Who Knows What 'The Levant' Is?

[MineralMan]

13. Indeed. Most Americans don't travel widely in that region.

In the mid to later 1960s, I found myself stationed in Turkey, at a little AFB in Samsun, Turkey. Samsun was a fairly sizable port on the Black Sea, and was pretty westernized, as cities in Turkey go. The base was on the outskirts of the city, though, and adjacent to pretty much open country.

Since I was a shift worker and had four days off in a row at the end of the shift cycle, I decided to explore. I checked a backpack out from the recreation office and did some serious hiking away from the city. You didn't have to walk far, maybe five miles, along well-trodden trails, to find yourself in a place that hadn't changed for 1000 years. No roads, just trails, trodden by people and donkeys. No electricity in the villages, no motor vehicles, and a lifestyle that reflected a time you'd think would have disappeared.

I had learned enough Turkish to be able to be polite and friendly, and met some very interesting people on those multi-day hikes. I slept on dirt floors in villages and made friends. I learned a great deal from those friends. Most knew that Samsun was just over a couple of hills and valleys, but had never seen it. It was irrelevant to their lives.

I visited some of those villages a number of times during my 15 months in Turkey. It was an amazing revelation for me, and I began to understand what life was like long in the past.