Turkish Adventures!!

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Hello agaın Everyone,

I am startıng to figure out some of the keys on the Turkish keyboard, so hopefully the spelling is a bit better this time. The "i" is on another key position so it takes awhile to change my hand positioning for it.

We ended the conference yesterday morning with great success, and İ was also able to make even more strides for One Child´s Village. All ın all, İ can already claim that the trip has been an enormous boost for OCV and ıs well worth the price of admission (which, ın fact, I did pay myself so it is no expense to OCV).

It is pretty hot here and after the conference we checked out of our rooms and headed to the airport for a flight into the interior of the country. We landed ın Kyceri, where it was 38 degrees, and loaded onto a nice airconditoned bus which took us to several areas in Capaddoccia (spelling is incorrect). We saw some incredible rock formations caused by the weather patterns on the volcanic ash and rock layers. It sort of reminded me of scenery in the badlands region of Alberta. We got out for a chance to check these out and stretch our legs and I purchased a bedouin desert "headdress" to protect from the sun.

Further down the road we came upon a region where many in the area use to actually carve and hollow out these large rock and ash formations to lıve ın. For the most part they do not live in these any more, but it makes for some interesting pictures. Got a picture of a camel, as well. :-)

We got to our hotel last evening and finished off the day's traveling with a wonderful supper. Afterward, James and I decided to go for a short walk to wear off the meal a little before turning in. As we wondered the hall of this large 5 star hotel, we came upon some incredible live indigenous Turkish music playing. We followed it to a large hall where a Turkish wedding was being celebrated!!! We stood outside the door of the hall for about 5 minutes or so soaking in this incredibly riveting and penetrating sound.

All of a sudden a young man came out and walked straight toward us. We were not sure if perhaps we were intruding and he was going to ask us to leave. Instead, he gave us a hearty welcome and invited us to join their wedding celebrations (he was a friend of the bride and grroms). His name was Mehmet (I think), and he was a very gracious host. He led us into the great hall where there sat about 150-200 people. The music was loud and infectious, and the dance floor was full of dancers. Surprisingly there were only a few women dancing, but scores of men who were dancing with each other in a passionate and abandoned way.

I asked our host if I could take some pictures and he encouraged me to do so. I got several of the bride and groom dancing. Then he invited me up to dance with him (time to put away all of my "western" inhibitions!!!) and I got up and danced for about 3 or 4 minutes while he took some photos of me.

Then came the cake cutting ceremony which was a very dramatic event. It was such a privilege to witness all of this in such an immediate way. Finally, they ended the evening with the relatives lining up and one by one presenting the bride and groom with items such as cash, gold rings and bracelets, and other items to start their life with. It was an incredibly personalized experience for the bride and groom and as they accepted each gift in turn they showed their appreciation by kissing the hand and then the cheeks of each of the prized guests.

A few things we learned is that marriages are arranged and that they are ususally married around, or by, the age of 23 or so. This couple had an arranged marriage and he worked in Germany so they are moving to Germany next week.

At the end of it James and I had to eat soem of the cake (or suffer bad luck!!) and then we thanked out host and left. The young host who had invited us in originally was 23 himself and worked as a travel agent/tour guide. He was a bit more "worldly" and so was a wonderful source of information for us throughout the whole event (what better luck than to sit with a Turkish tour guide at a Turkish wedding!!).

It ıs now 7:00 am the next morning and I thought I would get this blog out to you before having breakfast and heading out for the day's events. We are going to see the underground city today. Hopefully I wıll get a chance to report back to you on that.

Bye for now,

Todd

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