Thanksgiving with my Family

I can't remember if I said this in the last post or not, but this actually makes the third Thanksgiving in a row that I've been away from "my family." But I must qualify that statement. Though I haven't been with the people that are related to me by earthly standards, I have been blessed to be with family all three years. Two years ago I was living in Grand Junction, CO, and I ate with a middle aged lady with no family in the area and another single girl from the church I was going to. We rode horses in the afternoon and ate a wonderful dinner that night. Last year I was blessed to be at both the Gouge family Thanksgiving and the Tennant family Thanksgiving in Kingsport, TN. Without taking anything away from Mrs. Tennant, I must say that Mrs. Gouge is the best cook in the history of the world, ever. So this year I find myself here, in Turkey, with the Vs. We got together for dinner with their language helper and another single American. It was a great dinner and a great time to spend with people that have really become my family here. So despite my tendency to wander, God has provided loving people with which I can spend my holidays with everywhere I have gone.

But that's not all I did yesterday. I did some reading and studying in the morning, writing out an explanation of the Thanksgiving story in Turkish. But in the afternoon I went out to get a haircut, since I have been needing one and since I knew that you can't get out of a barber shop in less than half an hour, and barbers are usually more than willing to talk. So I had a good chance to get a haircut, beard trim, language practice, and maybe make a friend all for a few American dollars. I went to a barber shop near the house here that is always full, thinking that if it's always that full, they must be doing something right. Well, I was shown to the first chair open, which happened to be the youngest guy's chair. He didn't do much talking, and I am not sure that they were excited about having a foreigner in their shop, but the haircut and beard trim were worth the money.

First of all, I told him I wanted all my hair to be the same length. The Turks like the high and tight, military-ish look and I didn't want to come out like that. So I told him that I wanted every hair the same length and even pointed out which attachment he should use on the clippers. He said ok and asked if I wanted a beard trim. I said yes, since it didn't cost anything extra. So he grabs some clippers, I settle into the chair, and before I have a chance to say anything, he has taken his clippers, with NO attachment, and cut into my beard and sideburns. Well, it was too late to save the beard at that point, so I told him to at least leave me a goatee. He said OK and went back to cutting my hair. I quickly realized that this guy was cutting my hair much shorter than I had asked for, so I told him, politely, to cut it short, but not TOO short. Well, this is what it came out looking like.

The V boys joined me in mourning the loss of the beard, but my roommate, surprisingly, said that I look much more handsome, and that the Turkish women might actually like me now. Well great, that's what I've been after the whole time.

But probably the best part of the whole haircut experience was near the end, after I had gotten over the loss of the beard and could relax knowing he had left me SOME hair on my head, though obviously not much. My barber friend mixed up some strange looking purple mixture and dipped this stick into it. This "stick" was a ball of cotton on the end of a thin piece of metal with a wooden handle on the other end. Thinking it was another one of the lotions or salves they used, I didn't think much of it until I saw him go behind a little curtain and re-emerge with his stick engulfed in a ball of flames. He had lit the end of that thing on fire. "It's okay," I told myself, "Surely he's going to let it burn down and then do something with it." Well, I had barely started translated "What the heck are you doing?" in my head when he told me to look the other way and he started hitting me on the head with his flaming stick. He was holding my ear and hitting the ends of my hair with his fireball. It was just hot enough to make you flinch a little, but not hot enough to really hurt. And, he would rub the area he had just hit before he hit a new area, so it actually felt good once I got over the shock of it. So he made his way around my ear and I started to relax and turned my head for him to get to the other ear, but he said, "Stop" and put his hand over my nose. I don't even know if this type of thing is legal in the States. Surely there is some kind of law against hitting someone in the mouth with a flaming ball of chemicals dangling precariously on the end of a thin piece of old rusty aluminum. But, c'est la vie. You know what they say, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. So I left the barber shop with almost no hair, just a remnant of a beard, and the fresh smell of singed mustache. Quite the cultural experience.