Category: Turkey

Now it was time to head north to Diyarbakir. I was pissed at Isik for having sung Mardin folksongs the whole time we were around the region; now as we were approaching the oil wells of Batman, it was payback time: over and over: “Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo BAT-MAN!” After the merriment passed, as Kadri was trying to see if the car would fly us to Diyarbakir at warp speed before PKK time travelers could arrive to catch us, I started to feel not well at all. They passed me a bag, and I breathed in and out of it, in and out, and when we arrived at the hotel in Diyarbakir, I staggered through their lobby, found their toilet, squatted (even the lobby had a Turkish toilet) and probably flooded Hasankeyf all by myself. I was unable to puke, unable to walk, and they drove me to the hospital, where I tried to get into the elevator but could not, found the toilet in their lobby, squatted, and left the rest of my insides there for good measure. I had sweat through my shirt in the process, removed it, and made my way upstairs, under Kadri and Elif’s arms, and the doctor told me I had tyfo, which is not typhus or typhoid but something else, something I didn’t understand, but I knew exactly what it was, knew that he was wrong, and I got a cup and gave another stool sample, a porn star in my ability to deliver the goods on demand. The aide came in, gave me a knowing wink, and announced that my old friends E. Hystolitica had again found a happy home in my intestines. They put me on serum and some anti-nausea drug, and the serum was too strong, or started to panic, but in any case, under the drip, I started to freak out after awhile. I got hyper and started yelling and banging my head like at a heavy metal concert, and Elif convinced the doctor to add some downers to the drip, which he was at first loathe to do but indeed did, and I felt mighty fine after that.

I laid back with the drip in my arm and heard a nice new aide, fourth day on the job, tell Elif that even though I’m an American (I think screaming in English was the giveaway), “we don’t like Americans,” and Elif tried to be civil, saying that a government’s actions don’t always reflect its citizens, and its citizens don’t really know or need to know or give a fig that Apache Longbows are stopping people like him from seceding from a country six thousand miles away, especially when there’s Reality Television on, but when he extended it to saying it was all the Jews’ fault, Elif gave up. Kadri was able to yell at the guy when paying, as the guy tried to get the full price of $16 rather than the discount of $12 from us, and Kadri made a big shame on him for trying to charge us more than promised, etc., but we were not liking Diyarbakir one bit.

The hotel was dirty, the hotel was gross, but the hotel was home, and when they left it to walk around Diyarbakir the next morning, I was not about to join them; my usual phobia of missing out on anything was nowhere to be seen, there was only my pillow. They came back an hour later, angry and wanting to bust town: unlike Urfa, although they all talked in Arabic and Kurdish on the streets, no Turkish, everyone gave them filthy looks and told Elif she’d burn in hell if she’d go into the mosque dressed like that, and she wasn’t at all provocatively dressed. So they saw some buildings from the outside, packed me in the car, and headed toward Nemrut Dag.

We drove the better part of an hour way up the 2 km summit; the whole road was cobblestoned. On the way, we were stopped by a gendarme: can you please bring up these food supplies to my men at the top? Sure… but can Brian use your bathroom? And in a violation of every policy, I got to see the inside of a gendarme station, which was very unspectacular, but their (Turkish squat) toilet was (before I used it) very, very clean.

When we reached the top, there was a storm and it was like 40 degrees Fahrenheit, drizzling, and there was no way I was going to leave the car. They hiked up while I slept in the passengers seat. We got a hotel nearby.

The next morning, they took me back, it was much warmer, and I was able to hike up with them. Nemrut Dag is a silly but terribly wonderful site, with lots of massive stone heads adorning the temple and tomb of the great king Antiochus. Antiochus I ruled from 64-38BC and the son of Mithridates (whom Mozart did an opera on); he founded the Commagene kingdom, and it was some rinky-dink empire, covering from Adiyaman all the way to Gaziantep. His main accomplishment was to hold off the Romans from the territory for awhile. At some point, he decided he was a god, claiming descent from Darius the Great of Persia and Alexander the Great, but when he sided with the Parthians against Rome and was deposed, and the Romans took the territory, end of the great Commagene kingdom and end of story – but he left behind a massive funerary ode to himself. After hiking up, we came to the eastern temple with 6 decapitated seated statues and heads all over the place; we then walked around to the west and there’s more of the same, plus lots of reliefs; a lion has an astrological chart on it signifying something. When you look at them left to right, Elif pointed out the Lion, Eagle, Antiochus, Commagene (female), Zeus (authoritarian and bearded), Apollo, Heracles (bearded like Zeus but a bit younger), another Eagle, and another Lion; but our guidebook says it’s Apollo, Fortuna, Zeus, Antiochus, and Hercules. Me? I trust Elif.

