Nesfe Jahan, pt 45

I make it to Van with no problems whatsoever. The famous lake here, Van Golu, fails to impress me (not that I made an effort), and the next day the guidebook hint of breakfast was just a rip off. The whole city is under siege, it’s republic day. A waste if a perfectly good school day, if you ask me. I get stopped by white-gloved parade police three times and have to empty my backpack. Never happened down south. It’s a joke anyway, none of these mupppets find my camping knife that’s in a top pocket.  Time to keep moving. I catch the first ambulance in my hitchhiking career(!) , full of Kurds. As soon as I tell them where I was, they warm up to me, and before they drop me off, they stop a truck to bring me to the border city, Dogubayazit.

Before the city, there’s a military checkpoint. This can mean only one thing: back to a Kurdish majority. I arrive, and get a cheap hotel. I’m stuck here for today. Friday is Sunday in Iran, so it’s better to cross tomorrow. I could do it today, but I want to take it easy. Refresh Farsi so I can haggle better.Catch up on sleeping.

The city itself is wild. It’s the northern copy of Cizre. It has a stunning view of Ararat. A guy even tries to sell me a tour to Noah’s Ark. Nice try. They’re cunning here. A lot of smuggling from Iran. Small kids shining shoes. Huge military base, with hundreds of tanks. Not for terrorists, for Iran. The only action here for republic day is extra soldiers protecting Ataturk’s statue. I get free tea again. It’s stupid, but right now I feel more calm here than in Van.

By the time you read this, I will be in Iran. Inshallah.

When I started traveling,  I set myself a goal. Because you need one. My goal was the city of Isfahan, in central Iran. There’s a popular proverd in Persia. Isfahan is half of the world. Because, for a while, it really was centre of the Persian Empire, the silk road trade, and you could find diplomats and traders from half the world. “Esfahan nesfe jahan(ast)” in Farsi. It’s also the title of the posts about these travels. But, by now, I could come up with two or three alternative titles. Seatbelts optional. Or better yet: Me Tarzan, you truck.

Nesfe Jahan, pt 44

Capadoccia.

Nesfe Jahan, pt 43

Final day here.

When I come down the stairs, I do a double take. The manager is there, standing straight as an arrow. Hand extended in Nazi salute, two fingers under his nose. I lose it, shout “WHAT THE FUCK???!!” before I’m myself again. He breaks out laughing, stroking my shoulder, pantomiming eyes, beard, and hair. “Hitler!”. I run into the cafeteria, quickly grabbing the nearest passable English speaker I can find. Well the only one. “Tell him half my family was killed because of that man, tamam?”. Big exagerration. But I can’t let this slide. Not now, not here. After the tranlation, the manager breaks out laughing, rapping on my shoulder. “He says it’s just a joke, you’re way too serious”.“Tell him how he would like if I tell him he looks like an Armnian”. “I can’t do that! That’s highly insulting to him. Armenians are killers, they committed genocide. Don’t you know this?”.

At the governor’s office.

“Ah, you come. We all heard there is a German tourist visiting. Why are you here?” “I’m just a Belgian tourist, on my way to Iran. I was in Hasankeyf, and it seemed like a good place to stop on the way to the border” Lying is sometimes easier. Being stupid is a perfectly valid excuse in the whole world. “Are you from Guclukonak?” “No, I’m from Mus” Of course. 200 kilomers tops, 6 hours at least. Mus to Guclukonak is as Italy to Albania.

“you, where?” “Belgika” “Ah, Alleman!” “No, not Germany. belgika!” “Baba Alleman, Mama Hollanda?” “NO! Baba Nelgica, Mama Belgika, me Belgika, pasaport Belgica! Tamam?” “Ah! You, marihuana?” “NO” “Extasy? Cocaine? Heroin?” “NO! You problem????” “Hehe. You turkish sex? Teacher fuck?”

“He says there is no problem if you leave tomorrow.”

Today, I didn’t go to school and I just walked around to the next villages. Boyuncuk. Damlabasi, not to be confused with Tarlabasi. About 200 people live there. I visit the school, and I’m very happy to see three modern computers there. My story here is really a story about the education system here. Partly because I am hosted here at the teacher’s house. But partly because the education system is a driving economical force here. Local teachers here support a big, big family There is police, electricity for sure. Mimibus and small shops. But nothing goes out. There is farming, but the land seems quite poor, and the individual farms very small. My father is right, the main source of income is probably money transfer from Germany, Belgium,… The army doesn’t count, the only interaction they have with the region is delays on the road, and some clenched buttcheeks. I doubt they employ local people in calm times like these, but I could be wrong. There’s a lot more to say about the army, but this is the time nor place.

