|
|
The WEI office continued to become more crowded and noisier until it became necessary to follow Ken's example and look for an escape. So where did I go? Istanbul, Turkey--a city of 15 million people.
Actually, I had planned all along to spend only six weeks teaching at WEI and then use my last week to visit another country. I didn't decide upon Istanbul until the end of week five. A lot of people from Kosova travel to Turkey for vacation. The high volume keeps the price of travel low.
I purchased a roundtrip ticket and a three-night hotel stay from Bujar. He then used another travel service called On Travel to make the bookings. As I give account of my trip, take notice, gentle reader, of the calamitous treatment I receive from On Travel. First you will shake your head; then you will moan; finally, you will wail and gnash your teeth.
My trip got off to a bad start. Most starts are bad at 4:45 in the morning. Doug had agreed to take me to the airport, which is two hours away, because he needed to pick up two more fresh WEI teachers anyway. I told him my flight was at nine o'clock, but he thought I said seven. Ismajl's brother, Zenel, also needed a ride to Pristina, so Doug told him we would pick him up at his village of Celine at 5:30. When Doug learned that my flight was not until 9:00, it was too late. There are no phones in Celine, so we could not notify Zenel of the new time. Doug did not give me this information until 8:30 the night before.
I woke up with a sick headache. In hindsight, my choice of two green plums for breakfast was a bad one. The drive from Prizren to Pristina makes I-40 through Arkansas seem like a float on a soap bubble. Huge potholes serve as reminders of the Serbian tanks that came to town during the war. (Supposedly, all the KFOR tanks I see are nice, gentle tanks that have not contributed to the potholes. I guess they are made of cardboard and goose down.) If they were any deeper, we would have lost our side mirrors. Oftentimes, weaving around the potholes results in driving in the left lane into on-coming traffic. How close Doug is willing to get to the on-coming car seems to be in proportion to the depth of the pothole of the moment.
We bounced and weaved for an hour and then stopped at an outdoor cafe. I watched Doug drink Turkish coffee and I swallowed big gulps of Zenel's cigarette smoke as I tried to meditate upon anything other than green plums, Turkish coffee, and cigarette smoke.
I was dropped off at the airport, which was pretty much deserted. It was an hour before I got in line to check in. The flight was uneventful. However, I was a bit startled when people started lighting up cigarettes. Also, there was much applause from the passengers when we landed. It concerned me that landing the plane without incident was treated as something difficult or out of the ordinary.
I was met at the airport in Istanbul by a representative from On Travel. A shuttle bus drove me and a dozen other people to a travel center in Istanbul. We were all asked to get off the bus. Some of the passengers were escorted to an office while the rest of us had to wait outside on a sidewalk for about 15 minutes. We were then told to get back on the bus. We were driven to the opposite side of the travel center and asked once again to get off the bus. I stood in a parking lot for another 15 minutes. One of the people with On Travel told me that a taxi would take me the rest of the way, but then I was told to get back on the bus. I was then taken to my hotel. I thought this was a poor way to transport people from the airport to their hotels.
Once we arrived at the Hotel Mosaic, one of the On Travel people escorted me inside. I don't remember his name. He had dark hair, was in his late 20's, and spoke a small amount of English. I asked if the shuttle would return on Thursday morning to take me to the airport. He said it would. He also gave me a telephone number for On Travel and told me I should call it if I had any problems or questions.
After a 30-minute nap that countered the 4:45 wake-up, the green plums, the wait in the parking lot, and everything else, I went for a walk. First, I went to Istanbul University. A street vendor pounced on me right away and sold me a city map, a set of post cards, and a tourist book all for $12. I went inside the mosque at the University. It was built 150 years ago, which makes it new. It would be the first of many mosques I would visit. I was surprised that tourists were welcome at all mosques and there were no entrance fees. There would always be a man at the entrance to make sure visitors were dressed appropriately. Neither men nor women are permitted to wear shorts. I anticipated this, so I always wore slacks. Other American men looked pretty silly wearing around their waists the colored scarves they were given at the door. Women also have to use the scarves to cover their heads and any bare shoulders. The women tourists were not restricted where they could go, even though female worshippers must stay in segregated areas in the rear and sides of the mosque. Everyone must remove their shoes and leave them at the door or carry them inside. (For all of you OCUSA graduates, yes, Eskimo Joe's T-shirts are allowed.)
