This past weekend I travelled to Konya to see the famous Whirling Dervishes. Getting there required a four-hour bus ride through a mountain pass. The scenery along the way was absolutely gorgeous, and the mountain tops were snow-capped, which was lovely.
Once we arrived in Konya, we went to eat a special dish from the area…meat. Every “special dish” in Turkey consists of meat. When I say meat, I’m not refering to chicken, ham, veal, or a variety of other meats. Most of these things don’t exist in Turkey, or at least aren’t considered as falling into the category of “et” (“meat”). Et is lamb, and sometimes beef…but mostly lamb. Everywhere we go, we are given some form of this to eat. Being a vegetarian, I have trouble telling the different methods of presentation apart. It all smells the same–like “Grandma,” as one of us likes to say. Sometimes, I think that the people who attempt to eat this food have difficultly differentiating between the different types, too.
It is sort of nice, being exempt from others’ expectations that I will eat this food. It allows me to sit back and observe some of my peers squirm, thinking about whether it would be more effective to hide the food in a napkin or under a pile of un-eaten rice. (The rice is always the better choice–they aren’t expecting it). I’ve even hidden others’ pieces of et in the remnants of my vegetarian meals, in an attempt to both not appear rude and to pull one over on whoever it is that thought that only putting lamb on the menu was a good idea–it’s just cruel, as far as I can tell.
Konya is also famous for its sugar. It is the sugar capital of Turkey, being the location of most of the factories that turn sugar beets into the kind of sugar that we all recognize. There are sugar candies that are made primarily in Konya. They don’t taste particularly good. They are sort of like balls of powdered sugar that has been mixed with water and left to harden. They are colored all different colors, however, which makes them look appealing.
Of course, the main reason why we went to Konya was to see the Whirling Dervishes. The performance, which began after a very long speech by a professor in Turkish (from what I could understand, he was saying something about a person’s headlights being left on in the parking lot), was really wonderful. The dervishes came onto the stage, and after some time of quiet prayer, they began to whirl, attempting to connect with the devine while at the same time channeling that divinity to the earth. It was an amazing and beautiful thing to witness.
Mawlana Jalaleddin-i Rumi, the father of the founder of the Dervish order in Konya, said (or is reputed to have said):
“Come, come again whoever you are, come! Wonderer, fire worshipper or idolatrous, come! Come even if you broke your penitence a hundred times, Ours is the portal of hope, come as you are.”
Konya and the dervishes were all very welcoming, and I am glad that we had the opportunity gelmek.
