Travel Journal
As I prepared to summarize my adventures in Santorini, I quickly realized, I had none. A quick flight from Istanbul to Athens, and an eight hour ferry ride brought me to this picturesque place. I had my adventure. It was my week in Istanbul and it was over. Santorini was a quiet place. A place for me to pause and be still. That’s exactly what I did.
I changed my flight to Athens, in order to extended my stay, in Istanbul, for a few more hours. My initial plan was to conquer Istanbul in two, three days, tops. My goal was to check off the events and tours, like items on a shopping list. Oh boy, was I mistaken. Istanbul is an 8000 year old city that straddles two continents. It is one of the world’s most populous cities. It was very naive and ambitious of me, to even entertain the thought that I could possibly scratch the surface, within a few days. I must return, very soon.
More pics…
I had to rack my brain, to remember the encounters I’ve had with the women of Turkey. Besides my visit to the haram, I had almost no real conversations with Turkish women. Most of my interactions have been with only men.
Men are employed in most of the businesses that interact with the public. Occupations traditionally reserved for women, like waitressing, store sales clerk, and cashier are dominated by men. Besides my hotel bartender, the chambermaids, and airport employees, I saw almost no women in the workplace.
My closest exchange was with the hotel terrace bartender. She was young, and based on her modern clothing, non religious. She didn’t wear a headscarf. After checking in, I ordered a beer, at the terrace bar. I asked her for a suggestion of which local beer to try. “What do you like?” I asked. She suggested her favorite. ‘Ahh, she DOES drink!’ She poured the beer in a glass and filled a small wooden bowl with peanuts. “You pay me later,” she said, as she waved me away. I went to sit on the terrace.
The hotel bartender
Commercial break… Normally, I am not a peanut eater. Peanuts are something I’ll eat, if I’m really hungry and there are no other good options available. But, the peanuts in Turkey are absolutely DELICIOUS! They are very fresh, perfectly roasted and generously salted. They had no unpleasant aftertaste, like the packaged peanuts I’m used to. I finished the bowl in about two minutes.
The bartender walked over to see if I wanted another drink. She took a look at my empty peanut bowl. “Yes, please,” I responded. She returned with a second beer and a refill of peanuts. After a half hour she returned to announce she’ll be closing soon. I ordered another beer, to take back to my room. She returned with an unopened beer (I was still working in the second one), and another bowl of peanuts. I paid her for the three beers and gave her a very generous tip. She stared at the tip for a second, gave a little smile and walked away. The sun was setting and it was getting cooler. The bartender returned with a red wool wrap for me to wear. “Thank you, this is so nice,” I said. She waved and walked away.
The next night, I returned to the terrace for a couple of beers and two more bowls of peanuts. Before she closed the bar and after another generous tip, she gave me a bag of peanuts to take back to my room. I love those peanuts.
I never got her name. I left a dress and some tights for her, the morning I checked out. I hope she got them. If I see her again, I will make a point to initiate a conversation with her.
In Istanbul, I met a guy, Engin, who owned an upscale store. It was a very tasteful store with quality Turkish rugs, ceramics, jewelry, hand-woven scarves and home accessories. The sales team were all men. When I first entered the store, I thought, ‘A woman would give this place a nice touch.’ It’s so ironic that women are excluded from being employed in a store that they were expected to patronize. Aren’t they the ones who usually shops for scarves, jewelry and home goods? Strange logic.
Engin took the time and showed me around Istanbul. He invited me back to his store to eat breakfast and lunch. The staff normally eat their meals in the store. I couldn’t make breakfast, but I accepted the lunch invitation. We took a break from sightseeing, and returned to his store for a quick bite.
We walked upstairs to the “employee only” section of the store. There was a young lady sitting at a desk, at the top of the stairs, wearing a headscarf and modest clothing. I said hello and gave her a smile.
As a shoveled in a delicious bowl of savory beans, I asked, “Who made this?” “My accountant. The lady you saw at the desk just outside this room,” said Engin. “Does she cook for the staff, everyday?” I asked.
Lunch at Engin’s store.
