*** A famous quote by Benoit Paul Denis Joseph Marie Yves Hanquet
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| A water pump turned into a car engine, such pickups are called "patpat" |
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| Picking our share of the quince off the tree |
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| Benoit leaving marks with spray paint on the trail for others to follow |
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| Just one of the many marble quarries in the region ruining the environment |
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| Enjoying the snacks Hanife Teyze prepared for us |
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| Listening to the humorous stories of Hanife Teyze |
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| Aysun feeding milk to a calf |
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| Highlight of the third day Hanife Teyze |
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| Back at the hotel |
The next day’s plan was to walk in between the villages of
Gumu and Sutculer, which was to take 5 hours. With Benoit’s friends joining us
we set off from Gumu and walked through wonderful landscape adorned with tiny
villages and farm lands. Only disturbing sight was the marble quarries that
have been popping up on every mountain top in the area, destroying the
environment along with the lives of villagers. On top of cutting down trees and
clearing large areas of land to extract marble, the dust spreading from the
quarries also makes it impossible to grow any crops and threatens the health of
the villagers. With the government backing private companies and licencing them
against the laws, villagers feel at loss. It’s a horrifiying idea to think that
we won’t be able to find the area as is in a few years. After 4 hours of
walking we arrived at Karapinar village, where Benoit had befriended a villager
on a previous trip. Benoit’s friend had gone to Istanbul the previous week, to
work through the winter in the city selling a drink called sahlep on the
street. Sahlep is prepared by mixing the powder obtained from wild orchid roots
and milk. It’s a favorite winter drink in Turkey but finding true sahlep is
very hard, due to the limited availability of the flower. Villagers in that
vilage collect the root when the plant blooms in May, dry it and turn it into a
powder. Luckily his wife was there and she welcomed us to her home. With the
legendary hospitality of Turkish villagers, she immediately prepared some
snacks and tea for us. She made us feel so comfortable that couple of us fell
to a sweet sleep on the cozy cushions. Benoit and his friend left to get the
car and come back to get us, while we enjoyed Hanife Teyze’s company. She
started telling us about her life and family, how the old timers used to have 9
children, then the number dropped down to 7, and later to 5 during her time,
and now down to 2 or 3. She got teary eyed talking about her sons being away,
settling down in the city, and how she wished them to come back and settle in
the village. She told us how she would write letters to her husband back when
they were young and he was doing his military service. But she would write the
letters pretending that they were written by his sister not his wife. Our puzzlement was cleared by her explaining
us that the letters had to be inspected and approved before they were delivered
to the soldiers, and it would be very inappropriate for the others to be
reading an intimate letter written from the wife but would be fine if it became
from another family member. It seems as something odd and ridiculous to us
nowadays but it was a different mindset with the social dynamics and taboos of
those days. Another shocking story she had was about the kidnapping of a girl as
a prospect for a relative of her. The relative, who was of the marrying age
asked a girl’s family for their permission to marry their daughter but was
refused and the girl was married off to another man. For retaliation he decided
to kidnap the sister of that girl and marry her instead, without the girl’s
consent. So all the relatives got together and planned out a devious scheme for
the kidnapping. Hanife Teyze took her part in the preparation by preparing a
mixture from ash and hot peppers (think of it as homemade tear gas). They also
hired a couple ganster type guys for help. The plan was for men to go and throw
the ash mixture into the eyes of the household members, and take the girl away
by force during the confusion. The plan worked with couple minor frictions.
They weren’t able to get them all blinded by the ash-pepper mixture, so some of
the girl’s relatives were able to chase after them, and shot and wounded three
of the kidnappers including the broom. The wounds were minor I guess, they all
recovered. They hid the girl long enough to where the girl’s family would
consent to the marriage, and at the end they got married. While we were
listening to Hanife Teyze in total amazement and shock, the moral of the story
came from her. She said that even though they have been married for a long time
now with many children, they were never quite happy and there was always something
missing in the marriage, so she says “if
you’re going to kidnap a girl to marry, make sure to get her consent first!!”. Time flew by with her company and before we
knew it, it was time to go.
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