Simit man, et al.

Simit man.  This guy walks our street everyday, usually around 11am or noon, calling out "simiiiiit!"  They are a delicious Turkish kind of bagel, covered in sesame seeds, usually along with cheese, for breakfast or a snack anytime.  Most neighborhoods have these guys walking arond with simits on their heads, though the really busy parts have guys with simit carts, and sell them three for a Lira!   This is one of the things I'll miss about this place.. the simit man.

Along with the simit man, there are also guys walking around with old rickety carts full of junk, calling out looking for more junk.  I assume they go someplace that may give them a bit of money for this junk, but some of the things i see in their carts seems like it would be worth nothing.  I've seen old pipes, half of a window frame, old vacuum cleaners...  

The last street 'patrollers' come out in the late evening, toting HUGE plastic bags the size of  WV Beetles. They are on wheels, and they go from one garbage pile to the next picking up plastic and glass bottles.  One thing about Turkey is that it is very dirty.  There are no garbage cans, so people are in the habit of throwing all their trash where ever they may be at the time.  And the household garbage pick-up system also needs to be re-done.  People simply take their small bags full of trash out to the street, and so if you walk along the street in the evenings, you see hundreds of piles of trash bags.  Before the garbage truck comes at night (and the workers must pick up each bag separately to toss in the truck), first the stray cats and dogs come and partially destroy the bags while looking for food scraps, then the plastic bottle guys come and tear them apart even more, and so what we are left with by the wee hours of the night are big piles of trash flying around the streets.  Miracle though, that by the morning, it seems to be mostly cleaned up!   Outside of the city is a different story, as the place we went on picnic a few weeks ago was covered in trash, as are most of the hills outside the city!  ick.