Home is where the heart is
Wooster is home to rich agricultural land, an excellent small liberal arts college, an
agricultural research station, formerly a major industry (Rubbermaid, since closed and causing painful dislocation for many here) and – in the summer – a light opera company, Ohio Light Opera. Since 1978 we have enjoyed its productions, and I have often laughingly said that I raised my girls on the 99.44% romance of Gilbert and Sullivan nonsense and smaltzy European light operas, and so they never were able to find the “real” thing in the “real” world. I got to thinking about raising the girls in this place, with the special OLO opportunities, as I came home from the memorial service for James Stewart, the OLO founder, two nights before I left for this trip. OLO is one of the factors that makes Wooster what it is, roots some people at least into Wooster’s soil. Both J and E wanted to see an OLO production when they were home over the 4th of July weekend.
This triggered the question in me: What makes Izmir Turkey Izmir and Cairo Egypt Cairo. What is special about those places that roots people there and makes them proud or even just sentimental about them? The guidebook my classicist, lover-of-Turkey friend loaned me disparaged Izmir as a place to pass through quickly. Aside from a couple of small museums and the Aegean waterfront, don’t bother, it recommended. Obviously Cairo is home to one of the seven wonders of the world, but the book we were given to read about Mokattam, the garbage village in Cairo which is the focus of our time in Egypt, reported that it was a very special treat for the villagers to get to the pyramids or a Mediterranean beach. Very few ever have. I infer (but of course do not know) from this that probably the ordinary poor people gain little identity from living within miles of such a wonder.
One question that I will have to try to answer – and perhaps it is not possible on such a short trip – is what is the uniquely “rooting” characteristic of these two cities.
Now home for nearly a week, I cannot say that I achieved my goal. Izmir, population three million, is home to more bridal shops per square mile than anyone could have imagined (it is the center of Turkey’s garment industry), it has a lovely Mediterranean-style university campus (where the University Olympics will be held in August, but which knows that the finest universities in the country are in Ankara), a bustling outdoor market area (though that hardly distinguishes it from other cities, and the scarves we bought there had been made in China). Even in the commercial center we could not find postcards. M. reported that people here barely acknowledge its ancient identity as Smyrna and that they do not admit that the huge fire of 1922 burned only the Armenian district. Although we met the Turkish students participating in the lingual-cultural exchange briefly, we did not have an opportunity to get to know them well enough to ask them what makes them proud to be from Izmir. I hope the students from L.A. will be able to do so and will fall in love with the place.
In Cairo, we took various means of transportation and so were able to see that the sprawling city is obviously made up of districts and neighborhoods. The garbage village itself is a discrete neighborhood to 30,000 residents who share in the common trade of garbage collection and recycling. The collectors, almost all of whom are Coptic Christians, must lure their exhausted, skinny donkeys pulling the day’s collections up a steep rocky hill to gain entrance to it. One of the students working with the village residents told us that someone has recently accepted (?—asked for???) the sir name of Garbage Collector, so for him at least there is a sense of pride about his work. The place itself however cannot be adequately described by such words as fetid, squalid, desperately poor. It can only be experienced as such. Yet my initial impression is that Mokattam has as strong a sense of “home” as Wooster.
agricultural research station, formerly a major industry (Rubbermaid, since closed and causing painful dislocation for many here) and – in the summer – a light opera company, Ohio Light Opera. Since 1978 we have enjoyed its productions, and I have often laughingly said that I raised my girls on the 99.44% romance of Gilbert and Sullivan nonsense and smaltzy European light operas, and so they never were able to find the “real” thing in the “real” world. I got to thinking about raising the girls in this place, with the special OLO opportunities, as I came home from the memorial service for James Stewart, the OLO founder, two nights before I left for this trip. OLO is one of the factors that makes Wooster what it is, roots some people at least into Wooster’s soil. Both J and E wanted to see an OLO production when they were home over the 4th of July weekend.
This triggered the question in me: What makes Izmir Turkey Izmir and Cairo Egypt Cairo. What is special about those places that roots people there and makes them proud or even just sentimental about them? The guidebook my classicist, lover-of-Turkey friend loaned me disparaged Izmir as a place to pass through quickly. Aside from a couple of small museums and the Aegean waterfront, don’t bother, it recommended. Obviously Cairo is home to one of the seven wonders of the world, but the book we were given to read about Mokattam, the garbage village in Cairo which is the focus of our time in Egypt, reported that it was a very special treat for the villagers to get to the pyramids or a Mediterranean beach. Very few ever have. I infer (but of course do not know) from this that probably the ordinary poor people gain little identity from living within miles of such a wonder.
One question that I will have to try to answer – and perhaps it is not possible on such a short trip – is what is the uniquely “rooting” characteristic of these two cities.
Now home for nearly a week, I cannot say that I achieved my goal. Izmir, population three million, is home to more bridal shops per square mile than anyone could have imagined (it is the center of Turkey’s garment industry), it has a lovely Mediterranean-style university campus (where the University Olympics will be held in August, but which knows that the finest universities in the country are in Ankara), a bustling outdoor market area (though that hardly distinguishes it from other cities, and the scarves we bought there had been made in China). Even in the commercial center we could not find postcards. M. reported that people here barely acknowledge its ancient identity as Smyrna and that they do not admit that the huge fire of 1922 burned only the Armenian district. Although we met the Turkish students participating in the lingual-cultural exchange briefly, we did not have an opportunity to get to know them well enough to ask them what makes them proud to be from Izmir. I hope the students from L.A. will be able to do so and will fall in love with the place.
In Cairo, we took various means of transportation and so were able to see that the sprawling city is obviously made up of districts and neighborhoods. The garbage village itself is a discrete neighborhood to 30,000 residents who share in the common trade of garbage collection and recycling. The collectors, almost all of whom are Coptic Christians, must lure their exhausted, skinny donkeys pulling the day’s collections up a steep rocky hill to gain entrance to it. One of the students working with the village residents told us that someone has recently accepted (?—asked for???) the sir name of Garbage Collector, so for him at least there is a sense of pride about his work. The place itself however cannot be adequately described by such words as fetid, squalid, desperately poor. It can only be experienced as such. Yet my initial impression is that Mokattam has as strong a sense of “home” as Wooster.
posted by Barb @ 4:10 PM
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