Wynter is from America and lives in Istanbul with her Kurdish boyfriend Akin to research religions in Turkey. For interviewing an Islamic leader of a Muslim community, Akin introduced her to the local imam of his hometown in east Turkey. Before Wynter headed to the mosque, Akin urges her to listen to him for some very important advice. At this point, she's expecting to hear the usual about covering her hair etc but this time it was something new. Akin said, “Whatever happens, just don't fart!”

The passing of gas is perceived as pollutant of spiritual clean spaces, hence disrespectful. This has nothing to do with physical cleanliness, in the same way as the ritual washings are not required to be thorough washings. That's what the hamam, the Turkish bathhouse, is for.

Here is another story:

When Akin was a student in the US, together with a group of fellow students, he would take a bus to a mosque for Friday prayers. Before the group would get on the bus, everyone would carry out the ritual washings of feet, hands and face. One time, a guy had been out the night before drinking beer, which caused a havoc on the bus. Interestingly enough, his fellow moslems weren't outraged about the consumption of alcohol at all since most of them liked to drink. That wasn't the problem. What caused everyone's anger at him were the consequences: his beer farts. Him passing gas on the bus defiled everyone else's spiritual cleanliness, so they all had to do the ritual washings again.

Ümran* is in her mid forties and has three daughters and one son. Her husband has a rafting company and moved the family to the riverside for business proximity. They live in a large house by the beautiful Köprülü Canyon. Her husband's business is going extremely well, especially since he started hiring cheap labor from Kyrgyzstan as rafting guides. They have the right cultural background (they are Turks) and language skills (they speak Russian). With the majority of the rafting tourists being from Russia, this makes the perfect combination.

However, his family is very lonely. In a culture where there are no female public spaces (the tea house is a men's place) it's perceived as inappropriate for a woman to go out of the house unless she has a reason. Until recently, Ümran's reason had been her only friend who had lived one mile away from her house. The perfect walking distance to see a friend, she finds. But her friend moved to Antalya and since then Ümran has hardly been leaving the house. “There is nothing for me to do, nobody I can go and see, so I just sit here and watch TV, drinking one sweet tea after the other. Now I am fat and my doctor tells me to lose weight, but how?” She shows me her latest blood works and points to the encircled high cholesterol among other clinical and sub-clinical test results.

For now, her daughters are still in school and free to move around, at least during the day. “The evenings are lonely, too.” says Ümran when her daughter leaves the sitting room. Shortly, she comes back serving us another round of sweet tea.

* Name has been changed for patient's privacy.

Hassan* (65) is a retired policeman who lives in a mountain village during the summer and in the close-by city during the winter. He and his wife Sevim*, a retired nurse, have a fruit garden, keep bees, raise chickens and have countless cats rummaging around their garden, trying to sneak into the house or wherever tasty food is being prepared. Hassan's favorite cat is a black and white beauty called Bekintash according to the Istanbul soccer team he is rooting for. Hassan's life consists mostly of driving in his pick-up truck to nearby towns delivering and picking up goods, and to work in his garden with the fruit trees or the beehive boxes.

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From an outside perspective, he doesn't have much stress. But he protests and tells everyone how his relationship is causins him stress. Also, the people's interactions in the small mountain village seem to make his life complicated. His wife is constantly complaining (in mock or for real) – mostly about how he is ruining his health in front of her eyes. Hassan smokes one cigarette after the other, but ironically that's not his wife's concern – despite her nursing background. It's the sugar he puts in his tea that makes her cringe.

Turkey's national drink is black tea served in tiny tulip-shaped glasses with a large scoop of sugar. And it's what's causing his wife's worries. As a Turkish woman, she is the one in their household serving him the tea and if he demands sugar in it, cultural norms force her to oblige. With her teeth clenched and a pointy remark, she hands him over his tea, the large sugar crystals very visible at the bottom of the glass. Hassan laments that he's being denied what every Turk has the right to enjoy and the bickering continues. Later, he sits outside with the local imam** smoking a cigarette in one hand, and a chain of beads in his other hand. He flicks the chain through the air as his fingers run from one bead to the next in a rhythm. “Doing this relaxes me. I have so much stress. With these beads – what do you call them in English? - I can finally calm down again.”

*  Names have been changed for patients' privacy.
** The imam is an Islamic leader of a mosque and the Muslim community.