CGM: Cross Cultural Minis
Every Monday morning the neighborhood transforms. Actually, it starts the evening before when the cars that are normally parked on the sides of the street are nowhere to be found. The people who live on the six streets where the pazar (street market) is set up know better than to park their cars on the street Sunday nights – If they did, they would be blocked in until late Monday night.
The vendors arrive early Monday morning. They start setting up by stringing tarps over their spot to protect their products from the sun and/or rain. They then set up tables for their products. Some of the tables are very simple – thin sheets of plywood on top of plastic stools. Others are heavy and strong. Each table is chosen to support the product that will go on top of it: hundreds of kilograms of potatoes or other produce, clothes, dishes, houseware items, luggage and purses, and more. Vendors with similar products tend to group together making it easy for customers to find what they are looking for.
Halfway through set-up, almost all at once, the vendors take a break from displaying their products to drink tea and eat simit (a bagel-like bread, covered in sesame seeds). The hum of conversation fills the air. Then all of a sudden, the trucks that brought in all of the goods leave the pazar area to make room for customers.
The morning rush is mainly housewives and retirees. Housewives haggle with the tomato seller because the price has gone up or the tomatoes are too soft, anything to get a discount. Ladies wearing head coverings pick through the latest fashion of head scarfs. An elderly gentleman in a three-piece suit strolls the aisle with his prayer beads in hand as he passes the time.
Between 3:00pm and 6:00pm, the pazar is the busiest. Government workers, who should still be at work, slip out early to do their weekly pazar shopping. Everyone is much more focused now. The vendors are near the end of a long day but know they still have to load up. The customers are coming from work and don’t want to forget anything before they head home.
The end of the pazar is marked by a change in the yelling of the vendors. During the pazar, the vendors yell at customers, advertising their great prices or the quality of the product. At the end of the pazar, the yelling continues but not at the customer, rather, at each other. In organized chaos, the trucks return to be loaded up with the remaining product or at least the display tables. Then the street sweepers arrive. Men with brooms like a witches broom start sweeping up the trash into garbage trucks that just arrived. Along with the garbage trucks, water tank trucks take their position near where the fruit and vegetable vendors were. Men attach hoses to the water trucks and begin washing down the squished produce that was left behind. By 10:00pm, the clean-up crew is done and the street is restored to normal.
People watching at the pazar is a great cultural experience. People from all social classes and ages are amongst the mob of shoppers. Community is a high value for Turks. While their underlying value of each other may be wrong, the way that they interact by seeing one another, joking, honoring each other, and caring for one another is exemplary. Praise God for Turks’ high value of community! Pray for Turks that their eyes may be opened to the true inherent value we all have as image bearers of God.
