new learning and insights and the incredible memories. I am particularly appreciative that Don so unselfishly urged me to apply and supported this whole project. I do have the world's best husband. I know that! He has even patted the cats for me.
