White Baboon

When I was ?n my slumber party phase, my friends and I played those games. You know the ones. Light as a feather, stiff as a board, quiet as a churchmouse. We choked each other to deplete the amount of oxygen traveling to our brain and passed out for seconds at a time. But most of all, we sat knee to knee with the Ouija Board between us. Often at night. Sometimes at a cemetery. Obviously, we enjoyed fear and had a penchant for the mystical. But mostly, we wanted to find out who we would marry.

Years later in college, I Ouija’d with some of my sorority sisters in the attic of our 19th century house. The last thing I remember is running down three flights of its spiral staircase toward the land of the living. It was a fun freak out, but I decided then that I would leave devils and destiny alone.

So when I saw the board propped in my room’s fireplace at the olive farm in Turkey, it certainly contributed to the spookiness of our space. But I was no longer worried about spirits. I began thinking about free will.

As a child, belief in a predetermined path of fate through either a mystical presence or a religious God provides comfort and reassurance–especially at a time when we may feel lost or confused. But ideally, as an adult, we feel empowered to change and influence our own life, leaning on an alleged higher power a little less often.

Instinctively, I gravitate toward free will philosophies. I believe I am responsible for my own happiness. I adhere to the Open Space Law of Two Feet (if you’re neither contributing nor getting value where you are, use your two feet (or available form of mobility) and go somewhere where you can) . I am not repulsed by Tony Robbins. And I’ve always loved this little gem from Live Life To The Fullest, a gift from Aunt Sue at graduation: Act as if everything depends on upon you, but pray as if everything depends upon God.

However, for balance, and to help me release some control and literally go with the flow, I also sway toward more fatalistic mantras. I repeat: This is where God circled for me to be on the map. I believe in the other Open Space saying: The people here are the right people. I trust in the universe.

But in the past few years, a new concept has came rolling into my driveway. One that meets somewhere in the middle. . .and reconciles the two schools of thought. Two years ago, I watched science, positive thinking and mysticism collide in What the Bleep Do We Know. I listened to the hokily-delivered, but powerful lectures of Abraham Hicks. And at the olive farm, I read between the not-so-literary lines in James Redfield’s Celestine Prophecy. Here’s what they (and not coincidentally, Buddhists,) say: While I am the master of my own destiny, and I need not depend on the universe for answers or direction, my connection with the universe is still crucial. Because if I can harness its power and energy, one much greater than little old me, then through deliberate creation, (free will and intention) I can attract exactly what I want.

Tapping the universe? Harnessing energy? I know, it’s tough to believe, let alone embrace. And I’ve been thinking about it for a few years now. But . . .just give it a whirl, think of it as positive thinking with a pirouette and let it carry you away for a dance or two. It’s good stuff.

I’m still in denial about moving that mysterious Ouija planchette. At least on purpose. But even back then, as we reached out our adolescent hands to the universe, probing for information about our hopes and dreams, we were practicing for life. Because we did get something back. I think our only mistake was attributing the message we received to a higher force. . .when it was really coming from ourselves.

Despite the endless miles of highway and its love affair with the automobile, America’s hitch hiking traditions were long ago spoiled by a hand-full of psychopathic murderers.Not so in much of the rest of the world. Hitch-hiking in South West Turkey is cheap and fun. After our experiences here, I’m rooting for an American thumbs-up renaissance.

In Antakya, Turkey, our last planned stop before Syria, we stayed with Sakine–a friend of Fevy, our host in Antalya–and her sisters:

Feygin, Jaylin (we called her JLo) and Sakine, not yet married, all lived with their mother in a large flat, where they lit a fire to take a shower and drove each other around in a fifteen year-old car. They didn’t mind sharing a bedroom, because it also meant sharing expenses. Most amusing, the girls were tough-skinned, teasing each other (and eventually us) mercilessly, as they drove in the rain, from one nargile bar, restaurant or tourist site to another, JLo singing and movie quoting the whole way. A big Sunday breakfast, a space heater for sleeping, a trip to the coast and a Christmas tree (!) also made for endless good times in Antakya.

Proven by the pillow fight (WHICH TOOK PLACE IN A RESTUARANT) below.

