It’s 11:03 pm and we’re traveling on the otoyol somewhere near Adapazarı. Ten middle-aged passengers on this chartered Metro Turizm bus are dancing the halay in the aisle. What’s all the commotion? A Turkish wedding on a bus? A young man going to military service?
Strange. All was quiet 10 minutes earlier, when a middle-aged man who had been sitting across from us, a man with missing front teeth and toxic foot odor, was watching Turkish soaps on his in-seat TV screen. Then, the trip leader, Ali, walked up to is seat.
“Hey, you’ve got fans on this bus, man.”
“Fans?” stinky feet replied, head craning toward the back of the bus, lips pulled back in a devious smile.
Suddenly, he stood up, went to the back whipped out a bağlama went to the front of the bus and into a scratchy PA microphone, proceeded to whip the passengers into a frenzy of finger holding and kerchief waving that’s part and parcel of any proper halay dance. I learned later that this he wasn’t just any passenger with bad foot odor, but a semi-famous musician rented for the weekend, for the sole purpose of belting out Türku folk tunes for the 40 or so passengers. This would go on for most of the bus ride. Most of the 13-hour bus ride.
All the passengers are members of the Kabakçevliği village association (dernek), which supports the village where my father in law was born, the youngest of four children, in relative poverty. Hundreds of Turkish villages have these associations in the big cities to support their memleketler, fundraising to make modest infrastructural improvements to their villages.
Dancing the halay in Kabakçevliği. One of the many halays that were danced.
The passengers on that fateful night were normal Istanbul residents, but in their hearts, still part of cold, dry Kabakçevliği, with its year-round population of 20 souls. Kabakçevliği is in the southern part of Sivas province, where the Black Sea meets the east-central Anatolian basin and range.
We got onto this party bus after waiting in a June evening from the side of an 8-lane highway in sprawl hell of Kartal, Istanbul, watching as the minaret lights came on signaling Ramadan’s iftar feast.
When we boarded, we were greeted not with the usual hoş geldiniz, nor even handshakes, but with kisses, more kisses from near strangers in five minutes than I received from strangers in my 28 years living in America.
They would say things like: Ah, Zeynep! It’s me, Auntie so and so, we came to your wedding! Ah, you probably could understand even what was going on that day, but such a beautiful wedding.
Sivas village breakfast
Everyone was related to each other in some distant way. There was Seher, Zeynep’s aunt’s husband’s daughter from his other wife (he took two wives) and her sister Gülüzar. There were the children of Ahmet Baba’s kirve, or godfather, and a gaggle of laughing, food sharing, mostly middle-aged Istanbul residents.
On our way, we passed through Bolu, then Ankara, all in the wee hours. I fell asleep and was roused at about 5 a.m. by the freezing cold. Despite being June and being on the same latitude as Washington D.C., the central Anatolia plain in Yozgat and Çorum is regularly near freezing at night in June. Zeynep and I huddled together to keep warm. When I awoke and looked out at the misty plain, I got a first glimpse at the cool mists on the valley floors, and thought about how beautiful this region is at dawn and dusk before the oppressive daytime sunshine.
It’s about 8:30 now and everyone is awake. We’ve just crossed the sinner. Welcome to Sivas! Everyone let out a cheer. It was time for live music and the morning halay, of course! Stinky feet struck me as a
Villagers and their Istanbul kin (Ali Abi holds the bağlama).
coarse and rude man. But he was no slack with the bağlama.
After passing the Sivas city center and driving two more hours, we finally arrived at the village at around 11 a.m. The village itself is, well, ugly. It’s motley collection of earthen barns, soulless newer homes, and just a couple of older farm houses with character, one of which belonged to Zeynep’s Aunt Kiraz, who never left the village, lived a hard life, and died in 2013. We were greeted off the bus with more kisses, a zurna (clarinet like instrument) and darbuka (drums) the traditional two-piece band of Anatolian weddings, sonnets and getting off cramped buses.
One thing was oddly missing in Kabakçevliği, but I couldn’t put my finger on until Zeynep pointed it out: there’s no mosque.
Atatürk and Hussayn Ali are often pictured in Alevi living rooms.
Kabakçevliği is an Alevi village. It’s too small for a market, let alone a house of worship (the closest cem evi is in nearby Çetinkaya). The residents fast to mourn the death Hussayn ibn Ali, Muhammad’s grandson and the first Shia imam, but they don’t fast during Ramadan. Alevis are often staunch Kemalists. The result is, in Alevi homes, one often finds a portrait of Atatürk next to one of Ali.
