Annie Thoe's Feldenkrais Blog

July 14, 2008

MON 14 JUL

Konya and İstanbul are Cool By Annie Rachel Thoe

Helllo

İ am still learning to use the turkish keyboard and will skip punctuatıon since that is boggling for me.

 

as you can see, i am in istanbul and have a few more days to not buy a rug and resist the temptation to do so.  the problem is i love to look at them-- the rugs, and i cannot hide my appreciation of the artwork and craftsmanship which only excites or incites the salesmen who come running to me with a tray of tea and want me to spend the afternoon just looking-- they say-- and i think this temptation at it,s finest.  ı am sure that the devil must train these guys in temptation-- they are very vey good.  And i seem to be their perfect viıtım!  Blond, blue-eyed and American. 

 

and yes, i dıd fall into sın and buy a rug-- but i have repented and am counting the days before i leave so i donit fall ınto greater sins.  in fact, when i walk by the countless rugs hanging within my reach, i just hum a little happy song and look out of the corner of my eye-- trying to improve my peripheral vision and not make eye contact with the salesmen who cry, hello lady, where are you from? -- or some questıon that is so friendly that my midwestern upbringing compells me to answer.  Anyway, I survived today in Istanbuhl without buying a rug.  An American woman İ met in Kapedokya was quite traumatized in İstanbuhl by the pushy manipulative salesmen (İ don,t know how she survived Manhatten-- she is not a typical New Yorker).  Anyway, we went shopping for gıfts in Kapedokya which İ have found in retrospect is the worst place in all of Turkey to shop.  The merchants in Kapedokya must have extra testosterone or something scary-- we both found ourselves hostage in a few crazy shops and barely got out with our sanity.  I suppose İndıa ıs worse, and don,t think i would do well there eıther. 

 

i haven,t been able to get onto my blog for days for some reason and each day is so full of experiences, ı am not sure which to write about.

 

 

one memory that comes to mind is spending a late afternoon in Konya, a huge city ın the middle of Turkey that is a Sufı center-- where Rumi lived and also a big Moslem city-- conservative.  it ıs not a tourist town and i went to see the whirlıng dervishes there and was lucky to see their weekly performance-- which was magical and very calming to watch 15 men twirling in white flowing skirts for an hour to a traditional turkish orchestra of old instruments.  enchanting-- and i had a man from Afghanistan who was sufi-muslim who ınterpreted for me and explained the entire ritual and philosophy.  We talked much before the performance and i felt so lucky to have him sitting there explaining everything.  He also talked about how much the Turks like America and i told him about my Feldenkrais work.  He mentioned how he had a lot of physical therapy 15 years ago after the Russıans had attacked Afghanistan and he was ın the hospital for 5 years from burns and had a lot of therapy.  Here was a young man-- maybe 27 or 28 who survived a horrible war and recovery and can walk now and functıon very well.  He had an arranged marriage with an Afghani woman over a year ago-- they were together for 5 or 6 days and now she is in the US and he is waiting for his green card to meet her after a year of waiting. 

 

,Isn,t that a long time?-- İ asked him.  He shrugged and said yes, of course but İ have to wait until they get my card. 

 

How is ıt to have an arranged marrıage?  I asked and wondered-- he was a very modern looking man.  He said, he doesn,t know yet-- she seems OK and that they will work it out because both families need them to work it out.  He accepted this in the same way he talked about getting through the 5 years in the hospital-- pretty amazing acceptance of what is his fate.  I marveled at his patience in his presence and hospitality with me.

 

I really enjoyed Konya.  İn one day, İ met so many people and conversed ın broken Turkish (like speaking in a crossword puzzle fashion with my dictionary) -- carefully selecting the one darn word to express myself using gestures and facial expressions to fill in the gap-- thank god my mother was such a clown-- İ acquired some of her antics and had groups of people come and sit on the park bench where İ would be journaling and wait for me to say hello-- or they would say hello and gıggle shyly.  İn 2 hours İ had a group of 8 young boys talk wıth me, a group of teenage girls with one that was getting married the next day, a group of women and their chıldren grilling me on why i wasn,t married, more women who were sisters asking me why i was alone, and another group of women with children asking all kinds of questıonsç 

 

Very curious people.  İ felt lıke a tropical bird passing through their territory. 

 

Earlıer that same day after going to a Hammam (a turkish bath) with the wife of a rug dealer (-- yes İ did buy a rug from him).  I was strolling through a neighborhood and heard this lovely Turkish folk music and stopped to see there was a little party going on with food and some local bake and craft sale.  İ love this kınd of thing and lingered by these women ın black veıls sıttıng on the ground making some fresh pastries with stuffing baked ınside on a griddle.  The pastry looked lıke Norwegian lefsa (but İ found out later they don,t lıke cooking with potato and were almost offended that İ asked if they used potato!).  One of the women smiled and waved for me to come to her. 

 

It turns out thıs was a fundraiser for Mongoloıd chıldren,s school and they were thrilled to find out about my Feldenkrais with disabled children and introduced me to all the teachers and doctors there.  Wıth my dictionary, i had a wonderful time with these people. 

 

 

So Konya, even though I was only there a for two days-- was a wonderful place with very friendly, sweet people.  Special to stay at the Rumi Hotel-- just accross the street from the museum of Rumi and other sacred Moslem objects. 

 

Well, so much more to write but have more experiencing to do!

 

Cıao!

Annıe