Kate’s parents were living in Syria for six months, and as we happened to be in Istanbul around Christmastime, we thought that it would be cool to go visit them for Christmas. She hadn’t seen her family in a long time, and they were closer than mine. Most of the time, though, they live in the US, meaning that my family is usually closer. And I wanted to visit Syria. It just so happened that Christmas was only a few days after Kurban Bayram, or the sacrifice holiday.
I wanted to know more about the holiday, and so when we went met Kate’s friend Efdal, who is a calligrapher and a teacher of religion at a high school in Istanbul for coffee, I asked him about the holiday. “It’s one of the two major holidays of Islam,” he explained. “The story in the Koran tells us that God told Abraham (Ibrahim) to sacrifice his son. He was just about to kill Isaac, when God decided he had passed the test of being faithful, and instead told Abraham that he could sacrifice a sheep instead of his son. So every year, Muslim families all over the world sacrifice sheep (or sometimes a cow) for Kurban Bayram. And as the Islamic calendar is based on the moon, not on the sun, holidays do not stay on the same day every year. Instead, every year a holiday comes 11 days earlier than it did the year before. This year Kurban Bayram comes very close to Christmas.” I thanked Efdal for the story and the coffee. He invited us to come visit his calligraphy lessons one weekend. Hopefully we can go before we leave Istanbul. And then, before we parted ways, he wrote my name in Arabic calligraphy for me. Super cool!
Having been in Turkey for a bit, Kate and I had come to the conclusion that a.) Turks are never on time and b.) they often make plans at the last minute. So we thought it would be no problem to buy a bus ticket a week before leaving. Normally we found you can buy a bus ticket the day you want to travel and have no problems. Turns out that every Turk goes to visit their relatives during the Bayram (holiday) and all the trains were full the first day. Not only that, every single bus was full. As we didn’t have visas, we planned to take a bus to the south, and then a shared taxi or dolmus across the border. No buses to Antakya, Adana, Gaziantep, no buses at all! So we had to leave a day later. Our “Hatay Jet” bus was very full, and my seat was broken so that it could not be brought to its full and upright position. Which meant that I had an excuse to have it down all the time, which made it easier to sleep. And I’m lucky, because a bus seat for me is already like a bed. It was a 15 hour bus ride, and boring, even though I had fully explored the upper baggage compartment, and the feet of many sleeping people, by the time we got off I was completely ready. I guess I’m closer to the ground than most adults, and so I notice shoes. And I have to say that Turks have a shoe obsession. Shoes should always be polished and clean, or else you may be ostracized.
A smaller minibus took us to the center of town where we were supposed to meet Kate’s mom. Antakya is as chaotic as Istanbul, but it’s so much smaller. There are still people everywhere, and the drivers are still crazy, but there are no skyscrapers, and the people seem more friendly and less in a hurry. And when we got out in of the minibus I smelled it. Of course there was the car exhaust, and the smell of lots of people, and trash, but in there I smelled Iskender. I had had Iskender kebab once in Istanbul because it’s Kate’s second favorite food (after a dumpling called manti). On the bottom of the plate is toasted flat bread called pide. It is topped with thinly sliced lamb and beef, and then covered in melted butter with a bit of tomato in it. Next to it is a large scoop of yogurt. In short, it’s wonderful, fantastic, stupendous, you get the idea. My second favorite food after cheese. Please, I thought. Can we please eat some Iskender before we move on!
Soon after we arrived, she was there. Kate’s mom is tall, with long silver curly hair. In Turkey, where most of the women aren’t so tall, and they all dye their hair, she sticks out a bit. In a good way. She told us she was going to take us to get the best Iskender kebab in Antakya. And was it amazing!! Even better than it had smelled, if that’s possible. I didn’t think I could eat another bite after that. But Kate’s mom insisted we try the specialty of Antakya – Kunefe. Well, she didn’t have to insist very hard, because Kunefe has cheese. It’s these sort of noodly things, with cheese in the middle covered in syrup. Maybe it sounds weird to you, but for a mouse, it’s heaven.
And then we tried to find a dolmuş. To discover that the town was completely empty. No shared taxis, no taxis, no school buses even. All the vehicles in the town that were going anywhere had already crossed the border into Syria. Why? Turns out there is a holiday exchange. The area that we were in is a bit disputed. Syria still shows it on their maps as part of Syria. Kate’s mom was finishing a book on why the area was part of Turkey and not Syria. So there are lots of families that have been split between Turkey and Syria. So for this holiday, all the Turks are allowed into Syria without a visa. For the other big holiday, all the Syrians are allowed visa-free into Turkey. I guess it could be a little like having Scottish and English relatives in the old days. Except now days both countries are part of the UK, so you can easily go from one to the other.
There were some other people wanting to go in the same direction, and one guy went off to find a vehicle, and left us all waiting. And waiting. And waiting. And finally, an hour later, he showed up with a vehicle. Old, falling apart, but still running. It took us to the Turkish side of the border, and then stopped. When we walked up to the passport control window, the guy looked at us and asked us where our car was. No car, we said.
“How will you cross the border” he asked
“We can walk” I replied.
“It’s five kilometers” he said. “You can’t walk.”
We got on a bus. They overcharged us. And when we went in to passport control on the other side we got taken in to the boss’s office. Kate’s mom talked to him in Arabic. Kate and I put on our cute, innocent, please-let-me-into-your-country faces. And eventually the boss decided he could send a fax to Damascus to see if we could get visas. And then we waited. And waited. And waited some more. The room was cold, and it was freezing. We didn’t take our coats off the whole time. There was a TV in one corner, a desk in another corner, and then a few uncomfortable chairs for guests. The kind that are fake wood, with black fake leather seats, and are supposed to look fancy and comfortable, but are really not comfortable at all. I really don’t like sitting in one place, but under the circumstances, I thought it would be best not to run around the office. So I sat impatiently for an eternity. The guards offered us tea. We offered them peanuts. Guards kept coming in and out and staring at us. Kate’s mom practiced her Arabic. I watched some Syrian TV without understanding. An Iraqi woman came in, wanting a visa for her friend, or perhaps it was her husband. She talked to Kate’s mom. After five hours the big boss came. He had more stars on his uniform than the guy who had originally sent the fax. He took Kate’s mom into an office, and we waited in silence, hoping beyond hope that they would give us our visas. Or at least let us out of the office so we could go somewhere to get food and sleep.
Half an hour later Kate’s mom came back. Good thing too, because Kate was getting more and more worried every minute. Turns out, we got the visas. And Kate’s mom swore she heard the guy on the other end of the phone say “but we sent that fax an hour and a half ago. You didn’t get it?” when the big boss called the even bigger boss in Damascus. So we could have left an hour and a half earlier. But they lost the fax. We stumbled out of the office, and were approached by a taxi driver. Kate and I both were suspicious, but Kate’s mom reassured us that Syria was a police state, so nothing would happen to us. I’m not sure whether that made me feel better or not. But we got in the taxi. And for a Middle Eastern taxi driver, the guy didn’t even drive that fast.
When we arrived at the house where Kate’s parents were living, and stepped into a warm room full of light, people, and food, I thought I might cry. And I couldn’t decide what I wanted more – food or sleep.