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A Month in Antalya (Spring 2002) - epilogue -
A day in Antalya began with ezan (call to prayer), as well as in other Islamic cities. Since there was a mosque near the hotel, I was forced to hear quite a rough-voiced ezan that flowed out from the mosque's loudspeakers every morning. Hearing the voice, my American friend said,
"Hey, I think the imam needs to gargle."
After that, simitçi (sellers of simit) came out every morning. Simit is ring-shaped sesami bread and is one of the popular snacks sold everywhere in Turkey. Although I had been familiar with this selling voice, I was surprised by the intensity of simitçi in Antalya. Several simitçis seemed to be competing on the streets. Unlike ezan, it was just so noisy that I often felt an impulse to shout at them: "Shut up!!!"
The attack of "simitçi cry" never failed to appear and I had to live with it during my stay.
My schoolmates somehow seemed to be quite impressed by this voice (!), and it seemed to turn out to be their favorite event in Turkey. One day, on our way to school, Roty suddenly made a strange sound imitating simitçi. I blushed fiery red. People around stared at us in wonder, but she didn't care about that at all. The three of us, a strange foreign trio that made a round trip between the hotel and the school everyday, used to attract much attention as it was. To make matters worse, another friend was amused at her mimic, and he started to join her in crying out instead of stopping her. I was so embarrassed by the fact that two grown adults were walking on the street, staging a comic chorus of "Simitçiiiiiiiiii!!!" that I could not walk beside them. From that moment onward, when we came across simitçi in the town I gave my friends a silent warning by glancing at them, and they joked about how I went red and how I ran away in a fluster.
As our Turkish courses finally came to the end, the foreign students started to leave for their own countries. There were some farewells, as happens in life. I was one of the last to leave Antalya, and I saw off the friends whom I had spent a whole month with. After they left, when I was walking down the street alone, I heard the simitçi cry as usual. I couldn't tell why it sounded different that morning and why tears automatically welled up in my eyes.
