Hello Dearest Chıldren of my heart

I had forgotten about this lovely idea over the past few days and lamented the death of our facebook thread only to have one side of my brain remind the other that all, indeed was not lost.

I am at the exact midpoint of my traverse and travails in Turkey. In 10 days I have made my way east along the southern border with Syria. Now I am in Van, a drab modern city built on the outskirts of the once flourishing Urastrian capital destroyed by the genocides - cough i mean the incidents that shall not be named - of WWI. The city appears to idolise the special variety of cat it produces with a horrific white statue of the critter prominently placed in full view of numerous eateries. In brasil we call street meat cat barbeque, here they appear to have taken the slogan to heart.

I have also taken Turkey very much to heart if not also kept it in mind, quite literally. Recent culinary escapades have included tripe kebab (a tad oily but acceptable) tripe soup (delicious) Liver kebab (not a fan) and Sauteed goat brain in a country home. More often however, turkish food is consistently wonderful, cheap and satisfying and I am filling up my mental notebook with thoughts on what to serve for Brunches come senior year.

And come it will, though no time soon. I am very far away, as are all of you, really, from anywhere, and have consequently spent a great deal of time thinking of and about distance. I spent three days in a dusty border town near Syria with a lovely family who took me in as if I was their own. I knew my travel plans were falling swiftly out of date, and I spent as much mental effort as I could muster in the desert sun planning my time left, stretching and pulling it to cover the wholes left by my impromptu rest. But I could not, for the life of me, drag myself away. I did nothing in particular during those balmy days in March. I lounged in the sun in hot velvet drapes, made and drank copious amounts of chai and stood around, content to be photographed by tourists as I made mental notes of how ridiculous city people seem and behave.

The world was very far away from me, and dragged more distant still by conversation with my newfound sisters, who had rarely left their town, let alone the surrounding fields. Why should I leave the shelter of my beautiful home?

One day passed, and then another, quickly followed by an exceedingly long morning, before I finally got on a bus and left. In but a moment I came back to the city I had so adored, enshrowned with the bustle of humanity, crowded from body upon body from every corner of the earth. Questions made and answered, time dwindled on and I was suddenly on yet another rattly bus. An evening, a road, and scores of loud music later, I had crossed vast swaths of this enormous country. In a few hours I had moved further away than those women will, combined, cover in their entire lives.

We live most of our lives in a state of inertia, and require sudden violence to be pushed from it, only to find ourselves, more often than not, in another ever tightening circle of strictly scheduled stability. When we create routine even in the most spontaneous of lives, we must be careful, and be that violence within ourselves.

On the other hand, those days and this have taught me much about the value of tradition, of stability, and of the simple satisfaction that comes with meeting our smallest desires. Perhaps we are too easily made into a nation of the malcontent. Or perhaps we are striving vainly for a productive violence which will simply have no outlet, and would be better made to quiet down.

Why do we travel the world? To allow our lights to burn a little stronger, or to subdue them, and let our youthful flames settle into the ashy dust of maturity, the comfortable life that most of humanity has strived for? I believe it is the longing for home when we are far out on the road that gives us motive and method to return, to continue, and to thrive.

Much love to all my travelling nomads

Carol