SEVERAL LESSONS IN ONE DAY

Saturday, May 31, 2008

YOU HAVEN’T LEARNT WHAT HOT AND DRY IS, UNTIL YOU’VE WALKED IN THE BRIGHT MIDDAY JUNE SUN OF AN ANCIENT ARCHEOLOGICAL SITE IN SOUTHERN TURKEY

9:30 am pick up by Güray and Mustafa and we were off to Ephesus, once the provincial capital of the Roman empire. Hundreds of tourists descended from vans and buses together with us, ranging from brightly red-burned and scantily clad Nordic tourists to the Japanese ladies wearing slacks, long-sleeves shirts, thick black gloves, hats, scarves holding the hats in place, and, in many cases, a final scarf covering the nose and mouth. With so many people milling about you actually got a lively feeling of a city, except of course in ancient times, they would not all have stopped to take pictures of the ruins and of each other in front of them. Our contemplation of the site was interrupted when a cute little red cat appeared with a live lizard in the mouth. 

Oswaldo, who is very firm about these matters, set about to save the lizard. This involved distracting the cat, who was too young to know better, and then grab the many-colored lizard in his fingers and set it down somewhere safe. Those who know and love Oswaldo will recognize his expression of satisfaction in the photo here.

The Celsus library was most impressive, preserved in two stories and looking like a 17th century opera house. We were told an interesting story: the local brothel was located across the street and the library thoughtfully provided a secret tunnel to that establishment, giving a new meaning to (in Güray’s words): “Honey, I’m just going to the library...”

The theatre was the biggest I have ever seen, holding 24,500 spectators. Apparently, it is still used for performances or special celebrations. Güray mentioned Elton John, Sting, and Diana Ross.

We lunched on homemade food under a big green tent in the garden of Ege, a carpet teaching center and co-op. After the lunch we saw how the local double-knotted carpets are made, how the tread was extracted from the silk-worm cocoons, and were given a show of wool, silk and wool/cotton carpets. When you consider carpets you walk on them barefoot, and it was a particular luxurious sensation to sink your toes into piles of brilliantly colored new carpets. It quickly became clear that the show should be followed by a purchase. Oswaldo and I had not thought to buy anything, but we both liked the small silk hanging shown here. 

When we heard that the price was $35,000, we congratulated ourselves on invariably finding the most expensive thing, but stood firm in our resolve not to buy anything. In the end the Lehrers found a very nice carpet, which for them will have this whole memory attached to it.

We stopped then at the Ephesus Museum, one of the most unpretentious and well arranged museums I have seen in a long time. A white marble head of Eros caught an expression of innocence and sadness around the mouth, which was irresistible (and which could not be photographed, sorry). Artemis was depicted with many eggs, or breasts - we couldn’t get a consensus on this - but certainly a most beautiful fertility goddess. Finally the museum had arranged a detailed and illustrated mini-exhibition of gladiators, which explained how it was considered an honor to face death and how in fact there were many volunteer gladiators. On our way back to Selçuk we stopped briefly at the shrine to the Virgin Mary, Mary’s House, where we ran into a team from Globo Reporter and unfortunately could not come up with the name of the famous interviewer (Later note: Edney Silvestre), who was standing in front of the cameras, and with whom we had a pleasant conversation.

It’s not over yet. When I heard there was a street fair that day in town I hopped off the van and wandered amongst the many stalls, which had an intensely relaxing local flavor. 

On my way home I stopped briefly at a shop hung with beautiful textiles and with a fabulous headdress. When the owner, a young Kurd named Marco, as I would learn, saw my interest he said I would get a prize if I guessed what it was for. I considered this and said: A young country girl dressed for her wedding?” Bingo! I got a small purse, and, of course, a long chat with Marco, which resulted in an after dinner purchase of a small rug, not least because he had 4 white Van (a lake in Eastern Turkey, near Mt. Ararat) cats - two of them kittens - famous for having one yellow and one blue eye. Who could resist this?