The fishing party by Eric Coates
I'd met the the Yapucha family in north central Turkey by accident.
First Yazamin when I asked for directions in the old winter village, followed by her father Ahmet, his wife Makbulay and son Ali, when I rented a room in their ancient 4 storey wooden house in Charsha's museum Jahdessi. A deer antler hung precariously from the overhanging roof above the street. It seemed inevitable that this good luck charm, would eventually fall and bring really bad luck to someone!
Ahmet made hand carved walking sticks and rented out spare rooms at Bastanju to supplement their income. I was particularly impressed by the way the ten or more paying guests dined in conveyor belt fashion at a small table in their kitchen. Also I was greatly touched by the way they accepted me into their home and the kindness they showed to me. Ahmet and I had a common interest in fishing and hunting and had already had one outing looking for quail a few days earlier, returning after dark with ten year old All driving the car. Ahmet gave advice from the back seat whilst I sat in the front next to this very young driver. I can remember thinking, "I bet my travel insurance won't cover me for this!" Nevertheless an opportunity to go fishing with Ahmet and his friends was too good to miss.
We waited in the fading daylight in Charsha's old market place. Around seven o'clock an old Renault taxi pulled up beside us. Bayram the driver and his passenger Mehmet, a sergeant in the Turkish army, got out, shook hands with us.
We were soon speeding along the narrow winding road away from the old wooden houses of Safranbolu. After about 8 miles driving at breakneck speed we turned right onto a dirt track, within seconds the car filled with dust through a hole in the floor near the gear lever.
In a desperate attempt to keep breathing I pulled my collar up over my mouth and nose, as the car sped on crossing a small humpbacked bridge and entered the forest. The car zigzagged its way round hairpin bends and up the mountain side at breakneck speed, crossing a ridge and down the other side in the same fashion, eventually grinding to a halt at the edge of the forest. Outside a burning smell came from the front of the car where the brake discs were glowing dull orange through holes in the front wheels.
Bayram and Mehmet took the net and rushed on towards the thundering roar of the river that lay somewhere ahead in the gathering darkness.
As we walked across the dried up flood plane, Ahmet told me in his broken English, "We say to it onion river. Onions grow wild here, the seed is carried here by the river,"
A few metres further he stood to attention in the half moon light, dropped to his knees and with forehead on the ground, prayed to Allah.
I stood motionless beside him feeling awkward and incredibly humble, touched by my friend's dedication to his faith. Later I asked how he knew he was facing Mecca. He just pointed, checking my compass, I knew south east was right.
The fast flowing, river was an angry boiling sea of white semi fluorescent water about a hundred metres wide, winding its way eighty kilometres north to the Black Sea.
Bayram, minus his shirt, was already waist deep in the swirling water swinging the weighted net in a circular motion above his head. It splashed as it hit the water a few metres ahead of him and was retrieved a minute later with the rope. This was repeated many times as we moved up and down the river. Sometimes we caught a few small fish the size of pilchards and eventually a decent sized fish that looked like a barbel.
I attempted to copy his example but stumbling on some unseen hazard failing to get the net open fully as I released it.
Not long after Ahmet told me we were in a restricted area used by the Turkish military. However if we were arrested he would tell them that I was a tourist and his friends were showing me how to catch fish. He reassured me everything would be O.K as he was a friend the local mayor, intent on developing tourism in the area.
Around midnight we left for home stopping briefly to fish for a few minutes in another river that ran along the end of some gardens in a small village. In almost total darkness we stumbled over debris thrown into the river by unknown gardeners as we picked our way through the trees along the river bank. We crouched in the bushes at the bottom of a garden trying to be invisible as lights came on in the houses closest to us when Ahmet shouted for his dog which was no longer with us.
Eventually one by one the lights went out and the dog returned. Back at the taxi Bayram gave me a handful of sweet black cherries pulled from a tree nearby but Ahmet, but refused to eat any saying he had no need to steal.
It was turned one by the time we reached the market place, now in complete darkness, with only a faint light coming from a window above the door of the Bastanju pansion. We removed our shoes at the foot of the creaking wooden stairs that led to my bedroom on the third floor. I said, " iyi akshamla" (good night) in my best turkish and we went our separate ways.
A few minutes later there was a knock at my bedroom and Abmet said "I'm hungry, do you want something to eat?"
In the kitchen the frying pan was already on the cooker, but it wasn't for the fish.
Wild onions fried in butter with crispy bread and some soup left from the evening meal simple food always tastes good!
I woke around 8, sad to be on my last day in Safranbolu but pleased to have crispy fried fish for breakfast, from the previous night's outing. An hour later Ahmet drove me to the bus station, shook hands with me, kissing me on both cheeks, an emotional farewell for us both. I'll never forget him
More recently during a hypnotherapy treatment session I was told to "imagine a river with splashing swirling water."
That's the easy bit- getting there is something else!
