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| Courtesy of Britannica |
Today is a public holiday. A secular one and therefore one with a fixed date, but nonetheless one of the unfamiliar ones that seem to catch us unawares. And it’s a borrowed one, sort of.
It’s Türkiye’s Republic Day, the hundred and second anniversary of Kemal Atatürk proclaiming Türkiye to be a republic. Celebrated in Türkiye with parades and concerts. A bit quieter here, though the population is largely ethnically Turkish, but government offices and banks are closed. Supermarkets and restaurants mostly not.
We have reason to be grateful to Atatürk as it is down to him that Turkish has used a slightly adapted Latin alphabet since 1928 replacing a modified Arabic script that had been in place for the previous nine hundred years. It means that despite Turkish not being an Indo-European language and having unfamiliar vocabulary and grammatical structures it’s easy to look up words and - sort of - easy to sound them out.
Our travels have overlapped with Atatürk’s, albeit with a significant time lapse. Think it was 2008 we stayed at the Baron Hotel in Aleppo, Syria. Atatürk stayed there much earlier as an Ottoman officer and is said to have mounted guns on the roof to ward off attacks by the British and Arabs. He apparently occupied Room 201, in the days before there was a presidential suite (and in any case long before he was a president). We stayed in Room 203 - previously occupied by Agatha Christie as she was writing part of Murder on the Orient Express.
Unsure whether Mehmet is actually going to deliver the water today. Has he forgotten that it is a public holiday or does he do his rounds regardless. So J stays at the flat in case he comes and I go down to Laptamar for bread and bananas and grapes and onions. Come back to find a cheerful Mehmet waving as he is about to leave with the empty 19 litre bottle. J locked inside the flat. Full bottle on the landing. Turns out I had left with my key and J had misplaced his. Key necessary to open door from either side. So how did you do it, I ask. Tossed the empty (plastic) bottle from the balcony for Mehmet to catch. Slid hundred lira note under the door. No conversation involved as they have little language in common but can see that Mehmet understands the scenario when he spots me coming up the road.
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