Living and the Day

Yesterday I walked around Fethiye, and quickly moved away from the roiling sea of tourism down by the harbor and up towards the mountain. The cobbled streets became quiet, and I enjoyed a sliver of Turkish village life. Women in head scarves hanging wet clothes on the line, the skin of their face leathered and pulled by time. An older man in a dark wool suitcoat, with a form fitting cap (almost like a lightweight ski cap), walking with a cane and regarding me with a mix of curiosity and resignation. The houses were all white, plastered stone, the roofs all orange terra cotta tile. I saw two kids playing in an empty alley, one of them sitting on a skateboard as it went [very slowly] down the hill, bouncing up and down and laughing. I really love observing this -- things and people as they are, Life going on about its day.

Later that day, I went to Kaya, which is a "ghost town" about 10 miles away from Fethiye. This town had been inhabited by ethnic Greeks for centuries. In 1923, after the war between the Turks and the Greeks, they instituted a forced population exchange. Basically, Muslim Greeks were sent to Turkey, and Turks who were Greek Orthodox were sent to Greece. There was no option. So, once a thriving town, Kaya was abandoned. It's pretty surreal there; you can still see fireplaces, and gardens, and the paths that people walked. Quite possibly, those paths once echoed with the same sounds I'd heard that morning - canes hitting stone, giggling kids playing.

Things and times change, still and forever, but Life goes about its day.