[ROAMING RED-HEAD; ADVENTURES OF AN EXPAT IN TRANSIT]
One for the kidney

Born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, I am accustomed to cold weather, my hometown deep in snow for up to six months of every year. In the early morning I laughed as my fiancée, Gökhan, packed his backpack replete with two extra thick sweatshirts, a scarf, knit cap and ski gloves. He was acting as if we were headed to the Arctic tundra instead of an island in the Marmara Sea. I donned my L.L. Bean Polar fleece, my jeans, and topped it with a light jacket. Ready to go we headed out the door to make the 10:30 a.m. ferry from Bostancı, a port on the Asian side.

As we parked the car I continued to make fun of him and his attire. I remembered when I had visited an American friend of mine living in Bursa with her Turkish husband. They had recently moved to Turkey from the US, and I was curious as to how she was adapting to her husband’s homeland. We spent the day in the Kervansaray hamam in the Çekirge district and chatted as we sipped soda while clad in our plaid striped pestemals, the traditional cloth garments worn while in the hamam. She told me that things were going well, but that Emre, her husband had developed some strange habits since their return. Suddenly she blurted out, “Katie, do you know where your kidneys are located?”

I looked at her like she was crazy.

“Somewhere near your lower back, I guess. Why?”

“Well, Emre and I lived together in Philadelphia a long time before moving here and he never once talked about his kidneys. Since we’ve come here, he’s obsessed with them. If I walk barefoot in the house, both he and his mother are shouting at me that I have to wear slippers so that my kidneys won’t catch cold!”

I started laughing uncontrollably and could totally relate to her scenario. The Turkish obsession with the “böbrek” was a lesson I learned my first visit here almost seven years ago. She looked relieved when I explained this to her, no doubt happy that her husband wasn’t mental as she was starting to suppose. Since my move to Turkey four years ago I have learned more about my anatomy than in any biology class. My Turkish friends have dutifully taught me that you never get sick from microbes (bacteria) in the air, but rather from walking barefoot or exposing your lower back, where the kidneys are in fact located, to a draft. Sometimes to cause a scandal I purposefully walk barefoot, but now carry with me a visual picture of cold air instantly whooshing upwards from my bare feet, making a beeline straight for my kidneys. Women beware, because not only your kidneys are sensitive to cold air. Your ovaries can also freeze and cause you to be barren, or so I’ve been told countless times as well. Yet despite these dire warnings there I was, boarding a ferry and insisting on standing out in the cold near the railing, stubbornly exposing my defenseless böbrekler (kidneys) to the cold sea wind.

Like previous years, the boat was filled to capacity and we barely had room to stand. I made an excuse to take a walk around the boat to see if the samurai I saw on last year’s voyage was headed to Büyükada again this year. I saw no sign of him, and instead looked for another colorful character to observe during the half hour ride.

Büyükada and the other islands are fantastic retreats from the city. I love to walk around them, enjoying the lack of motor vehicles, with only your feet, a bicycle, or horse drawn phaeton the only means of transportation. As we laughed and threw chunks of simit to the waiting and eager seagulls, I was distracted by a familiar sound. Michigan is full of lakes and I spent most of my life near or on boats, jet-skis, sea-doos, etc. There, near our ferry, was the distinct sound of a jet ski. I moved closer to the railing to get a better look.

A blue jet-ski was pursuing our boat, the driver standing up and finding the best waves created by our ferry to try and jump. Everyone around us gasped in horror. The man was wearing a wetsuit that only came down past his biceps and down to his knees. He looked to be in his sixties and was proudly jumping the waves in the stand up watercraft. He waved to us and the crowd cheered. Then everyone started talking about his poor kidneys. How were they able to survive in that cold water? Moreover, how had he managed to live so long while exposing his kidneys to the cruel cold? The women standing next to me heatedly discussed this topic while chain smoking their Marlboros. I looked at Gökhan in his ski gloves and wondered aloud how his ancestors had managed to conquer almost half the world if they were so fearful of the cold.

He laughed good-naturedly but also looked at the acrobat in the water with wonder. Suddenly, the man missed the wave and the jet-ski dove under the water. We held our breath as it leaped from the water, the man clinging to it desperately. We applauded and whistled, and he saluted us as he finally passed our boat and went ahead of us to the island. I admired his freedom, and missed that feeling of careening through the water, carefree and without worry about my pancreas, kidneys, or gall-bladder. Granted, even I balked at the idea of jet skiing at the end of April in the jelly fish infested Marmara Sea. Gökhan claimed that the man must be foreign, as no Turkish person would be crazy enough to do it. I disagreed, imagining that the old man was Turkish and would stand as a new symbol to his people of how the cold wouldn’t kill you, but would make you stronger and ensure longevity.

We made our pilgrimage and boarded another ferry back to Bostancı in the late evening. Exhausted, Gökhan’s family crowded below in the enclosed compartment. I rushed up to the top deck with a handful of other hardy souls to watch the sunset. We returned to Gökhan’s Bahçelievler house that evening, conveniently located next to the Böbrek Vakfı (Kıdney Foundation) Hospital. Of the four of us who made the trip, I was the only one who didn’t get ill, even though I rode above deck in the cold. As a result, I continue to defiantly walk barefoot, confident that my hardy upbringing and my close proximity to the Kidney Hospital will prevent any crisis from occurring to those particular vital organs.