ONE MORE TIME PORTUGAL

PORTUGAL AND YOUNG MEDICAL STUDENTS' UNDERSTANDING OF MEDICAL EDUCATION 

I am back to Portugal, my third time visiting o Porto as the locals call it. I love this town; with her twin sister Gaia and the Rio do Doru in-between, they are a miniature replication of Istanbul, which lies with her Asian and European halves, similar to Gaia and o Porto, on both sides of Bosphorus. This is my first time in o Porto in the winter time, though. It doesn't surprise me that it is raining constantly, how else she could be this green in the heat of the summer, but my hosts are profusely apologetical for the weather; typical for the wonderful people of o Porto, kind, polite, elegant, warm, and caring, wanting to make their guests as comfortable as one possibly can. I feel so much at home, almost more at home in this town than anywhere else in the world, surrounded with its good people. That is why I will be extremely surprised when Zeynep, the wonderful receptionist in Lisbon, who will help me get on the plane back to Istanbul tells me "Portugal is wonderful if it weren't for its people". I then recall Teresa telling me how different Lisbonites are from the people of o Porto. Who knows maybe Portuguese of Lisbon are different than those of o Porto.

Beautiful o Porto across from Gaia along Rio do Doru at night

I had another first experience in Portugal this time. Due to scheduling conflicts, instead of flying from Lisbon to o Porto, I had to take the fast Alfa train. Once I figured out the system and got onto my train, I so appreciated the experience. It was almost better than flying. My dear friend Teresa had reserved a "comfort" seat for me, equivalent to business class on a plane. It was indeed comfortable with music, and newspaper and drink service. I had a seat across from a gentleman was on the way to o Porto with a shared table in-between. I thought, it would be an opportunity to chat with a  local. But no, he had no eye contact with me, deliberately looking down or to the sides. After a few attempts to catch his eye, I decided, "just as in Turkey, it may be culturally inappropriate for well educated men to look at women and well educated and well mannered women to attempt to chat with stranger men", so I gave up and focused on my computer just as he did. During my last evening in o Porto, when the guests including myself were having dinner with Teresa and her husband, a gentleman at the restaurant approached our table and chatted briefly with Antonio, Teresa's husband again without casting an eye or acknowledging us, women I asked them whether this was what I assumed it was. They laughed so hard; especially Teresa was a scene to enjoy while she was telling me in a very animated way "Quite on the contrary, they look at you as if to pierce you and some, look at you from head to toe and all around." That was quite a demonstration of how she rolled her eyes as if she was turning me around to see even my back. Is that what is lying in even intellectual men of Portugal, who love to throw their jackets over their shoulders (without wearing) and stroll.

Portuguese men carry their coats this way when they are in a casual mood or with a casual group

At the end of my 3 hour 45 minute trip, Teresa's "driver" meets me at the entrance gate to "Campanha" pronounced as kaempaenyeah, which sounds like French, feels very musical to me. Jose Manuel is a short, slender, bright faced young man. Maria, Teresa's secretary describes him as in his 40s, but he looks like he is in his early 30s to me, always with a smile on his face, I will find out. His English is as good as my colleague Agostino's, pretty good! He acknowledges me with a warm smile; he must have studied well, the picture of me Maria had told me she was going to show him. With that warm smile, I know that must be who would be waiting for me. He pronounces my name beautifully as most Spanish-speaking people do. He is very helpful as all of o Porto people are. We have a pleasant chat on the way to my hotel, Casa do Medico, which is in the center of the recreational campus of the Medical School of the University of Porto. He tells me he is married to one of the secretaries, Amelia, who also works for Teresa. They have two daughters, one is 20 and works at a shop, "she is a shop-girl" he will describe her with a smile on his face, almost apologetical that she hasn't gone further in her education. The other is 13 and in school.  He tells me Teresa is at a TV station to promote the third child abuse conference she and her team have been organizing in o Porto, in which I will also be presenting tomorrow. I admire her so much, she is organizing at least 2-3 conferences a year in addition to several local/regional courses, in addition to all the clinical work she has to do, in addition to heading one of three branches of the National Institute of Legal Medicine in the country. Some of my friends call me 'force of nature', they haven't met Teresa, who is constantly thundering among Europe, South America, and Africa.

The incredible female leader of Portugal pushing for a very humane approach in her country to manage child abuse and neglect

As humble and chatty as I am with drivers, receptionists at hotels, secretaries of colleagues that I work with, seeing the expression on their faces, full of respect, a measured distance, the shy smiles; I wonder what kind of an impression we academics make on these lovely people's minds, who might not have been as fortunate as we have been with the resources that brought us to where we are now. I have seen over the years that my humility and friendliness can cover some of the distance between them and I in my attempts to communicate with them, but not fully. This, impossible-to-eliminate distance is based on biases that societal norms impose on them, I believe. Social psychology, perhaps should be the next thing I should study. As we chat warmly, I can't help but thinking of these biases, barriers almost remnants of perceived untouchabilities, subtle cast systems crippling our societies. I can't help thinking of gated communities of the USA, membership clubs and facilities, even the club locker room at the gym at my university, all geared toward a subtle segregation, which then lead to these impossible-to-cross barriers and biases.

