The Afghan Queen: A True Story of an American Woman in Afghanistan (22 page)

We were on the road again after a long and badly needed rest. This time we continued along the southern coast of Turkey to Erdem, near the Syrian border. The days continued sunny with golden sunlight warming us.

Dharma said everyone looked to me for comfort and sustenance. Satya called me Earth Mother but I asked her to please drop it. “It’s embarrassing and patronizing,” I insisted. “Please call me Lela.”

The Earth Mother designation was the result of the dinner I cooked last night based on the random supplies we’d been able to purchase along the road. These included eggplant, tomatoes, onions, and green beans. Each time I cooked these, the meal came out differently. We had ample supplies of yogurt, garlic, herbs, lemon and spices, and these made the crucial difference.

It was a beautiful Sunday and I had successfully passed through the danger zone. I thought of it in this way as it was the same small Turkish town where I had fallen for a dark eyed Turk six months earlier. When our bus rolled into town, I got excited and felt a thrill as we passed the little restaurant where I first met him.

The restaurant overlooked the Mediterranean. From where we had sat, six months earlier, I could see the ferry to Cyprus. We parked at the outdoor tables for an hour, talking to waiters and staff who might remember us. I tried, as subtly as I could, to find where my Turk was, but no luck or good luck, depending on one’s viewpoint. An old waiter thought he had gone out with a petroleum survey team from the university.

It was better this way. As it was, I had a full plate with no room for another ‘friend’ in my life. My memories of this place and of my beautiful Turk brought me to a fevered pitch. But after an hour of siting around, I knew I wouldn’t see him. While I was excited, I was also relieved. My life was complicated enough.

I thought about the play by Berthold Brecht,
The Caucasian Chalk Circle.
It’s the story of two women fighting over a child. In the Biblical story, the women appeal to Solomon for judgment. Brecht’s drama takes place in the Caucuses and is modeled on an old Chinese tale. A chalk circle is drawn. The child is placed in the middle. The women are on opposite sides outside the circle but they can reach the child.

The judge tells them that whoever pulls the child outside the circle will be declared the fit and proper mother. Both women grab an arm and begin a fierce tug-of-war, with the child as the rope. The contest is painful for the child, and she begins to cry. At this point, one of the women releases her hold on the child, much to the satisfaction of the other woman, who pulls the child out of the circle.

The judge asks the woman why she released her hold on the child. The woman replies that rather than harm the child, she preferred to let go. The judge then declares the woman who released the child as the fit and proper mother. “The woman who cares the most will not allow a child to come to harm,” declares the judge.

The moral of the story is that sometimes the kindest thing to do is to let go. This is what I did with my beautiful Turk. I unloaded him from my emotional burden.

TURK STORY:

He was a geology professor at the local university, on vacation when we first met. We had all been scrounging around an old rock outcropping near the ferry landing where there were some old stone ruins.

Ruins near the site of Troy, Turkey

The site was not well known except for a few archaeologists and geologists. We had discovered it during out first trip. One of our vehicles broke down along a lovely deserted cliff-side back road. The day was sunny and mild, so we were in no hurry to move on.

Usually anything more than a flat would eat up most of a day. That breakdown involved a clogged fuel line, and, considering the filthy fuel stations we had to rely on, it was a wonder that it was the only time we had to clean the fuel line.

On a Mercedes bus it was a long tedious job to dismantle the diesel engine to the point where the fuel line and filter could be reamed clean or replaced. The large storage area under the bus had a separate tools and parts section that was well stocked.

We worked as teams of two, spending about two hours dismantling to gain fuel line access. Dharma had a detailed repair ring binder keyed to the various parts and problems. Each step was numbered with accompanying illustration, simplifying most repairs.

Once the fuel line was cleaned, the second team back tracked using the manual to reassemble the fuel line. Versant and I walked away as soon as the second team with Dharma began the reassembly. Dharma was easily frustrated, and I was determined that we were not going to be called back after working on the engine for two hours.

A half mile from the caravan, along a little-used dirt road, we discovered an easy rising rocky slope that trailed away from the road toward the sea. The dense brush hid the path to the sea. We found a path in the shoulder-high brush that led to a large stony beach bordering the Aegean Sea.

Site of Ancient Troy on the Aegean Sea
*

Walking beyond the brush, we noticed piles of stone and debris as far as we could see along the shore. The caravan and the archaeological site of Troy were off the E-87 Road in eastern Turkey. As we approached, the Aegean Sea was visible. In front of us, some of the area of grass-covered earth was cleared and marked off in neat cordoned squares.

