Fatih Istanbul, 1984

At this time of year 22 years ago, I was a month into my backpacking tour of Europe with my friend Heather. It was a trip of a lifetime, intially plotted out in late night conversations during our first year of university. In fact, a dream trip to Europe was a foundational theme of our then newfound friendship. From the moment we met during orientation week, Heather and I talked of travel and seeing the big expansive world beyond our dorm rooms. Throughout the next 4 years, despite moving into different living quarters and floating away from one another due to love interests etc, Heather and I kept the dream alive. Fate intervened four years later in 1984, when we found ourselves boarding a plane, heading to Amsterdam, and pinching one another to ensure it was real. Indeed it was and the memories continue to warm my heart.

I filled a journal that captured my thoughts and observations about our life changing and affirming encounters and experiences ................most of which culminated into some life lessons that I still continue to believe:

• We learned that we didn't know a whole heck of a lot, and that there was a lifetime of learning to be had, a wide range of people to be met, and whole lot of living to be done outside of academia.
• We learned that we were blessed to be from a wonderful country which we grew more proud of, that we had families and friends that were 100% percent behind us and who loved us unconditionally.
• We learned to go with the flow. If you have a destination in mind that is set in stone, then you will miss out on many fateful moments with very interesting people.
• We learned that you can trust the kindness and generosity of people. Even if you can't speak their language, you can still communicate.
• We learned that sometimes, there's no place like home and it's alright to miss your backyard every now and then.
• And we learned that fate and destiny can be magically surprising.

Whenever the Winter Olympics rolls around, I start reminiscing about my trip with Heather because it was the year the Olympics were held in Sarajevo and we continually met other backpackers that had made a detour to Yugoslavia to take in some of the festivities. But the most predominant reason is because of a synchronistic moment in Istanbul; one that made me feel that I was an integral part of a global village and that maybe my backyard wasn't so far away despite the foreigness of our situation. Let me backtrack and explain..............

Heather and I had met up with this very funny outgoing American individual named Laura who was travelling on her own. We hooked up along with a couple of Aussies, another Canuck and another Yank and had spent a glorious week on the island of Crete in a cabin we rented, introducing each other to our individual country's drinking games, among other things. We had a blast. During one night of revellry, Laura posed that when we left, we head north and cross the border to Turkey. "Sure!" we said, though in the back of my ouzo soaked mind a little voice was reminding me that my family specifically stated that they didn't want me to consider going to Turkey after being totally freaked over the movie "Midnight Express." Oh well........what they didn't know wouldn't hurt them.............

After a long hitch-hike from Athens to Alexandria in northern Greece, we walked across the border (another head spinning story for another time) and found ourselves a taxi which took us to a bus depot in the nearest Turkish town. Our plan was to take a bus into Istanbul, and head to the student quarter area and find a cheap hostel to lay our heads. Armed with the Let's Go Europe guide, and naive confidence, we arrived at the bus depot and were promptly surrounded by a cacophony of crazed men trying to lure us to their particular bus companies. Turned out, they live on the commisions from new passengers. Little did we know, while we were fighting for our rucksacks, and trying to determine which bus left next, a woman and her daughter were sitting on a bus watching our reactions to these men and their antics, and must've decided that if we ended up on their bus, they would look after us from then on.

As fate would have it, we did. Within moments of settling, the daughter who was learning English in school, sat beside Laura who initially thought the daughter wanted to practise speaking English, which really only consisted of knowing how to say the alphabet. However, through gestures and many verbal attempts, it was evident to us that she was trying to invite us home with them.

Can you imagine? 3 perfect strangers, who don't speak your mother tongue, impulsively inviting them home with you? Would you do it?

I looked over at the mother, who was smiling and looking at us with a note of excited anticipation on her face while we pondered what to do. She had the most welcoming smile, and the most trusting angelic eyes......I knew instantly that we needed to risk it and accept their invitation. A leap of intuitive faith, an openness to go with the flow and a lesson in being receptive to the genuine generosity of others led us to a life affirming 4 days with Sabahat and her daughter Sengul.

