Open up a world of Turkish inspiration with a Cornucopia digital subscription

Buy or gift a stand-alone digital subscription and get unlimited access to dozens of back issues for just £18.99 / $18.99 a year.

Please register at www.exacteditions.com/digital/cornucopia with your subscriber account number or contact subscriptions@cornucopia.net

Buy a digital subscription Go to the Digital Edition

Where the Heart is

An Ongoing Affair: Turkey and I
by Heath W Lowry
Çitlembik


I have known Heath Lowry for half his lifetime, but, after reading this coming-of-age memoir, I came to realise there were things about him that I hadn’t known at all, and much I hadn’t known about Turkey either. His memoir explained to me certain quintessentially Heathian characteristics, such as his perfect colloquial Turkish, his rasping smoker’s voice, his almost peasant insight into matters Anatolian, his aversion to kabak tatlısı (pumplin pudding), his addiction to Chinese food, and his enduring love for Turkey that goes much deeper than the shifting sands of politics, truly an ongoing affair.

Heath’s memoir is an account of his two-year stint, from 1964 to 1966, as a Peace Corps volunteer in Turkey, which he spent in the village of Bereketli, near Balıkesir in northwestern Anatolia. The village had a population of 800, all of them waiting to meet Heath on his arrival, all the men shaking his hand and asking his name, which, as he explains, was soon Turkified.

“Before reaching the village, in answer to the query “Isminiz nedir?” (what is your name?), I had replied, “Heath,” several times, only to have my questioners repeat what I said back to me as “Hit” (the th sound being non-existent in Turkish), over and over again. It was as Hit or Hit Bey (Mr Hit), or Hit Ağabey (elder brother Hit), that I would be known for the next two years. In time this version of my name was to be the cause of frequent misunderstanding, due to its proximity to the Turkish word it, meaning female dog. I soon learned that one of the more common forms of insulting someone in Bereketli was to refer to them as an itoğlu (son of a bitch).”

On arriving at Bereketli, Heath was taken to a local coffee house where he was given countless glasses of tea, after each of which someone would hand him a cigarette (it was a tobacco-growing village), thus starting a smoking habit he has yet to break. He was then taken to the village meydan, where he and the muhtar and five other notables ate a whole sheep while the rest of Bereketli looked on. Over the next four months every family in Bereketli took turns in hosting Hita Bey for the evening meal, and dessert which he did not particularly like. He ate it anyway: “I quickly learned that etiquette demanded you consume at least two slabs of pumpkin, and while night after night I managed to do so, I have never eaten kabak tatlısı since leaving Bereketli.”

Heath occasionally managed to escape to Istanbul for a day or two, his main reason for doing so being to eat all his meals at the Çin Lokantası, near Taksim, which at the time was the city’s only Chinese restaurant. As he writes of his first visit, “It was a crazy thing to do, and it had cost me slightly less than a third of one month’s salary, but my craving for Chinese food had been sated by my three meals in less than 24 hours, and, once again, I had managed to remind myself that there was indeed a world beyond the borders of Bereketli.”

Early on in Heath’s stay in Bereketli he eluded the advances of the village beauty, whom he refers to as “the fair Ayfle”, a story he tells in the chapter entitled “Who’s that Playing with My Butt?”. His escape from Ayşe led his friends to think Hit didn’t like girls, and he convinced them of the contrary only when he married his American fiancée, as he relates in the chapter “I Joined the Ranks of Married Men”.

Other than the Çin Lokantası, Bereketli was Heath’s entire world for two years, during which time he planted a grove of trees and acted as the village schoolteacher, doctor, handyman, advisor on things modern and explainer of the Western world, sharing Bereketli’s celebrations, feuds, comedies and tragedies, drawn ever deeper into the microcosm, learning the secrets of village life that no other outsider knew. As the muhtar, Kamil Bey, told him several times: “Hit, don’t forget, you are now one of us. There are things you have seen and heard here in Bereketli that no one else need know about.” Heath recalls this request in the 38th and last chapter, “Leaving Bereketli”, which he concludes with the comment that if in writing his memoir he is “breaking that trust implicit in the Muhtar Kamil’s injunction, I do so in the hope that he and today’s Bereketlians will comprehend my motives. To say that my time in the village was filled with blessedness (bereketli) would be an understatement. I truly came of age in Bereketli.”

This is by far the best book I have ever read about village life in Anatolia – beautifully written and with humour from the heart.

Other Highlights from Cornucopia 43
  • Journey to Divriği I: Sublime Portals

    The Great Mosque and Hospital of Divriği, an imperilled masterpiece of Islamic art in the remote upper Euphrates, is the only single building in Turkey given world heritage status. Cornucopia celebrates this medieval marvel with a 26-page guide to its mad, exuberant architecture through the stunning photographs of Cemal Emden

  • The Elector’s Turkish Treasures

    The city of Dresden is now home to one of the finest displays of Turkish art and armoury


  • Cult Capital of Caria

    Little known and rarely visited, the hauntingly beautiful sanctuary of Zeus at Labraunda – built by the family of the legendary Mausolus high above Milas – was for centuries Aegean Turkey’s most revered shrine. A Swedish team has managed to uncover the ruins without sacrificing the serenity of these sacred hills.


  • Journey to Divriği III: Meet the Ancestors

    Daniel Shaffer explains the value of the Great Mosque of Divriği’s ancient carpets.


  • Journey to Divriği II: Not a Place for Those in a Hurry

    Reassuringly inaccessible, Divriği has always taken time to reach – and its riches time to savour. Patricia Daunt on the historical figures who made the journey

  • Frozen Moments

    Famous for his atmospheric films set in stark landscapes, Nuri Bilge Ceylan is now attracting attention with his photography. Maureen Freely leafs through the pages of a fine limited-edition album of his enigmatic, painterly scenes



  • Riding into History

    In September 2009, six travellers set out on horseback to retrace the early part of the route taken in 1671 by the Ottoman traveller Evliya Çelebi on his way to Mecca.

  • The Elusive Dane

    Spirited impressions of Ottoman Istanbul in the 16th century from a mischievous Danish artist and an acerbic Flemish envoy.


  • Back to Our Roots

    When eaten raw as a salad, turnips are shredded or thinly sliced like radishes. Their distinctive mustardy bite, which cleanses the palate, makes them excellent company for rich meats and fish. Cooking however, transforms the starch in the turnip, giving it a mellow taste.
    More cookery features


Buy the Book
Buy the issue
Issue 43, 2010 Shrines and Sanctuaries
£8.00 / $10.10 / 326.46 TL
Cornucopia Digital Subscription

The Digital Edition

Cornucopia works in partnership with the digital publishing platform Exact Editions to offer individual and institutional subscribers unlimited access to a searchable archive of fascinating back issues and every newly published issue. The digital edition of Cornucopia is available cross-platform on web, iOS and Android and offers a comprehensive search function, allowing the title’s cultural content to be delved into at the touch of a button.

Digital Subscription: £18.99 / $18.99 (1 year)

Subscribe now