Putting Turkish Hospitality to the Test

After three weeks of frusteratingly ineffective attempts to reach my friend Pelin due to difficulties in timing and in simply figuring out the Turkish telephone system, on Monday I eventually had gotten through and let her know that we were going to be passing through Turunç the next day. We arrive in Turunç and Pelin escorts us to her family's summerhome, a short walk from a community beach. Our hosts graciously offer us drinks, escort us to the beach for a swim in the ocean, and then we return for dinner and a couple games of tavla (backgammon), where I am roundly trounced by Pelin repeatedly (although she very charitably says that I am playing quite well and she is just getting lucky).

As we return to the porch for desert (a treat made with whipped cream, bananas, and a sort of chocolate cake, followed by watermelon wedges), Pelin's sister starts asking "So how are you getting back to Fethiye?" Of course, we are not going back to Fethiye, but eventually the meaning of the message becomes clear: while I understood that we were staying the night, our hosts did not (I'll claim responsibility for this one). This all shook down at about 11pm, and thus began our very critical 24-hour test of Turkish hospitality.

Test 1: Despite having a fairly small house, Pelin and her sister do not miss a beat and quickly volunteer to sacrifice their beds to give us a place to sleep. And then, despite our plans to quickly move on in the morning so as to not be a burden, we are treated to a delicious breakfast featuring soft-boiled eggs and homemade strawberry jam. Following this, Pelin's family invites us to join them as they drive us back to Marmaris, stopping at the local bazaar and supermarket, where Pelin and her sister educate me on the country's finest candy bars, and Pelin's mom assists Jennie in working on her conversational Turkish. They encourage us to try the local ice cream stand's pistacchio ice cream -- the finest pistacchio ice cream I've ever tasted! -- and Pelin's mom even insists on paying for our double-scoops of the same. Finally, they drive us back to the otogar (bus station) and wait for us until we have safely boarded our bus to Izmir.

Test 2: About five hours later, we arrive at Izmir's otogar, and realize we need to connect on another bus to reach our hotel near the center of town. Jennie makes the assumption that all the connecting buses are heading toward the center of Izmir, where we want to be, and so we hop on the first bus we find, and about forty minutes later find that we are out in the middle of nowhere, all the people on our bus have filed off, and we apparently headed off in the exact opposite direction of where we wanted to go.

On our now-empty bus, we ask the bus driver how we get to where we want to be, and he responds with presumably very useful directions which we don't understand in the least. He attempts to dumb down his explanation to no avail. But instead of leaving us to our mess, he goes out of the way to drive us to a station where we can transfer onto a bus that will take us where we want to go, and then exits his bus himself and waits 15 minutes outside with us for our bus to arrive and to make sure that we have boarded the right bus this time around.

Bonus credit: At the closing of our 24-hour test of Turkish hospitality, we have finally arrived at our hotel and are now looking for food. Our hotel is in the Çankaya area of town, which is quite nearly the cheapest place we've found yet in Turkey -- a kilo of cherries (two+ pounds) sells for about 75 cents -- and the place is decidedly local; we stick out like sore thumbs. We stop at a kebap stand and feast on delicious chicken and meatball kebaps at their outdoor tables. When we are done, a stranger who has been watching us eat gives each of us a large wedge of watermelon for free and wanders away. As we make a mess of ourselves picking our way through the watermelon, another random stranger wanders over to us and gives us a couple napkins. So although we have tried our best to overstay our welcomes and become hopelessly lost, we have instead been endlessly assisted in our way to Izmir and dining on meals and snacks frequently given to us for free. Turkey passes our test with an A+ --this time. I am working on ways to turn up the heat for maybe one final test...