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Snakes in Izmir.

Veli and Vijdan who are close friends of Lea and myself, used to run the bakery in Turunc, prior to moving back to Izmir. Before completion of their move, they invited us to spend a few days with them and their family in Izmir. We accepted gladly and looked forward to the visit.

Veli and Vijdan spoke very little English, and we spoke very little Turkish. On our visits to the bakery, which were many and lengthy, we would always have the mandatory dictionary at hand to overcome difficulties. Being adept at sign-language and that halfway-house language of Turglish usually sufficed when the dictionary failed.

When packing for Izmir we therefore made sure to take the BIG dictionary.
Shortly after arriving at Vijdans mums house, Vijdan showed us the bedroom where Lea and I would be sleeping. With a combination of signing and Turglish, the dictionary not being needed on this occasion, she warned us to make sure the window was always closed at night because of the snakes. OH MY GOD! Snakes in Izmir. But not only that, these must be big enough to climb through a window six feet off the ground. What had we let ourselves in for?
Trying to appear nonchalant we just nodded our heads and assured Vijdan that the window would be closed. If I could have got a welding torch, I would have closed it for good there and then.
Fortunately, the few days and nights passed without incident. Apart from the occasional mosquito, no other wild life was encountered. Our nightly ritual helped to reassure us somewhat. This consisted of checking under the bed, in the bed and on the bed. I also became adept at making hissing snake-like noises. The theory being, any snake hearing me would come out to see what all the commotion was about, whereupon we could quickly summon Vijdan.

We returned to Turunc relieved not to have suffered serious injury, and resumed our visits to the bakery.
About a week later when we were sitting outside the bakery with Veli and Vijdan, Vijdan began to flap her arms about, and complain about the snakes? Lea and I looked at each other with puzzlement and wondered what these flying snakes could be. Those few days in Izmir now paid off, I was able to do a good impression of a hissing snake for the benefit of Vijdan. She had a quick word with Veli, and once they had stopped rolling around with laughter, she took the customary dictionary and pointed to the word sinek'.
We looked at the dictionary and realised we were lucky to have escaped from Izmir without being molested by HOUSE FLIES.

Learn more about this author, Jobey M.
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