The rest of the bus trip was filled with attempts to communicate with one another over the din of bazooki music and turkish smoke. We managed to relay the basic information...........name, rank and serial number stuff but at that point, that was about it. Oh, we did learn that this family had two homes in Instanbul, and one was in the student quarter. We were to go home with them for the first night, and then we could live in their other place for as long as we wanted. How we managed to dechipher this, is beyond me when I think about it now.

In between these attempts at communicating, Heather Laura and I shared our doubts about our gut decision to go with this woman and wondered if we were making a sound and safe plan. But, they were so friendly and so innocently excited about our acceptance, the doubts held no water. We stuck to our gut decision.

It was when we arrived at our destination that night however, that we felt more sure that we had done the right thing. The bus depot in Instanbul, not only happened to be on the opposite outskirts of this massive city from our original hostel destination, it was a chaotic jumble of disorder. Picture a half lit big cow pasture covered in 200 buses all parked willy nilly. Our naive confidence betrayed us and was quickly transformed into a sense of overwhelming insecurity. Sabahat instantly became our lifeline as we followed her like little ducklings along a meandering path to a city bus which eventually took us to Fatih, her neighbourhood.

We had made two assumptions when we made our decision to follow Sabahat home. Firstly, we assumed that Sabahat was comfortably well-off to be inviting three people home with her and owning two homes in Instanbul. Secondly, we figured that she must do this all the time........taking home backpacking innocents. Our first assumption was quashed immediately upon disembarking from the city bus in front of a neighbourhood that obviously had seen better days. The buildings, similar to the picture I have attached to this posting, were tenements and the whole neighbourhood wafted in a sweet sickly scent which I learned quickly was burning coal. It was dirty and falling down. And yet, we continued to follow this smiley momma duck down a street, around a corner, up an alley in the dark into a scene of poverty I had never experienced before.

Safety and strength in numbers? Trust, trust, trust. Tired, unsure and hungry, I felt so far away from home at that moment, my first evening in a far away place.

Suddenly, Sabahat stopped walking and looked up at a second story window. In her singing turkish voice, she yelled something up to the window, which promptly opened to reveal another woman. They chatted animatedly, while Sabahat pointed to her new little lost ducklings, and before we knew it, we were traipsing up the stairs to an apartment owned by her best friend and her husband. In the 3 minutes it took us to climb the stairs, Sabahat's friend had managed to set her coffee table up with an array of food and drink to share with us, these perfect strangers. Most of the food was foreign, but we were determined to be good guests, so we ate it...........whatever it was.

Trying to re-establish my bearings, I began to look around the room. It was apparent right away that this family had very little in belongings.....a few chairs, a table, a few ornamental figures, and a black and white TV in the corner of the room. All of sudden, I was transformed from feeling like a fish out of water to feeling grounded. On the TV were the Canadian pair skaters performing at the Olympics.......it was a tiny link to reality and to home. I had this uncanny feeling that I was watching the same event at the same time as my family was in my home. My parents, my sisters, my grandmother, my friends would all be watching on this Olympic night. It was such a strong cosmic connection that it promptly calmed me down.

And as we all stood eating and drinking the wine that this couple had been given as a wedding present 15 years before and had been saving for a "special occasion" and watching the Canadian skaters in Sarajevo, I recognized that we had just met a guardian angel who was about to teach us many life lessons in a short time span.

The Olympics allow us to feel, even for a short timespan, that the world is connected in comraderie. As I watched the opening ceremonies today, I was linked to my short term families in Istanbul, I was linked to my family in Ontario, I was linked to Laura wherever she may be, and I was linked to my bestest travelling friend Heather whom I havent seen in WAY too long. Thinking of all of them.

Linked by the vast midnight sky, and whispering heart wishes..........to all of them.

PS. Oh............our second assumption? Sabahat had never invited strangers into her home before. Her "read" of us and her faith in her decision was similar to ours. Fate threw us together.

More on Sabahat in another posting.....................................