My Summer Vacation

Remember how you reported on "What I did on my summer vacation" on your return to school in the Fall? In my case, I hardly ever had anything to report. My elementary school education was during the Great Depression. We never had a vacation with both my parents scratching to make a living for me and my brothers.

This year my summer vacation was a zinger. My wife and I boarded our black Lab dog at our daughter's place, borrowed our granddaughter from the same address and flew off to Turkey!

Some explanation is in order.

My wife and I were invited to attend a dinner last year, put on by the Holy Dove Foundation.It was in a very nice place and the menu was great and we listened to several people report on their visit to Turkey. They were all quite enthusiastic about their adventures. As for me, I half listened because after all, we had gone to Turkey on a Globus Tour 14 years before.

Flip the calendar to this Spring. I had been out of the last of my three hospitals and I was beginning to walk almost normally with the aid of a walker or a cane. My rehab was developing nicely, but when I learned that we had been asked to join a group traveling to Turkey I blanched. Remembering our prior trip, I had to say with regret that I could not do this.

So my wife inquired about our thirteen-year-old granddaughter as a replacement for me. OK with our trip leader, the Executive Director of The Holy Dove Foundation. Mmmm--OK from our daughter. Then a week before the departure I was released by my therapist at Rehab. I checked with my Neurosurgeon about my joining the group and he said OK!

It was a very long plane trip. There was a lot of walking involved at our destinations. Some places were up flights of stairs. Several had no elevators. I was asked one morning after a hard previous day how I slept. I replied that had the bed been a slab of marble I would have slept as well.

This trip was vacation-like, but that wasn't the purpose. Our group was recruited by the Holy Dove Foundation in order to experience, first hand, Muslim people in their own environment. We visited business people in their offices and educators in their schools and universities. We had dinner with families in their own homes, prepared by the ladies of the house. We visited Mosques with people at prayer and holy sites of several religions. We were on city streets jammed with cars and people. The countryside is booming with new construction. This is a dynamic country!

The most memorable moments were in the homes of our evening hosts. There, in each of these family sanctuaries, we exchanged gifts and shared our backgrounds. The hospitality that was shown by these people was astounding.

The Holy Dove Foundation is dedicated to the concept of removing barriers to understanding through dialog. That is a concept that may seem simplistic in our modern, rushing civilization.

I thought so.

But not anymore.

If this was an eye opener for me, just think of the reaction of our granddaughter. What a report she can write this fall!