Wild leaving day

 

Getting ready to leave this morning was complete madness. Ks father
borrowed his uncles minibus to drive us to Siverek to catch another
minibus to Diyarbakir to fly back to Istanbul. Ks mother had
everything ready that she wanted us to bring back to the US and
Istanbul with us which included a 20lb bottle of homemade cheese,
15lbs of tomato paste from her garden, a 4lb jar of pepper paste,
about 30 eggs, 2lbs of fresh butter and 2 huge soda bottles filled
with pomegranate molasses and she wanted us to bring bread too. With
lots of shouting we took about a third of it--the final word was
mehmet suggesting that she should pack us some animal poop to take
too. The eggs and butter were carefully packed in a bucket with straw--
I thought they were all cracked after the insane hour of bumping
around in the minibus to get to Siverek but everything arrived intact.

 

We got ready early and then waited as a bunch of people were coming
along for the ride since we were driving a minibus. Suddenly there was
lots more shouting and arm waving and stalking around from Ks father--
it turned out that one of the bad visiting sons stole his favorite
pair of pants. I'm not sure why this makes me laugh so much but it does.

 

There was some confusion about whose house we were going to for lunch
on Siverek and it turned out we went to the one house that wasn't
expecting us. Later K went out to get some of the indigo paste that we
had last time we were here--it's boiled in milk like coffee and tastes
similar but is made from ground, roasted indigo seeds. Inexplicably
the only place to buy the indigo paste was a gun store so I wasn't
allowed to come.
We got to Diyarbakir 4 hours early so we sat in a park and ate
lahmacun and some kind of really sweet baklava-ish thing that is
special to the region. When we got to the airport it was completely
quiet and when we got back it was madness--all flights at Diyarbakir
fly between 8pm and 11pm. And that giant watermelon that I took a
photo of last time we were here is a fake, I just found this out.
Arriving to our cute apartment at 1:30am I have never been so
appreciative of indoor plumbing.
The photo of the tree is from last evening when we got some sheets and
Tuba climbed the tree and shook it so the ripe mulberries would fall.
The village photo was one I managed to snap out the jolting minibus
window of another village.

Last day in the village

No post for yesterday as I got horrifically ill again. Luckily I had
my Cipro ready. K's mother was very upset that I wouldn't eat and kept
bringing little trays of food in to me. Everyone said it was
definitely the evil eye put on me by someone who was envious. We didn't
discuss who that might be. Father's cure for the evil eye was to pray
over me while Mehmet suggested that we tie 7 knots in a piece of my
hair and knot seven strands of hair from a black donkeys tail, burn
all the hair and bury the ashes. I didn't think the donkey would
appreciate that so much but clearly we needed to take some action so
we opted for mama's cure of lots of sour bitter sumac with an egg
cooked in it. Absolutely disgusting but I think it helped. All the
aunties were swearing that it worked. The plan is for an indoor toilet
for next year which would have helped a lot.

Now I'm sitting under the mulberry tree in the yard with the cows and
very much looking forward to going to Istanbul. It's very beautiful
here and it's like being transported to another age. Time moves much
more slowly, everyone spends a lot of time talking and visiting and
laughing with little to no rushing around or worrying about being
late. K's mama got mad today because the cow ate her big flower bush--
she slapped the cow with a stick. Otherwise not much is happening. I
will be glad to get back to not being a curiosity as the only American
that anyone has ever seen that wasn't on TV. I think I am somewhat of
a disappointment to people outside the family as I don't look so much
like the Americans on TV.

Lots of aunties visited today speaking Zaza and no Turkish so someone
has to translate for them--today that asked me why K hasn't bought me
any jewelry, if we missed each other being apart all day for work and
if my shirt was expensive and they asked about our finances and if
people in America die and what we do with them when they die. We made stuffed grape
leaves, stuffed eggplant and stuffed cucumber today, I have to get the
recipe at some point. The funny part was that I think we got
everything ready to make them and then waited until a bunch of guests
came which made all the rolling, stuffing and wrapping go very quickly!