Now, it stops. This is not my story anymore, not since Tuesday. Although I do have friends here, I’m probably doing more bad than good. It’s time to stop gonzo, I can benefit more from some hindsight at this moment. Next stop Iran, with maybe a quick grab of nature by lake Van. One thing I know for sure. When I close the sliding door of that minibus, and as soon as it starts moving, all of this immediacy will be gone. After one or two hours, I will be with my mind on the road ahead. It’s not something that is automatic for me, I had to learn it. But it’s the one advantage about traveling. It’s easy to run away.

Nesfe Jahan, pt 42

Today I was a teacher in Guclukonak itself. And it’s way better. Here, it’s the big village. 6000 people instead of 800. It’s a world of difference. Most kids are actually in class to learn, and I’m better now too. We do Hello/Thank you/Please in 6 languages, English number’s till a billion. Actually, the school here could be in Belgium. Overcrowded classes because of a lack of teachers, but we have that at home too. Same for the disrepair of the buildings. Actually, here I was surprised at the quality, coming from Koctepe. One of the interesting things here is that being a teacher is still held in extremely high respect.

EDIT

Nesfe Jahan, pt 41

Reporting live from Guclukonak The next day I wake up after a long comatose sleep. It’s Sunday, and I’m happy I don’t have to face the kids yet. I still need some time to get used to the direct environment, before I become the tourist attraction for a hundred 10 year olds. A local teacher takes us for a small tour of the village. We stop for a moment at what he calls the “old village”. It’s a bunch of caves in an inaccessible valley, and it’s tiny. He shows us the cave where he used to wash himself when he was a child. My stomach turn, as I know this guy is about 30 years old. I really hope he’s kidding, but nobody is laughing. He throws an empty water bottle as far as he can into the valley. I’m not sure what it means. Either he doesn’t see the problem with trash, as so many people in the Balkans and Turkey, or he must really hate this place. I amuse myself with my host, Sumeyye, making up names for the places here. Taksim is the crossroads where the minibus stops. There are no sewer, so the side street with water is Galata. Shit lake. I think I really hate this place. Not the people, but everything else. Maybe Ilusu wouldn’t be such a bad idea, just wipe it all off the map and be done with it.

Today, that faithful day came. My first day as a teacher, in the next village. Population: a couple of hundred. Vroenhoven, if you know that place. I’m nervous for my first class. I have not idea what to teach these kids. I try to explain what hitchhiking is, some places in Europe. I show them that the Ottomans where in Budapest. And it’s pretty useless. They seem to know the Western European countries, but my hunch is that it’s mainly from family, not school. I spend just as much time explaining my time in Turkey. One kid has been to Bursa, close to Istanbul. For most others it’s a place far, far away. Most of them haven’t left the province, even Hasankeyf they only know from pictures. I take special care to point out Tarlebashi in Istanbul, where Kurdish people live. I also point out that Urfa holds a sizable minority. Not for any political reason, I just really hope they remember this. I feel pretty useless, I’m teaching in Turkish even though they have 4 hours of English a week. The first two years, they don’t even know Turkish, they learn by having any other class in Turkish. Even from local teachers. But no Turkish class. All children are in uniform, the younger kids in a delightful blue dress, the older girls in uniform, the older boys in a suit. I wonder how much effort it is for the parents to keep those shirts white. The student body is cripple. I embarrass one girl by repeatedly asking for her name, until the girl next to her points out that she is a mute. Another boy cannot understand that I’m asking for my name. “little intelligence”. Most kids are half sleeping, half playing around. About a quarter is enthusiastic and interacting with me, about two can actually follow. Most of them come home to chores, cleaning, looking out for younger brothers or sisters, working in the garden, or taking over the animals from mother so she can cook. Today, I confused them with pretty pictures and badly pronounced Tarzan. Teaching them how to hitchhike and ask total strangers if you can put your tent in their garden. I think about 12 kids can now count from 999 to in the millions in English. And I’m exhausted.