All the mosques looked pretty much the same. There is a very high domed ceiling. The walls are covered with attractive colored ceramic tiles. Hung close to the ground are circular chandeliers that are very large, but simple, with hundreds of lamp stands that have been replaced with light bulbs. Scattered about are Muslims going up and down in prayer. They don't seem to be bothered by all the tourists milling around and staring at them like they are some sort of animatronic display. Many of them are holding plastic prayer beads that look very similar to rosaries. I thought this gave them a bit of religious mystique until I realized that you could buy the beads for $7 from vendors on the street, the hotel gift shop, the souvenir stand at the airport, etc.
Next, I went to the Suleymaniye Mosque. It was more impressive. It was built 1550-57 by the architect Sinan. Based on the number of times I saw his name in the guidebook, he must be the Frank Lloyd Wright of mosques.
I returned to the hotel and tried to call Dr. Sumer. One of the WEI coordinators had asked me to do so. Dr. Sumer had been taking the WEI course by e-mail and had informed his teacher that he was ready to be baptized. Dr. Sumer has been delaying his baptism until he can be baptized by someone he can have a continuing relationship with. He has the mistaken notion that the identity of the person doing the baptizing should have some special significance. I tried calling him several times while I was in Istanbul, but unfortunately, there was never any answer.
I went walking again. I went past the Mosque of the Prince and then walked the length of the Aqueduct of Valens. I then went to the Faith Mosque, built 1463-1470 during the reign of Sultan Mehmet II.
The next morning, I walked south until I reached the coastline of the Sea of Marmara and then followed it east. I came upon the remnants of the sea walls built during the Byzantine Empire by Constantine the Great in the 4th century and Theodosius II during the 5th century. They were once used to protect the city. Now they are used as urinals by Turkish bums.
I hopped on a train that continued to follow the sea wall east, then north, and back west where the Golden Horn and the Bosphorous meet. Across the street from the train station, I started to buy a ticket for passage on a large boat that was going up the Bosphorus. The ticket would have cost 1.5 million Lira, which is about $2. (Turkey has a bit of an inflation problem.) A Turkish sea captain stopped me and convince me that his boat would provide superior service. It was much smaller, less crowded, prettier, and best of all, it would hug the coastline rather than go up the middle of the channel like the big boat.
The captain also tried to talk me into moving to Istanbul and teaching English for a friend of his. He later gave me his business card. It is a simple white card with the name, "Tunay Akca" in the center and "Captan" in the upper left-hand corner. Captain Tunay told me passage would be 8 million Lira, but charged me only 5 once I got on board. There was a family of Americans on board, but Captain Tunay told me not to talk to them because he charged them $30. I don't know whether they paid extra to avoid unwelcome chatter from other tourists, or if the captain simply didn't want them to find out from me that he was gouging them. I didn't know whether my loyalty should be to the good captain or to my American compatriots. They were Yankees, so I remained silent.
We slowly went along the European coastline of the Bosphorus for an hour. Along the way, we passed several mosques and two different palaces. We went under the Bosphorus Bridge and past an ancient castle that appeared just as it did over a 1000 years ago -- that is except for the 30' banner proclaiming Nextel as the castle's corporate sponsor.
We docked where the shore was dotted with neat little seaside restaurants. Sitting outside, I watched the ships glide up and down the turquoise water as I ate a cod filet. We were docked for an hour and then we headed back, this time along the Asian coastline. We went past Beylerbey Palace and then the Maiden's Tower. (Exactly one week later, I would see the same tower in The World is Not Enough, the James Bond film shown on the plane.) When we returned to where we started, we continued a ways up the Golden Horn and then docked.
Next, I walked to Yeni Camii (mosque). It was built 1597-1663. I then went to the Spice Bazaar directly behind the mosque and then went to the Grand Bazaar, which is a huge covered shopping area that has existed for hundreds of years. It is mostly carpet and jewelry stores. The shop owners are very aggressive and they can smell an American. I quickly learned not to make eye contact and not look at any item for more than 2 seconds. When all else failed, I pretend like I don't understand English.
