To Lekit!

Beca and Doodle preparing for the Lekit trip.

Eventful times in Lekit this round. When we arrived Turan seemed nervous. Besti Ana was as usual ready to entertain and had a full meal placed before us in minutes. After we ate it was time to rest on the balcony with Turan and then a new twist, swimming. A young cousin, Elşen was over and he was really excited to see me for some reason. Once he went up to swim he found a turtle in the nearby area, somehow remembered that I not only liked them but I have quite a few at home and brought it to me. So I had to go see it. We all headed up to the pool and after pretend searching Beca and I joined in the swimming. After swimming I witnessed the sheep being slaughtered and prepared for the following day of kebabs and fun. Vagif Ata even let me help him hang it up on a post to drain the blood. I almost lost my fingers but it was an experience. Next I took my parents on a hike to the river and Doodle and I continued to the waterfall. He got some good shots but said it was a bit too far out of the way for his liking.

When we returned the house was buzzing. Dünya had 3 friends from university over, and Turan's old university friend brought his family up too. There were Turks, Azerbaijani's, Americans and who could forget that Vaqif Ata is a rockin' Tsakhur! Food was eaten, Vagif Ata's "compote" was drank and love filled the air for two of the dogs.

The next day was the big day. Everyone was to head out to have a brilliant time in Kotuklu. Unfortunately the weather looked pretty bad so plans were changed to an area nearer the waterfall. The party ended up in two groups, Americans on one side and everyone else on the other. We were with a cute little old man, who runs a little tea house in the summer for all of the tourists. He was so excited to talk to my parents and he took such good care of them, politely taking my father aside to explain where the toilet was as to not offend anyone. Here he is with his Samovar, that stuff makes good tea!What happened next was truly magical. Turan finally found someone who could withstand hours of questioning and still be completely transfixed with the conversation. In fact I was worried, for the first time, that the guest I brought might out talk Turan. I saw that look of admiration and love coming out of Turan for my father just as it had whenever Jason would pick up his guitar. Enraptured. But then I got to see how cute Doodle was when he finally had a student who really cared just for the sheer knowledge of it, no grades would be given here. It was adorable. Besti Ana, my mom and I just watched and giggled at how cute they were. Doodle started telling some jokes and the best one by far:

"Turan, what noise does a 500lb canary make?

"I don't know."

"CHERP!!!"

When he yelled that into Turan's face, which by that point was only one foot away, Turan had to hold on to his seat. He was laughing so hard that it took a few minutes to recover. Precious. Alas it was time for us to go and with a quick picture we were off. Left to right, Vagif, Doodle, turan, Beca, Mommy, Me, Besti Ana