Nesfe Jahan, pt 40

Dear reader. Sometimes I get it wrong. I try to blog punctually and keep you up to date on my experiences, moods and current location. I leave out certain facts, to highlight others. What you read here will never be my direct experience, and I think it’s the nature of all writing that it is never like this. It’s also, and probably much more, the end product of many hours of contemplation. Just as life is more about thought, reasoning and judgment than direct experience. And in this case, I blogged about my experiences in Hasankeyf way too soon. I was planning another short piece about 14 hours I spend in a truck stop, but it fits way better here in a bigger context. I got it wrong, and I have to start again from a few days ago.

I probably have to start this at the truck stop, 25 km out of Diyarbakir. And it doesn’t start when I start to receive the incredible hospitality from the Kurdish employees, as they supply me generously with food and shelter. I think it start during a football game, when the 18 year old dishwasher aims a shotgun, usually hidden behind the manager’s desk, at the TV screen, acting anger against an unfair play. He laughs as he shows the gun is unloaded. That night I sleep in the bedroom of the restaurant with the cook. The room is totally bare. Walls, ceiling and floor are made from too sandy concrete, crumbling. It smells like shit too. Next to the bed, within reach, is a rusty farming implement. And it’s not there for farming. The first truck I hitch in the morning has a shotgun on the bed behind him. Also within easy reach. We ride through the endlessly rolling fields slowly. It’s dotted with ragged looking shepherd, oil wells, rusty abandoned trailers of oil trucks and abandoned military checkpoints. But everything is cool, in a Wild East kind of way. Even the slums on the outskirts of Batman, where children first start to ask me for money, and things quickly get dilapidated. I make it to Hasankeyf before the sun sets, and immediately feel comfortable. Shabby hotel (singular), overpriced restaurants. And it’s amazingly beautiful. Gorgeous actually. As I try to enter the main attraction, I see another white tourist (the only other one in town) talking to a policeman through the closed main gate. I hatch the plan to try and side-track our way into it, and take her with me. Pretty soon we are joined by a 10 year old girl, quiet but clever. She takes us on a small tour of the historical part, and meanwhile I talk to my German companion about the Ilusu dam project that threatens to wipe this place off the map. She gets on her high horse immediately, claiming she will write to her representatives to save the site. I decide to play devil’s advocate, claiming that IF this project does bring jobs and higher income to the region, it wouldn’t necessarily be the worst thing in the world. I’ve noticed from the outside that most of the houses here are tiny one room affairs. Chickens roam the street. Shoddy construction and peeling paint on the modern houses next to the highway. But we are interrupted when the girl invites us for tea in her house. We accept, grateful for an opportunity to see one of these houses from the inside. When I come inside, it’s even worse than I could have imagined. The room I enter is bare, save for a washing machine, a single gas stove and a pile of crockery in the corner. The floor is compacted dirt. Through the doorway to the other room, I can just make out a stack of matrasses on the wall. The mother stands in the room we’re in, almost apologetically. She barely interacts with me when I try to talk to her. In a few seconds, and I start to feel sick. I hightail it out of there, with no goodbye. The German girl is too preoccupied with taking pictures of a cat to notice I’m gone. And I wonder. Why doesn’t she see this? I quickly gang up with some local kids, and go for some running in the local gorges. Something I know I like. The next day is a school day, so the streets are mostly empty. I drink a tea, and I’m suprised to figure out most commercial places here don’t have a toilet, they direct me to a communal one. If you have ever seen one, they look the same everywhere. I explore the outskirts of town. I find that the cave houses that are the furthest from the village are being used as stables for goats,cows and chickens. There’s a military base just on the outside of town, big enough for a hundred soldiers, but it looks abandoned. Far from any border, but on a mayor highway. Things don’t quite click for me yet. I spend the majority of the afternoon exploring the bigger gorges a bit further from the village. Not a soul in sight, they are only used twice a year by shepards. But I can’t keep my attention on the hike. something is gnawing at me. It’s not the poverty, I’ve seen that before. I wasn’t expecting it, but I’ve seen it before. When the sun is down, and I’ve taken my obligatory pretty pictures, I log in online. I’m exstatic once I found out I can be a guest in a house of teachers in a small village in the Sirnak province. I wanted to see some Kurdish places besides the touristy cities and Hasankeyf, and I thought I had just gotten very lucky. I knew I couldn’t just hitch back to Batman and North, I was too curious to see this area. Too much research. In any case, I knew it was going to be safe for me. My first plan was to blast to Sirnak itself, then straight to Hakkari, and cross the border there. I know these places have nothing to see but ugly buildings and beautiful nature. But now I could spend some time in a small village, and I could just head north from there. The pictures of the town were of smiling shepards, beautiful lakes, and the teacher team acting friendly. I can be extremely naive at times. This time I’m travelling alone, and there is nobody to stop me. That night I can’t fall asleep due to anxiety, I barely catch 3 hours before I wake up around sunrise. The day starts as I expected it, I managed to stop by Midyat and a Syrian monastary for some guidebook tourism. And I make it easy to Cizre. But when I get out of the car, people suddenly aren’t curious about me anymore. When I ask some random people for the way, I mainly get the answer “why are you going there?”