My hotel room is simple but clean and comfortable. Portugal is going through such hard times, economically, I would be perfectly OK to stay with Teresa and her family, but she wants to treat me properly. Tiago, Teresa's older son, who just graduated from Medical School and, to my surprise, his girlfriend Isabel pick me up from the hotel to take me to their home for dinner. It is past 8 pm, this is the European style, dinner can wait until 8-9 pm. Isabel, I find out is also a medical student, and is she a beauty, my goodness, over the evening I will discover, inside and out. She has a real royal beauty, looks like one of the princesses with royal blood out of a Micalengelo painting. I tell Tiago "It looks like you have found the most beautiful girl in town." They both chuckle with pleasure, a bit of shyness on Isabel's face. I ask them how they met. Tiago interviewed Isabel when he was doing his master's thesis, which is part of medical education in Portugal, thus every physician graduates with a master's degree as well. When it came to defending his thesis, Isabel contacted him and asked him if she could come listen to his defense. I ask her "Did you have him in mind romantically then?" with a loving mischievous smile. She smiles back with a shy but innocently mischievous look in her eyes and nods her head. I crack up, they follow, how sweet. After all, as Teresa reiterates during the dinner, women are always the one, who leads the way to relationships, but doing it subtly since to make the man feel he has the lead is the talent we all need, that's what the society dictates on all of us, doesn't it? 

I can't help but think of the book that I am reading lately "Women don't ask". This is a book that was assigned to a group of women faculty, who volunteered to join a group our medical school decided to sponsor to help us women faculty learn our rights better and learn to ask for things we need professionally. As feminist as the authors clearly are, they resolve in the end that, as much as we should be more assertive to ask for what we need, we should still do it in a way we should not come across as assertive as men are expected and tolerated to do. Because.... our socialization dictates that. What a dilemma, not that I have a problem with that, I don't like extreme assertiveness bordering arrogance in either sex, but when will men learn to be mroe sensitive, more elegant and respectful when it comes to negotiating? I must say, we are still more lucky than generations of the last century, but still, we have a long ways to go to bring men and women onto the same platform.

Linda and Sara do a very good job in this book in explaining why men and women have totally different negotiation styles from home to work


Isabel is extremely humble, though, as if she is not aware of her beauty, her elegance and talents. Tiago just took his residency entrance exam, but is not expecting a very high score. He is interested in psychiatry, though, and is expecting he will be able to get into a program in o Porto since not many people are interested in psychiatry. He tells me he studied for the exam for only 6 months, I am astonished with the preceding "only". Isabel, on the other hand has started studying for it 4 months ago and she will take her exam next November! To top it all, they tell me, there are people who study much more and for longer than Isabel, too. Wow, quite similar to the Turkish system. But the equivalency of this in the USA is the three-tier USMLE tests. Medicine is tough all over the world, I guess.

PLEASURES OF A SUNNY SUNDAY BY IZMIR BAY AT CESMEALTI

PLEASURES OF A SUNNY SUNDAY BY IZMIR BAY AT CESMEALTI

Mehmet, Kezban and I decide to leave the city and go to Cesmealti after breakfast. It is a beautiful morning after apparently they had a severe cold front last week. Cesmealti is the shoreline quarter of a quaint little town called Urla located in the southwest of Izmir Bay. The shoreline is lined with small cafes, fish restaurants that are almost on or even in the water, in some cases. The one that we choose not only has an added patio-like platform extending into the water slightly above the sidewalk, but it also sprawls onto the rock pier stretching into the little cove. The cafe owner has scattered small wooden tables on the crest of the pier; it is so enjoyable, so casual, and natural that, although I doubt they have license to do that, I also doubt anybody, including the city officials cares about this violation of ordinance. Is there some bribing going on to keep the status quo, your guess is as good as mine. This is Turkey. As much as I like the societal organization in the US to protect everybody's rights, sometimes I miss this kind of benevolent breaking of rules and regulations if there is no financial gains behind it.

                                                                  Cesmealti

We sit at a table right at the tip of the crest of the rocky pier. I am savoring the unique experience of being surrounded with the Aegean on all three sides. The chatty crowd of Izmirites is behind us. It is lovely to feel how cheerful everybody is, upbeat conversations, chuckles, laughter within the hiss and fuss of the waves is all the audio stimulation that reaches my awareness. As we sip our tea, I can't help feeling awed with the size of the ducks around, some swimming in the water and some strolling casually among the tables or on the beach. They look like Canadian geese, and I know that that species doesn't visit this side of the ocean! I ask my sister-in-law to take a picture of some of the ducks while Izmirites are feeding them with bread or gevrek. As the sun starts her journey down toward the skyline, we decide to visit the open farmer's market, which is famous for its wild greens "horta", that Cretans like me and my mother appreciate greatly.

