I know it doesn’t seem like a big deal to you. BUT. . .nearly 50 years ago on my first foray outside of the USA I hitchhiked through Europe with my brother. The very first day, outside of Paris, we suffered all day without a ride. We gave up the road and made our way to a trucker’s stop. The first connection with them, wasn’t, as they stared into their beers and ignored us. Through a serious of missteps I was able to convince two Turkish truck drivers, Kamel and Halil, to take us wherever they were going. It turned out to be Istanbul which was actually our fantasy destination.
We ended up spending three days with them trying to find Italy. I know you think Italy is REALLY easy to find from France but, if you have never been there, don’t speak the language, have no francs or lira and are just plain lost–it ain’t easy.
They had always gone from Istanbul to Holland and knew the route. This time they were deviating to pick up half their load in Milano. So they, and of course we, were lost. However this gave us ample time to chat all day driving through the alps in our 18 wheeler (they actually let me drive once, not a good idea). It was during this adventure that I learned that you never need words to communicate. Even someone as word smithy as myself found that if I let go of the words, and let go of the idea of precision, that we would communicate directly heart to heart. So this was our way. I waffled away in English and they spoke Turkish and we passed the time learning about each other and our respective lives. My brother was jealous and spiky because he wouldn’t let go of his words and didn’t think we were really communicating. It was only when we had a disaster—customs in Italy would not allow them to pick up their load—that he realized I could do this. I actually “talked” to the Turks to get their side of the story to explain to my brother in English who spoke to #2 customs guy in French, who spoke to #1 customs guy in Italian and then we reversed the chain, that we worked this out.
So where does “thank you” come in, you are wondering? Well Kamel spent all of those days trying to teach me how to say it in Turkish. Here it is: çok teşekkür. It is pronounced like CHOKE TESHICOO. I practiced and practiced and it became a joke as I was so bad at it and so he would throw it into the middle of our conversations and I would be obligated to practice at that second. Well, all these years have gone by and I am saying it all day long. He would have been proud. I really love those guys.
