Glory Ho

Back in Turkey, many falafels ago, we learned that the Turkish word for “one” was “beer”. Nice and easy to remember. In fact, we learned the numbers 1-5 by inventing a bar conversation:
1.Beer?
2/Eke (yuck)
3.Ooch (ouch! don’t insult my drink)
4.Dirt (it tastes like dirt)
5.Besha (that’s bullshit)

The word for ‘beer’ in Turkish is “beer”.

When we arrived, we had plenty of misconceptions about the oppression of religion in this country. With prayers-calling five times a day and gaggles of headscarfed women, we figured most people were devout Muslims and that alcohol would be unavailable, cleavage would be kept covered and vodka ads would not resemble drunk Victoria’s Secret models (as they had in Bulgaria). The latter two turned out to be true. The former two not so much. The majority of the population in Western Turkey don’t attend mosque more than a couple times a year–your typical Christmas Easter crowd, while Efes and Tuborg are easily found at the local grocery and the average kebab restaurant.

However, here’s the rub. It’s tends to be the tourists who pop a top. When we were invited back to a flat by a couple of college kids in Eskeshihir, they served us Coke. Cool, thirty-something couchsurfing host Sezgin did not consider picking up beer or wine when we prepped for dinner. At the olive farm where we volunteered, wine was served with one dinner in 14 days.

But our night out in Antalya took the cake. When we went to an American-style bowling alley during three games (!) no (!) one (!) had (!) a (!) beer. Including us—it was brutal. At the beach park bar afterwards, the others sipped tonics while we split a conspicuous bottle.

Alcohol is simply less accepted. People were raised to get happy on nicotine and sugar instead of Schnapps.

On the ten minute drive home that night, couchsurfing host’s Fevy’s car was flagged down for a random breathalizer test. It all took about two minutes. The courteous policeman unwrapped what looked like a tampon applicator, attached it to a monitor and asked her to blow. To no one’s surprise, she blew a 0.0. I asked what would have happened if the result had been different. What was the law? What were the consequences? She didn’t know.

Luckily, we continued to find beer in the Middle East, even if our hostel occasionally outlawed it, liqour stores were well-hidden and non-transparent carrying bags were recommended.

But then we arrived in Dahab, where beer was once again in a snug koozie of celebration. Below is the minute-by-minute capturing of Michael and Stella (the Egyptian beer).

Michael just loves to take everything in one trip. . .

I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you what we were looking at.

Climbing the Rum dunes. . .

I found the Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit at a hostel in Jordan. Sometimes books are placed on our own mosaic-potted patio by the universe herself.

I’ll never forget when I read The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck, an parable-like tale of poverty, gender discrimination and cultural strife in 17th century China. But not only because it was an excellent book, but because the next night as I started a squishy novel about a pregnant teenager’s triumph above her troubles in the American South, she referenced the difficult labor and delivery of the squatting Chinese woman in The Good Earth. When this happened, I sat up and looked around the room. (Yes, I often believe me life is a sitcom and the disappointment never really goes away) but I just couldn’t believe it. If I had been on Alias, wouldn’t this clearly indicate that someone had PLANTED these books for me to find in succession? It was an eerie, yet strangely comforting feeling. As if the man behind the green curtain had offered me some of his Milk Duds.

But back to Rebecca. Because this is when it happened again. First she talked about the Rocky Mountains (where I live). Then she spoke about being Jewish (I don’t know any practicing Jews or anything about their traditions and was about to enter Israel). Then she spent three pages on Virginia Woolf (I had just read The Hours). THEN, when we were about to cross the Jordan into the wadis and canyons of Petra, she began talking about the D-word.

I’ve never been a woman of the desert. I certainly love the way my sparkling earring lay against my skin (which is turning) so brown. But I’ve always preferred the soft loaf of Wonder grass to the rough brown edges of the wheat. I guess you could say my bubble gum taste gets in the way. While years ago, Natalie Goldberg forced me to consider it, somewhere between the Dead Sea and the Jordan River, Rebecca’s timing gave it a craggy context I couldn’t ignore.

In the Middle East at least, it’s such a suspicious landscape. The wind carries only the wispy, hot breath of Arabic across the sand. Bare skin and bones with steak-colored, magenta veins with the perfect shade of the softest eye-shadow braising its best features. Clunky, caricatured trucks drive at the bottom of my screen. Tracks—a camel’s, road runner’s, snake’s– are the only sign of life you’ll find. As I do in the sky, in the wallpaper, the carpet or in the coals of a fire, I find faces in every texture. Faces of eagles. Men. Gods. Monsters. I am always in search of others.

But the desert meditates with meticulous precision. Its a prodigal student. Naked, but not vulnerable. Buried, but not dead. Empty, but quite nourished. It refuses to talk and in the process, shuts us all up.