All these stories and Kadri suddenly opened up in the car about his family history: Armenian; his grandfather died at 42, Musur, went from Caucus to Iraq, moved to Kiziltepe where one uncle stayed and another liked to whore. We pushed east, through Siverek, and I loathed it. It looked like it was bombed, and it probably was, for Turkey had razed 3400 villages and towns during their civil war against the PKK, and everyone looked Arabic, but not a friendly Arabic, but positively glowering walking down the street. And then I remembered, hey, this is the place Mehmet warned about, with the nasty-as-dogs trigger-happy members of the Bucuk Clan!

Getting later…we pushed east to Midyat, a double city, the first one new and of course horrifying. We’re all getting slightly nervous about time; we want to see Hasankeyf and the sun’s starting to go down, and you do not want to drive anywhere in this area at night. The war’s pretty much over, the gendarmes stopping us every 20km (three years ago it was every 6km) say it’s fine ,they’re not kidnapping civilians anymore, but they just killed some soldiers and police last week, and we should really get moving. I tell the others it’s a double city, that a few km down there’s a second old one that’s supposed to have lovely streets and Syrian churches, but they all want to triage it out, and it’s so ugly in the first city they don’t believe there is a second city. Luckily, the second one was past it on the road to Hasankeyf, and the prettiest church was right there on the road. We got out to see the Suryani Kilisesi, and inside there’s a class of children in a small side room talking in Aramaic. A guy named Ayhan comes out and shows us around. I ask him if the class is on the up-and-up, and he says it’s yasak dil ve din – forbidden (illegal) tongue and religion – but I gather that since they’re no big separatist threat, the government lets it all happen. The story is very sad: there was a 2000-year history of Christianity in Midyat, but it’s now down to about 300 people, since the PKK ’s been extorting money from the merchants and the Islamic extremists have been making death threats and the economy’s gone to hell. He showed us the class, the beautiful church, the folkloric paintings, and the hundreds-of-years-old bible.

Kadri’s gunning the SUV like a bat out of hell for Hasankeyf, which is on the Tigris river. I point out, often, that every cop has said there’s scant terrorist threat to our lives, but it seems that if he doesn’t calm down, we’re going to fly off the cliff. Kadri of course looks calm, his blood cold, his face expressionless, but his foot remains leaden. He slows down and asks me to get out and take a picture of the Hasankeyf sign for him. I grumble that it’s a stupid picture, what else in the world looks like this, but I comply – at which point a gendarme steps out of nowhere and informs me that I’ve just taken picture of a military training site and it was forbidden. My heart’s in my mouth for a minute as I don’t want to give up my almost-completed roll of film… but then he looks me over, smiles, and says, well, don’t do it again, and waves us on.

We get to the site and the whole thing look like an ant or mole complex. Caves everywhere, another Cappadocia, lining what was once the silk road. We climbed around and up the stone pathway uphill to the 12th-century palace of the Artukid (Turcoman) kings; looked down the sheer cliff face, saw the four pillars of an old Artukid bridge across the gorge, and saw the 15th-century Zeyn El-Abdin Turbesi, a cylindrical dome tomb with turquoise tiles and red brick. Inside the latter somebody had had an izgara picnic party, and there was bits of vegetables left over. Lots of children wanted to be our guides, and Kadri announced that if they went away, he would offer anyone 250,000 TL (15 cents) for any piece of blue mosaic they found on the ground, which he immediately regretted, as not only did everyone come up with goods, but they started throwing rocks at the building to get more for us, and we did not want to take any home at all of course, he just said it because he thought it was an impossible task to keep them busy. He paid off a couple and begged them not to ever throw rocks at the building. Not like it matters anyway. The whole site – the complete stunning town, the entire gorge, every ruin, one of the most unique, precious places I’ve ever been – is scheduled in two years to be completely flooded, under water, as Cabriel would say, kaput, as Turkey enlarges its Ilisu dam to develop the southeast region’s agriculture and economy and stop its cause for separatist strife. As we left, as the sun was setting, a filthy boy of about 6, earnestly tugged my arm: “Which team?” I looked at the colors of his shirt and answered correctly “Galatasaray,” at which point he danced and hoo-hooed to all of his friends.

