Return from Turkey!

 From September 25 to October 5 I was on an eleven-day tour of Turkey with members of the church I attend and some others of the same persuasion. 

It was life-changing. I do recommend Turkey as a destination, although in a group. 

We spend three days in Cappadocia, where I did not ride in a hot air balloon. I don't regret it. If I had wanted to do that, I would have found another way before the end of seven decades of life. Heights and derring-do are not my thing, plus it wasn't in my budget or part of the original itinerary. They do look pretty cool on the morning skyline, though.

Cappadocia is a land of volcanic formations where over 3,000 years people have found a way to live in the caves that they carved out of the soft rock. The group went into an underground city 200 feet deep--I feared a panic attack in the narrow, low passageways and changed my mind after two levels). Other than that I did everything the young whippersnappers did, walking ten or more miles on several days over rocky, hilly, even mountainous paths. At one point I asked if this was The Lord of the Rings and a young girl said she felt like she was on the way to Mordor. 

But that I walked on the same street Paul, Timothy, and John did (in Ephesus) is worth the sore feet and extremely swollen ankles with red splotches (which I admit was very concerning and I have worked to remedy). 

Cappadocia was a lesson in Christian history because the early Christians fled there to get as far away from the Romans as possible. Peter refers to this in I Peter 1:2:  To the [a]pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,. . . " They lived there a long time and developed a civilization. Even today, it is more Christian than other parts of Turkey. 

After that, we flew from Kayseri back to Istanbul. We spent a very long and tiring day in Istanbul and saw enough of it for me. To be in a 98% Muslim country is . . . shocking. While most of the women I saw were not covered, many still were, in different versions. Some just a head wrap and designer jeans and heavy makeup; some brightly colored long dresses and scarves; older women in dark, oppressively hot coverings mostly to the floor; some in full burkas with only enough for the eyes to be seen; the burkas were black but we also saw long white coverings. These were taken, surreptitiously, in the airport.

The most shocking experience, though, is the five-times-a-day calls to prayer. First, they are inescapable. One is never far from a mosque if in a town or village and even further out. Second, they start at 5:30, there are two more during the noon and afternoon, then there is one at dusk and finally one at nightfall, when the very last glimmer of light is on the horizon. Third, they are loud and discordant to Western ears; they are in Arabic, which most people don't understand even there; they sound eerie. And interestingly, they seem to be ignored by many of the Turks. I didn't see them changing their behavior in any way. I am sure some did, but it was not apparent. 

In Istanbul we rode the ferry to the European side; it was explained to us that was the "old city." We stayed on the Asian side, which looked like Rome or Madrid to me. Our first stop was the Blue Mosque and the plaza outside of it. We women had to be covered; we had to take off our shoes and place them in the cubbies provided.  Needless to say, the building is stupendously beautiful. A cat walked through it. But we women had to be veiled and barefoot (in socks). 

Which brings us to the issue of the cats and dogs. The cats fare better than the dogs, and being a dog person, I was conscious of how bony and lonely a few of the dogs I saw are. Dogs need companionship; we have hardwired them that way over millennia. My dog is sitting by my side right now; our walks are the high point of his life, not that I am a good companion for him.  The dogs in Turkey approach people; they are hungry and need a friend.   Considering I saw a small fraction of all of the millions of street (and field and hills and mountain) dogs there are, I can't say how healthy they are. Some are tagged; some have collars. People put food out for them. I assume the restaurants put out discarded food for them. 

Needless to say, I don't think it is a good system. Our guide, who has his own dog, said the Turkish people see them as the community's responsibility. I am as American as it comes about individual property and am skeptical that kind of system really works. The government is trying to change it, to rid the streets of the dogs, have them adopted or sheltered, but the culture bends the other way. Dogs, especially large ones, can be dangerous; cats less so. 

So the cat had more say in the mosque than the women did. After that we walked to the Hagia Sophia, which was one of my priorities for going to Istanbul. It did not disappoint, not really, although we were limited. We could only walk in the gallery, and not the main floor. Some of the mosaics were covered and impossible to see from a distance in the way they would have been seen. Those big Arabic disks obscure the beauty of the original building. 

I will stop now. The trip was spectacular and one post is not enough.