As you can imagine Turkey is very sensitive towards any terrorist activities. This is partly due to the location it is situated in.
The poor Turks don’t necessarily have the nicest neighbours... To the west it is Greece, to the north east it is Georgia. And as we move down to the southern borders we really start to feel the heat with Iraq, Iran and Syria.
Every little town and village in eastern Turkey is protected by the local Jandarma. They are the leading authority figures who posses both military and police power over the civilians. You do not want to mess with them... The Jandarma generally consist of recruits from the local men who had minimal education and just loves to prove their masculinity with a classic phallus; the AK47. Naturally these uneducated gentlemen will find no trouble in classifying any foreign national on their home territory as terrorist and treat them accordingly.
As we would later discover they tend show a little less love and care towards Americans. I guess this might be the reason why Americans tend stay at the western side of turkey.
During the spring of 2006, my father was itching for another adventure. He proposed to his American colleague, that they should each take their sons with them and hike in the mountains for a weekend. It was a great idea! The five month winter finally ended and there is a two months gap in which we can enjoy the natural beauty of the Beydag Mountains before the summer sun destroys everything.
So with great excitement we prepared our gear and packed our bags. We were in total 7 guys; My father; Martin snr. My brothers; Benjamin and Samuel, Uncle Ryan and his two sons, Timothy and David. We packed the minivan and headed east for 3 hours. We drove up and down mountain passes, daring some dirt roads that would make 4x4 enthusiast shiver with excitement. Eventually we reached our destination. It was a beautiful valley, covered with green grasses all complete with a seasonal waterfall feeding the river. The best part of all was the abundance of boulders we could climb and showcase our mountaineering skills. With no mothers in sight we could do whatever we wanted!
The day passed by with a leisurely walk, downstream, heading deeper in to the valley. We found some high ground to camp to avoid the bitter cold near the stream during the night. As we sat at the camp fire my Uncle Ryan noticed a second camp fire across the valley, we assumed it was some shepherd boys and made nothing of it.
The next morning as we started to head back to our minivan, we realised that there might be someone following us and the tension in the air was unmistakably tense. Our American friends were quite new to these surroundings, they haven’t even been a year in turkey, and thus having to encounter the Jandarma was one of their worst nightmares. My father on the other hand was a veteran. This year would mark our 14th year in the country; which is a very long time period compared to the other missionaries and the given circumstances. In the past fourteen years he got arrested 8 times, excluding the 3 times the jandarma tried to arrest me and him together for enjoying the beauty of turkey. It is safe to say he knew how to handle these baboons. To be perfectly honest my brothers and I couldn’t have cared less if the jandarma popped around the corner with their guns to question us because our daddy was hardcore as hell!
Surprise, surprise! We had a welcoming party waiting at our minivan to congratulate us on our un-successful so called “terrorist activities”. Yip; those are the words the dude used. Apparently we were strolling around in a highly sensitive area due to the oil pipeline underneath our feet, which was a total secret until they told us about it, and it makes perfect sense to assume that a party of two adults and five children have the intensions of digging up the pipe line and steal the oil....
The Americans were struggling to keep their cool. It is natural to feel threatened if you are being held at gunpoint by five middle aged men with a combined IQ less than a 3 year old child and showing symptoms of uncontrollable “trigger happiness”.
But I tell you there are a few thing you have to do if you want to survive the Jandarma!
First of all don’t look afraid or threatened; even if you do shit your pants when you see these guerrillas (more on that when I get permission from my uncle to write about his embarrassing story).
Second; stand your ground! Don’t let them bully you. These guys have no idea what’s going on with the law. So if you want to stay alive demand to speak with district General or Colonel who will hopefully know your rights and determine whether you are “arrest able” or not...
And my last tip; have a lot of patience! It takes some skills not lose your cool with these guys, be persistent with your story and be prepared to tell a white lie or two to save your ass!
You see, my heroic father lost his cool. He was getting fed up with these puppets and hurled us all in to the minivan. The argument has hit a negative climax the moment he turned on the ignition and started to drive of. The soldiers jumped in front of the car with their gun barrels pointing at my father and Uncle Ryan in the front seat. Poor David was in tears and my black friend timothy was deceivingly white. Benjamin and I were enjoying every moment of this adventure. It was a bit sadistic of us to laugh at or foreign friends’ fears. But like I said before, this was nothing new to us and we knew that some way or another we would survive this bizarre drama.
The Jandarma showed that they mean business. We were all rounded up next to a huge boulder. My father demanded to speak with the guy who is in charge of the district. After an hour of arguing they made a phone call in which my father pleaded his case. I have no idea what the colonel shouted to his soldier boys but they immediately gave us our freedom and greeted us with the classical Turkish hospitality as we drove of back to our home.
But first we had to stop for Uncle Ryan to relive himself from his fear induced nausea.
I conclude with a tip for anyone who is planning to visit the less popular regions of Turkey; be prepared for an adventure of your life time!!! And always try to laugh at the most bizarre experiences
Greetings;
Martin
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