I was getting to see all the places I wanted and they pretty much let me decide, and I kept saying, east. We drove to Mardin, a city of 60,000 settled at the top part of a hill with a great view of the Syrian plain. It ’s always been very politicized, with lots of riots, separatist movements, Islamic fundamentalism, etc., but things have “died down” (thanks, Sikorsky!). The new part of town is very ugly (the usual: nouveau concrete), but the old city had lovely Arab-style houses.

From Mardin we went 6km southeast to Deyr-Az-Zaferan (Deyrulzafran), the “Saffron Monastery,” named after the color of its rock. It was founded 493AD and was the Vatican of the Syrian Orthodox church from 1160 through the 1920’s, when it relocated to Damascus. Now only two monks remain, and they run a school for about 25 orphans. An orphan boy finally let us inside after making us wait about a half hour. Inside they had an underground vault, used as a temple by sun worshippers four thousand years ago. We saw chapel, whose services are in Aramaic. A bearded monk named Cabriel took an immediate liking to Elif and I and followed us around. He was maybe 40 years old and had a naughty gleam in his eye that winked at you as if he knew everything about you and was about to tell you a joke making fun of every other visitor in the complex. Which he proceeded to do. He spoke very fast Turkish, Elif translated, and he corrected Elif’s English as if Elif were taking minutes for the Congressional Record. He explained the wooden doors from David:24. He made an example out of a poor guy from Diyarbakir who asked if “Catholoc” was the same thing as Orthodox – first, he corrected it to “Catholic,” winking at me. The guy then asked if Syrian was Arabic, which was a big mistake. Cebrail the monk answered, “It’s a race, just like you’re not really a full Turk, it’s obvious you’re a mix.” This is the wrong thing to say to a Turk, and the guy turned red and answered, “In Diyarbakir, if we have 10 wives, we intermarry to keep pure.” Cebrail immediately retorted: “So you’re up to 10 wives now? It used to be 4…”

The guy was hopping mad, and Cebrail was thrilled. I thought it extremely wrong policy to publicly make fun of an eastern Islamic moderate enough to come to a monastery and curious enough to ask questions, but I wasn’t about to lecture Cebrail about this, and he wasn’t about to listen anyway, because the Diyarbakir man was from Diyarbakir, and his wife had a headscarf, and he was dirt. Eylul asked Cebrail, were there once mosaics on the walls? Cebrail answered, they’re now kaput. I said, it’s amazing that after Islam and after Napoleons and after the ravages of history that any interior decorations survive anywhere, and he answered, in his ratatat accented Turkish which Elif had to translate, “Back in those days, you and Elif couldn’t have gotten together, but now, if you two can get together, anything’s possible,” winking at me and letting me on that he knew the whole time I was a Yid. We parted, drank some water with the orphan boys from their well, and left. We were surprised to see him emerge from the door and we posed with him for pictures, and he stood in his black robe under the shade of the doorway arch, looking proud as a monk. Then he turned to me and said, for the first time in English, “Good luck, Brian!”

I had big plans for the next day, we’d see monasteries and border towns and Hasankeyf and it would all be just so, but Turkey always seems to get in the way of your plans. Kadri knew an guy in Viransehir, a high-school buddy he hadn’t seen in 41 years, who had become a lord. By lord I mean Lord, an aga, owner of the whole damn town. Sure Ataturk abolished the feudal system like 80 years ago, but the Kurdish lords mostly went into exile, returned, and still rule their serfs although over smaller lands. If you’re an aga, you own the people; they work your land and get to keep 30%; they want to get married, they’ve got to ask your permission. And we were going to meet one. Sounded fine with me. Screw the monasteries.