“Yes”
“Do you pay her extra for it?”
“No, she likes doing it,” he said.
‘Here we go.’ I thought. “Does she have a family?” I asked.
“Yes, a husband and a few kids,” he replied.
“So, you’re saying, this woman cooks for the staff, everyday, even though she works and has a family to take care of. And you’re telling me that she loves it?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“What does her husband say?”
“He’s a friend of mine. He doesn’t mind,” Engin replied.
“She doesn’t LIKE IT!” I stressed. “She feels obligated. That’s not the same as liking something!” I said. “If she continues to cook for you, you must pay her. No woman wants the burden of extra chores when she’s has so many other obligations. You must pay her extra for this.”
Later, I asked Engin about employing women to work in his store. He said, “You would never see women on the sales floor, unless, the store needs a woman to speak Arabic to the customers. Then they would get a Saudi women and put her on the work floor, but only then,” he said.
When we walked to the Blue Mosque, I was concerned that I didn’t have a traditional head wrap. Engin told me not to worry, “You are fine.” I didn’t want to be disrespectful, so I tucked in my bushy hair into the scarf I had on, and covered my chest with my sweater. I removed my shoes, and without incident, I entered the mosque. ‘Beautiful!’ I thought, as I looked up at the colorful hand painted motif on the ceiling. “Amazing!”
I saw men kneeling in front of a man sitting in front of an alter. I turned to Engin and whispered, “Where are the women?” He pointed to the back of the mosque. Behind a barrier, in the back of the mosque, was a “Women’s Praying Section.” There were a few women bowing and praying. ‘I wonder what THEY were praying for?’
“Do they come out often,” I asked.
“No, they are too busy working at home, so they usually pray at home,” he said. “ They prefer it.”
‘Why am I asking HIM these questions?’ I thought.
During my trip to Turkey, besides a few professional exchanges, I had not one intimate conversation with a woman. No real personal exchange. There was no, “I’m doing fine, and you?” There was no, “Are you married? How many children do you have? What do you do for work?” Or, “Do you like cooking for your boss, everyday?”
The women in Turkey navigate through society virtually unnoticed. The Habibs and headscarves shield their presence, and make them invisible to the public eye. Underneath the multi yards of heavy fabric and colorful scarves there are lives there. I believe, Turkish women, like women everywhere, want to live their best life, not the life that’s dictated to them by men. These women are given roles they might not have ever chosen for themselves.
Kadin (the woman) is her husband’s most prized possession, perfectly wrapped up and preserved to be seen and enjoyed, only by him. She has little choices and no chance for true independence. She can never escape the culture of second class servitude.
A man cannot and should not ever speak for a woman. Next time, I’ll have to go to the source. When I return to Turkey, I will make it a point to initiate conversations with the Turkish women and ask my questions directly to them. I’m sure, they have the same curiosity about me and my life as an American of African descent, living in the US. I’m anticipating an open and honest exchange that would result in a better understanding of each other.
First, a little background on the Open Air Museum:
Göreme is a district of the Nevşehir Province in Turkey. After the eruption of Mount Erciyes about 2.6 million years ago, ash and lava formed soft rocks in the Cappadocia Region, covering a region of about 20,000 km2. The softer rock was eroded by wind and water, leaving the hard cap rock on top of pillars, forming the present-day fairy chimneys. People of Göreme, at the heart of the Cappadocia Region, realized that these soft rocks could be easily carved out to form houses, churches, monasteries. These Christian sanctuaries contain many examples of Byzantine art from the post-iconoclastic period. These frescos are a unique artistic achievement from this period.
In the 4th century small anchorite communities began to form in the region, acting on instruction of Saint Basil of Caesarea. They carved cells in the soft rock. During the iconoclastic period (725-842) the decoration of the many sanctuaries in the region was held to a minimum, usually symbols such as the depiction of the cross. After this period, new churches were dug into the rocks and they were richly decorated with colourful frescoes. When the Cappadocian Greeks were expelled from Turkey in 1923 in the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey the churches were abandoned, but at the same time were kept hidden, as their owners were the only ones who knew how to find them.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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