Working the digs was a group of a dozen people. One of the diggers approached us. He was in charge of the digs. He showed us around, explaining that this site was but a small portion of the Trojan seaport. Troy encompasses many square miles along the western shore. They were not sure exactly how extensive was the original site of Troy.

As the digs manager showed us the site, he noted that there was little to see. The site had only recently been funded, and dig plans were in the first phase of mapping the site, as we could see. He offered us some coffee and conversation. His tone of voice was friendly but serious.

“We’re trying desperately not to publicize these digs. The last thing we need are troops of people stomping through this site. If the public comes streaming in before we get funds to secure this site, then much will be lost. We will probably put up radiation danger signs in the meantime.”

He explained slowly with great care and emotion that this site might be older than Troy. It was possibly older than Hacilar or Çatal Hüyük in Central Anatolia. This might be a settlement over 10,000 years old, he explained. “That’s why I’m begging you to say nothing about this to anyone.”

The site archaeologist, I’ll call him Jim, was extremely attractive. Jim spoke with us in a sincere and charming manner about the difficulty getting funded, the hassle with local officials and payment for an antiquities observer to be on the site during the digs. All these preparations had stressed him greatly.

As Jim spoke, we campers nodded compliantly like school girls called before the principal. I assured Jim that we would comply with his request, but we wanted to know more about these digs. He would be working with his students the remainder of the afternoon but would be delighted to join us for supper at six by the ferry dock café. We agreed, delighted with our secret and returned to the campsite.

We were only gone a short time but Dharma was already cursing. Before we left the bus, the fuel line was carefully reamed out with a long wire brush and rinsed with kerosene. It was amazing the amount of crap we removed from the fuel line and filters. We saved it in a bucket to show Dharma. She thought all the dirt was in the diesel fuel we bought.

The four of us had the diesel engine reassembled by three in the afternoon. This was the most difficult repair job so far. I’d been involved in all the bus repairs except for the rear assembly. While Versant loved to tinker with machinery, Dharma and I did not. Beautiful Versant now looked like the Venus of the grease pits.

Before she cleaned herself, I insisted on a few photos. After the four of us showered the grease off we drove the bus into town and settled in at a grander campgrounds near the ferry landing and the café where Jim would meet us. We let the other caravan people know where to join us.

I explored a number of shops near the ferry and café. Many were junky tourist shops pushing the Trojan horse theme to a sickening extent. A few boutiques were designed for tourists. The most exotic items were made in American Samoa. What a disappointment, I thought. I should stick to the bazaars from now on and not waste time in tourist traps.

It was almost six. As the repair crew strolled over to the café, I could see Jim heading in the same direction. Over supper Jim explained that we had walked into a promising but untested site. I asked what led his team to this site. He said they had spent three years at a site a mile north. The most interesting artifact was a stone road leading to this new site.

Jim mentioned that a few of the stone ruins had been excavated with nothing of great significance revealed to date. Apparently, they were working at the edge of a large public market. A few stone buildings were found with carvings of bull horns.

The structures were simple, clean-lined boxes, or perhaps market stalls. The few artifacts found consisted mostly of crude bull horns and female figures in stone relief. Jim thought the stone reliefs appeared intentionally crude or abstract as they might have been displayed on market signs.

A few female figures showed pregnant abdomens, without head or limbs. Perhaps these were fertility symbols advertising fertility charms. Jim noted, “Where some of my associates saw bull horns ending in a narrow bull mouth at the bottom of a “Y,” I saw the uterine horns ending in a vagina, but that’s just me. We often see what we want to see.”

Versant mentioned that we had visited the museum site of Çatal Hüyük, on a previous trip. Jim said, “Please do not compare this site with Çatal Hüyük. This site may be a little earlier since coastal areas are usually settled first. Carbon dating of fish bones at about 20,000 years means little. Coast-lines change repeatedly, and this area may have been under water or further inland many times.

The fish may have died a natural death. There’s no indication that people were involved. So there you have it; hardly worth talking about. But we record everything we find. We may add speculative notes but do not guess. In context with other finds, a picture may emerge.

“A university specialist thinks it may be a sturgeon bone. While sturgeon have been around for millions of years and are extremely old, they are bottom feeders and quite hardy. Even now, sturgeon is fished in and around the Bosporus. They even do well in pollution. Sturgeon has a distinctively prehistoric archaic look.

“A single sturgeon bone tells us little, except that the fish have been in this region a long time, and we already knew this.”