Just a half hour until we get in to
Kalekoy. Or whatever the town is called. Apparently it’s one of the
top 10 small towns in Turkey and the home of only 300 souls. We’re
supposed to get there at 11:00 AM and it’s exactly 10:30 AM.
We sat in the big behemoth of a bus
station in Ankara and talked thought idly of where we would go next,
or if we’d sleep on the bus station floor as mustached Turk men
walked passed the nook we’d carved for ourselves. Liz mentioned
Kalekoy. We prayed and felt like Liz and Julia should go get
information on bus times, whether a bus even went to the tiny, top 10
town.
I was in the middle of telling April
and Grant about an old girlfriend when they came back.
“Grab your packs!” said Liz like a
naval captain telling her crew they’d just received orders to sail.
“What?” someone said.
“Shoot! I knew this was going to
happen!” I said. “Did you find a bus?”
“Yep,” she said.
“When’s it leave?”
“Like now…”
God, I pray that it’s nice there, that
we have a place to play music, maybe a cute little square with a
fountain. I pray that someone takes us in. And let there be
someone who speaks ENGLISH! PLEASE
let there be someone who speaks English.
The bus smells of
the dust we drove through when we hit that section of dirt road 20
minutes ago, dust and vanilla scent, or whatever smell comes from the
bottle of amber liquid the conductor just sprayed on the aisles and
empty seats. He opens a wet wipe packet with his teeth and uses it
to wipe his hands, his face, the back of his neck, and his mouth.
Sixteen minutes to
go. Then back into the unknown. Please Father, let there be someone
who speaks English. For the sake of the people we meet, not just for
ours.
Eight minutes and
we’ll have to unload all our lives off this bus, this bus which has
become our home, our neck stiffening, bloodshot eyed home these last
14 hours. We’ll unload our lives into a place we’ve never been,
where no one we know has ever been, where nine-tenths of this country
(at least) has never been nor will never be.
A place where the
300 souls will be 100 percent Muslim, 100 percent Turkish, and all we
can hope is that one of them speaks enough English so as to keep it
from being too awkward and that Turkish hospitality will live up to
it’s name and they’ll let us sleep on their floor.
Four minutes.
There is green
grass in this area, short and vibrant and surrounding us in ever
direction. It is a nice change from the rocks and the brown we’ve
had for the last… well since the sun came up this morning.
Sometimes I wonder
what in the world we were thinking coming half across Turkey to find
the smallest town ever so that we can try to make friends and play
them songs. But then I see God smiling and laughing at me. What we
were thinking is it would be fun to trust you for a couple weeks. He
nods. Okay, I’ll trust you. But I don’t have to like every minute
of it.
It’s 11:00 AM.
The bus doesn’t stop. We’re not in Kalekoy or wherever yet.
Apparently bus schedules are subject to change.
To our left is the
white polka dot pattern over the brown background of cotton. I’ve
never seen cotton in real life. That’s really cool. Turks are in
the fields, picking it, carrying it in bags to a faded, red truck.
We’re waiting.
Who knows what happens next.
