life in Ayvalik: personal perspectives and insights

Ayvalik itself is about as charming a town as they come. Cobblestone streets, horse carts, wonderful architecture in various states of disrepair or renovated; mosques that used to be churches, wonderful views of the Aegean Sea, sunsets to fall in love by, milk men who come around with deliveries on their tractors, young lads who sell squash blossoms to stuff in the summer, and, at least in the old part of the town, there is a sense of neighborhood, a sense of being part of the community. Yes, there are some of the less-than-charming aspects that go along with being provincial. But overall, it is a place where one wants to be. Or at least where I want to be. It is a bit rough around the edges which actually helps keep it from being overdeveloped and over-touristy.

Like many small towns anywhere, the pace of the town is not slow but rather mellow. Efficiency is not the name of the game, social interactions are. Time as a concept is rather an entity to itself in the Aegean region and that certainly holds true here in Ayvalik. I learned early on to ask for a clarification of ‘It’ll be ready/he’ll be back in five minutes.’

‘What does that mean, it’ll be ready in five minutes?’ is responded to with a look of puzzlement.

‘Five minutes later’ could mean just that, it could mean that evening, it could mean the next day, it could mean the following week What it really means is that it will not take too long to complete the task but that it’s most likely not going to happen right now.

Ayvalik was one of the towns that was heavily (read; completely) impacted by the Greek-Turkish exchange. (please see my friend Caroline Foster’s excellent blog, ‘The Camel Barn Library,’ for more on that). It is now a town mixed with descendents of the exchange, other Turks who have moved in from elsewhere, some as brides, some seeking serenity from the fast pace of urban life. There are also migrants from the former Yugoslavia; men and their families who moved here from the southeast in search of safety from the war and work opportunities in construction, and a handful of foreigners who live here full time. There is a fair degree of nationalism in town and no one I know can name another place in the country where the national anthem is played on loudspeakers Friday and Sunday evenings. If you are out and about, no matter your nationality or political affiliation, you stop to pay respect to the republic. There are people say this is where the first bullet was fired in the war of independence and there are streets named thus.

Many of the houses in ‘old Ayvalik’ were built by Greeks and are referred to either as “rum evleri,’ ‘Greek houses,’ or ‘Gavur evleri,’ ‘Houses of the Infidels.’ People who were settled in the exchange were moved into houses that were quickly vacated by those who were being moved to Greece. 80 years later, many are in disrepair as it is rather costly to keep up with the work needed to keep the houses from leaking, never mind looking nice and even charming. Those that have been fixed up tend to be owned by residents of Istanbul and Ankara and foreigners such as myself, people who are looking for a get-away from the hustle and bustle of the big city and the hassles of life that go with all the intellectual and/or professional stimulation that we thrive on there.

It is a mixed feeling to own one of these old houses, to have fixed it up, to enjoy being able to sleep in your own bed in such a quaint corner of the world. There is the positive aspect to it all but there is also the reality that we are contributing to gentrification. It is those with money who fix the places up, help to preserve the heritage of the historical town.

And at the end of the day, there is a certain degree of charm that many of us want to see preserved by others. I am not sure how many people feel the way I do, but I have to catch myself when I am bothered by the fellow who lives down the street from me who parks his car on the street. The street I live on is a narrow cobble-stone road, barely wide enough for a car to get half-way up, too steep and too narrow for a car to get up as far as my house. One of the reasons I bought my house was that no cars could pass by. And yet where else would one park their car but on the street? It’s not the only incident that I catch myself weighing the quaintness of living here against the reality of life, questioning my own selfishness. The same held true for when the first major grocery store opened in town. If I shop at a grocery store in a megalopolis, why can’t the residents of Ayvalik do the same? Just because there is a wonderful street market and wonderful small specialty shops doesn’t mean that they all have to shop there. It is a bit arrogant to want to convince people who live here that life is better if life is quaint. Who the hell am I to tell them this…

And yet I know that with the advent of the grocery store, there will be inevitable change to the town. But again, it’s not fair that I grew up with such access and others not just so that people such as myself can hold on to our – my – own sense of what is quaint and charming. The good ole days were not necessarily that good I have been told.

In Turkey, there is still a fine line, if that, between village or town life and rural living. Though this is a town of more than 35,000 people, there are chickens who live up the road from me and come running down to nibble on whatever they can find, right in front of my house, every morning. Neighbors up the road a bit have several sheep that come down periodically to graze on what the chickens have not already discovered. The two horses in the stable kitty-corner to my house became three last year. Diagonally up the hill, Ahmet Bey who lives on the upper road, keeps his horse Yildiz, ‘Star.’ The respective owners treat them better than many people treat each other. Until three years ago, there was a camel – Hasan Bey– who lived one street over and one street down. Another neighbor one street over and one street up has a dog who howls at all five calls to prayer each day.

Every nation, every people, have their stereotypes, those they acknowledge, those that others acknowledge for them. One that holds true for this nation is that people who live here are suspicious of and not trusting of others.  In first graders’ primers, they learn that a Turk has no friend like a Turk. Sometimes I wonder how I have been able to enter this community to the degree that I have: I am a foreign woman who runs a program that stands to wreck the status quo. Over the years I have lived in this country, I have been accused of being a missionary, a spy, a sympathizer of the Kurdish insurgency.

In many places in this country, to greet a stranger is to open up an existing barrier, to let yourself be vulnerable. You can interact with a man doing business, but for many males here, if they see you on the street, they will look the other way. Having said that, there are many more who will greet me on the street. As one might guess, there are many more women who do so, even those who have never seen nor heard of you.

 The other day I made eye contact with an elderly woman on a street I rarely go down. I asked her how she was.

‘Well, I am doing fine! We are all doing fine, aren’t we?’

The only appropriate response clearly was ‘Yes, I guess we are all doing fine. Enjoy the day!’

Even though I was walking on, she continued. I stopped. ‘If you were able to get out of bed this morning, you are doing fine. You have shoes on your feet! You are doing fine!’

And she is right. I got out of bed this morning; I have shoes on my feet.

Yes, I am doing fine.