![]() ![]() Both Dudu and I were survivors from The Man’s World in our different ways. One that adhered to my values.Īnd perhaps this was why I was surprised at Celal. ![]() But what I wanted most of all was to create my own world. I wanted to dress how I felt like, be ugly or pretty and it not matter. As a woman, I knew why I was going to the limits for it In a world where the game plan has mostly been designed by men for men, I wanted a space to be free, a place where I could have room just to see who I really was, and what I was capable of. A garden, a shelter, and sovereignty over your own territory. This need for a space of one’s own is so primal. Lord knows why I was surprised at Celal’s decision when I was at least ten steps closer to lunacy than he was. Celal in his hut with Apo the dog, Dudu in her house churning out a never ending stream of natural produce, and me, the crazy English woman in the tent. We were a rum lot, hugging the outskirts of Yaprakli village like three self-sufficient fugitives. Looking at Dudu and Celal in turn, I chuckled. I mean we have two kitchens and the like, but I wanna sit in me own house, on me own land, with me own trees. “Gonna get water from the borough,” Celal said. You can keep all your food in my fridge, can’t you? And fill up your water here too if you need to.” She stood up, tucked her headscarf in once again, and poured Celal and I yet another glass of tea. ![]() “Bin fine for two winters,” Celal sniffed and downed his second glass of tea. It resembled some sort of spindly-legged creature, and a drunk one at that. “I mean, it won’t fall down on you, will it?” I glanced over at the wonky wooden stilts it was squatting upon. It was actually rather funky in my opinion. He’d gathered the timber and wooden cladding from another dismantled shed, the tiles were second hand, and the windows and doors were from scrap yards. Celal had built it himself, much of it out of recycled materials. The small wooden shack perched uncomfortably on the hillside, and depending on your point of view it was either a crime of engineering or a miracle of amateur carpentry. Leaning back on my chair, I peered past Dudu’s house, and from there I could just about see Celal’s hut. I’ve decided,” he spat the sentence out onto the table, leaving it to glisten in front of us. Finally he rested his tea glass on the plastic table, and made the subject of his twitching known. It looked as though he had something of personal importance to expound. The little man began to squirm on his stool, and the lines around his eyes started to twitch. Dudu thought this was all quite typical, but for me it was an incredible life. She was nearly seventy, owned a hectare of land filled with trees and produce, and managed it almost single-handedly except for the summer tree watering when family would sometimes pop up for the weekend. Her flat breads were piled up in her kitchen like a tower of enormous poppadoms, and there were endless pickles and olives and dried fruits too. She made her own tomato puree and carob molasses. She pressed her own olive oil and pomegranate molasses, she grew all her own fruit, vegetables and herbs. As usual I gaped in amazement, because there was nothing this woman couldn’t make. Deftly, her experienced hands began to sort the bulgur. Thick stems crisscrossed over a wire frame from which bundles and bundles of leaves pushed out.ĭudu pulled a plate onto her lap. We were sitting in front of my neighbour’s house under a large shade she’d created out of a grapevine. ![]()
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