Merhaba
Since you’re reading this, you most likely don’t visit our actual website. If you did you would see that sometimes the words and photos don’t match. I have been too lackadaisical to do anything about it. But as I seem to be sending more people to look at it rather than adding them to my email list, I finally need to actually learn how to fix it. I could write much less but that’s not going to happen. I could leave it as it is and our web folks would fix it but it would take them redoing the whole thing so would cost them more time and us more money. Or I could bite the bullet and try using this table format. I don’t love it, but it really isn’t so hard and if it solves the problem, with that is how we’ll do it. At least I think this is how I’m supposed to do it. I’ll have to wait for our web folks to let me know after the holidays. Until then I’ll just try this.
Ru
Randal has a carpet project and this is “part one” of the story. It involved a trip this past Sunday back to the small town of Karacahisar 12 miles from Milas which is north east of Marmaris. We’d stumbled upon this “Carpet Village” back in May 2011. http://www.mydoramac.com/wordpress/?p=6794 Randal was impressed with The Weaver so decided to ask her to create a carpet for him that he will eventually give as a gift. We knew that this would take some discussion so asked our friends Deena and TK to come along to act as interpreters. You might remember that Deena’s mom Denise taught me Turkish in North Cyprus and TK is Deena’s husband.
It was quite the adventure! And as the weather cooperated we even made a stop on the way home at Stratonikeia to visit the Roman and Ottoman ruins. Deena and TK had never been there so we could introduce them to the wonderful place.
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On the road to Karacahisar we had to stop for a herd of goats, something we had to do in North Cyprus, but never have to do in Marmaris. |
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We drove in the small village and right up to the home of The Weaver and got out of the car. The same “grandmother” was outside and seemed to recognize us. Deena explained that we had come to see The Weaver and so we were taken inside where we were again recognized from our last visit. We were shown the carpet she was working on and a finished version. Deena explained what it was that we wanted, an adaptation of the carpet we’d seen when we’d come before. She had one so brought it out for us to discuss.
Randal, TK, Deena and The Weaver. I call her The Weaver because I actually don’t know her name. Deena and TK are the ones communicating for us so have names, addresses and phone numbers. But as it turned out, another woman in the village will be weaving the carpet using this pattern. Our Weaver has too many carpet orders she has promised and they take several months to make. Also, she doesn’t weave in the summer months. And, now there is the olive harvest to process, so she is just too busy to take on another project. |
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Replacing the central design with something Randal had requested required planning and measuring. You can see the patter that The Weaver works with. |
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These village ladies had come in to take part in the discussion about weaving the carpet and who else might be able to do it as Our Weaver didn’t have the time. Eventually they called another village woman who said she would do it using “Our Weaver’s “pattern.
The woman in the center of the photo, kneeling and wearing the gray striped sweater will weave Randal’s carpet. Deena and TK exchanged phone numbers with Our New Weaver and took her address so we could send her a pattern for the new central part of the carpet printed on graph paper the actual size of the design. TK took it to a print shop for us and then Wednesday Deena got it all mailed off at the post office. I was with Deena at the Post Office and the Postal Clerk was very impressed with Deena’s Turkish and her ability to write Turkish! I was impressed that I could follow the conversation which was spoken all in Turkish! |
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We’d left Marmaris about 8:30 in the morning rain. But noon it was starting to clear and we were all hungry so stopped in Milas for lunch at a “local restaurant.” It was cute and the food was good which made the atypically smaller portions disappointing. To make up for that, we had dessert!
Hanımeli Mantı Konağı where we ate lunch. I tried to translate using Google Translate and it just gave me back the same thing. It might be something like honeysuckle dumpling…….. I do know a manti is a small dumpling filled with meat often served in yogurt with pepper flavored olive oil drizzled on it. Quite good! Randal had meatballs with rice and the rest of us had sautéed eggplant with rice.
Our dessert which was sort of like a huge, fried shredded wheat soaked in sugar syrup and dipped in chopped nuts. Very sweet! Very VERY sweet.
TK and Deena Then it was on to Stratonikeia where I took a billion photos so that will have to be next email. |