Huge ducks by another lakeside very similar to those I saw in Cesmealti

Farmer's markets "pazar" in Turkish, are different than those in the USA. One thing is that, for an approximate population of 100,000 or so a market is held at least twice a week on an assigned space covering at least 2 acres or so. The vendors start arriving around 5 am, unless they have camped out at the market place or in their trucks from the night before. By seven am, most vendors have arrived and are ready to go, with all colors of produce displayed in huge heaps underneath their canvas awnings. There is no set beginning time for the shopping, which is totally dependent on when the local crowd wakes up and start flowing into the market place. During the early hours of the day, many more, unofficial vendors arrive, spreading a canvas spread onto the asphalt at the periphery of the market place, extending the market into the surrounding streets, doubling, sometimes tripling the surface area of the farmer's market throughout the day. And, there is no official ending time to these markets, either. Whoever runs out of goods to sell is more than welcomed to leave. But majority has brought much more than they can sell and most of the market remains alive until after sunset. During the final hours before dusk, vendors become generous, reducing their prices by 30-80% and sometimes you may get a bunch of tomatoes, or beans, or whatever, for such dirt cheap, the peak of the crowd is usually during the afternoon. When majority of the vendors start loading their trucks with their tools and whatever they couldn't sell, the poor arrive and they start picking up, at no cost, the goods that are just dumped by some of the vendors, who don't want to take back what little is left.

A corner from a farmer's market, with true farmers selling their greens, "horta" in Cretan

Kezban and I start our expedition in the market. this is one of my most favorite times in Turkey, going to an authentic farmer's market, where I can find lots of peasant women, who bring their own produce, that most likely was picked just the night before, if not the very morning. Urla has a significant immigrant population from Crete, we know we will find lots of horta, wild greens that we Cretans steam and treat with olive oil, lemon juice, salt and sometimes with garlic and serve as salad/side dish along with fish or meat dishes. And, we do, too. I buy a few different kinds of horta, since we are planning to buy barbun, a special kind of salt water fish found in these waters, a delicacy for fish lovers. I  know my mom will love it as well. On the way out of the farmer's market, we take a peek at the old olive oil mill, that is being renovated by the municipality. It is heart-warming to see Turkish local governments becoming more interested in preserving the old and authentic.

As soon as we meet with my brother, we head toward the fish market, which is another unique phenomenon in Turkey. Each coastal town has a fish market, the size of which varies depending on the size of town. This town hosting tens of thousands of Izmirites each weekend, when the weather is good, has a fairly large one, two acres of covered area with hundreds of small open-front shops displaying all kinds of fish and seafood. We buy two kilograms (more than four pounds) of barbun, the favorite of most fish "connesouir" in Turkey and half a kilo of tongue fish for my mom. I have a feeling, 8 people, whom I will host for dinner at my mom's house tonight will not leave a single bone behind. And, that turns out exactly to be the case at the end of the evening. Everybody fills up their bellies with this crisply fried delicacy to the max, the last couple nobody wants anymore find their way to my, already full but eager-to-except-these-extras tummy, knowing that I won't be able to have them again until at least March, when I will return for my niece's engagement party.

A corner from a fish market, the orange fish is barbun

The rest of my visit to Turkey is job related. I will attend a conference related to a research project exploring the prevalence of adverse childhood experiences and sexual abuse in Balkan countries including Turkey, for which I have been scientific consultant and ethics committee member. I will meet with the Izmir Child Abuse Task Force to discuss their contributions to and expectations from the newly established Child Protection Center of Izmir as part of the second wave of pilot centers being established in the entire country to respond to child sexual abuse on a  multidisciplinary basis. I will finally spend a day at the said center and provide peer review to the wonderful and extremely enthusiastic and dedicated members of the center. Full three days of work before I leave to go to Portugal, and what wonderful three days they turn out to be. After I am done with my work, my belief in Turkish people has been renewed one more time; the good in them, the talents in its intelligent from its researchers, to its physicians, to its administrators, to its prosecutors, to its psychologists, to its victims, to its families wanting to help their children is shining through them in all they have done since my last visit. Good is everywhere, if only people with know-how do their part trusting their people with no hidden agendas solely with the purpose of helping who need our services. It was so gratifying to hear from the prosecutors, who have become part and best advocates of the Child Protection Center model say "this is the best project we have seen being implemented in Turkey for decades." What else do I need for all the hard work we have been doing for 11 years now to get to this point?

PROFESSIONAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS IN TURKEY

PROFESSIONAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS IN TURKEY AND TURKISH BREAKFAST

These children, the gevrekci boys, unfortunately come from poor neighborhoods, majority of whom, are helping their parents with their income. Most go to school, I learned over the years by talking with them. They get surprised when I attempt to talk to them asking them what neighborhood they live in, if they go to school, what grade they are in, how they are doing in school, etc. Apparently, most people tend to not see that their vendor is a child; they choose their gevreks, pay and dismiss the mini-adult they've just failed to notice. I sometimes wonder what kind of market-sharing system exists among them since they range in age and demeanor over a very wide range and I have heard that sometimes altercations break out among them. There must be one, may be a study for Dilara, the daughter of my best friend, who is doing a PhD in Sociology.

