ON OUR WAY TO ISPPARTA
This is the 20th in a series of articles about a trip to the interesting country of Turkey.
ON OUR WAY TO ISPPARTA
By Charles N. Stevens
The inevitable prayers wake us up before dawn, but, as always, they do not annoy us. Prayers become part of the morning and the evening and become as regular and expected as the rising and setting of the sun. This morning is the same as yesterday’s, clear but hazy and bitterly cold. In the dining hall, we repeat the same breakfast.
After breakfast Dolores and I take a walk, treading carefully on the sidewalks where packed snow and unseen smears of ice had not been cleared. We stop to peer into the store windows where we see items that might be found in any city or village, over-stuffed, gaudy furniture, washers, refrigerators, groceries and telephones of all types. Fantastic patterns of frost spread across some of the store windows, almost as though they had been created by skilled artists. The sounds of accelerating cars and buses, their exhaust pipes steaming, fills the morning. Sure-footed people walk briskly to work, showing no concern at all for the ice beneath their boots and shoes. Children on their way to school, book bags on their backs, walk more slowly. A few people walk without hats or head coverings, but many others wear hats and scarves, the scarves sometimes looped around their mouths and noses. Everyone’s breath steams and puffs into the morning. Older men with wonderful, etched faces wear Moslem caps, some of them white and lacy. We look up at the snowy, shadowed hill where brownish coal smoke tumbles out of chimneys and stove vents, adding to the smoke pall and the sharp, creosote-like smell of coal in the air. Our chins become numb, and my fingertips ache beneath my fur-lined gloves.
By 9:00 our bus leaves for the rather long trip to Isparta. We join the busy morning streets of Nevsehir, stopping once at a shop to purchase bottles of water. Men still walk briskly with their overcoat collars pulled up around their necks. Most of the women who walk appear to be young and unmarried, perhaps workers who have opted not to join the usual flow of most Moslem women.
Now out of Nevsehir, we drive across an Arctic-like wilderness where the snow lies deep on all sides, and where in other seasons is green with sugar beets, wheat and other grains. It is the land that had been shrouded in darkness two nights before when we had entered Nevsehir. Our tour director, holding up a newspaper with glaring headlines, informs us that the Americans, British and French have bombed Iraq. We wonder about retaliation and feel slightly uncomfortable as the American bombers may have taken off from Turkey.
We pass a wonderful Selcukian caravanserai with intricate stonework above the portal, but most of it has crumbled, and snow fills the inside. The caravansaries afforded security, shelter and rest for the caravans on the Silk Road. Caravans could stay three days in the caravanserai without paying, but if they stayed longer, they had to pay. We pass yet another isolated and decaying Caravanserai before we stop at one called Agzikarahan, built by the Selcukians in the 13th century. We walk through the ornate portal, the most sculpted and decorated part of the caravanserai, past the walls and into the interior. Before us is a small mosque where the men who worked the caravans could pray. To our right, along the wall are arched stone spaces formerly used to house supply shops and stores, and to our left the cavernous stalls used to stable the weary camels. A small prison exists for unruly people. We walk inside the shadowed camel stalls, looking far up at the curved stone ceiling, an immense space. I can imagine the stomping feet of the haughty camels, the dust and even their smell.
MONTEREY PARK AUTHOR PUBLISHES 4th BOOK – Seeking More of the Sky: Growing Up in the 1930’s:
Charles “Norm” Stevens, a 49 year resident of Monterey Park has recently published his 4th book: Seeking More of the Sky: Growing Up in the 1930’s. This is the story of a young boy growing up in Inglewood, California in the l930’s. This was a time during the depression when unemployment was affecting many and the banks were closed, while the clouds of war were gathering in Europe. But he was lucky enough to be raised in a loving family, the power of that love reflected throughout his stories.
Stevens is the author of three previous books about his experiences during WWII:
An Innocent at Polebrook: A Memoir of an 8th Air Force Bombardier (Story of his 34 bombing missions from his base at Polebrook, England over Germany and France)
The Innocent Cadet: Becoming A World War II Bombardier (A prequel to the first, telling of his training in the U.S. before going overseas into combat.)
Back from Combat: A WWII Bombardier Faces His Military Future from Combat: (This book details the time from when he returned from combat in England until the end of the war.)
He is known to the readers of The Citizen’s Voice as the author of Travel Log Articles including “Cruising the Rhine and Mosel”,” Best of the West”, “In Search of Snow” , “From Paris to Normandy on the Seine”, and “Exploring New York”. He is retired, having taught for 32 years, primarily in the Montebello Unified School District.
Those interested in purchasing an autographed copy of any of his books, may contact the author at 323-721-8230 or Normstevens24@gmail.com.