This near-the-Syrian-border town also marked a cultural shift, as the pepper paste became spicier, the hummus more plentiful (hallelujah!) and the Kunefe, a cheese, syrup and pastry dessert, more obligatory. In addition, this family was Alevi, a 15 million-strong religious and cultural community in Turkey. Alevi is profoundly influenced by humanism, where women and men are equal and the focus is on uniting with God during ceremonies including music and dance. Some consider Alevism a type of Shi’a Islam since Alevis accept Shi’i beliefs about Imam Ali.Finally, and perhaps most profoundly, we began to realize just how sacred a ground we were beginning to cover in this part of the world.The Church of St. Peter (merely a cave and rocky Indiana Jones-like escape tunnel) is widely believed to have been dug by Peter (yes, the Apostle!) for the budding Christian community of Antakya (then Antioch), where he and Paul (yes, the other important Apostle!) preached around 50 A.D.It is rumoured that the inhabitants of Antioch were the first to call Jesus’ followers “Christians” (Acts 11:26).

(I did not take the picture above)

But I did take this one–me scooping the allegedly healing water of a dripping pool in the corner of the church/grotto.With such Christian roots, we decided to look a little harder for any current Catholicism. And after a windy walk through the medina,

we found it.

Their guesthouse was without heat, and even then, unfortunately too expensive for our hobo blood, but we visited their altar and Michael video’d and photographed and spoke at length with other parishioners, including a French woman who was WALKING on a pilgrimmage from France to Jerusalem.

Our Syrian border story coming soon. . . .

We are at the end of the beginning. On the road for over fifty six days, our life is predictably unpredictable. Here’s how one day unfolded:

7:00 Michael’s watch alarm goes off.

7:25 We get up. High energy costs mean bedrooms are typically pretty cold, so unless there’s a room heater, I sleep in my clothes. No need to get dressed. I brush my teeth and hair and put the blankets back on the bed (we have long since stopped mourning the lack of sheets). It has rained quite frequently on our trip, so I retrieve my windbreaker and make sure my half-gloves are in the pockets—the kind that homeless people usually wear. It is Saturday. Last time I showered? Wednesday night.

7:45: Tejad asks us if we have everything. He does not live here. Fuat does. But we stayed with Tejad the night before we moved here and he slept over. And yesterday, another guy, Oz, gave us a tour of the mosque, explained why it was $130 to fill up a car with gas here and found us rain ponchos. Tejad is a tall, half-bearded 22-year old studying economics in Adana and is very inclined to laugh. He can recite the Denver Nuggets roster and until last night thought that they were named after McDonald’s famous chicken meal. He’s also a huge fan of the show How I Met Your Mother. We’d never heard of it yesterday, but by now have seen six episodes.

8:00: We are on a city bus to the train station. Tejad insisted on accompanying us there because we are helpless tourists.

8:30: At the station, we buy two tickets to Iskendar for about $10. It’s not much, but we wince as this is the first time we’ve paid for transportation since Day 14.

8:45: Tejad leaves us and Michael goes to get breakfast. Small cheese pastries and a cup of plain yogurt.

10:09: Pretending to read. A complete stranger gives her baby to six college-age kids on the train and they pass the baby around, cooing and giggling before handing him back.

10:15: Having bonded over the child, the kids begin to ask us questions by first huddling over a pen and newspaper then presenting us with sentences they have formed in English. They go something like this:Are you want US be in Iraq?You like Amedinijad?Rapport quickly develops as they giggle and practice their English. They are all cousins—Emre, Ibrahim, Inur, Fudya and Hussein—coming home for the weekend from University.You want come our house?

11:30: We are sitting on the floor in Fudya’s living room with eight Turkish kids eating spinach burek, cabbage, and potato soup. There is a lot of laughing and giddiness. THIS is traveling. Her home is in a small village—a walk, taxi and minibus ride from the train we got off in the middle of nowhere.

11:45: We are introduced to the ram they will slaughter next week for Korban Bayrami, the Muslim holiday.

12:15: We visit their football stadium, the village river, their parent’s orchard and more family members. Friends come by. Tea is served. There is a lot of cheek touching—the physical greeting here in Turkey. When Ibrahim see’s his grandfather, he kisses his hand.

3:30: Using our SIM card in their phone, we call our hosts in Antakya (friends of a couchsurfer in Antalya) and have the kids explain our schedule.

