<-- Check out my new link to help you pronounce weird Turkish letters.George and I were on a dolmuş in Nevşehir. Though we and the driver were the only ones, the windows had fogged from the ten or so people who had also ridden from Göreme. We were evading the seeping cold by waiting inside for the next dolmuş that would take us to Kay Maklı.
We had been quiet for some time--constant companionship often reduced us to silence. The only thing I'd said was to notify the ticket man that we wanted to go to one of the area's underground cities burrowed out of the earth ages and ages ago. I am never nervous traveling in Turkey. Once I tell the driver or ticket man where I want to go in broken Turkish, he smiles and shepherds us along, telling us what to do and where to get off. Though I rarely understand their directions, they point and we figure it out. No need to worry.
But once our driver realized that we spoke English, and that I was American, he twisted around in seat, off and running in poor English supplemented with Turkish.
"Obama?" he asked me.
"
Çok güzel! (He's very good!)" I say with a smile on my face and the driver smiles back.
"Obama maybe good." Turks are glad to get rid of Bush but they're not holding their breath for miracles. The world's in a bind--it's still too soon for them to know about Obama.
The driver went on. Father Bush was okay, but Bush has made a mess. George tried to get a word in edgewise: "Tony Blair?" He had to repeat a couple of times to be heard and the driver said, "Sometimes good, sometimes bad." But soon he was back to ranting about Bush son going to Iraq. "Why?" the driver asked me with a pained look on his face. I shrugged. He continued--something about petrol, nuclear weapons, and children dying--lots of children dying.
I commiserated, nodding my head. "
Çok kötü. (It's very bad)"
With zero prompting, he divulged his presidential preferences: "Clinton, good. Father Bush, good. Reagan, *and he made a face that was neither bad nor good*." He listed Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson and Kennedy. I can't remember his verdict for all of them, though he did like Kenney. But he
knew them. They know about us. We really are omnipresent.
I get this weird feeling every once in awhile. I'm embarrassed and sad and very conscious that I don't know anything about Turkey, or the rest of the world, for that matter. I couldn't form an opinion on any of the Turkish presidents' political victories or debacles. And yet, here I am, American, with my ass bare in the wind, the world watching.
Then he transitioned to global climate change: "The world... silk." Turks don't use the verb "to be" so they often forget to include is/am/are if they don't know a lot of English yet.
"Silk?
İpek?" I asked. It didn't translate.
"
Hiyar (no)--
hasta," he explained.
"Oh--sick--yes, the world is sick."
About this time, a dolmuş with KAY MAKLI printed in blue on its rear windows zipped past us. "
Kay Maklı!" I blurted out, pointing at it through the windshield.
The driver whipped around and honked his horn a few times and flashed his headlights. I groaned with despair but the dolmuş slowed down about a hundred meters in front of us.
"No problem! No problem! I talk talk talk talk!" He apologized and gunned the engine, chasing down our next dolmuş. I was laughing with the driver as George and I hopped out of the dolmuş. "Çok teşekürler! Çok yarım seversin! Hoş çakal!" (Thanks a lot! You're very helpful! Bye!)"
The driver had a huge grin on his wrinkled face as we waved goodbye to him before we climbed into our next dolmuş to Kay Maklı.