I would like to do something different this morning, though. I would like to go down to the shopping district of the neighborhood and get our gevrek from a bakery along with other breakfast goods since one of my brothers Mehmet and his wife Kezban will join my mother, her assistant and I for brunch this morning. I want to have an elegant and all inclusive Turkish breakfast, which is a favorite indulgence for pretty much all Turkish people. I walk down the stairs instead of taking the elevator, I have to increase my energy expenditure after the several pounds I gained during the holidays in Iowa City. As soon as I reach the sidewalk beneath the upper level yard of the apartment complex, I notice him: a young man with a large cart full of items that he is pushing. He is one of the "professional recycling" entrepreneurs! He stops by one of the dumpsters in front of one of the apartment buildings. The physician in me is concerned that he will do his exploration in the dumpster with no gloves and who knows what he will be exposed to. I can see, his left hand has no glove on. He reaches into the dumpster with his right hand, though, and valla! He does wear a latex dish-washing glove on his right hand. Turkish minimilastic submission to rules and regulations...

Professional environmentalist recyclers


He takes a plastic item out of the dumpster and transfers it into his cart. Alas, on the way to the cart the item passes from his right hand to the left with no glove. Apparently, whoever taught him to wear a glove while exploring through the dumpster didn't fully explain to him the reason for that. He moves on with the fake satisfaction that he is doing his job by taking the proper precautions to protect himself. I wonder if any public health professional considered doing a study on these recyclers to find out the prevalence of various infectious diseases in this population. A topic to discuss with my friends at Izmir Department of Public Health.

I also wonder how many miles this man has done already and how many more he will do all day. But wait, I guess I don't need to worry about his joints and muscles for walking so many miles every day. Things,  in Turkey, seems to have changed in this arena, too. Ten feet ahead of me something I had never seen before is unfolding. Our environmental entrepreneur approaches the sidewalk for a different purpose this time: he pulls the canvas "container" of his cart off its metal frame and starts dumping its contents into a truck bed! Wow, it looks like garbage sorters travel not on foot but with a truck nowadays, I am stunned. Businesses must be indeed growing in Turkey if it came all the way down to mechanization of this trade as well...

Recycling of goods off dumpsters has become motorized in Turkey!


Mark, my friend, a law professor and a sociologist, is correct after all, globalization is indeed making developing countries wealthier. I can see that every time I travel to Turkey, but at what cost must be the next question, which Mark is not asking. It is also clear before my eyes that most of the new wealth at least in Turkey is accumulating in the hands of privileged, already wealthy.  And, it is accumulating more and more in the hands of the religiously fundamentalist corporations or those that are pretending-to-be-so, the "nuevo rich". The ever Americanization of Turkey follows the trend of constant increase in the gap between the poor and the rich at an ever-increasing rate. This, globalization advocates have not found a solution to. Garbage sorting entrepreneurs being able to own or rent a truck to collect more garbage and even more so, the top rich being able to live in gated communities guarded by security men "enjoying" their jets and yachts don't help reduce the squatting communities in the barracks of every metropol, nor does it help the poorest struggling in those communities or in isolated countryside be able to get health insurance or better food, clothing, housing, and education for their children. I wonder if the greedy rich ever worry about how to close this gap, in America they certainly do not, and I don't see any sign of such a concern in Turkey, either.

After all of this proselytizing, I am back home, Shahodat, my mother's caretaker has steeped a wonderfully aromatic Turkish tea, already. We start furnishing our breakfast table with purely Turkish breakfast items; gevrek right out of the neighborhood brick oven, three different kinds of cheese, one of which, an aged kaseri cheese came from the cheese capital of Turkey, Kars, along with two kinds of olives both green and black, sliced fresh cucumbers, green and red peppers chopped into rings encircling a bunch of parsley treated with sea salt and lemon juice, finally a bowl of sliced tomatoes treated with olive oil, lemon juice, oregano, mint, and sea salt. Mmmmm, I can see how we will enjoy all this. Mehmet and Kezban arrive soon and they have brought a home-made sucuk made by one of Kezban's childhood neighbors from her home town Adana. Sucuk is a Turkish sausage prepared with ground beef treated with lots of spices, salt, and garlic and stuffed into lamb intestines to serve as casing before it is dried. Because it is treated with so many different kinds of spices and salt, it is edible even raw. But the best way to eat sucuk is to grill it in 1/8 inch thick slices into a sandwich or cook it with eggs in olive oil or butter. In my kitchen it is always olive oil since we pretty much do not use butter at all in Cretan cuisine.

A picture off the internet close to our breakfast table

I am glad I bought fresh organic brown eggs. I give the responsibility to cook the eggs and sucuk to my brother. This item has to be prepared at the last minute, just before starting breakfast since it is most delicious when it is warm/hot. We check the table, one more time, we are satisfied with what we see. Mehmet is on the job to cook the eggs and sucuk, even my mom is waiting with a childish excitement of "sucuk for breakfast". She is not allowed to eat it due to its salt content, but on such rare occasions, we ignore the doctor's recommendation, thinking at age 70 she may enjoy some of the not-so-good juices of life. She is thrilled, she eats her sucuk with such savoring, I can tell all she is focusing on right now is her taste buds and what is happening on her tongue. In other words, she is meditating.

