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| Emerya village |
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| Old school classroom at Emerya |
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| Still smiling, not knowing what's waiting for her ahead |
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| Suspension bridge leading to Uzumdere village |
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| Don't be fooled by the smiles, the game is boring to death |
In the morning we were eager to leave that place as quickly
as possible, but as armies don’t march on empty stomachs we needed to have
breakfast first. We had run out of our most important food item, the holy
bread, so Asena volunteered to go out and hunt for some. We were trusting her
warm smile and sweet words but it was Emerya we were faced with, therefore an
unspoken uneasiness was apparent in the air. She came back shortly afterwards
with bread, but told us that it was no easy task. She first got turned down by
the woman she came accross asking for some bread, and not having success with
her sweet words she decided to bring out her secret weapon of words of fire,
scolding the woman for leaving us starving, and finally achieving success on
bringing bread to the table. We figured it must be the full moon the night
before, wrong positioning of Saturn and Mars, and the radioactive waves
radiating from the sun interfering with the magnetic balance of the world that
caused all this mishap we experienced at Emerya, so we left the village only to
return someday and embrace each other with the villagers feeling nothing but
love.
We had another tough leg ahead of us. Our next destination
Uzumdere wasn’t very far off, but we were to climb up and down some very steep
hills, and even though we were going to be able to cope with uphill climbing
with small breaks here and there, steep downhill walks with heavy backpacks
were going to take their toll on our knees and put the rest of the journey in
danger.
Getting close to Uzumdere there was just one last hill we
needed to climb to reach the village situated on the higher part of a mountain
side. No matter how difficult the walk might be, once the village gets within
the eyesight range the rest feels much easier. With an extra boost of energy,
we started climbing straight towards the village and by the time we realized
that we had swerved from the marked road, the village seemed so close. Therefore even Benoit, who always had been
very particular about following the marked road, said “screw it”, and just as
we almost reached the village all in a sudden we found ourselves looping around
it and climbing even higher to a fortress sitting on the very top. When we
reached the top cursing about our mistake, the view we found made it all
worthwhile: high, lush green mountains resembling the ones found in Easthern Black
Sea area surrounding the valley, an impetous river running through it and a
village nestled on a slope. Gamze got teary eyed mainly from the spectacular
view, but also a little from the pain on her knee. We were deeply affected as
well, so sat on a bench put on the roadside and savored the moment and the
view. Walking down to the village we met with Asena and Ali (they were a little
behind of us on the trail and had followed the correct road, reaching the
village before us), and started looking for the reeve. Even though in a typical
village in Turkey all the townspeople would be willing to host, feed, and meet
any other needs of any guest, because of the few aging people left living in
the villages we passed by, we had to deal with the reeves for our needs. The
reeve arranged the tea house for us to stay in. On top of meeting our basic
needs of a heater and a kitchen, it also was furnished with such luxury items
as an LCD television and a rummikub set. After dinner we decided to play
rummikub to liven up the calm village night. Learning and playing rummikub,
which Benoit hadn’t done yet, was the final and most crucial step in the
asimilation process of him into the Turkish culture. Already a Turk more than
the rest of us with his raki drinking, belly dancing, and heavy smoking before
he quit, he quickly adopted into the game and started a showdown. We were
playing our second hand only, which to us seemed like the 20th, when the reeve
stopped by to see if everything was fine. His eyes brightened up when he saw us
playing rummikub. I sensed that he wanted to join when I noticed him making
comments about everyone’s hand, his fingers itching to be touching the pieces
and his whole body wiggling with excitement. When I stood up to serve some tea
he accepted my offer before I even put the question mark at the end of the
sentence. He wanted to show us how it is supposed to be done by slamming the
pieces hard on the table. After a game or two even the reeve’s desire waned off
from our absolete boredom with the game. As he left the place we immediately
left the game. Meanwhile Gamze decided to leave us the next day to go back to
Istanbul due to her knee pain getting worse in the evening. She had made a
decision, but she wasn’t aware of the amazon woman living within her yet…
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