Mumin

Mumin, otherwise known as Mehmet, one of the cooks whom I had met last year invited me to his home to meet his family. After the other customers left the restaurant, we made our way up the hill to his house arm in arm to keep from slipping on the ice.
His house sits behind the one in which his mother, sister and her two children live. It’s very small, but he built it himself and is very proud of it. The decorations are simple, many of them handmade by his wife. I learned, again, that if you compliment someone on something they have made, you may well receive that thing or something like it as a gift. I later returned to the hotel with a bag full of scarves with oyas, a white cotton scarf with beaded decorations on the edges made by Mumin’s mother, and towels with handcrafted trim.
I played with his older son while the baby slept, and had a simple conversation with the rest of his family while Mumin’s wife cooked dinner. Aysegul, Mumin’s wife, spread a table cloth on the floor and set a low table on top of that. We sat around it, well, I had to switch to a chair because my knees can’t take low tables, for a simple meal of eggs, olives, chunks of well cooked meat, bread, jam and honey followed by tea and good strong Turkish coffee. It was one of the nicest meals I ate during the whole vacation.
As Mumin escorted me back over the ice and down the hill, he explained to me that it doesn’t matter if his house is small, if he doesn’t have many things. He’s close to his family and that’s what matters. He’s happy.