Lost and Found

Along a highway, in the middle of a farm field outside the city, the bus stops. We pile out, rub our eyes, and blink into the low, early morning sun, wondering why we are here. Although we’ve been driving for almost an hour, the densely packed ticky tacky apartments of the city have only just begun to fall away into sloping farmland blanketed in yellow flowers. A peculiarly new development, designed to resemble an Italian villa complete with tiled roofs, stucco façade, and an ostentatious fountain, posed on the other side of the highway, looking like square peg trying to fit into a round hole. A beautiful but understated stone wall flanks the road, with a simple engraving serving as the only indication that we’ve arrived at Sançaklar Camii.

We filter through the opening in the wall, and being to navigate the jigsaw pathway of granite and grass. The broken path suggests a journey that might be lost; united then interrupted, reunited then interrupted again. As we drift across the crooked pavers, metallic in the low light against the dark grass, a dog with a big grin trots across the lawn to greet us. A bit unkempt with a tag in his ear, perhaps this dog is lost, too.

Our new tour guide clips along in front of the group then disappears over a ledge, where the path spills down across a gentle hill. A large curved wall, in the same ubiquitous grey stone that’s along the street, emerges out of the grade, only revealing itself to be a building by a narrow tunnel leading to a doorway. Gracefully nestled into the hillside, the façade bleeds into the lawn, becoming low, terraced walls that sweep across the gradient like threads in a spider web. A staircase that transverses the horizontal rhythm of the terraces leads us down into a long, slender courtyard, sheltered on two sides by the worship space and the library. A procession of dogs, exact replicas of our recent acquaintance, appear and begin to disperse through our group, some boisterously and some timidly.

The linear space between the buildings, though narrow, bestows a variation of experiences for gathering and contemplating. While the interior spaces on either side are typically for quiet reflection and prayer, the central courtyard is one where the congregation can merrily rejoice under the daylight. Nooks for solitude fade into the periphery, with simple benches that provide seating for an intimate meeting. Views of the quaint, peaceful surroundings peek through perforations in the surface of the walls—grey, as not to detract from the splendor of the countryside.

The geometry of the mosque tells the story: the broken lines of stone and pathway zigzag across the surface until it converges into a whole, forming the enveloping, welcoming void of the musallah. Alone, a person might feel lost. Coming to Sançaklar Camii, they find a space for community and acceptance. Although the dogs that have escorted our visit might be strays, when they come here they are not lost; they have found their pack, and this is their home.

Grab the 'Bul by the Horn

I am now in a city with a population of 18 million, which is more than the population of the entire country of Holland. Istanbul is a city that is everything I expected and nothing I expected all at the same time. One of my course instructors noted that the city operates at a “functional state of entropy and chaos.” This became overwhelmingly apparent on our bus ride from the airport.

The first glimpse of the city was surreal. Intricate floral topiary and designs wove their way up and down the hillside along the sound walls on the freeway. Then the topography dipped, and the city revealed itself. Layered behind the colorful filigree rose stacks and stacks of apartments, in shades of bright pastel. Closer to the freeway loomed gecekondu neighborhood—informal housing settlements built into shells of crumbling buildings, with tarps and clothing lines slung up between the battered concrete. After a considerable amount of honking, I shifted my gaze down to the street, where a boy was rollerskating on the freeway. A crazed smile was plastered to his face as he dodged taxis and buses. I can't say how he got there or where he planned to go. Maybe he was playing a prank and his mother was wringing her hands a few cars behind, but he appeared to be having the time of his life.

We exited the freeway, leaving the rollerskating boy to pursue his suicidal recreational endeavors, and suddenly our coach stopped outside one of the gecekondu settlements. A man jumped up from a table on the curb occupying a small gathering with some sort of game, and boarded our bus, taking a seat next to the driver. The giant coach bus began to navigate the narrow, crowded streets of the city, with Beyoncé blaring through the speakers to provide our soundtrack.

What one would anticipate being a pretty routine trip to-and-from the airport became an adventure when we realized the bus driver seemed to be just as lost in the city as we were. Periodically stopping, the man from the card game who joined us would jump off the bus, speak with a shopkeeper with lots of pointing, then get back on the bus. Strange new places became landmarks, as we circled by the same yellow awning or pharmacy over and over. Teetering on the cobble with a four-foot clearance between buildings on either side, our fearless driver backed up into an intersection. Pedestrians and motorbikes scattered as the forty-foot vehicle pulled a three-point turn. The gopher carried on with this elaborate scavenger hunt to find our apartment for over a half hour, hopping on and off the bus, sometimes stopping for a phone call or a cigarette.

I ended my first day in Istanbul by chipping my tooth on a beer bottle. It was my first beer of the night and there’s no exciting tale, the bottle just accidentally hit my tooth, and it chipped. Maybe the fluoride-less water and weird mint-flavored “tooth-paste” sugar gel from Hema (European version of Target) made my teeth weaker, but either way, it seems like a fitting close to my introduction to this place; a little wild and unexpected.

Alright Istanbul, you crazy city you, I’m ready.