4:30: We are on sitting on $5 bus to Antakya, a bag of 25 oranges in hand as well as a free new pair of socks (you have no idea how exciting that is) and a warm fuzzy feeling, looking out the window at three of our hosts who will not leave the station until we have safely departed. A horror movie (American of course) is playing on the bus television. We are soon offered chocolate cookies and Coke by the bus attendant.

6:00: Standing in a very dark parking lot, only a barber’s lights in sight. We need a phone to call Sakine.

6:02: After two phone calls, a lot of confusion, a barber shop visit, hovering taxi drivers, we are riding in a small white car through a very dark Antakya. We do not know the driver. He will not speak to us.The whole thing would have been very sketchy, but only because why would a very grumpy guy with a broken hand and no gas in his car be willing to drive total strangers to meet another total stranger in another part of town unless he was getting something out of the deal? But the answer to that is “because that guy is Turkish.” And that’s why there is nothing sketchy about this at all.

6:30: We meet smiley, energetic Sakine and Jaylin, two of the three sisters who will host us for two nights (which turned into four) in this much more Middle Eastern city near the Syrian border which claims to be home to the very first church in the entire world. Peter and Paul apparently hung out here.

Night 56 will have to be another blog.

So whaddya think this means?Okay, so it means no honking. Maybe this is obvious. But when we first saw it, we were trying to picture the council meeting which could have instigated such a sign:

“I’m serious, Sezgin, I’ve had enough of that ridiculous orchestral rubbish and I want something done about it!”

“Now, Erkan, there’s no reason to get all worked up about a little trumpet playing.”

“He’s got a point,” said Ibrahim. “After fifty-seven renditions of the theme from Lawrence of Arabia, even music connoisseurs have a limit . .”

“Okay, okay, I hear what you’re saying,” said Sezgin. “I’ll get a few signs up and give word to the band director at Izmir Musical Academy to give it a rest.”

Our hostel hostess Yoomi, in Pamukkale was a fabulous cook and a motherly presence. I”ll miss her. (Photo by Michael)

What’s that language at the top right?????

“Merhaba,” I say to the bartender.He smiles wide, ready to take my request, customer service hugging him like an aura.“Do you have a pen and a paper?” I ask in English, following Michael’s advice to at least begin communication in full sentences rather than the toddler style of pointing and blurting.But he doesn’t speak any English and shakes his head in confusion. No problem. I try again with pantomime by drawing a square on the bar, then pretending to write something upon it.Aha! He seems to say, a look of recognition on his face. And promptly brings me the salt.I laught pretty loud before I just start looking for a pencil behind the bar and quickly find one.And I thought I was good at charades.

Sitting here talking about love life issues. Just ordered a Dominos pizza. Celine Dion’s French voice is in the air.

But first having cigarettes and coffee. Tea will be after the meal. How does anyone sleep here?

When Sez’s couchsurfing profile told me that his motto in life was: “take the blue pill,” I knew he would be a good host. But I had no idea what we were in for. By day, while Sez went to work, we read, wrote, cooked and wandered his neighborhood of apartments, patisseries and dirt soccer fields. When he returned home, we fell into conversation about Bush, the PKK (see video here) and the troubles of his Iranian friend, Sara. He played Arabesque Turkish love songs for us. His friend Erkan improved his English. We taught him the words to They Might Be Giants rendition of the Istanbul-Constantinople song.

One night, we saw live Turkish music, clapping along with immersion beneath the ceiling-wrapped vines of tulip lights, green wavy walls and round tables of testosterone. We drank Tuborg and took pictures. We ate a traditional cig kufte appetizer of spicy raw meat sprinkled with lemon and wrapped in a lettuce leaf. And then, we were forced to sing what words we knew of Hotel California into a microphone. In front of the bar.

Here in Denizli, where he lived, there was nothing to see. He knew that. We knew that. But we didn’t care. We were interested in speaking with the real Turkish people about life. What they ate for breakfast (olives, bread, jam). How much vacation they got (two weeks). How they dated (a lot of very formal set ups).

And even Lonely Planet, the bible of all guidebooks, with its boxed vignettes of anecdotes about regional cuisine and historical legends, has become, shall we say, “quaint” after the cultural exchange which is possible from couchsurfing. . . .

So many experiences, so little time. . . .six months will never be enough.

