The Potato Man

One of the friends I made in Olympos at the hostel we called the Potato Man when identifying him during conversation. His real name is Shakir. He introduced himself to me as Shakira. The only hard facts I could get him to admit about himself was that he was a professor of Biological Engineering at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara and he has two children. Every time I saw him he was sitting by the fire if it was lit or sitting in the bungalows if the camp fire hadn't started yet. He was always drinking Raki. His balding white hair was pulled into a short rat tail braid at the base of his head. And every night he ate potatoes for dinner. He cooked them by letting them roast next to the fire's flames for hours. He shared them with everyone after dousing them heavily with salt and the free single-packs of butter from the restaurant connected to the hostel. He was quite friendly and a little crazy. 

I first met him when I was buying a bottle of water from the bar and he recognized me as the girl who took a funny picture on the beach next to the "Warning: Falling Rocks" sign. Later when I was socializing in the bungalow with some Germans and an Australian he came and asked me to sit by the fire with him and his friend who also works at the University. They claimed to be professors of life and ranted on and on about why Olympos is their favorite place to visit. They claimed to be Buddhist but would giggle after each claim which in my mind discounted their claims. He went on rants about why studying the past was silly but then insisted that in order to discuss modern government one must first start 400 years back. I didn't know what to think but he definitely left an impression. After a while I retreated back to the bungalow to hang out with people my own age who didn't seem to be on the brink of a insanity.