TURKIYE: WHERE MY ROOTS ARE

TURKEY AND ITS ROOTS, BRIEFLY

This time destination is home: the streets, the sky, the mountains, the sea; all the things  I grew up with, or by, or on, or under. How I love visiting this land. It is such a rich universe with its people, Turkish, Kurdish, Laz, Circassian, Jewish, Armenian, Greek, Arab and many more; with its corresponding language variety, as you walk on the streets in Izmir, you may hear multiple languages some from tourists, but some from its residents; with its nature, savoring a sunset by the water, Aegean, is like no other; strolling in its wild life preserve, an open air zoo, is refreshing, hiking in its mountains is coming back home; and thinking of its history with its good and bad is eye opening to say the least.

Anatolia, on which Turkey and its peoples live has always had a logistically important place in history: Serving as a geographic bridge between Asia and Europe and even as a gateway to Africa from both, put Anatolia in a unique position throughout the history. Anatolia, home to the old cultures of antiquity, following  the southern wave of the big migration out of Asia became the new home for the Turkic tribes of Central Asia moving toward the west. One of those tribes "Osmanogullari - The sons of Osman" grew to become the owner of the land, eventually overthrowing the unconquerable Byzantine Empire. Not only that (but also because of that), Ottomans grew to become an insatiable imperial power stretching its claws onto three continents, carving out as much land as possible, and ruling numerous peoples in its territories as other imperial powers of the old world, Spanish, British, Portuguese, French were sailing to and conquering the new world.

                                                                    Turkey in red

I had read a book on Ottoman Empire, written by a British researcher, in which Istanbul, in her hay-day was described as the Paris, London, New York of today, cities that everybody would like to visit, live in, become part of to reach the most up to date art, science, business and politics. Istanbul was where numerous world languages were spoken, where numerous nationalities and ethnicities lived side by side, where everybody wanted to migrate to. Those were the days before the WWI, before allies invading Istanbul and before ethnic cleansing took place in an attempt to eliminate Ottoman-ness and replace it with Turkish-ness following the Turkish Independence War. I wish there could have been a way to preserve that rich, very rich diversity along with claiming and sustaining sovereignty. Although Istanbul's "world city" persona declined to a certain extent after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey's significance remained due to its political conjuncture.

The next significant role Turkey played in world history was during WWII when it became the "limiting membrane" ahead of Hitler's Germany's expansion to outside of Europe to the south of the Black Sea. One good thing the Turkish administration of the time did to serve not only peoples of Turkey but probably the entire world also, was to play the game of politics in a very refined way with both sides of the equation between Churchill and Hitler. This kept Turkey out of WWII and saved allies the burden of having to fight Germany in yet another front.

Currently, Turkey is, one more time, rising (or pretending?) to become a "key player" in world history, now in the Middle East, the reality of which is arguable in my mind as we saw very clearly in the negotiations between the world and Syria that the current Turkish pri-minister attempted leading with no success. The Turkey of the last century, that had shaken off its past with its islamic socio-cultural identifiers, toward a more modern and enlightened future has gradually been forced to revert to that past under well planned, political agenda based on re-molding of the society back to an islamist one by the use of the educational system. This plan in fact has been in the process of implementation since after WWII under unfortunately the auspices and encouragement of the western "developed" world, yet another near-sighted foreign policy supported by administrations of post-WWII. The pace and patience and subtlety of this plan have always reminded me of those of "bolero"; invisible baby steps for several decades that escalated to moderately, visible moves for another couple of decades, still difficult to interpret for most of the society in terms of the major repercussions they bore within them, only appreciated by politically keen intellectual eyes and minds, finally topped with the last decade's marching of islamists to all layers of the state including the underground hidden state structure. I am curious about what I will hear this time from my brothers and friends about what is happening in Turkey politically lately.

With these thoughts I drift into sleep with my neighbor already snoring next to me: Quite unlike me but I end up sleeping pretty much most of the 10-hour flight from Chicago to Istanbul this time. Off and on, I think, I slept for about 6 hours. Probably because the flight left at 10 pm and after the service, when the lights were turned off, it was midnight central time and I was ready to go to sleep. As a result, I was quite energetic when our airbus landed in Istanbul, the only problem was that it was 4:30 pm Turkish time. When my brothers and sisters in law left my mother's apartment after our reunion dinner, it was 12 am with no sleep in my wide open eyes. However, with meditation, I was able to put myself to sleep probably around 12:30 am only to wake up at 3 am. It was around 6 am when I was able to drift back to sleep. At 9 am I woke up with calls from the "gevrekci" boys down on the streets. My mother's apartment building is in a pleasant neighborhood in Izmir. It is on a hill high enough to give us an almost panoramic view of the Izmir Bay from both the front and rear balconies of the apartment. There is a small neighborhood park, a school, and a tennis court in front of the apartment building, which provide an expanse of open space, unusual in an urban setting in large metropols of Turkey. The green space in the front, the hills around in the distance, beyond which is the Aegean make this apartment quite pleasant.

