Turkey – a travel journal – Day 1
Flew with Fatma and Beste on Turkish Airlines and arrived to be whisked to Fatma’s father’s apartment on the Bosporous, dropped our bags, and on to the salon where young gorgeous Turkish men styled my hair and rubbed my feet – I looked at Fatma – a big big smile on my face that never left. Back to meet Fatma’s neighbors for many years, the daughter is in love with Fatma, says she wishes she was a man so she could marry her. Meanwhile, the President is about to be elected – the religious Gul – and suddenly all talk is about women wearing birkas. Fatma’s Bubba – her dad – tells me – Yes, it’s no good, but Turkey only hurts Turkey, while Bush hurts the world. I hear interspersed a call to pray in the city that is no more exotic than my father’s voice as these chants are so close to the Sepharadic, it hurts from its familiarity. Then we sit on the Bosporous in a restaurant having cocktails and later drink our Cay and buy figs as big as baseballs. In the evening, we meet friends at an outdoor restaurant – one tells me “what would you do Rachel in my situation?” and I say, “I was in your situation, but I’m not sure it is the right thing.” She says, “Women give and give and men take and take. Then decades go by and women change and men don’t.”