So I am back home after three weeks on assignment. Not so much speechless but wordless. I shot 7000 frames on my Nikon. Climbed up and down mountains and hills to forts, temples, mosques, caves and vistas never imagined. Beheld the most beautiful mountains I have ever seen in all my life. Watched men pray, women beg, children assault each other for trinkets and the sun come up over statues of Zeus 30 feet tall. Watched the sun go down over the enormous Syrian plain. Stood at Cleopatra's gate where Antony welcomed her to Mesopotamia, dined in the private dining room of the Archbishop of the Diocese of Mardin, played with the ferral cats at the University of Van, ate lamb and eggplant and cucumbers, danced with the bride's brother at a gorgeous wedding, hugged and kissed school teachers who took me into another party and now want to correspond in an effort to understand better, watched our driver pull over on the road and buy a cabbage as big as a Jeep tire from a guy who had a whole pile of them, partied with the locals at lunch before they went into the Fenerbahce game across the street, said good evening to the Turkish soldiers who boarded our van at a roadblock to search and responded in kind when the lead smiled and said, in perfect American English, "It was very nice to have met you."

I just barely can comment. This country is so astonishing, so fearsomely beautiful, so delicious, so deeply and fully sensuous and satisfying.



But I'll try. Let me know what you think.


JBelle
JoJoNahili
The 'Kan EWA