[The Old Groaner] Ali and Cem, facing post-impressionism in building

Now if anyone tries to tell you that Turks are lazy, I would ask you to send them to us. Our two guys were paid by the day, days of unspecified length and, although the days varied between four hours and 12 hours, I would guess that the average was more than nine. That’s nine hours in all weathers. There were some days when we would try to stand them down, perhaps because of the weather or lack of materials, but they refused. Offsetting the long hours and their hard work was the fact that Ali is one of the most likeable and thus most popular men in the valley, so that if he was working within sight of the road, then half of the passing cars would stop and the passengers would either call him over for a chat or would leave their car and come to the site to help, advise or criticize his work, our design and anything else in sight. Our poor old donkey became quite depressed by the number of visitors drawing their forefingers across their throats indicating that she was passed her best and was due for execution. Likewise the cats, who became well aware that they should be thinned-out by having about half their number dumped in the nearby gypsy town or on the top of the furthest mountain. The tomcats suffered another threat, mimed by a scissor action with fingers.

Ali’s favorite tools were his cold-chisel and lump hammer. I suppose he may have been inspired by the work of the Lycian lads 2,000 years earlier who, with such tools or less, had chipped out the famous rock tombs around here. Ali possibly wanted to leave a similar impression on the world and at any opportunity would begin chipping away at rocks. I suppose I have to admit that many city dwellers of European origin would think us silly for having limestone boulders taking up valuable space where they protrude into our house from the two walls which are built into the living bedrock of the mountain, but we like them, apart from the areas bearing chisel wounds sustained whilst our backs were momentarily turned. Chip, chip, chip… “ALI!”

That brings me onto the subject of the most common English cusswords. Of course our lads soon learned them and used them with relish. If you drive hereabouts and, following a spat with a guy on a tractor or classic Jawa, you hear such words, chances are its Ali or Cem. Please say hello from me.

Eventually the work was finished and I have to say that we were rather sad to see the lads go. We now use them only occasionally and seldom for more than an hour or so. Cem lives very close by, so if I turn up with a bag of cement on the back of the pick-up, then I need only shout his name to have him come to unload it and carry it as far as necessary within our land.

Ali went back to farming and that’s what brought him to mind today. We visited his farm a month or so back and found him in a field loading up his tractor with watermelons. Of course he insisted on gifting us a couple (he actually tried for a sack full) and we got to talking about the value of his crop. I am guessing that the field was about 8,000 square meters. At the appropriate time last year he had ploughed the field, later he had furrowed it and planted seeds. For the following months he had watered the field when required, weeded it and now was working to load his tractor to transport the first of the ripe fruit to the market 10 kilometers away over the steep mountains. Out of curiosity, I asked him how much his crop would earn him. He replied that he would gross the equivalent of about 900 British pounds.

Think about that for a short while. Is it any wonder that his two sons have no interest in farming but have built up a successful little business transferring tourists to and from the airport? They have managed to increase their transport by more than 200 percent in two seasons and their dad, who is slowly losing the energy which was so useful to us those years ago, is now talking about not having a melon crop next year.

And so it goes, half the fields in our valley now lie fallow all year whilst, I suppose, the younger generation takes to the quad-bike racket, the jet-ski racket or are at home spending long hours in front of the mirror practicing a routine with the cocktail shaker and inventing new risqué names for cocktails in order to titillate the increasingly moronic tourists.