If not exactly this, it is pretty close to what we see from my mother's apartment, Izmir Bay in the distance
Every morning, boys from 8 to 18 years of age cover the streets of the city on foot selling a baked good called "gevrek" similar to bagel. They carry a wooden tray of 3 ft in diameter on their heads over a doughnut shaped soft cushion that enlarges the contact surface between the tray and their head. The tray is piled with gevreks. Gevrek with cheese is almost staple food for breakfast in Turkey, especially in Izmir. In other cities they sell baked goods similar to gevrek, a terrible shadow of it that they call simit, acma and other names, none of them tastes or feels like gevrek. The proof of that is that all of them are sold as "Izmir simit" or "Izmir acma" or "Izmir gevrek" to convince the buyer that it is as good as what you find in Izmir. As soon as you take a bite you know that it is not true.

gevrek, crunchy, warm waiting for a slice of turkish tulum cheese along with a glass of turkish tea

GUATEMALA - 10

ANTIGUA - II

Our sweet day in Antigua is approaching its end. At 6:30 pm, our last shuttle in Gitemala will pick us up to take us to Hotel Barcelo in Guatemala City so that I can catch my 6:15 am flight comfortably, the next day. In fear of bed bugs, I reserved a nicer hotel, which the internet site gave me a very good price for. It was quite a surprise to find out it was a five star hotel for that modest price. I don’t know about the readers, but I feel extremely uncomfortable at 5-star hotels. The discrepancy between the rich and poor is all around us if one is willing to see it. However, at 5-star hotels it is like a punch in the eye: There is no better place that I have had occasional access to than 5-star hotels where poor is made feel servant and subservient to the rich, most of whom come to such places to feel gratified with feelings of superiority and dominance. The servants unfortunately do anything and everything to get that bit of tip that turns them into modern-day beggars. Most rich enjoy this to the greatest extent, fulfilling their need to rule, their need to be served at every turn. I don’t. I feel very uncomfortable when another human being bends backwards to be my servant even when there is no expectation behind it, let alone when it is done for couple of dollars of a tip.

One doorman helps pick up our luggage, gets his tip, another loads them into a cart, gets his tip, yet another one would like to carry it upstairs. I am out of change, I clearly tell him with my poor Spanish, but this time even grammatically correct “Por favor, no necesitamos ayudar, gracias.” But no, he will help us, he opens the elevator door, puts the cart into the elevator and gets in the elevator himself along with us. I am panicking on what to do now. Should I be direct and tell him I don’t have change? How can I do that while preserving my elegance with the little bit of Spanish I or Zeynep has. We are finally in the room and there is no way around it any more. I gather all my strength and declare “Lo siento, tengo no cambio.” hoping it will mean change in Spanish the way we use it in English. He says “No problem.” but it is a problem for me my friend. As soon as we are done with our dinner and obtain more change Zeynep finds him and tips him to resolve our embarrassment.

The clientele here whether Latino or American is totally different of course than those we have been encountering this past week on the streets of Guatemala. The Latinos clearly come from gated communities, who might be enjoying their ability to leave the mainstream behind and outside their high and thick walls. The American group that we end up having dinner with in the same lounge turns out to be a missionary group, celebrating the service of a relatively older gentleman, probably a clergy from the USA. I can’t help but think I much prefer to be with the 99%.

I know I would like to come back to Guatemala at least one more time. Next time around, I will go directly to Tikal and nearby areas to visit the spectacular remains of the Mayan history at its peak. After hopefully acclimating to the high altitude better, I will give another try to volcano climbing. One more try. This time, I’d like to do it without a guide at my own pace. Savoring the beauty around me, absorbing the history, becoming one with the nature at my own pace in my own heart. This is one pleasant country that everybody needs to visit.

That is Guatemala for me in July of 2012.

GUATEMALA -9-

ANTIGUA-I

We are finally on our shuttle that will take us to Antigua, the most attractive and lively city in Guatemala I heard from many people and so I hear from Zeynep, who’s been to Antigua before. In fact, we will stay at the hotel that she stayed at earlier. Shuttle meanders up and around Lago de Atitlan for at least an hour with breathtaking views of the volcanoes and the lake itself. As the sun dives into the night behind the volcanoes, so do we into the yet another mountainous terrain that will lead us to Antigua in two-hours. We will spend our second to last night and last day in Guatemala, in Antigua. Antigua is one of the most resilient cities in Guatemala, I hear. Once the capitol, several times collapsed to its knees, but re-emerged from rubble many times. And now designated one of the world’s historical heritage sites, it indeed is the most vibrant among all other Guatemalan cities, at least of those that Zeynep and I have cumulatively seen.

Leaving Lago de Atitlan behind until the next time

We stay at Casa Rustica, a place Zeyno arranged. I am pleased with our room, clean, orderly, and has a spacious enough bathroom in it. What else will I need as I travel anywhere in the world but more so in a country with so little resources? Once we are settled down and have checked our e-mails, Zeynep starts calling her friends to make arrangements for dinner. Some of her friends from Xela are also in Antigua tonight. We will eat together. We have identified a Mediterranean restaurant, time to try something different after having eaten Guatemalan good for almost a week now. We want to see how ethnic food in Guatemala is served. And soon we will discover they do a superb job: phenomenal, as good as middle-eastern food gets anywhere in the world. And this is not only Zeyno and I claiming this, but also her two friends, who join us for dinner. 

