Sacrifices

Last week was Kurban Bayramı (Eid al-Adha), the sacrifice festival in the Muslim world.  The festival sounds a bit gruesome, and it did use to be characterized by lots of sheep appearing in people’s gardens in the weeks before the festival to be replaced by a lot of bloody carcasses as the butchers worked their way round on the first morning of the holiday.  Luckily this happens a lot less now; partly maybe because the price of an animal is so high that many people can no longer afford it, but also because there are now designated areas for the slaughter, as well as less hands-on ways of doing it.  You can now, for example, send a text message to the Red Crescent (like the Red Cross), who will deduct the money from your account, have an animal ‘done’ at the abattoir in your name, distribute most of the meat and send you a ‘taster’!

This is the point of the sacrifice – which by the way commemorates Abraham’s readiness to obey God by sacrificing his son İsmail - not to have a big barbecue with your friends, but to give the meat away.  Officially you can consume up to a third of the animal, a third can be given to family and friends but at least a third must be given to those in need.  This year the Red Crescent sent the meat to the earthquake victims in Van.

This festival is also the time that Muslims make the pilgrimage to Mecca.  The ‘duties’ they perform there, which might seem a bit strange if you have heard any of them (throwing stones is one of them) also represent the story of Abraham’s obedience to God.  The stone throwing, for example, recalls how he chased away the devil who was trying to tempt him to disobey.

For us, it is a time to visit family and friends.  Everyone gets dressed up and the kids are given sweets and money.  We always have breakfast with Cem’s mum (after he and the boys have been to the mosque), and visit some of this relatives.  That’s about the extent of our celebration – by the evening we were in the bar at the hotel, having some drinks with some friends!

Murat fishing

 On the second day we went out on the boat for the afternoon.  The weather was lovely.  The holiday lasts for four days, and the kids were off school until the Thursday, but two days was enough for me.  I am not good at sitting around all day drinking tea and gossiping…even after all this time in Turkey!

Emre fishing

The season ends

The summer season is over and the beach front in Çalış is quiet, the sunbeds stacked up and many of the restaurants closed.  Though the last holiday-makers have left Poppy (and the pool is beginning to take on a green tinge) there is still plenty of activity.  Kenny is here for another two weeks, and a few people have moved in for the winter.  We also had a couple of guests at the weekend so I suddenly found myself cooking for 10 and more again.  Cem did the honours on Saturday night, making meat and peas (doesn’t sound good in English but everyone assures me it’s delicious).

The end of the season brings mixed feelings.  Many people are looking forward to having a rest and I have to confess I enjoyed a long lie-in on Tuesday morning.  Some are worried that there is not so much to do in winter; I saw an English guy who lives here the other day and he said he is bored already.  For others, the hard part of winter is the fact that they are not earning any money and have to make what they have earned over the summer last the next 6 months!

Last week Ölüdeniz held its annual air festival.  Thousands of paragliders come to compete in the competition and many more come to give displays of all things aeronautical.  We went down there on Saturday and watched a lot of paragliders, some freefallers (who launched with the paragliders from the mountain then baled out), a display of microlight flying and – the best – a hot air balloon.  I have wanted to go up in one since I was a child watching them fly over our house.  This one was tethered and only went up 15 or 20m but that was a start.  I didn’t realise how close the burner is to the basket – making it pretty hot in there.  I would still like to have a proper flight, preferably in Cappadocia (the region of Turkey with the weird ‘fairy chimneys’) where the conditions are perfect for it and the landscape worth seeing.

Monday was Halloween…there were a few parties going on in the bars frequented by expats.  I remember when Emre was small and I dressed him up and made a pumpkin lantern and everybody thought I was nuts!  Even Kaan is too big to dress up properly now – though he did wear one of his scary masks.  We also made a good jack o’lantern - and delicious pumpkin soup with the bits we scraped out.....