The next morning, I went to the Blue Mosque, which is the mosque most visited by tourists. Next, I went to Hagia Sophia, which was a church cathedral built by Constantine. I was surprised to see that it had a large domed roof like a mosque. Before I saw it, I had assumed that the domed roof and minarets were uniquely Muslim. Of course, when Constantinople was captured by the Muslims, they quickly converted Hagia Sophia into a mosque and the Christian mosaics were covered over. Later, they were uncovered, but large discs containing the names of "Prophet" Mohammed and the early caliphs written in Arabic calligraphy still hang from the ceiling. It was while I was looking at those discs that it really struck me that I was in enemy territory.
Next, I toured the Underground Cistern used to store water for when the city was under siege. I then toured Tapkapi Palace, which is where the Turkish sultans lived. There, I saw "Prophet" Mohammed's sword, footprint, and beard whiskers. I also saw what the museum claims is the arm bone of John the Baptist.
My description of Istanbul would not be complete without making mention of the profusion of Turkish carpet salesmen. I saw more carpet salesmen walking the sidewalks than I saw policemen. They would hang out near the main tourist attractions watching for foreigners -- especially Americans. They all follow the same script: "Hello. Where are you from? I love America. What part of America are you from? How do you like Istanbul? Let's go somewhere for tea so we can talk. I just happen to have a carpet store just two blocks from here." But if you don't mind the sales pitch, a carpet store is actually a good place to go for a brief rest. They are usually air-conditioned, with comfortable chairs, and you can get a free drink. I allowed three different salesmen to take me to their stores. After giving me something to drink, they would give me a lecture on carpet making and show me all the different types of carpets. I would then tell them I have no money, no job, and no home in which to put a carpet. They would then stop smiling and let me go. As I was leaving, one of them was rubbing his head and making moaning sounds.
My return flight was scheduled for Thursday. On Wednesday, I tried calling On Travel to ask them what time the shuttle would arrive, but no one spoke English. The man with On Travel knew that I spoke English, so I don't know why he would tell me to call a number that would be answered by someone who be unable to communicate with me.
On Travel has a bulletin board in the lobby of the hotel. I checked it, but it contained no information about the arrival time of my shuttle. I asked the hotel for help and they agreed to contact On Travel. Later, they told me that On Travel would send a shuttle at 4:30 in the morning. I thought that was unreasonably early for a 7:45 flight; nonetheless, I had little choice.
The next morning, I was in the lobby at 4:25. There was no shuttle. The hotel told me that I was to take a taxi and either On Travel or the hotel would pay for it. That was fine with me, but I never understood why I needed to leave at 4:30 if I was taking a taxi. It took us only 15 minutes to drive to the airport because there was no traffic and the driver showed no desire to live another day. Of course, when I arrived, the airline ticket counter was not open. I sat down and waited until 6:29. I then got in line at the ticket counter. I happened to pick the slowest moving line. I did not reach the front of the line until 7:20. The lady behind the counter then told me that the plane was full. I told her that I already had a ticket, but she said there was nothing she could do. She offered neither an explanation nor an apology.
I then spotted two people from On Travel at the end of the counter. They were trying to help several other people who failed to get on the flight to Pristina. One of the On Travel people was the man described above. The other one was a thin girl with long blonde hair. She was beautiful, but had a sinister la femme nikita look about her. I believe her name was Pinar. They told me they could either put me on a Monday flight to Pristina or put me on a 5:40 flight to Skopje. I chose the later. They told me that the On Travel office was not open yet, so I should meet them at the information counter in exactly one hour. Pinar also wrote down her cellular telephone number and told me to call her if I had any problems.
One hour later, I was at the information counter. It was another 15 minutes before Pinar and the man from On Travel arrived. They took down my passport information and the man said that he would obtain a ticket for the flight to Skopje and that I should meet him in exactly two hours at the airport café. It was 9:15 when he told me this. At 11:15, I was at the café, but he did not show up. I waited there for another hour, but he still did not appear. Over the next several hours, I tried calling Pinar's cell number at least five times, but she never answered.
A little bit after 4:00, the airline counter opened. I waited there for 20 minutes to see if someone from On Travel would arrive with my ticket. I then asked the airline personnel if a ticket had been purchased for Rick Tucker. When they said no, I decided I had no choice but to purchase a ticket with my own money. About twenty minutes later, a young teenage kid who had worked for On Travel for less than a week found me. He said that he had a ticket for me. No one had told him to meet me at the café, so he had simply paged me. I believe him, however, when my name was called, it must have been said with such a strong Turkish accent that I did not recognize it. I never heard my name.