(Graffiti’d on the desert-colored visor of the 4×4)

Our camel ride began in Rum Village, Jordan. Between the Mexican, Spaghetti-Western reminiscent walls, we and the Dutch sisters were led into the great wide open on the brightly-blanketed backs of growling camels. After an hour, I brushed the carrot-cake-mix-like sand from the folds of my dress and stepped out, slipped through the silent orange sand wondering how any place could be so quiet. Then we four wheeled and yee-ha’d over dunes and across wadis toward the Bedouin camp to sleep in the desert. Where we drove became the road. No matter how fast our driver went, I didn’t care. I knew that we could only crash into ourselves.

Wadi Musa, the village where Petra tourists complained about the smelly rooms, crap food, Last Crusade marathons and long walk to the famous façade, was unremarkable in every way. Closer to the actual ruins, the Indiana Jones café might have once been a cool Hollywood tribute, the CaveBar once a Star Wars-reminiscent freak show, if only someone hadn’t opened a café called Titanic a couple doors down, nullifying the intended effect. A line of blindfolded, unhappy horses, donkey and camels stood waiting for riders. Jordanian swindlers attacked from every side.

I also had a terrible head cold.

But Petra was a must-see. Something on a tourist list. A list I often used as fire-starters in my burning desire to damn the beaten path. But by now, though I’d become an expert at talking about the Emperor’s New Clothes, I’d also realized that whatever you find, it is what it is.

The “sik”, a 2km-long narrow fissure of raw-steak-red canyon was the first sign of intimidation. Squeezing from both sides, our smooth path appeared as I always picture the crevice bottoms of the Grand Canyon–visions likely fed by 5th grade filmstrips of explorer reenactment. But this was um, a little older. Somewhere around the  6th century B.C. these wadis (valleys) were along a commercial trading route to Damascus. The Nabateans had created an artificial oasis here, storing flash flood water for later droughts through the use of dams, cisterns and water donuits. Like fools, we kept blocking our own incredible view, taking photos we would soon erase since the non-transferable dimensions were only in the here and now.

By the time we reached the Treasury, the very posterchild of Petra, the sun had passed and this mansion sat shivering in the shade. Below the Arabs we’d come to know so very well touted their camels, a smug expression on both seller and beast. I stood as still as a tree, my head falling limply behind like a broken branch to see it all. The “rose-red-city” was a skin-defying shade of pink. In this mask of a mansion were the unweathered pillars of the Parthenon and the limbless figures of Greek Goddesses. Petra embodied the phrase, “rough around the edges”.

Yet the monastery was better. We climbed hundreds of worn steps and skirted alongside railing-less drops as animals laden with blankets and babas and cheap jewelry bumped past. Ever-attracted to the allure of anticipation, I was pleased discover that the monastery did not come into view as we climbed, but could only be seen once we arrived at the top, and then turned around.

I hate to say it, but some things must be seen to be understood. It was utterly stareable.

About nine months ago, I rediscovered the satisfaction of catching a ball.

We were at the final Peace Corps retreat up in the mountains. I was playing a little catch with a couple volunteers after a glorious run up the switchbacks.

My stubby fingers fit neatly inside the leather, like so many hands before me. I felt the explosive sting as the ball connected with my wedding band through the mitt. Noticed the puff of protective skin form on the upper part of my palm. Remembered the walled-stance of fielding a grounder. Caught my mistake of starting with the right foot when in fact the left foot was a better idea for my right-handed throw.

Baseball was something my Dad taught me in Toby’s field across the railroad tracks from the Mississippi River. My grandfather was a die-hard White Sox fan–perhaps the only one in our Cub-crazy Illinois county–and my grandmother knew the names of Sox fielders and basemen, including one Lou Boudreaux. Today baseball means beer, people-watching and the cones of mashed potatoes they serve outside Coors Field. But the sport, not the big league event, was what interested my Dad. It mirrored his intensity, drive and preference for silence over idle chatter.

I hadn’t played catch, let alone been at bat in several years. Now, the sun was in my eyes. I was sweating. The gnats were swarming. Our triangle would reform slightly every time I missed. I was spinning in a self-inflicted trap of competition with myself. I ran after the ball, crawled in the bushes, desperate to continue the flow. I was alarmed, as I always have been (by a frisbee or football or an orange) every time the ball approached my face with growing speed. A moment of complete fear and panic before I gained the confidence to position my glove for a catch, then surprise myself with the force and fervor of my sometimes-on-target return throw. But I wanted to do well. High-flys. Line-drives. Grounders. Bouncers. Unexpected angles. I. Must. Catch. That. Ball.

The thing is, my partners David and Greg were two of the calmest people I knew. I could tell that they enjoyed the hypnotic and metronomic cadence of this whole thing. Throw and catch. Throw and catch. Throw and catch. They practically glowed with effortless concentration, their pitches forming two straight lines across the grass. Like my Dad, they were content to let the baseball do the talking.

