They’re everywhere, these guys: aging, just wanting a mellow afternoon out at the garden plot, so lucky to have a donkey to spell their aching knees. Personally, I get a huge kick out of a place where guys on donkeys and families in carts talk on cell phones and dodge HumVees. In particular, I got a kick out of the Donkey Guy in the video below, he who was nodding off during the slow loll home, only jerking upright when I, on foot, passed him. After eyeing me suspiciously, as though my Ipod-listening self might assault his modesty, he eventually relaxed and nodded off again.
Because I wanted a video of him, but because he, in his waking moments, was very aware of The American Out for a Walk on the Same Country Road, I decided to pull over and fake a shoelace emergency. After giving him a few minutes to get in front of me again, I whipped out the video camera and caught Donkey Man just as he reached the main intersection of country road and highway.
And although it verges on cliche, I have to say that moment at the intersection completely summed up this country for me: donkey plods along, determinedly feeling its way through whizzing semi-trucks. Onlookers expect a crash and a clash, but everyone just keeps heading his own way–to each his own.
Could you bring me back have a donkey please?
That’s absolutely lovely, and as Yeats says, “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,/Slouches towards Ortahisar to be born?”
I left out the part about the slow thighs. I noticed that you did, too.
In 1995, before cell phones were as ubiquitous as they are now, my son and I were in England. One day we were exploring some ancient stone circles in a farm field. A young couple were relaxing in the center of a circle next to us when his cell phone rang. The incongruity of the electronic age in the center of an ancient ruin struck me.
I’m a little concerned that there might be a rough beast slouching its way toward you now. And I am now the proud owner of the knowledge of how to say “Stop” in Turkish.
love those odd intersections of life
I feel for you. I hate those moments when you really want to record/document something and you’re all, “But they will see me, but I want a record of this!” Congratulations on going all Jason Bourne with your shoelaces.