I'm a bit stressed about all the girls who want to go school and have
careers and aren't allowed. I guess I could file this under 'life
isn't fair' and 'we never appreciate what we have' but I feel pretty
strongly about it. Last time I was here I misunderstood and thought it
was a financial problem but it doesn't seem to be at all. I guess it's
cultural of wanting protect the girls from becoming 'bad' or moving
away from home. Ks immediate family isn't like this as so many of the
kids are educated.

No photo day

Today was pretty lazy, most of the nutty visiting rush is over
although I think K's mother still made dinner for 20ish people
tonight, including adding 4 people and 2 kids who just showed up right
before we were about to eat.

I lost a lot of farm-kid cred today, K's mother brought me out to help
milk the cows and I couldn't produce a drop of milk--the cow was
pretty obviously relieved when I stopped trying as she was good
natured but seriously considering giving me a kick.

We tried to use the Internet at the school here today as I'm sure some
people are worrying a bit, however while the electricity was working
for most the day the satellite connection wasn't. The other day we sat
in the shade on someones roof drinking coke from little glasses and
looking out at houses made of rocks with yards full of farm animals
and suddenly I noticed a satellite dish on the roof. It might be 7th
century conditions in some ways but technology is moving fast here.
They never got landlines but now everyone has a cell phone.

It's disorienting being so unable to make decisions for myself, I
can't imagine living here as a woman. The woman are quite strong and
assertive and funny and conditions are very hard and yet much easier
that they used to be before electricity and running water. The wheat
is ready to be harvested, in most fields it is sowed with horse or
donkey pulled plows and harvested by hand. Many of the women were
married to men they barely knew/didnt choose when they were around 15.
One woman told me she wants to go to school to learn Turkish and her
husband told her she can't because she's too smart already and he's
afraid he won't be able to compete when they argue, which is kind of
funny or at least we all laughed about it, but really not funny at
all. I think Ks youngest sister will be the first from the village to
go to high school.

Another day pursuing Internet access

We were supposed to get up super early and walk 5-6 miles to mehmets
village to use the Internet. New things I discovered today: I do need
email to live, facebook doesn't like it if you sign in in remote
Turkey and will block your account and baby donkeys are ridiculously
cute.

It was too hot because we didn't wake up until 7, but we started
walking anyways and miraculously got a ride from K's sister's husband
who "heard" we were walking. There's a verb tense in Turkish for
things that you hear but don't personally know to be true, I haven't
learned it yet however.

On the way we saw 3 elderly women who had just killed a 7 foot long
snake and a lot of people harvesting lentils by hand in the field--
unfortunately no one was fast enough to get any photos. Apparently the
brother-in-law had a kalashnikov in the front seat to guard the oil
well but I missed seeing this, if I knew the hearsay/gossip tense I
could use it here.

We did our internetting and sat around waiting for the 'dolmus'
minibus, (they're named after stuffed grape leaves--in the cities
people cram into minibuses like stuffed grape leaves fit together). We
took a walk in mehmets village and found his students splashing in a
pool out under the mulberry trees. The pool was around 10' x 16' with
about 30 wild children in it and all the girls were fully dressed.

When we got back to the regular village we walked to another garden
owned by Ks grandfather and admired the view and the pomegranate
flowers and met more aunties. And of course saw the too cute fuzzy
donkey baby--the better photos are on my other camera and will come
later. We came home and more aunties were waiting for us, a lot of
guests. I snuck out to help make dinner, as that and washing dishes is
way more fun--a lot of the aunties get a little cranky that they can't
ask me a million questions. It was interesting cooking while the
electricity kept going out, maybe about 8 times while we cooked.
Sometimes just for 5 or 10 minutes, but it was restrained chaos
looking for the battery powered light each time with the light from
cellphones and tripping over piles of bread.