We went back to the airline and explained the situation, but they refused to refund the money for either of the tickets. The kid tried calling On Travel to ask what to do, but could not find anybody. It was time for me to board the plane, so I told him that I expected him to refund the money for the ticket I purchased by sending the money to Bujaria Tours in Prizren. I then boarded the plane. The kid was so scared that he was trembling. He said, "What I do? Now I cry." I would have felt sorry for him, but it seemed to me that my circumstances were much worse than his.
The plane landed in Skopje after the last bus to Kosova had already left. Consequently, I had to take a taxi to the Macedonian border. The fare was $30. The taxi driver assured me that there would be a UN shuttle at the border that would be happy to take me the rest of the way to Prizren. I was suspicious of that. I didn't think the UN was in the business of shuttling people around Kosova. (It would be good if they were--then all those KFOR vehicles I see could be useful for something.) I asked the girl working the information booth at the airport, and she confirmed that there would be a shuttle. I then asked the taxi driver if he would drive me back if we get there and there is not shuttle. Of course. Certainly.
It was a nice drive through the Macedonian mountains. I was surprised to see just as many KFOR troops as I see in Kosova. We passed a Serbian Orthodox building that was about the size of a photomat. There was a KFOR tank guarding it. The driver, who was Catholic, kept saying "Bill Clinton" and kissing his finger tips. When we got to the border, he told me to get out and walk across and that I would find the UN shuttles on the other side of the border. He was Macedonian, so he could go no further. I stepped out of the car and he disappeared in a cloud of dust.
I walked across the border on foot. I had to go through two passport checkpoints. At this point, no one on earth had any idea where I was. I had to pause for a moment and wonder just how I got there. Of course, there was UN shuttle. I just kept walking, with the hope that I would receive a revelation as to what to do. There was an older man in a suit who walked across the border just ahead of me. He seemed pretty confident, so I decided to follow him. After walking about 300 yards into Kosova, he stopped, looked around with a confused look on his face, and then looked at me as if he were waiting to see what I would do. At that point, I lost all faith in his silent leadership.
We were both besieged by taxi drivers. There must have been 30 taxis lined up at the border. This seemed very odd, since I didn't see anyone else stumbling across the border with a dumb On-Travel-victim look on their face. A clump of drivers followed me for another 200 yards, continuously saying "taxi, taxi, taxi, taxi, taxi, taxi . . . " I think one of them might have also mentioned a carpet store. After making a call to Bujar at a restaurant, I finally gave in and agreed to pay the most persistent taxi driver $60 to drive me another two hours to Prizren. The fare was $60. I arrived at my apartment at 10:30.
It was not a pleasant trip. However, Doug told me about another WEI worker who made the same trip from Macedonia, but by a different route. Some masked Serbian gunmen stopped her car and removed her and her companion. They demanded all their money. When they said they didn't have any, they were blindfolded and taken to their village where they kept them for several hours while they decided what to do with them. They eventually let them go. Keep in mind that this occurred after the war. The WEI worker left Kosova soon thereafter and refuses to return. After hearing that story, I had a little bit different perspective as to how bad my own experience was.
On Friday, I returned to a completely different WEI. There were three new teachers I hadn't met. As a result of the television commercial, 150 new students had registered. In fact, they had stopped registering new students because even with the additional teachers, there were more students than WEI could handle. A second office was being prepared for classes on Monday. Every morning new began with a strategy meeting with all the teachers. The meetings were being led by a retired Intel engineer who was tracking all teachers and all students on a colored spreadsheet that looked more complex than the design plan for the Pentium IV. Remembering when it was just me and Ken, it seemed like another era. I taught three students as my last lap around the bases and thus my WEI teaching career came to a close.
As part of our relief work, Doug has been supplying food each month to the village of Jeshkove, which as a population of 512. Doug is also paying to rebuild their schoolhouse that was destroyed by the Serbian Army. To think us, the village chief invited all the WEI teachers to Jeshkove for lunch. We had to rent a van to get everyone out there. Lunch began with bowls of beef and cheese being placed on the table. The beef resembled teriyaki, but more salty. The cheese was made in the village. They were both very good. In traditional Albanian style, we were given silverware, but no plates. Everyone eats out of common bowls. No one in the village spoke English and we weren't given a menu, so I assumed the bowls of meat and cheese were all that we were getting. After gouging myself on the beef, the second course of what would be an 8-course meal was brought out. By the time I left, I could barely bend over to put my shoes on my fattened feet.
