I struggle to write about the mountain creek that runs along Pastoral Vadi because to do so, to describe its beauty and what the water does to me, for me, would lead the reader (I think there are 6 now) to falsely believe that I am not enjoying my time at Pastoral Vadi, or even abroad.
I'm happily immersed in Turkish culture here -- the people, the food, the chai-coffee-raki-fueled dancing that strikes me as a milder bhangra -- yet there's nothing particularly Turkish, or social, for that matter, about my favorite part of Pastoral Vadi: the creek.
After a morning shift in the field, I head through the woods and towards the water with a slight, and altogether strange feeling of earnest apprehension that falls somewhere in between arriving too late to a party and rushing to work.
At this point, power-walking in a manner that suggests overdue bowel movements, I tell myself to calm down, it's only a creek. And when I arrive, panting anyway, to finally see what I'd been listening to all morning, it's really nothing special, just trees, grass, rocks, flowing water.
But how special it is! I think to myself, throwing off my shirt and shoes. Trees, grass, rocks, and flowing water!
When my foot hits the water (always surprisingly cold) and slowly descends onto the slippery stone a foot below, magic happens: I forget about stuff.
I forget about the three hours of morning weeding. I forget how incrediby hospitable, hard-working, and patient (Turkish lessons) the villagers are here in Yaniklar. I forget that I forgot to write my Mom back, and that I should get on that soon (Hi Mom!). I forget about questioning why exactly I've been working on so many farms because, in those moments of questioning, I forget how well we've eaten, what we've learned and who we've met. I forget about wondering what I'll do after this trip. I forget about my interest in finance and my love for a city. I forget the sad, self-inflicted frustration of defending the former and latter to people like
Sinan, who makes a Williamsburg hipster look like a Goldman Sachs I-Banker, and his sidekick, Levant, who, to be polite, is a negligent hypocrite with few brain cells left unlit ("We hate people who judge, man"; "Cities take your soul, man"; "There's definitely no
poverty in India, man, just peace and love. Just go to Goa, man, there's just all peace and love and pyschedelic raves, man"). I forget about the dance-off breaks Larissa and I take while weeding. I forget about brainstorming for the next blog post.
And what I'm left to remember, now lying down in the middle of the creek, propped on my elbows and looking at nothing, are the memories floating past me, drifting downstream from the Vermont mountain creeks where I grew up playing. I see my sister, ever the designer, collecting rocks to stack for her statues. I see my brother, a born pitcher, collecting rocks to knock down her completed works. I see myself, the youngest, with a rock in hand and unsure who to imitate. I see my parents sitting on the bank, arms around their knees, knees to their chests, with books, newspapers, and sandwiches at their side. I feel the cold, clean, rejuvanating mountain creek water. And I'm only stirred by the lunch bell, to which I happily get up to eat with our new Turkish friends.
