Going "Home" Again... Day 12

Today was our "free day" but six of us plus our intrepid bus driver made an optional trip to Izmir, about 60 miles away. This is where our family lived from May 1983 to May of 1985 == it was a great adventure then and I was eager to see it again and see what changes there have been. Additionally, Dr. Linda Darling, our Turkey expert, has a UA student who is from here and home for summer holidays. He agreed to meet with us and bring his sister, who is an elementary teacher of English here in Izmir. We lazied about in the morning and got to Izmir a bit after noon.

In Izmir, the meeting place is the Konak, the clock tower in the middle of downtown, by the water front. It is much more elaborate young Turkelegant than it was... a common observation for pretty much everything I saw today. The city has about 2.6 million residents -- it was probably around a million when we were here. It has grown rapidly and is surrounded for miles by densely packed houses and apartment blocks. I wish I'd invested in Turkish cement, for I'd be a very wealthy woman by now.

We had interesting conversations. While we waited for our friends to come, we met a young Turkish woman who now lives in Chicago and is a post grad student there. She was showing a US friend around and stopped and chatted with us for quite a while. She made a comment that was later repeated by our hosts.... that there is a fear among many young and modern Turks that they are being led in a fundamentalist way by their government and there is general mistrust. This young woman said,(paraphrasing_ that she didn't care whether other women chose to wear the scarves and dress traditionally, but that she feared that they would beoome "another Iran" (her words) if the government began to mandate such things. Turkey's constitution is adamant that this is a secular nation... but they feel the trend is going toward more conservatism and fundamentalism. It is currently illegal for government workers or students to wear the head scarf... it is seen as a provocative act in public office, I guess.. but we saw many scarves...though not nearly as many as in Istanbul and nowhere near what we saw in the small cities and towns we have been in . Ever since 1923 when it was "liberated" (and burned), Izmir has been known as Turkey's most liberal enclave.. it was obvious just from the few people we spoke with that this may still be true.

When we met our hosts, we hiked thru town to the restaurant a friend of his had recently opened. Lovely, but a few glitches in service.. lunch was leisurely even by Turkish standards.. about 2 1/2 hours for salads and sandwiches.....but we were in good conversation. Our teacher friend teaches in a private school.. 1st graders. She has about 13 kids in a class.. but she says the state (public) schools have as many as 40 in a class at that age. It appears that in Izmir at least, most parents who can afford to do so send their kids to private schools, leaving the public schools to flounder.

After lunch we wandered thru the bazaar.. it has also cleaned up a great deal since I remember it, though it is just as noisy! Our after lunch treat was fresh fruit smoothies made in the bazaar.. very very good...

Then we went in search of synagogues and found them. Starting in 1492 when Ferdinand and Isabella kicked the Jews out of Spain there has been a large, stable, and prosperous Jewish community in Izmir... we knew that when we were here before, because my Turkish tutor, Ester, was of that group. We were told the population at one time was close to 45,000 and there were 18 or 19 mosques. We learned much of this from an antique dealer who told us the story in Turkish,Spanish, Hebrew, a bit of English and a little German. We still didn't catch it all, but we then follwed him at a trot to see a few of the facades of the old synagogues.

By now we were almost late to meet our bus driver, so we literally trotted thru the rest of the bazaar to meet him...

Then I got my treat.. he drove us along the waterfront to see where we used to live.. found the exact address.... the building was familiar, but I only got a halfway picture since I did it out the bus window and the heavy traffic precluded stopping. They have moved the sea wall however, which must have been a huge undertaking....for now there is a grassy park area between the road and the water that never was there before... beautiful.

Much looked familiar in that part of the city.... just cleaner and newer and more prosperous... but as we drove away the areas became less familiar since the "suburbs" went out so far. There is also a giant carving of Ataturk in a mountain, a la Mt. Rushmore, that is new.....

It was a great day. We got back in time to eat dinner, now I must pack because we move out early tomorrow morning on a two day trek back to Istanbul... we'll see the ancient city of Pergamom (Bergama) and an Ottoman institute tomorrow, then the next day Troy and Gallipoli.. more as we go.