The highlight of highlights—during dinner at a home in Antalya, three
little girls, two cousins and a neighbor, disappeared into another room
to make us a gift, a picture that said "You are everyday welcome in our
home," and a cardboard plaque placed in a small black velvet box that
said: "I love you America!" Through them all, Turkey truly touched our
heart.
Ron Messier
This opportunity offers the
chance to gain insights and have experiences that will stay with you
for a lifetime. I highly recommend it!
…
I learned that
Turks have warm smiles and a generous spirit – even when they don’t
speak the same language. In each home, we were welcomed and made to
feel at ease as if we were long-time friends.
Linda Seward
The
best part of the trip was the opportunity to meet so many Turkish
people, to visit them in their homes and learn about their culture.
…
And the food was fabulous! It was the trip of a lifetime, and I will never forget it.
June Hall McCash
Whenever anyone asks me “what did you like best about Turkey?” the answer is instantaneous – “The people.”
The
richest moments I recall were the evenings spent in family homes:
eating, talking, sharing good will and growing affection with people
across a narrowing cultural divide.
Nora Hibbard
FLIGHT TO
ISTANBUL
We chase the night to find
a dawn adorned with minarets
echoing a call to prayer. Archways
of aqueducts straddle streets.
City walls girdle vanished Byzantium,
and the GalataTower
stretches toward the sky.
Cascading through the Hippodrome,
burrowing below
in the Yerebatan Cistern, we find
Medusa,
eyes stretched wide as though to curse
the waters
upside down. Aware of recent bombings
that divide the city where the Bosphorus
separates
continents, we await the evening call
to prayer seeking to unite them once
again.
Eight days of wonder wandering
Anatolia,
we leave behind three-day fires
blazing in Antalya,
dervishes spinning ecstasy in Konya
where a school collapses in our
wake
and fifteen children die beneath the
rubble.
Such things are all too common
in this fraught-with-danger world we
occupy.
But we are given sunrise in Ürgüp,
tufa cones that rise like toadstools
to shade
the mouths of caves and chapels,
even cities carved thousands of years
ago
in the arid hills of Cappadocia.
We take with us gifts—sweet messages
and impish smiles of Cayda and
Nur,
the hospitality of ayran, figs, and
melons
offered beneath the stars while the
imam’s call
to prayer trails through darkness of
the night.
Our bags are stuffed with memories,
pashmina shawls, brass dervishes,
and teacups, our cameras filled with
images
of sunlight bathing ancient Ephesus,
mosques, minarets, and markets,
bumpy boatrides on the Bosphorus,
and moonlight splashed on the bay
of Izmir,
as we listened to the echoes of the
call to prayer.
