Sally Ann Baynard

I do have some moments I remember that are really very special to me that I’ll always remember. A group of experiences that I can share with you all readily is that I had no idea how disabled I have become since the fall I had. May be I wouldn’t have come if I had known how hard it would be to keep up.

But what is very wonderful was that everybody made me feel like this was no big deal. Every time I waivered, every time I felt my knees give away it was always the hand of someone there. Sometime it was Ali bey, sometimes it was Mehmet, sometimes it was Ibrahim, it was Alihan, it was Vedat, and sometimes it was strangers on the street. One day I particularly remember in, oh God, we will get all the memories straight at some point, but it was old, I think it was in Mardin, and it was the first place we went. I just couldn’t go up the stairs, and I just stayed in kind of a little tunnel place, and I was feeling really sorry for myself: You poor thing you don’t get to go and see the old cool building and everything; and just then came some Turkish ladies with children. I had an open envelope of bouncy balls in my pocket. I bounced the balls to the children; and within about thirty seconds these Turkish ladies whom I have never seen; I guess I must have looked long in there to their babies. They had fulled my laps with their babies, and the children trying the arms to hug around my neck and pat at my head, and the ladies were talking to me. I thought actually that I needed and I was the one who got the rich experience there. I guess that is very typical of the Turkish people because there has been nowhere that we haven’t been received with such an excess of warmth and kindness. I have to say I particularly remember the children myself, but it has been truly an extraordinary experience and I have to tell you Ali bey that you talk about your mistakes. You only made one mistake: You tried to give us too much. That excess of generosity is no sin! So again what an extraordinary experience you have given us! I hope that it is actually just the beginning of a relationship that goes beyond the trip now that we have the new understanding of not only of Turkey, but of life in Turkey and Islam in Turkey that we can help to share the impressions that we have received back at home…