. Having a friend there doesn’t seem cut it. Neither does tourism. Luckily two adolescents take care of me, and help me find the right minibus for the town. But in this short walk, I’m having a lot of second doubts. It’s saturday, which explains why there are so many kids on the streets. But most of them are actually working, at a market stall, loading a pick-up or pedalling a fully loaded pushcart. The highway runs through the city. A couple of cows are grazing on the traffic divider, staring blankly at a lonely brand new Porsche with Istanbul license plates. In theory, every side of the road is double, but parked cars, overspill of tea houses and shops have reduced this to one and a bit. The bit gets used by bikes and motorcycles in both directions, on both sides. When we finally arrive, it turns out that the minibus is going to depart in 3 hours. I’ve had my fill of Cizre. It stopped being cool. I go to the tea shop a few meters down the block and spend the time sipping tea, trying to look annoyed when the locals try and talk to me. I can only talk rudimentary (hilariously called “Tarzanic” here) Turkish with them, and they the same rudimentary English with them. The same question, over and over again. Why are you going there? I’m relieved when the minibus finally comes. It stops a few hundred meters further, to get refueled. By a adolescent who can’t be more than 14, with a funnel and a 16l corroded can, obviously heavily reused. Illegal gasoline, maybe from Syria or Iran, probably Iraq. About forty meters down, a guy is smoking. Meanwhile, some live chickens are loaded in the back, providing me with some needed comical relief. And then we’re moving, and there’s no way back. As soon as we leave Cizre, nature kicks in, and it’s beautiful. Rocky hills, a road full of hairpins stunning views and a beautiful stream running through it. I decide to make a video to remember this. An armored vehicle whizzes by, and I’m happy to have it in the frame. A signpost to Sirnak, capital and origin of most problems on one side of the conflict. But we’re not going there. We take a hard left to a bridge. And then, there I am. At my first real military checkpoint, holding my camera in recording mode. Shit. I drop it quickly, putting it on the ground. They only check inside quickly, and pretty soon we’re moving again. Things go downhill from there. Every tiny hamlet has a small base attached to it, with about ten armed soldiers looking out. Most of them have a missile vehicle or two, facing the road. From time to time there is a single file of soldiers on one side of the road, with full gear. Assault rifles in hand, and a rocket launcher on their backpack. One of them is sweeping for mines in the front. I know it’s just training, there can be no mines under the tarmac. They are just in training, but that doesn’t make me feel any safer. My driver honks at every group of them, about three in total over a twenty kilometer stretch, to make sure he’s not missing any order. He’s uneasy, but used to it. It’s been like this for many years, and most of the time it was worse. And we keep going. When I arrive to Guclukonak, the minibus drops me off at the teacher’s house, where I will be staying while I’m here. Well, calling it a house would be kind of a stretch, it’s more like a compound, with a perimeter fence and a gate. Everything provided: food, entertainment and lodging. No need to go outside apart from going to school. It’s home to about 30 teachers from all around Turkey, mostly from the West. It’s where you get sent if you get bad grades in university. After a couple of years, you can leave, and the vast majority do, leaving the average age of the education staff here not dissimilar to mine. There are local teachers too, they live in ordinary houses and make very good money by the village standards. Education is done entirely in Turkish, which can be slightly problematic because the younger kids don’t understand it at all. Even the Kurdish teachers have to teach in Turkish, creating a situation not dissimilar to Spain half a century ago. We take a tiny tour of the village, past some roads lined by cliffs pockmarked by mine explosions. When I get back to the compound, the police is waiting for me in the manager’s offices. They check my passport, twice to make sure. Same question, over and over. Why are you here? While I’m waiting, I’m passing time by looking at the CCTV monitor. There are camera’s everywhere, with the ones on the outside infrared. When I go to bed, I notice from my balcony rhar most of the village is lit up. With a couple of street lights, but mostly floodlights. I’m in Guclukonak now, and I’m safe and I’m fine. Two days ago, I was suffering from the biggest culture shock I’ve had in a long while. It was over the next day, and everything getting more normal by the day. I’m staying here longer, because the are still many things I can learn here, and I think it will be good for me to learn these things. But now I have to go to bed early, because it’s a school night. And tomorrow I’ve got a class to teach.

