Laughter of the Day

Today is my first day in Turkey. So I slept in the Otogar (Bus terminal). A group of people approached me and tried to talk to me. One of them seemed to be a minibus(dolmus) driver and he offered me a sleep in his dolmus, waving his key in front of me, like a daddy seducing his son with a toy. He put his forefinger into another closed palm and moved to and fro…laughed, followed by the laughter of others. I didn’t know why he wanted to do that and I wasn’t sure if he meant for sex and yes, he is a ‘He’.

Coldness struck me unrelentingly and the 3-man armchair was ice-cold either. Somebody put a blanket on me in the middle of the night. I felt warm and told myself Turkish isn’t that bad as proclaimed by others. Without my permission, my wallet ran out from my fucking hollow pocket when I went out to have a good morning smoke(I hate my trouser!) A guy whom I believed was the one putting a blanket on me tried to look for me before I realized my lost. So I collected back the damn wallet lying comfortably on the chair, heaving a sign of relief. Phew~~

Oh! Did I tell you the worst thing happened to me at my first day in Turkey? It all began when I arrived in Sanlıurfa’s Otogar. Due to temperature dropping because of the heavy downpour, I felt the irresistible urge to pee. Then I saw a WC sign and followed all the way, telling myself how organized and systematic the things in Turkey are, until I saw a toilet booth with steel barriers blocking people to perform their natural exclaim. One Lira one pee. Shit! This is crazy! I’ll never pay to pee. So I bore the irresistibility and walked out from the glassy Otogar, in search of peeing ground, wildly. It was very windy and chilly. Because of things are so ‘organized’ here and there were so many Turkish loitering around as if nothing can be done to fill their hollow life, I couldn’t find any, at the rainy cool night. So I get back to my ‘seat’, totally filled with discourage and frustration. My stomach was aching and I prayed to God that Encopresis wouldn’t strike me at this critical juncture. I decided to wait until the toilet guard to go off-duty.

I thought I was smart.

Meanwhile, it wasn’t until I tried to buy a bottle of water in the restaurant that I realized the cash in my damn wallet was actually the Old Turkish Lira, which was not valid in the market anymore since the Yeni Türk Lirası(New Turkish Lira) was introduced in 2005. Ok, this was great, God must be blessing me a lot. I was thirsty and I couldn’t get some water for myself. And even I want to pay for a pee has turned out to be a mission impossible now. Ok! I suddenly turned out to be a beggar who was in a total helpless. It was 10pm when the toilet guard left the toilet. I ran towards it and found all doors were locked. Again, I want to cry out loud but I didn’t. I laughed at myself.

Then I found the Muslim’s ablution room. I know Allah will forgive me.

Note: YTL 1 ≈ RM 2.00