Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
in my home, is my Quran bag, where I keep my Quran. And in my Quran bag I also keep a
copy of the Bible and a copy of the Torah—because I believe that we Muslims, Christians,
and Jews are all 'children of the Topic'…children of the same good God.”
Leaving the party, I walked down the street. The town seemed cluttered with ugly un-
finished concrete buildings bristling with rusty reinforcement bars. While I love the Turks,
I couldn't help but think, “Why can't these people get their act together and just finish
these buildings?” That was before I learned that in Turkey, there's an ethic among par-
ents—even poor ones—that you leave your children with a house. Historically Turks are
reluctant to store money in the bank because it disappears through inflation. So instead,
they invest bit by bit by constructing a building. Every time they get a hundred bucks to-
gether, they put it into that ever-growing house. They leave the rebar exposed until they
have another hundred bucks, so they make another wall, put on a window, frame in anoth-
er door…and add more rebar. Now, when I look at that rusty rebar, I remember that Turks
say, “Rebar holds the family together”…and it becomes much prettier.
At the edge of Güzelyurt, I came upon a little boy playing a flute. Just like in biblical
times, it was carved out of an eagle bone. I listened. And I heard another eagle-bone flute,
out of sight, coming from over the hill, where his dad was tending the sheep. As they have
for centuries, the boy stays with the mom and plays the eagle-bone flute. The dad tends
the flock and plays his flute, too, so the entire family knows that all is well.
I hiked up the shepherd's hill and sat overlooking the town. On a higher hill, just bey-
ond the simple tin roof of its mosque, I saw the letters G Ü Z E L Y U R T spelled out in
rocks. Listening to the timeless sounds of the community, I thought how there are count-
less Güzelyurts, scattered across every country on earth. Each is humble, yet filled with
rich traditions, proud people, and its own village-centric view of our world. Güzelyurt
means “beautiful land.” While few visitors would consider it particularly beautiful, that's
how the people who call it home see it. They'd live nowhere else. And for them, it truly is
a
güzel yurt.
When visiting eastern Turkey, you don't have a list of sights. It's a cultural scavenger
hunt. Years ago, I was exploring with a tour group and we saw 300 kids in a stadium. We
dropped in to see what was going on. They were thrusting their fists into the air, scream-
ing in unison, “We are a secular nation! We are a secular nation!” I asked my local guide,
“What's going on? Don't they like God?” She said, “Yes, we love God here in Turkey,
but—with the rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism just over the border in Iran—we are
very concerned about the fragile and precious separation of mosque and state in our coun-
try.”
