Chopsticks for Tea

10 October 2022

L-to-R: Çeylan, Nur Hayat, and Becca pose in front of The Magic Cave, otherwise known as studio home to ceramic masters Mümtaz and Metin Körükçü.

“Şeker?” Nur Hayat held out a blue bowl with a wavy rim, full of sugar cubes.  I (Becca) had just been given tea in this pottery studio-shop nestled in the heart of Avanos. I froze.

Let me back up. Just when I thought my day couldn’t get any better — what with throwing on a Turkish potter’s wheel and watching a ceramic master four years younger than me test-run tools I had brought — Nur Hayat invited me to a second cup of tea and a spot of lunch.

At a low table set back from the shop front, we tucked fried eggplant and peppers into bite-sized chunks of fresh bread. A plastic drum of yogurt (a Turkish word!) helped counterbalance the heat of the chilis. Despite the warmth of the day, a red lentil soup made by Nur Hayat’s older sister, Çeylan, hit the spot. I’m waiting to hear back on how she made it, but I’ll be lucky if there’s a recipe for me to attempt replication.

Anyway, I wanted to share this hilarious moment between tea and lunch. I stared stupidly at the sugar bowl because among the cubes lay two little sticks, thicker than toothpicks. I glanced at Leah for any hint of comprehension — no luck. She looked just as confused as I was about the presence of mini-chopsticks in the sugar bowl.

And here’s the beautiful thing. Nur Hayat got it. Without so much as a word, I had communicated alarm at potentially committing a cultural faux pas. She rightly guessed that I didn’t know if I was supposed to use my fingers or the chopsticks to take the cubes for my tea. She burst into laughter and informed me that the sticks were for Leah and me to stir our tea after we plopped the cubes in with our fingers. Our joined laughter rang throughout the shop.

Lunch conversation delighted the heart like that first real snow of winter when everyone runs outside to build snowmen and make snow angels. The fatigue of a cross-cultural friendship without a common language hadn’t set in yet, and the joys at finding commonalities in occupations and vacation dreams and birthdays abounded. There was good food to compliment and a thousand nouns at hand to name in two languages.

I stopped by their shop the day before Leah and I departed Avanos for Amasya (an eight-hour bus ride). We traded gifts and Nur Hayat invited me over for breakfast the next day.

We practiced English over an elaborate breakfast spread of bread, veggies, eggs, and even Turkish sushi she had made the night before. (She handed out real chopsticks for that, and we got to rehash our joke from Day 1.) She shared photos of her family and we talked about her plans for a university degree in surveyorship and geographic software programming.

Do you see the sushi? And the sugar bowl between us?

Both sisters are voracious readers. Çeylan is currently reading a translation of Amistad. Nur Hayat and I briefly discussed Agatha Christie.

I came to Avanos to learn pottery techniques and motifs. I’m leaving with the delights of unexpected friendship and hospitality, and the hope to return. Maybe when Leah publishes her novel?

A ceramic relief I passed while walking to their house for breakfast on Saturday morning.

Google Translate seems to have majorly improved since I last traveled internationally. Nur Hayat wrote this before we said our goodbyes.