We go to a drugstore to inquire about him and find out that he’s dead. Kadri looks deflated. “Man, I’ve got a 38-year-old wife, but my peers are dropping dead all around me…” then somebody else informs him that it’s only the dude’s brother who’s dead, but the guy is very much alive. People scurry about trying to hunt the guy down. I walk into the street and it’s another Hollywood movie set. Look one direction, surreptitiously point my camera at a covered woman with a tattooed face, snap; look one way, point the camera at some guys jocularly fighting in the streets, snap…then the lithium battery dies completely, kaput. Where am I going to get a battery? Elif and I walk down the street to the dusty town’s one camera store; there’s no lithium batteries within miles save the used one in the owner’s camera, which he removes and insists we take free of charge, and I mean insists. I love the Turks. Back on the streets, snap, snap, we decide to buy him some chocolate, we give it to him, go back to the drugstore, turns out the lord is in Mersin at his other digs, but his son-in-law Mehmet shows up, maybe my age.

His son-in-law insists, and I mean insists, that we go to his land and eat lunch. Kadri, almost the best negotiator I’ve ever seen, says no, but the son-in-law says, do you want everyone to think I’m some kind of a gypsy, of course I have to give you lunch, it’s already 10AM, we’re going to the village now, it’s a fait accompli, and he gets into Kadri’s SUV, done deal. We take him to the village his father-in-law owns. The village is a small dusty town off the road called Baskoy (“Head village”) Kadri’s friend owns its 600 residents. We climb the stairs of its only grand house and sit on the roof balcony. There are holes in the walls, which Elif tells me are gunholes to shoot from. We are served tea by Mehmet’s helper. Warplanes are flying overhead, headed east to the Iraqi border. There are cotton plants everywhere.

This is what he tells us: They are in the Mili Clan, which has 20,000 members. He married well: his father’s prominent in the clan, but Kadri’s friend is really big and rich. Mili is a good clan, not like the goddamned Bucak clan in Siverek, who are a bunch of filthy dogs, ordering random killings to terrorize everyone around. Viransehir is a good place to be if you’re in the Mili clan. The town’s name means “smashed town,” and it has 107,000 people. Many of the people around are poor because of the blood feuds, but not them. Take his uncle, for example: he borrowed $200,000, still can’t pay it back, but who’s going to demand he do so – he’s too powerful. See those people in the tents over there? They’re gypsies, and we let them stay free on our land. They don’t harm anyone. (I can see the Motel 6 ads: GYPSIES STAY FREE.) As for the serfs, he likes the Kurds (of course, as he is one) but hates the Arabs, who are just plain lazy. Of course, he couldn’t care less about the Iraqi Kurds, but the ones here are our people. His wife’s name is Rosa, which means “Freedom came.” His baby’s name is Berfin, which is Kurdish for “flower.” It’s illegal to give your child Kurdish names, but let the government sue. Right now he’s suing the government for their land back from 80 years ago. The government offered them 35 villages near Syria, but screw that: they want land, land, oil-rich land. He’s a member of HADEP, the Kurdish political wing. He quoted Carl Jung to illustrate a point whose real point was him using Carl Jung to illustrate it. He showed us his Antep Pistachio trees, each of which give 200 kilograms of nuts per year. He showed us a well that cost $25,000 to open, and we drank water from a pipe going 250 meters down into the earth. He was amazed at me as I drank, that I was drinking the water and could stand the heat: you’re a Turk now!

He called his friends in town and we settled on them feeding us lunch there, a quick lunch, which of course turned out to be all kinds of kebab. One of his friends took a particular interest in me, considering me an Israeli expatriate who lives in America, just as he considers himself a Kurdish expatriate living in Turkey. He kept asking me what was up there, as if I’d know. He told me about the tifo diseases they have there and asked what the biggest disease they had in Israel. I answered, “Religious extremism,” which got a big laugh; “Ariel Sharon” would have been funnier but I didn’t want to get into any big discussions. We talked about marriage dowries; the dowry for an ugly girl is 1 billion TL ($600) but a pretty one can bring 5 billion lira ($3,000). He asked me how to play the game Bantumi on his Nokia cell phone. We asked how the roads were at night, with the PKK and all, and Mehmet said, the Kurds aren’t dangerous, it’s the government…did you know that they didn’t let us wear headscarves and they beat us when we were children?