Property Point 22 August

Many years ago I was sitting on a ferry docked on the shores of Lake Van in eastern Turkey, near the borders with Iran, Iraq and Armenia, when two young Western women came racing towards me and asked if they could sit next to me.

I had been sitting on the deck of this aquatic jalopy with a handful of other travellers and locals while the skipper waited for more people to arrive for the trip to the ancient cathedral we had come to see on a nearby island.

A bus had pulled up and the two women in their early 20s got out, grabbed their backpacks from the under-carriage, and started walking towards the old ferry.

I noticed they were speeding up and making a beeline towards me. They walked straight up to me and said: “Can we sit with you?”

I was happy to oblige and they sat on the bench on either side of me, pressed up pretty close against my legs.

Like me, the young women had been through quite a journey from Istanbul, through various Aegean cities and the amazing central region of Cappadocia to get this remote dot on a map near Mount Ararat, which is said to be the landing place of Noah’s Ark after the big flood.
But our experiences had been quite different. I was in my late 20s, travelling by myself,  and had thoroughly enjoyed the history of the country and the warm friendliness of the people as I visited cafes and restaurants and explored the country’s incredible tourist attractions.

But for my new female companions, New Zealanders named Diane and Susan who had been travelling together, the experience had been completely different.

At that time, in that part of the world, there was a cultural misunderstanding, a misinterpretation, when it came to two young women travelling around by themselves.

As they huddled up next to me they told me their past few weeks had been hell. In a nutshell, they said local men had taken the firm view that these two single women had come to the country to have sex with them. It was just a matter of which men they were going to choose … and there was no lack of keen participants.

From then on Diane and Susan stuck to me like baklava to a blanket for the remainder of their time in the country.

That night we stayed at a lovely old village. We got a lot of attention, more than I usually received.

The girls stayed at my side and the men really only spoke to me or at least looked at me first, as though for approval, before talking to Susan or Diane.

Later in the night at some café or restaurant, a couple of the blokes took me aside and asked me: “Which is your girlfriend? Is it Susan or Diane?” Clearly they were trying to establish availability and show me due respect.

I said I was with both of them. “You are with both? They are both your girlfriends?”
“Yes, they are both my girlfriends.”

“Oh, really. Wow. Two girlfriends!”

In a remote region filled with history and legends, a new one was established that night. It was the one about David the Australian, sadly a myth, but one that confirmed the perceived benefits of male life in the Western world.

These days, selling real estate in Mackay, I am not required to provide the same type of protection. But protection is what a good agent provides.

An agent’s job is to protect your greatest asset, do all the things that need to be done to get the best price. You have to trust the agent, know in your heart they will do the right thing, the professional thing. You know you will be safe with a good agent because they respect and honour the responsibility.

Just like looking after Susan and Diane.

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