Saturday, December 3, 2016

Our Trip Home 1963, June 23-25



June 23, 1963
When we got up there was a man with a pair of bullocks looking sulky and saying things we couldn’t understand in Turkish.   We ate and packed as we figured he wanted us to move and then sure enough here came some more plows, this was his field he was fixing to plow! The people are interesting, they look very fair and a lot have light hair.   The cold air makes them ready complexioned.   The women wear long flowing dresses with little tunics and headscarves.   The men look Irish with Ivy League golf caps, waistcoats and baggy pants.   About noon we realized it was Sunday but it certainly didn’t change our program at all.   We didn’t make very good time with the bad road.   It has been cloudy with scattered son.   It is mostly rolling hills but high, snow on the near peaks.   The road is so bad.   We lurched along up and down, through streambeds and meeting a bus or truck every now and then.   It was desolate, few trees but green grass.   Roads are under construction here. 

 By noon we had only gone 170 km.   We ate on a rocky slope by a rushing stream, we could see it had been flooded with the flotsam still clinging to the trees.   Children on the road offered larkspur and poppies, for sale? We didn’t stop.   People hailed us as the bus too.   Again we found water from a spring high up and filled up our water as it was pure.   At Krafakaye we turned into the town to get vegetables and saw an army convoy they were parked and eating at a field kitchen, waved at us.   In the afternoon we went through a lovely valley full of trees, evergreens and cypress, lush fields.  Susheri a charming little town on the side of a mountain, up over the top and along the spine of the mountain until we got to Zara.   We tried for a hotel room but it looked too dirty so we went on.   Then when we were tired out we turned off the main road and found a lovely little lake where we camped in the field.   We had baths though the lake was salt water.   Mother took hers behind the camp cots standing up on their ends to form half a room and got dressed just before a donkey train came by.   John stepped on a “rock” at the bridge and stepped into a foot of oily mud instead! Curry and rice for supper. 

June 24, 1963
            Daddy got up and made mother a cup of coffee and woke her up waving the cup under her nose. A man came by with the plow and donkey. He bowed formally and put his hand on his heart. Then he motioned “I am a farmer.” Daddy also use the same gesture “I am a farmer.” We all bowed and smiled and felt we had contributed to international friendship

We saw lots of gophers on the way. We were trying for Sivis and Tollis for lunch.  Sivis was a big modern city after what we’d seen. There was sort of a café in the square with little tables and umbrellas we saw children and nice black short pleated smocks. One little boy took off his cap and bowed. People saw us and said Salaam Allehkum. We stopped for bread, black olives, soft cheese, cherries.

They were haying everywhere. We passed many wheat fields, lots of flowers all along the way. There are springs with elaborate back walls and basins, logs used as watering troughs. Along way before Kayseri we began to see the volcanic mountain that dominates the countryside. The valleys are 3 to 4000 feet here and no point is higher than 7000, this one is 12,850. We got a good picture of it (turned out to be overexposed) and came into town.  It is an ancient city with crumbling fortresses, castles, cobbled streets. We found a policeman to help us and he drove with us to the road that turns off to Malan. It is behind a little round bald hill.

                We went winding up the mountain following Al’s map he’d sent and got to the school to a very cool reception. People were hurrying about but no one would speak to us. We felt queer. It was the last day of school and the boys were leaving. Finally Carol Forsythe came down and welcomed us. We had our lunch in the school garden, it was cool and peaceful looking down over the city. Then they took us upstairs to their pretty little apartment. We wash clothes and all had ads. We listen to the Kingston Trio all afternoon. 
 

Mother, daddy and the Forsythes went downtown to get groceries. They had just come from their vacation and had no food in the house. Mom and dad bought a brass vase shaped like the milk pails everyone carries and two saddlebags and a goat hair rug. We had broiled shish kebab salad for supper. It was sparse but good. We went right to bed, top floor dorm on student beds. It was hot up there.

June 25, 1963
We packed before breakfast. They enjoyed sharing our cornflakes and gave us you ban coffee, milk for the kids. We had trouble getting out as people were bringing their kids in for entrance exams. Got fruit, strawberries and other supplies and headed out. We soon began to climb up into the mountains heading for her group and the caves at Goreme. 



We enjoyed the caves and would have liked to look more but had to hurry on. It was very hot there. We had to walk up the steep incline. At Aksaray we had come down a long twisting incline out of the mountains with the oil warning light flashing but could coast down hill. In town we got oil, olives, cheese, Turkish delight. We found a spot on the edge of town by a ditch and picnicked on the grass, big cars going by as we ate.

Then we set out across what the guidebook called a “dismal desert” passed a huge Salt Lake and we were expecting the worst. Well, the roads were rather dismal but the desert was nothing compared to what we had seen. It was interesting to see the Salt Lake, feels, plenty of traffic on the road and it was quite cool.  We had to dodge big holes in the road, no trees but not so bad.

Then the fun began. All day daddy had been noticing a decrease in power and we’d had that warning light about the oil pressure. About 5 PM we came to a crossroads with some gas stations so daddy stopped and changed the oil and clean the air filter. Then we just couldn’t get started. Compression was just gone. There were some mechanic standing around fiddling with the tractor and they took a look at the car. Under their ministrations it got so it wouldn’t even start anymore. We were stuck for fair. There was a greasy looking little eatery there so we went into the kitchen in the time honored technique and looked in all the pots on the stove. Nothing looked appetizing but we finally settled on boiled eggs and some tea with our own bread and some wickedly rich pastry we had bought in Kaysery that morning. We couldn’t find a soul who could speak a word of English but finally my seemingly pointless hours with Fergie came to some use as we found a boy who could speak some French in the restaurant.

Dad was haggling with the men and thought he’d made arrangements to have us towed into Ankara, 30 miles. They dug up an ancient real India-type truck and towed it away with the tractor – that was to get it started. It came back firing and sputtering back and backed up to a sort of ramp. We were motioned into the car and loaded up on the back and roped in tight - we were all terrified. We were perched up so high, couldn’t see the truck, just 10 feet to the ground. This terrible vehicle seem to have no breaks, terrible steering and the engine was so poorly adjusted it kept backfiring all the way to town on Cara. The road went up and down hill after hill so we did a lot of careening down hill at breakneck speed with the truck creaking ominously in the little VW champing at its ropes to catapult off the top of the truck!

The sun was just setting and it was beautiful with the glow of the sunset over the clouds over the rolling hills with little farmsteads in front but we were too preoccupied to enjoy it. Daddy kept clowning to relieve his tension, pretending to steer.  Ankara is a big modern city with wide roads, traffic lights and tall buildings. The driver took us to the railway station where there was a ramp we could be unloaded from. They help push the car off and were real sweet, shook hands all around, smiled and bowed and wished us luck in Turkish and drove off into the gloom. Too bad we did not get a picture of this historic event!

We set up our cots on the station platform behind some crates.  The watchmen very kindly let us stay though we were not supposed to. We could’ve left the car and gone to a hotel but hated to spend the money and were too tired out to make the effort. We walked up to use the station bathrooms and then just crawled under some blankets. It was cold and windy. We slept through the tooting trains and shunt engine noises.  All of us were exhausted with nerves.

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