Turkish magic

by Vladyslav Stasiv (Ukraine)

A leap into the unknown Turkey

It's started when I was volunteering in Turkey. I spent almost two weeks to prepare everything for this trip. Then one week later, we've already been in contact with our hosts in that places and they're waiting for us. Suddenly, bus tickets were run out, so I asked local volunteer for help, they told me to autostop, so the first day has come, I went to the road and pull out a special sigh carton from my bag, which supposed to help us to start our adventure, every cars which drive by us, just honking, one of that cars stopped nearby, the first driver don't know English, we had a special paper, there were written in Turkish: what we are doing here. When he finished reading my paper, we found out this driver is cousin of our local volunteer, it was unexpected for all, he called him, he told me that his cousin wanted to help us. Next drivers who helped, were two kind-hearted men, firstly they asked typical questions in Turkish, we gave them the paper, suddenly one of them started to call the number which was written on that paper(the number was the CEO of Turkish organization person), we're concerning what he's doing, but fortunately the line was busy, he decided to call his relatives, gave me the phone to talk with, notice they knew us just 5 minutes, the funny thing, they didn't want to let us go without food or even money, it's hardly to measure how Turkish people kind even to strangers, also they gave us their numbers, if we get in trouble, we decided to go to the mosque, was the biggest mosque in southern Turkey, when we entered the mosque, a man appeared and to speak in English, I didn't pay attention, then he started to ask us what are we doing here, I realized that this old man all time speaking in English, after a long pause, I was stunned, he was 78 years old and he's carpenter. Suddenly in my mind: "What? Carpenter? How is it even possible?", I lost my words, we didn't have enough time to talk, we still supposed to find our host. We got up early, we have enough time to prepare for new adventure. Hitchhiking almost in the center of that city was the main mistake we're done, suddenly a driver helped to get to Mersin, that man was a farmer, he lived in Mersin, then the farmer started to ask, do we need money, food, water, do we have where to sleep. We're hesitate, so we declined his purposes. In Mersin, we found our host, then he heard that we're planning to go to Cappadocia, he told that is hard to get from here to your place, so he suggested to go to another city, then hitchhiking to Cappadocia, but firstly we might take a train, he was buying train tickets for us, I gave him money for these, as answer I got: "You are in Turkey, you are my friends, I don't allow you to pay for these and don't even think about gave me that money". I don't know what to say, it's just the one of the best people I've ever met. Аfter we got there, we were picked up by a family, who didn't care about our names or who we are. Imagine, you are unknown for them, but they relate to you, like you are a member of their family. One of the main beautiful sightseeing are air balloons, we gather up our staff and go forward to the highway, we spent on the highway almost 50 minutes, we thought to go back to sleep, suddenly a car appeared, he helped us to get to air balloons, then we found out the driver have been living in 100 meter where were we staying on the highway, but he decided to help us to see balloons. Hitchhiking is dangerous and uncomfortable, but in my humble opinion, sometimes you need to get out of your comfort zone, to feel alive and free from life duties