Colorful Antigua with its renovated old structures

After dinner, the girls decide to go to a salsa dance when I head back to the hotel to get a good night’s sleep after traveling from early in the morning to late evening every day for almost a week now. Oh my! What an futile plan.  The bar nearby has jacked up its microphones; it feels like the drums are beating within my head. It is impossible to sleep. I get up planning to call the reception and ask “what the h… is going on?” As my hand goes to the phone I notice a note on the wall apologizing for the noise from the bar on Friday and Saturdays due to lack of any noise ordinance in town. It is almost unbelievable, “lack of noise ordinance” almost wants me to ask “is there any of that for anything around here?” I calm myself down reminding me of the disorganization I used to live with on my own land. The warmth, intimacy, expressivity that we so liked in this land go hand in hand with these "occasional" lack of ordinances... I have never appreciated my ear plugs this much. I dig them out. As I lie down with ear plugs in and two pillows pressed against my head, the noise is reduced only to a bearable level. Th drums are not beating in my head any more rather about a foot away!! It will take me another hour or two to finally drift into a very uncomfortable sleep.  In the morning, I make a mental note as to where not to stay in Antigua next time around.

The main market building in the "agora" of Antigua

It is good to wake up without having to set the clock. We will be afoot today, no boats, no shuttles to catch in the morning. We take it easy. On our last day in Guatemala, we are  wandering around in Antigua with no plans. We are just walking on calles and avenidas, trying to figure out where sur starts and norte ends. Churches emerge from around a corner unexpectedly. Some collapsed to the ground, even the ruins are impressive, waiting for funding to be fixed to their once-upon-a-time powerful identity. Artisan stalls are sweet spectacles in front of churches or ruins alike. One reminds me of the guy with a big curly head from Bolivia that we had met in San Pedro, who couldn’t sell Zeyno any jewelry on his last day (if true) in Guatemala. All the flirting he did ended up for nothing. Once he heard about Zeynep having a boyfriend in the US, he realized how futile his efforts were and gave up. Pleasant memory…

The most well preserved church in Antigua

Unexpectedly but pleasantly, we come across a spa. Zeynep being the queen of pleasures of life shows a jolly interest in the idea of getting a massage before leaving Guatemala. I submit, hoping my painful muscles from the volcano climbing a few days back may benefit from it, too. The first place turns out to be a total failure, the moment I see the dirty towels on which we will be asked to lie to get the massage, I know I can’t do it. But, we have made the decision already, we will leave Guatemala with a Mayan massage in our history. We start looking for a better place and eventually we do find one to our liking. Mayan massage place on San Luciano Norte, numero 20, just a few blocks down from the first place.

Yet another well preserved spectacular historic structure

A first in my life. Zen music starts shortly after Zeyno goes into the room where she will receive her massage. It is so soothing that I don’t know if I will be able to keep awake during the massage. Surely, it turns out to be a semi-conscious experience. Professional hands mobilizing each and every muscle that daily life leaves dormant. The juice of life rushing into each muscle, each cell, invigorating life in each of them. I never knew my hands had such small muscles that could be awakened. I never knew my neck could be this loose. I never knew deja vous and ja me vous could be experienced at the same time. I never knew massage was also yoga. Letting go somebody else take over the job of stretching and relaxing the muscles while I focus only on my breathing, total submission except for breathing.

Yes, it indeed turns out to be a rejuvenating experience, I may go back to this when I return to Iowa City. Especially after a difficult court case that involves a defendant: I know my testimony based on medical facts will get him into trouble. I know he is also a victim of his own childhood experiences that led to the abuse of his child in his own hands. And I: helpless with all this knowledge, confined within the boundaries of the law, suffering both for the victim and the perpetrator, who is already a double victim. Those days are the ones that I get back home feeling defeated and tense and questioning whether what we are doing is the right thing; putting these young men and women in jail. Then what? Those will be the days I will need a good massage from now on. I wake up from my half-asleep state with Jarmina telling me “Cerra vida” and translates “Finished.” “Muchas gracias Jarmina”. “Adios” and yes adios to you Jarmina. Guatemala has written another first to my history. Another aspect Antigua has proven to be different from the rest of Guatemala that I have seen in the last several days.

                                                  From our breakfast garden in Antigua

GUATEMALA -8-

SANTIAGO DE ATITLAN IS NOT DONE, YET

We are not done with the market, yet. As attractive as the stands for edible goods are, the non-edible goods stands are as gloomy; plastic toys of all kinds, who knows where they were produced, could they be some of the toxic-contaminated ones from China. Typical American style tank tops, T-shirts, shorts, skirts, pants, etc. Although, I haven’t seen this style of clothing on anybody on the streets that looked native, if they are in the market, there must be consumers for them. I wonder if tourism is what keeps the traditional weaving and embroidering alive. Is it possible that since there is a market for what they are producing, they are wearing it as well? I hope not, I hope they truly enjoy what they wear and are proud of who they are. I can’t help feeling warm to consumerist tourism for once, if it is what might be keeping this lovely interesting tradition alive, so be it. Perhaps it is good that Zeynep and I are also interested in their art and produce.  