1. Seeing a live and very unruly black ram led out of the cargo hold of a passenger bus.
2. Basking in the inspirational energy of a Ani Pierpont who just wrote Sinan Diaryz—a walking tour book of Istanbul’s Ottoman architecture. God, I miss American female bonding.
3. Watching Turkish woman avoid “regular” toilets in favor of the stand-up squat variety. But, I guess when you’ve been going touch-less you’re whole life, a plastic seat seems gross. (Yes, Christine, of course I’m hovering!)
4. Learning what a real supernova is.
5. Attempting to sink into the floor as a violent movie called “The Marine” began playing on a bus ride through Turkey.
6. Having a conversation about time machines with Michael over our umpteenth (Mom, this is your word!) donner kebab and ayran (something like buttermilk).
7. Time spent with Kirdir–the rug-selling, bike-renting, triathlon-coaching guy with a moustache.
8. Being served coffee, water, tea and cookies. On a bus. Does Greyhound do this?
9. The inescapable irony of having to explain that we were in the “Peace Corps”, to Turkish people, at this present time.
10. Joking with Sez, our second Turkish couchsurfing host, about the Seinfeld Soup Nazi.

For our first couchsurfing experience, we stayed with Meriç (pronounced Merich) in Bursa. He lived in a farm of landscaped, pastel apartment buildings in the suburbs. He commuted to work, drove downtown to go bar-hopping, ate lunch and dinner in a company food court and shopped at a massive grocery store built just for his subdivision. The grocery store looked a lot like Albertsons. If it weren’t for the flags, it could have been any American suburb.

Honest, sincere and accommodating, Meriç was an angelic host. He took us to dinner, drove us around, helped us fax and print and picked us up from the ferry. We stayed two nights, but he would have let us sleep in his college-like flat for a week. Mer?ç and his easy-going, Facebook-belonging friends drank wheat beer and smoked Marlboro Lights. So I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when they said to us, upon hearing about our Peace Corps service and future plans: But what about security? What about your future? Aren’t you worried? How could you just abandon your jobs? And Syria? Be careful!The same comments we get from fellow Americans.You just never know what you’re gonna get. . .

We are on the fourth official day of Wanderlust or Bust (WOB), our tour through the Middle East and hopefully Africa.

Water Bottles Purchased: 9

Strange Bed Slept In: 3

Cloves Smoked: 1

Meals Eaten Which Have Included Lamb: 6

Kind Strangers Encountered: Too many to countTraveling. It’s a medicine of sorts. It cures that whole “When this happens, everything will be fine” concept. It rids our life of reasons to hurry. And this tr?p, espec?ally, slays the concept of a destination from all vision. Because we are traveling to TRAVEL. Every DAY is our destination, and every moment our purpose. (My hubby sneaks up on me to the right).In fact, we’ve realized our Lonely Planet Turkey book, which we ceremon?ously opened once inside our sleeper car, is not the precious guide I guarded so dearly. We are not so interested in mosques, ruins and baths. These things are for tourists and we are not tourists. Charming coastal towns, w?th cushions to while away the hours w?th wine are part of a vacation. And we are definitely not on vacation. We are looking to coin our own brand of ethnodiscovery. Information like bus times, simple Turkish terms, maps and hostel addresses can be cruc?al, but they are also largely outdated in a not yet three-year old tome. Chill Out Hostel, for example, checkitt out to the right, is not as promised (or threatened). It was pretty sticky on arrival. To our relief, the shower is no longer perched over the squat toilet, but to our chagrin, the price is now 20 lira per dorm bed as opposed to 12. The world is moving fast.We’ve been to Istanbul thrice before–enough that it feels a little like a third home. It is marinated in memories of our parents and friends. We can welcome with ease what it always has to offer: metrosexual men, fresh cheap mussels, headscarfed-wrapped skin and charismatic hospitality. Last night we visited Kafeka hookah room for a Bitburger beer, and chatted with our backgammon teacher from last spring. Good times.Boudreaux began purifying water this morning with our miniscule iodine tablets–this will not only keep us diarrhea free, but save us money as well. He also created a complex spreadsheet with our daily expenses, average expenditures and a cell with a fluctuating date, telling us exactly how much longer our trip can last based on the money we plan to spend and what we make along the way. It is a strategic game now–saving money. Saying no to one more beer, eating while stand?ng up, choosing the morning-breath flavored dorm over the private double room.On to the home of a 29-year old Turkish guy in Bursa, a town in Western Anatolia, via ferry and bus, for our first couchsurf?ng experience.

Check back soon. . .