Why this should be, I’m not entirely sure, since change is a normal facet of life no matter where we live. But perhaps it’s because cities absorb change so much more easily than villages, especially when it comes to the built environment. Of course one can still grieve over damaging alterations to the cityscape, but in towns there’s always so much happening that it seems easier to soak up almost anything as part of the general busyness.In a village, though, even the smallest change can have a disproportionately large impact on its surroundings. In Göreme we’re living in a time of full-on building mania and I’m always half-expecting to round a corner and find -- what? -- that the mosque has been torn down and replaced with a high-rise apartment block? I’m not sure exactly, just that it’s an uncomfortable feeling.
So there I was, just settling back into village life and about to visit one of the hotels to borrow their wireless Internet connection when I rounded the corner and found to my delight that in my absence the Belediye (municipality) had replaced the thoroughly dodgy sloping path that ran down the alley beside my house with a brand-new flight of steps that no one had thought to mention to me.
So what, I can hear you say? İstanbul is full of flights of steps. What’s so special about that one? Well, the truth is that one of the worst things about living in Göreme full-time as opposed to just being here in the summer is that the older parts of the village run up and down the slopes of two steep hills that turn into ice rinks with the onset of snow; great for kids with toboggans, a nightmare for everyone else. The authorities do a good job in keeping the main roads round the village cleared, but they rarely go near the side streets which are the ones that must be used when the women want to visit each other. In January and February attendance at a tea party often involves an unpalatable toss-up between taking a long, cold diversion or risking a broken ankle on the direct route.
The new steps are a wonder to behold, flat, made of non-slip stone rather then marble and equipped with a handrail. So overjoyed was I to see them, in fact, that I was itching to slap the builders I found at the top blithely using them as a cutting surface as if they’d been there forever (nor was I best pleased to find the handrail requisitioned to hang up the last leavings of the pekmez so that the wasps could feast on them, but that’s another story). Now my mind is clicking away energetically. If the Belediye has got to grips with that alley, what’s the likelihood that it could be persuaded to replace the treacherous steps that lead down to my neighbor’s house, the ones installed 15 years ago at a 45-degree angle and sans handrail, the ones that are more dangerous to navigate than a slope with no steps at all…?
Pat Yale lives in a restored cave-house in Göreme in Cappadocia.
