Escapades in Ankara

Hello from Abu Dhabi!!!

I will write about Abu Dhabi in my next blog, but we have just concluded a wonderful three day stay in Ankara, Turkey so that is the topic of this entry. Dan and Devri were wonderful hosts. They are both so devoted to the people there … Dan is the serious one, such an intellectual and an amazing wealth of information about everything from culture to politics to the legal system to…. you name it. Devri is the free spirited social butterfly full of sparkle and laughter, always meeting someone for lunch or coffee, always teaching someone something or hosting young girls or women for something. We had such neat opportunities to be with people they knew, some English-speaking, but most not, and yet we felt such a connection with so many of them. We met people in study groups, over lunch or tea, and at a special meeting at the church they attend. On our last day in Ankara, Maynard spent time with Dan organizing the library at their church while Devri and I got together with several women in their home. Here are a few pictures of those outings.

So here are two fun stories from our stay there. Driving in other countries is usually a little bit different from what feels familiar to us at home. We noticed that when cars were making a left turn at an intersection with a traffic light, they would sometimes stop when the red turn arrow was showing and sometime they would slow, look, and proceed. When we asked them how they knew what to do, they told us that if there were other cars already stopping at the light they would proceed because if everyone stopped to wait for the light to turn green it would just clog up traffic. Hmmmmm!!!! Now that’s a different approach! Don’t think we will try that one when we get back home!

Another fun story was our trip to the market. Oh my goodness! The produce was unbelievable! Very large, very lush, and very abundant. Of course, I loved seeing it all and pulled out the camera to capture the memory. When I did, the people at the stands got very interested and began calling out to me and pointing to their produce as if to say, “Take a picture of my stand!” One guy kept saying something to me in Turkish over and over so I asked Devri to translate. He was asking me what newspaper I was with! HA! Well, I guess this is sort of a newspaper… The Belson Big Adventure Times. So to my friends in the Ankara market, here are you two minutes of fame. :-)

It seemed as if we had just arrived when it was already time to leave. I had made such a deep connection with Devri that it was a bit tearful saying goodbye. She has a passion for life and work in Turkey that was contagious. I developed such deep admiration for her and felt she had so much to teach me. God willing, we will have time together again one day.

It is actually a little bit frightening to realize that we are finishing up the first week of our “big adventure”. As we were reflecting on the first week it dawned on me that we have spent years dreaming about this trip and a full year looking forward to and planning it. And in only a few more weeks the experience will have come and gone and we will make a shift from anticipation to memories. I think I will miss the anticipation, but we are definitely storing up memories to replace it with.

Until next week.....

Love,

Maynard and Sheryl