And they drink alcohol. To drink scotch in the middle of the day in a Turkish village during Ramadan is s strange feeling, yet that’s what stinky feet and the crew were doing minutes before we got back on the bus that Sunday afternoon. In that way I felt as though I were in a poor village in the Andalusia plain or southern Italy.
Pastoral, high desert scenery marks the nature immediately surrounding the village, and early June is the peak of spring in Sivas. Waves of green grain, poplars lining streambeds that are their own little lush oases. Sivas city center is more forested, but as one drives south toward Kabakçevliği and further toward Malatya, the rolling hills and painted mountains take over, with their little canyon gullies pinched whittled the mountainsides, their folds accentuated by the evening shadows.
Life’s not easy in rural Sivas, which is why it is said that more descendants of migrants in Istanbul call Sivas their memleket than any other province in Turkey. Balkan migrants are concentrated around Bayrampaşa. Kurdish migrants from the deep southeast in Sultanbeyli. Where do Sivas people settle in the büyükşehir? Everywhere. They are Okies and Istanbul is California in the depression that was Turkey from the 60s to 80’s.
But they shared everything with us. When we arrived, it was a late breakfast at Mustafa and Gülcan’s house, one of three newer houses in Kabakçevliği. We ate a lavaş-like bread called şaç ekmeği. Eggs, three types of cheeses. The only thing not from the village was the olives.
We then went for a walk to the poplars, Ahmet Baba (Zeynep’s dad), regaled us with a story of riding a
horse as a small child. The horse was spooked by a snake, stood up on two legs, bolted back for the village, dragging Ahmet on the ground.
Afternoon was the party. We ate kavurma, a simple beef sauté, rice and ayran. Stinky feet was joined by a keyboard musician and some giant speakers. And guess what time it was? Afternoon halay time! Interspersed with halay was the sema, a simple Alevi circle folk dance. I had a chance to leave the party and walk around the defunct schoolhouse, with its requisite ne mutlu Türküm diyene (how happy it is that I am a Turk) barely visible on the outside wall. The old blackboard was still there.
My father-in-law in front of the derelict village schoolhouse that he attended in the 60’s.
The region is perhaps most famous for Sivas kangal (Kangal is a town in Sivas), a breed of livestock guardian dog that is recognized by the American Kennel Club. No Sivas village is complete without one, and we saw two mama kangal — bountiful and big nipples swaying from their chests — and their cute pups, both in Kabakçevliği, and Güneypınar, where we overnighted with Hatice, Seher and Gülüzar’s sister.
A one-month old Kangal puppy.
On Sunday afternoon, it was time to board the bus for the long trip home. Our sixty-hour trip in total included 28 hours by bus, Throw in 8 hours sleeping in the middle, and we were left with a total of 24 hours in Kabakçevliği and Güneypınar. But 24 hours village time equals at least 100 Istanbul clock revolutions. Indeed, a lot was packed into the trip. Lots of cheese, at least three different kinds per meal. Lots, of tea, at least 10 glasses per day. Lot’s of kisses, the human bonds are true.
It made me think how the bonds I’ve made in Turkey branched out like Anatolian poplar roots. Thirty-nine months ago, I was let into my father-in-law’s life. On a cold rainy day in March, I came to the Şentürk house in Maltepe for dinner. For Ahmet Baba, first he was hesitant to allow this newcomer — a foreigner, an American, a non-Muslim, and a non-Alevi, no less — fully into his life. Now his village accepts me.
Why was it easy for me to be warmly accepted by my in-laws? Perhaps it was the hardships that the Ahmet Baba himself faced when he got married to a Sunni father in law, in getting married, or being Alevi, with their Sufi acceptance of other ethnic groups, or being a staunch Kemalist. Or, maybe its simply embracing modern, globalized life. Whatever it was, I realized I had it easy in the way no villager ever had in Kabakçevliği.
The last seven years in Turkey flashed by in a minute. I think back to that Anatolian bus ride, a broken heater the only thing marring it. I think of stinky feet, with his bağlama in hand, singing master Aşık Veysel’s classic song “Uzun ince bir yoldayım”, and the Anatolian countryside passing by in a flash, like the last seven years in Turkey.
If I think about it deeply
It appears I’m far at first sight
While my road is a minute long
I walk all day, I walk all night
Outstanding article!
Very evocative..