One of the courses struck me as odd. We were each given a package of pretzels and two hard-boiled eggs taken directly from the pot. I looked around to see if anyone else was confused by this, but everyone was cracking away with their heads down as if it was the most normal thing in the world. I didn't know whether to eat the pretzels and eggs separately, of stick the pretzel sticks in the eggs like a game of Cootie. I decided to eat one egg and left the pretzels.
On our way out of the village, we stopped by the gravesite for eight villagers killed by the Serbs. They were buried near the remains of the old school house riddled with bullets.
Before leaving for the airport to return to America on July 24, I was told by Bujar that he had talked to his friend, Mr. Bardy, who operates On Travel in Pristina, about my On Travel experience and that he wanted to meet me at the airport so that he can apologize, reimburse me for my expenses, and give me something extra to try to make up for what happened. We're finally getting somewhere, I thought.
Mr. Bardy found me at the airport. He was all smiles. In a gracious manner, he invited me to the airport lounge for a drink so that we could talk about what had happened. But once we sat down, he became argumentative. He contended that I should have taken the second ticket to Skopje so that I could prove that the ticket that I used was the one that I bought and not the one that On Travel had purchased. Our argument over this became loud enough to attract the attention of the other people in the lounge. Mr. Bardy finally said, "You are wrong and you know that you are wrong." This didn't seem like a very good apology to me. In the end, he reimbursed me for most of my expenses, but with a lot of grumbling. I never saw that "something extra," nor the drink, for that matter. Anyone interested in reading the full story of my encounter with Mr. Bardy, let me know. I'll be happy to e-mail you a lengthy account that I wrote for Bujar. Pass it around to all your friends and tell them about On Travel.
We argued for so long that I almost missed my flight. They held the plane just for me. As I approached the steps, the captain personally stepped out of the cockpit and yelled at me. He was so upset that he couldn't speak English. I can only assume that he was saying, "You are wrong and you know that you are wrong!"
The first part of my flight home took me to Vienna, Austria. There were no flights leaving Vienna for America on the same day as the flight out of Pristina, so I spent a night in Vienna and had dinner and breakfast, all complements of the airline. I also had time to take a bus into the city and walk around. Without a doubt, Vienna is the most beautiful city I've ever visited. The streets were spotless; there was no trash in the river; and all the cars looked like they had been washed earlier that morning. There were no Yugos to be seen in Vienna. Even the taxis were new Mercedes. The city parks were stunning. They looked like each blade of grass is individually trimmed and polished daily. They make the city parks in America look like piles of burning tires. I guess there are some benefits in surrendering most of your income to the government in the form of taxes.
Of course, there were ornate historical buildings on almost every block. I didn't know anything about them since I didn't have a guidebook, but I would think, "That one looks pretty old. It must be important," and I'd snap a picture. I went by the home of Mozart, but was not able to go inside. I visited several cathedrals and went by the palace. It was the best layover I've ever had.
Over the weekend, there had been an ironman competition in Austria. The flight from Vienna to Washington D.C. was full of ironmen competitors. Because I'm young and thin, people were asking me if I had competed. The guy sitting next to me was one of the finishers. He pointed out Mark Allan sitting a couple of rows behind us. He is a six-time world champion. Sitting in the front row of our section, was a man in a wheelchair who also competed in the race. He said that he will compete in 7 races around the world this year. (But I bet he still nabs a handicap parking space when he gets the chance.) The guy in front of me was a producer for ESPN who covered the race. Most of these guys were on their way to another ironman competition in Lake Placid, NY. If the plane were to go down over the ocean and there wasn't room for everyone in the life boats, I think it would be an easy decision as to who gets a seat and who gets to swim.
From D.C. to Dallas to Tulsa, I flew stand-by. Other than having my luggage placed on a flight to Denver for no apparent reason, things went okay. I got into Bartlesville at 11:30 PM. According to my watch, it was 7:30 AM. I slept well that night. It was the most enjoyable two months of my life. It was much better than two months of staring at the brown walls of a Dillard's cubicle. I would encourage anyone else who has the time to go to Kosova to volunteer as WEI teachers. There are plenty of students. This time, I've actually seen and touched them myself. They are really there. Now go.