A long walk over a big hill

So we were supposed to have satellite Internet the whole time we were
in the village but things did not go as planned in that department.
Today 2 of K's brothers were leaving to go home so we walked them to
the ferry in hopes of using the Internet in another brother, mehmets
village. We took the scenic route which involved climbing the
"mountain" as everyone in the village calls it. It's actually a huge
grassy, rocky plateau that looks like it will be small and goes on for
miles. The villages take the animals to graze.

We walked over rockiness until I got pretty whiny but the views were beyond amazing.
We walked around the edge for a while--some of the photos show the
villages and Euphrates river below.

The really rocky photo shows theancient sheep path, literally that we walked down to get off the
plateau.

And one photo shows a spring with rock bowls, probably also
ancient, and no I didn't drink out of it but K and his brothers did.

While coming down the side we found a page from a girls diary that was
so sad. She was thirteen and I thought it would be usual teenage
angst, maybe about boys--but things are very different here. Kahraman
translated for me--she says she has the worst luck in the world, she
loves studying and school and wants to have a career and she is
appealing to god and whoever for help as her family won't let her go
to high school. It was dated last November and she vows to be first in
her class. I almost cried, I take so much of what I have for granted.

The crazy part is that she is K's brothers student in the village we
walked to. He says that she is the best in her class and will talk to
her father about sending her to school. It's difficult as kids have to
board at high school and can't come home often--also one mother
proudly told me that she didn't educate any of her 12 kids and as a
result they are all still living here in the village. The educated
ones tend to leave.

Of course, the electricity was out in the village where we hoped to
use the Internet. So instead we ate and napped and headed to a picnic
with K's sisters Sofia and Melek in an abandoned house that Sofia used
to live in near the oil well that is either owned by her family or
they own the land. All photos of that are on the regular camera however.

Lazy day

I got a little lazy in general about writing, I guess that's good
since it means that I'm sleeping! Photos from today below--breakfast
is really the best time of day. We wake up really early, like 5-6am
and it's cool outside and the light is beautiful on the hills. And
breakfast involves various combinations of home made dairy products;
the fresh butter, yogurt and cheese made me think maybe I could live
here on monday but by Wednesday(when I'm actually writing this!) I'm
quite sure that I couldn't live here. The dairy products are
convincing though--the butter is bright yellow in the photo below and
I doubt I will ever have such delicious butter again. I used the bread
solely as a vehicle to eat the butter. K's mother made special
turnover-like things this morning with cheese and lots of parsley
inside. I got to put the stuffing in and seal the edges. I know I
complained about how as a sister-in-law I would have to do lots of
dishwashing but I actually enjoy it, even the cold water as it's
refreshing. My knees are not loving how we do so much sitting on the
floor however.

 

We planted a tree today too, a pomegranate tree on the edge of the
yard. Then we slept alot since sleeping is the best way to kill a hot
afternoon and then had tons of aunties visit again at night.

Donkeys are really hilarious. I'm like the tourist in NY who stops to
watch the fire trucks--no one here notices the donkey and rooster
noises but they completely crack me up.

So far, theme of trip = not sleeping

 

I am awake at all the wrong moments and half-asleep when everyone asks
me questions in Turkish--I guess this is jet lag? Discovered today
that my Turkish is completely inadequate for communicating, noted.
Some of the younger aunties were very frustrated with this, the older
aunties don't care since they only speak Zaza and they sit and laugh
and tell lots of jokes. Today might have been the longest day of my
life, family came to visit, lots of family and consequently I spent
alot of time with the women. Kahraman's mother is incredibly kind and
has made me very welcome. And his little sister, Tuba and I exchange
Turkish-English lessons-she is very cute. I took lots of photos of
thistles and aunties and donkeys, much to everyones general amusement.
I had a melt-down at one point over my lacking Turkish but nothing
that couldn't be fixed by dinner. We had a cold yogurt soup with
barley in it that completely blew my mind, I begged to be taught to
make it--hopefully before we leave. Pastoral photos of the country
around the village--I can only post photos from the iPhone until we
get to Istanbul so no thistles and donkeys today.