Greek islanders sail to Turkey for shopping

Saturday, July 19, 2008

The residents of Greek island Meis, located one and a half miles south of Turkey, travel to Kaş every week for shopping. None of them seem as if they are in a foreign country because the visits have helped create a friendly atmosphere between the two towns

Meral Ciyan Şenerdi
KAŞ - Turkish Daily News

Five small boats set sail from a small Greek island to the Turkish Mediterranean town of Kaş. It is Friday morning and Kaş' traditional bazaar gets ready for customers. It is shopping day and also an occasion to get together with old friends. The boats, with blue and white flags at the stern and red and white ones in the flagstaff, enter the port. Among them Barbara, the boat led by young captain Yorgos, is the first to anchor. Within minutes, the harbor is full of passengers. Everyone is familiar with each other. Warm greetings, hugs, loud salutes, jokes, and Greek words accompanied with Turkish words in Greek accents are all up in the air. After the greetings, all head to the center of Kaş.

No one seems as if they are in a foreign country because Kaş is their tiny, good old town as well. �Do not forget please. We shall leave at 12:30,� captains shout loudly after the passengers, while handing in the passports and passenger lists to Turkish officials at the harbor. But most of the passengers barely hear. They all know that they have a limited amount of time.

An 80-year-old man known only as Vangel and his wife are already at the bazaar. Shopkeepers know them very well. Vangel does not even remember for how many years he has been coming to this bazaar. It is a colorful summer bazaar where shopping has already started in the shade of olive trees and huge tents tied to Lykian rock graves.

The bazaar is crammed with people, making it more colorful and vibrant. It is not possible to discern who is really a local of Megisti, a local of Kaş, a German, a Brit or a Dutch person. Sometimes, more than three languages are heard at the stalls. This is more than a bazaar. It resembles an international festival.

Most of the sellers are peasant women coming from the surrounding villages. People wait in line for the traditional delicious pastries bazlama and gözleme that women from the villages around cook on the spot. There is no disagreement based on nationality, religion or ethnicity, just common needs. So everyone is equal here, in this local bazaar. All questions find an answer since all communication includes body or sign language. And so the shopping manages to happen.

Leaving behind the fascinating atmosphere of the local bazaar, locals of Meis move towards the square where small shops are located side by side. An old fisherman, Yorgos, is taking orders for next week as two tourists are photographing two huge swordfish in his stall. Some female locals of Meis are having their hair done at the few hairdressers in Kaş. They are also getting a manicure. Bright nail polish comes out of drawers for them. And they definitely leave good tips, says Şerife, one of the hairdressers.

On the other hand, Tülin, the owner of a furniture shop, said she is highly content with her customers from Meis. �Once they stopped coming here for two months when they heard news about the bird flu. Those two months were like a nightmare. We could not sell anything,� she said, adding, �The products I sell are even taken to Rhodes. In fact, I am the one who produced almost all the curtains in the houses of Meis.�

Meis, which is home to only 270 permanent residents, is almost like a part of Kaş despite a deep blue sea dividing the two places. Wars erupted, but then came peace. Politics and politicians have changed and relations have sometimes been tense and sometimes quite easygoing. But there is one fact that has never changed: the geographic distance between Kaş and Meis. There is only a one and a half-mile distance between the two closest spots and the distance between the two ports is 2.7 miles. That is to say, Kaş and Meis are very close neighbors while belonging to different states and nations.

Meis, the farthest island from mainland Greece and the closest to Turkey, became the official sister town of Kaş in June. �We were always good neighbors to each other. But being neighbors to each other was not enough. We decided to become friends and even sisters and brothers� said Halil Kocaer, mayor of Kaş, who signed the treaty of amity on behalf of the locals of Kaş. �You know, sisters and brothers have responsibilities for each other. We thought we should have responsibilities towards each other too. So, we invite each other to the festivals we organize,� he added.

At the end of shopping, locals of Meis go to Kaş' teagardens and take seats to enjoy some leisure in the shade of huge eucalyptuses, palms and pines. Jonh Yannis Kiosoglous and his close relative Anna Adgemis are just two of them. Anna is one of those who escaped from Meis and took shelter at relatives' houses in Kaş when Meis was under bombardment in 1941. She stayed in Kaş for two years when she was only a little girl. Then she, together with some of her relatives who were still alive, got on a British ship and went to Haifa, and from there, to Tripoli, and finally from there to a British refugee camp in the Palestinian Territories. After the war ended, they came back to Meis, but what they saw was a half-destroyed town, so they immigrated to Australia. Anna said she had been living there for the last 54 years. She had come and visited Meis only four times so far. �But it doesn't matter whether I visit Meis or Kaş, since in both I feel like I am in my homeland. Kaş is the place where we took shelter, where we saved our lives. This is the place that embraced us in those hard times,� she said, recalling the war years. Kiosoglous, who noted that his surname is the Greek version of Turkish surname �Köseoğlu,� is Anna's husband's nephew. Kiosoglous said that Turks and Greeks live in peace and harmony in Australia, saying he also had many Turkish friends there.

Time passes fast. The Muslim call for Friday prayer is heard. There is still a lot to talk to Anna and Yannis. But unfortunately, it is time for farewell. The harbor is busy and noisy again. Sacks of potatoes, onions, boxes of tomatoes and textile goods are being loaded on the boats. Captain Yorgos is trying to help passengers take their seats both on his boat and on his father's as he continues to make jokes to people around. When asked about his story, he said, �My story is history,� in a good-humored tone. �I have been shuttling between Meis and Kaş for 25 years, since I was seven,� he said in Turkish with a Greek accent. But then he switched to English. �Ask me my mama! My mama is the story. Ask everybody my mama. She is great Varvara! Everybody knows her!�

Everyone starts giggling when they hear the name Varvara, apparently quite a popular person among the locals. Apparently she is a strong, talkative and cheerful woman who used to sell goods without being afraid of anything during the periods when trade was legally not allowed between Kaş and Meis. Varvara has not been visiting Kaş in recent years, but locals of Kaş did not forget to attend her son's wedding held a few years ago. �At least 600 people from Kaş attended to my wedding,� said Yorgos. The wedding in Meis lasted for three days and nights, during which people of both towns got drunk to ouzo and Turkish rakı, dancing both the syrtaki and the harmandalı.

Anchors have been weighed. Boats have left the harbor one by one.

Bye-bye friends. Come again please. There is much more to talk about.

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