Flies, stories, and the road to Batman

After a long-ish break, I want to continue the tale of our first trip, from two weeks ago:

On the bus from Diyarbakır to Marden I stared out the window. Rolling hills, rocky fields, little clumps of bush and tree along grass burned yellow... Small houses with flat roofs (attics are too hot for this weather), old men on stoops... The houses crowd together against the desert-like expanses, built so closely that I saw a girl on a swing strung between them. Grazing goats, skinny horses and cows, wild almond trees, grape orchards with their glossy green leaves (later used for dolma).*

The flies wandered along the seats and occasionally bit my ankles. Every once in a while, our guide Omer would share a story. One I wrote down (I heard it in translation, unfortunately): "Why the Tigris River Winds."

Unlike the straight(er) Euphrates, here the Tigris River meanders like a snake. Why? God told a saint to walk with a stick from Diyarbakır and draw the river's path with a stick. The only stipulation? The river couldn't cut through any poor people's homes. So to avoid all the poor people, the saint had to make many curves and curlicues. And that is how the river flows to this day...

****

Later in the hotel, Alice D., Leigh and I talked about our trip thus far. We all felt so conspicuous as Westerners, so obviously strangers to this land. There was a huge distance between what we were seeing and what life there was really like... We could sightsee, but not interact. When we walked through Diyarbakır earlier, I felt everyone staring at our group. I was more aware of people looking at me than I was of the buildings and people around me.

Yet, what is the best way to travel? Is it better not to visit such places at all? Or somehow hope that the sights alone will have enough of an impact? And what does such travel really give you? It is a fact of human perception that often we see what we want to see, rather than what is really there. We travel just to confirm our expectations and preconceptions...

But the hope is that, instead, even such "travel at a distance" will shift something imperceptibly, will somehow leave me changed and seeing the world through clearer eyes...


*This was a trip of intense overeating, most of it paid for by the program. Pictures will follow.

**To end on a lighter note: one of the towns in this area is called Batman, which inspired many hours' worth of wisecracks from the guys on the bus. For example, when we visited a cave, the guys would explain: "This was Batman's secret dwelling, of course"... As you can imagine, this got old pretty quickly. But at the same time, these are the memories, the inside jokes, that stay with you years later. Why oh why? :)

Next: How to Make Nana Tea