Nesfe Jahan, pt 39

Shot from the terrace of the Istanbul Modern

Nesfe Jahan, pt 38

The day I get my visa is the day I know I’m leaving Erzurum. I’ve learned the things I needed to learn there, and I’m dying to make the most of my most essential resource here: time. Even on my way to the highway, I’m torn in two. I know I can easily extend my visa for Iran in the country, and that I really should be there now. But I also know there is a reason to stay for just a bit longer: Hasankeyf. Described by most people as the second Capadoccia, it is slated to disappear under water in the coming years. The main reason would be to increase the economy in the region, which is by far the worst in the country. Turkey won this round. Not fairly, because I’m there. But yes, I’m in Hasankeyf. The hitch here was… a good experience. But right now I’m here. And it’s glorious.

I arrive at about 3 in the afternoon, with the sun low on the horizon.  There’s no doubt in my mind I’m arriving either. The village is perched on the banks on the Tigris, with the ruins of an old bridge 40 meters downstream of the new one. Two masorny minarettes rise high compared the exclusively one-story houses. And right behind the houses is a sheer vertical cliff of 40 meters, dotted with organic looking cave houses. On the other side of the river, there is small dome on a pile of broken masonry. But even before I get there, I’m accosted by two schoolgirls, still in their uniform. Young enough to be curious and playful, old enough to be fussy. I hang out with them for about 15 minutes, taking pictures and talking Tarzan Turkish. They pose, get angry at what comes out of the camera, and of course, blame it on me. After a while I decide to move on, to a place they call “BIG! BIG!!! something, something!”. It turns out to be a valley with some bigger buildings carved out of the rock. But when I get there, the gate is closed and the guy on the other side isn’t letting me in, no matter how many times I reassure him that it’s really no problem at all to let me in. So, I do the next best thing, I take the road on the side of it, going up, hoping to find a way down later. I explain it to the first kid of decent age I come across, and we’re off. There’s about five of us, and they race up some narrow chasm, jumping from rock to rock. And luckily waiting for me now and then. Mountain goats, these kids. But when we arrive, someone walks to us with a detirmined gait uncommon for touts, so I decide to make it back to the river, in time for sundown. I manage to isolate the oldest and smartest of the kids, and treat him to a pomegranate on the bank.

A beautiful moment comes when we get up to return to the other side of the bridge. I take the pastic bag with the remains of our feast, and he motions to me that I can just leave it here. I’m not shocked, but I manage to get across to him that Hasankeyf is beautiful, and that the bag is not. He runs a few meters, and comes back with part of a broken tire, “and this?”. I put it in the bag. He smiles. He points to a huge pile of rubbish by the roadside, “and what are you going to do about this, huh?”. When we get back on the other side, he takes the bag out of my hands, and runs to the only bin in town. Kids. It’s probably best to treat them as adults. For them, and for you. Tonight I’m sleeping with the sound of the Tigris lapping the bridge. And a big truck every 10 minutes, reminding me that I have to hustle.

PS. Taking pictures of young girls. Taking a minor for a walk and buying him fruit. In my country, I could go to jail for this.

Nesfe Jahan, pt 37

Hiking in FYROM, with the intention of catching a ride for part of the 80km. Even the orthodox priest with an empty car didn’t pick us up.

Nesfe Jahan, pt 36

Budapest. Tomb of Gul Baba, Turkish poet. My real first hint of Islam.