Like my Dad, they didn’t mind when I missed.

But this was about more than just baseball. It was one summer after an anxious day of learning to water-ski that my Dad had pulled me aside for a talk along those same railroad tracks and said: You know, Andrea, you’re good at lots of things. You don’t have to be good at this. He knew that like he sometimes did, I was putting too much pressure on myself.

Over the years, I’ve accepted my lack of traditional, team sport athleticism and found alternatives in running and yoga.  Yet perhaps my Dad–as well as the dissipation of those self-loathing white caps within my own waves–are why I’m still up for a game of catch and ready to slog it out so I can do. . .not half bad.

But that day in Bulgaria, in case of an unexpected tsunami, and since my Dad was half the world away, the universe had arranged for two Buddhist angels of baseball to break down the bleachers of judges I had invented around me. I didn’t relax or anything. But I knew I had the option. And that, believe it or not, feels like a home run.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad.

My friend Claire Hamlisch, who has worked for UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) since before I was born, sent me dozens of contacts when she discovered I’d be traveling through the Middle East and Africa. One of those was Ben Yami of Israel. Ben led us to Sali Organic, Farm #19 to be specific, on the Kefar Yehoshua in Northern Israel.

Organic, in the truest sense, means without pesticides, herbicides or chemicals. Shuli grows oranges, grapefruit, nectarines, plums, peaches and lemons independent of chemical additives. She makes sorbet from sugar, ice and juice. Tupperwares of granola from nuts, oats and date extract. But she is also ecological. This means she’s kind not only to the food, but to the ecosystems of Israel and the waste management problem of the planet by abstaining from most plastic or paper use. It’s a serious commitment and one Shuli takes very seriously in her field and in her fridge. Shuli is as patient as a plant. A little absentminded. Very honest. Unafraid of failure. Her hair and teeth and accent are all creased with comfort. And when she instructs me about planting her sage, she says:

“Vee are not matemateecians. Vee are not arkiteks. Zust zpace dem out awong da branch.”

Ilan, her husband is working on his Ph.D in Robotic Milking Machines. Yes. That’s what I said. For ten years, he researched bovine behavior to build an environment where cows are milked independent of human intervention, by a mechanized milking machine. The welfare of the cow increases through the gift of free will and farm efficiency increases by milking cows more frequently.  His biggest challenge yet—what he’s been working on for three whole years—is how to better attract the cow to the machine.

The Halachmi family collects dirt like pig farmers, acts like Boulderites and waves away scheduled productivity like the leaders of a commune.  The kids go to Montessori school. Acrobalance class is on Sundays. Flute lessons on Tuesday. There is no television. We work whatever 4-5 hours a day we prefer and eat our meals—mostly vegetables, bread, eggs and tahini—with the whole family, who are by the way, all, save one, named after a kind of tree.

Their small garden and orchard, next door to where Ilan was raised, is part of a 90 farm, 200 family moshav, or collective. In the third wave of Jewish immigrants in 1927, to a place they would one day call Israel, Richard Kaufmann started Kfar Yehoshua as part of the Zionist movement. He designed it in the shape of the Hebrew letter Y. Technically, a moshav is an Israeli cooperative community that combines privately farmed land and communal marketing. The land on a moshav belongs to the state or the Jewish National Fund. Over the years, it’s evolved into an enlightened farming town which sprouts a general store, community pool and plenty of new-age endeavors.

For four days, Michael and I pruned fruit trees in a breezeway kind of weather and covered our hands in a dried-blood colored tree sap. Our mission was to remove roughly 75% of the current fruit so that what was left would be more evenly spaced across the branch, taking a higher proportion of the nutrients and minerals from the tree and thereby yielding juicier, plumper and more profitable fruit. Tree by tree in a row of 50, we sang songs about whiskey and highways and the American South. The fourth and fifth day we bushwhacked through a five foot wide jungle, helping to remove the hands of the weeds from the neck of the tree. It was hot. Hard. Scratchy. Bloody. And I sneezed a few hundred times per hour. In return, we were given room and board. 

Amidst a bushel and a peck full of lessons, two things distinguished our experience from any we’ve had before.

Children and animals. There seemed few twenty minute stretches without either the zombie-like  maas, moos and groans of the sheep and cows which surrounded us or the screams, cries and falling blocks of the children at our feet.

Yes, getting comfortable with chaos–not exotic family-who-knows-no-English-holds-you-hostage-for-24-hours kind of chaos. Chaos that is family life on a farm. Traditional, scruffy, get-the-gum-out-of-her-hair, stop-throwing-cherry-tomatoes-at-the-dog chaos. Sometimes, it was all I could do not to run from the house and tell Michael that never mind this silly need for siblings, that one child would be enough. We shall see.

When we left, the Halachmi family packed us up with avocados, salt, sumac and good energy to last us for weeks. We were grateful.