 | Bless my knees and ear-hairs, Janım!
|  |
I have spent so much enjoyable time in Türkiye that I thought that
nothing I would run into would be much of a surprise. And once again I
was wrong.
I've had a favorite barber in Ankara since my first trip to that city, in 1970. In preparation for every visit I've made since then, I've postponed having my hair cut so that I could visit him,
drink a lot of çay, and get a great haircut. My plan for this trip (with my wife Jan) was no
different.
So upon our arrival in Ankara, after settling into our hotel, I headed directly for my former barber's shop. Maalesef, he'd retired, and I wasn't able to find him. Since haircuts are not my prime reason for visiting Türkiye, I
shrugged it off and kept on with the other things we had planned to
do.
A few days later, having hit a short lull in our activities, I
looked
across the street from our hotel and saw a barber shop that wasn't too
busy. So I decided to get a trim. Jan came along -- since she's
interested in observing virtually everything when we travel.
A short while later I was in the barber's chair, tea glass in hand, with Mehmet, my attending berber,
at the ready. We established how I wanted to end up
looking... and, with scissors in hand, he set about performing his magic.
There is a real difference in
having your hair cut with scissors
rather than an electric trimmer,
and I enjoyed the change since
Mehmet is a real artist.
When it came to final touches, my former barber used to dip a Q-tip in
alcohol, light it, and singe the hair in and around my ears. The first
time it happened I was very surprised, but I got used to the flame
(and the aroma) and sort of looked forward to the treatment.
Mehmet, however, was not of that school. He also wasn't of the
American school that uses a trimmer to shorten all that excess hair.
No way!
His first course of treatment was with tweezers, making me very glad that
I
don't have to undergo the eyebrow treatment that a lot of folks think
is necessary to be well groomed. After what seemed to be a very long
procedure, he finally stopped. I figured he was finished...
But no. I was sipping some of my tea when I noticed him stirring
something greenish in a small copper pot. My first impression was that
it was battery acid, from the color. Wrong again. It was wax.
He slathered this wax over both ears, making sure that it got into
all
the creases. I couldn't quite get a good look at my wife in the mirror, but
a brief glance showed that she was in rapt attention. I sat there while the wax firmed up (since I didn't have a respectable alternative), all
the while gripping the armrests in the same fashion as I do when I am
in a dentist's chair.
In a couple of minutes Mehmet pried one small
corner loose and pulled. Part of it came away, so he went back for the
rest. And then he went for the other ear.
Having neither yelped nor bolted from the chair (my wife said
that
I looked quite stoic through the procedure), I hoped that I was now
finally fit to rejoin society. But Mehmet saw something (or
things) that made him come back for a second try. This time his wax treatment
wasn't quite as painful, since there wasn't as much hair
that needed removal. But it still made me think of those folks
who have their legs (and other body parts) waxed routinely.
Call me a chicken (or tavuk in Turkish), a coward, or
simply a male, I
don't
believe that I'll go through that again -- especially since, at my age,
my ears sometimes seem to grow hair a lot faster than my head!
But, to be honest, I think I am hearing a bit better than I did, and
it may be a long time before any barber will have to trim my ears
again.
Bruce [and Jan] Brooks (June '05)
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