Monday, 24 September
The next morning, safe in the knowledge that my two key indicators were on track, I hopped on the bus and went back to Çardak. I checked into the hotel I had stayed at a few days before and worked on emails and blog posts for the day. I waited until after dark for dinner, when I could sneak out to another market to buy a simple dinner of bread and yogurt.
The next morning I walked out onto the square, took good-bye photos with my Çardak buddies, and hopped on the bus back to Dinar to resume my walk.
Tuesday, 25 September
In the late afternoon, I arrived at my destination for the day, a village called Kaplanlı with a population about 250. Kaplanlı was one kilometer off the main road, and I had to walk down a narrow gravel road to get there.
A few farmers passed by me as they walked toward the main road. I thought they might be walking to the nearest town to pick up supplies for dinner, as there probably was no bakkal, a small convenience store, in Kaplanlı due to its size. I waved hello to the two, half expecting them to stop me and ask what I was doing here, but they just waved back and continued walking as though foreigners carrying backpacks walked into their village every day. I continued walking too, the rest of the 500 meters into town.
As I walked into the village I could peer into people’s backyards and see old crumbled storage sheds and mangy guard dogs, and sometimes, a single sheep tied on a rope to a pole. I was stunned by the poverty I saw. Also, I was right about the village having no bakkal. However, I had eaten a large breakfast earlier and wasn’t hungry, so it didn’t matter.
As had become my standard procedure when entering a village, I found the mosque and sat outside on a bench waiting for some worshippers to exit.
I noticed a shady area off to the side of the mosque and stood to take a closer look. The ground was covered by a thick blanket of pine needles — a great place to pitch a tent. And since it was a mosque there would be bathrooms and a place to wash up. It had all the luxuries I would need.
A few worshippers came out of the mosque, and I introduced myself to them and asked if it was okay if I camped there in the garden. It turned out that one of the worshippers was the groundskeeper for the mosque. “Of course, it’s fine for you to camp here,” he said, as he introduced himself and a few of the other men.
I set up my camp at about 8:30, but since it was a little too early to go to sleep, I sat and rested on the wooden bench near the front door of the mosque rather than on the pine needles outside my tent. I chose the publicly-visible area because I didn’t want to spook anyone by being a stranger who walks into their village from off the highway and then disappears into the darkness.
While I sat on the bench, a man from the village brought me a huge round tray filled with cheeses, olives, soup, meat, and plenty of bread, and set it on the bench beside me. I started to thank him, but he scurried away before I could get a full sentence out of my mouth. I looked down at the tray. It contained so much food I wondered if I could eat even half of it.
I ate as much as I could, and then stood up to help digest the meal, looking down at the remains and wondering, Hmm! What do I do with the rest of this food? I couldn’t just leave it in the tray because I didn’t want the villagers to think I wasn’t satisfied with the meal they brought me. I decided to stuff it into some plastic bags I had been acquiring along the way and carry them out of the village. However, as I started stuffing the food into my pack, I realized it might attract mice during the night, so I prayed to God for forgiveness and surreptitiously flushed the food down the mosque toilets.
—
In 2012, Matt sold off or gave away almost everything he owned. He strapped whatever was left to his back, flew to Turkey, and walked across it. Every foot, from one end of the country to the other. Along the way, he slept in mosque gardens, dined with strangers, and stumbled into refugee camps.
This is the story of that journey. We’ll be publishing one chapter each week from his book. If you would like to read the whole thing at once, you can purchase his book titled Heathen Pilgrim: Walk Across Turkey on Amazon.