Entrance to one of the art studios

Once we are done with the market, watching our watches, rather Zeyno’s cell phone: we head toward the simple church on the central plaza. As we are approaching it and as Zeyno slips her cell phone back into her backpack, the question that visits me very often comes back to me again: Where are we going with all this constellation of digital devices that take over our lives? We used to write letters, no more, we e-mail. We used to use type writers, no more, we type on our computers, I-phones, I-pads, you name it, although, I can’t say I will complain much about not having to use a type-writer any more. We probably are saving trees by switching to computer-based typing as well as saving a lot of time, at least so I’d like to believe. People would make friends at the gym, no more. Everybody, I mean it, everybody, except I, of course, is wired up in their own worlds with their own music, in solitude, cut off from the outside. If you see a friend and they are willing to say good morning, they have to unwire first.

We used to talk at least on the phone, now we have to text. Nobody picks up a phone anymore, too much time lost. Texting is what is in. As much as I resisted to that, in order to get a rapid response from my daughter, many of my friends, I ended up texting more than I would like as well. We used to read books, used to hear that whoosh sound of turning pages along with smell the scent of paper pages, even that is bound to its doom day. At least ¼ of the passengers on a plane will be reading off of their electronic devices. I am still resisting that, who knows how much longer I will be able to. I wonder with all this electronic life style, if human kind will evolve genetically over millennia and will not need human contact any more, will not need to converse with a human being face to face, will not fall in love any more? Food for thought…

The Church in Santiago de Atitlan

We are finally in the church. As simple as it is, it is still the most elegant building around. It is interesting that Christianity has deep, deep roots in this land. However, it also looks like traditional shamanism and Christianity evolved together and created a new identity for one another and most of the time dissolved in one another. Everything I read describes how Christianity had to accept shamanistic elements built into the way Christianity was practiced in this land, built into the structure of churches they built, into the manner with which priests preached, etc. It is still a bit disconcerting to me, though, to observe how religious a society this is in such a structured and rigid way.

We are back to our boat that will take us to our hotel. After retrieving our luggage from the hawk’s nest up above the dock, we will have to catch the next boat to take us to Panajachel so that we can catch our 4 pm shuttle to Antigua. We don’t know yet, what an adventure it will be.  As we walk down the main street, I am touched with a scene that creates a de ja vu feeling. Where did I see this scene before? The lake is as still as can be. Off the shore is a simple one-man boat. The man is paddling in a standing position and fishing. Ah, of course, this is what the artists up the street have been documenting over and over again. Mayan man fishing for his family in his simple canoe. I am very happy to memorialize this for myself.

Men seem to be fishing only, all else is done by women

Serendipitously, we are again on Pablo’s boat. We checked out of our casa del mundo already and left our luggage in the office to pick up on the way back. It is a pity that we will have to wait for half an hour at the dock for the next boat. There is no alternative, though. We will get off this boat, go up the 100 some stairs and find our friendly waiter, bellboy, whatever needs to be at the casa and ask him to carry our two heavy pieces to the dock to catch the next boat to Pana. But wait, Pablo has another idea. He asks Zeyno, who already told her about our plan in their casual conversation, whether our luggage is already packed. She says yes and as soon as I hear the question, hope rises in me “would they really?” Yes! They indeed do. Pablo volunteers, the boat can wait at the dock, he will run up with us to fetch the luggage. Fantastic, this will give us an additional 20 minutes, which calms down my anxiety about whether we will catch our shuttle or not.

Pablo waiting to jump off the boat to get to our luggage

This is what happens: The captain approaches the dock, the three of us jump out of the boat like deer over shrubs in the forest. Of course the two young fly up, do all the talking, and by the time I am up to pick up one of the luggage at least, Pablo has two backpacks and my carry on. Oh my, Antonio has the largest on his back and he is almost flying down a different path to beat Pablo to the dock. I look up to Zeynep to see what is happening. It looks like we have two helpers now. Zeyno shrugs her shoulders as if to say “Well, I wanted to take one of the luggage, but they wouldn’t let me” with a serene smile on her face. Ok, all we have to do then, is to prepare the tip, which we don’t mind at all. My heart, pounding in my chest with my hurry to help them at least with my carry-on, is full of affection for both of them. I wonder if part of all this unforgettable show is showing off to Zeynep, who knows. As we get to the boat, out luggage is being loaded and both boys are happy with their earning.

Everybody is happy. We both enjoy the lake for another 20 minutes, the wind blowing through our bandanas and hair, peace and affection filling our hearts for this place and its people. What is funny is that, as soon as the captain docks the boat in Pana, he jumps out of the boat and grabs our heavy luggage and carries it to the shuttle office. “They are quick learners” I murmur to myself with a smile on my face. All my worries about how we would carry our luggage were for nothing. As long as we have 10-20Q ready and perhaps as long as I carry Zeynep around, having an easy vacation around here is very easy.

                                                                       Our captain