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| Karacdag area, eastern Turkey |
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| Sanliurfa, eastern Turkey |
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| Sanliurfa's bazaar |
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| Coppersmith, Sanliurfa |
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| Re-tinning, Sanliurfa |
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| Kurdish protest, Diyarbakir, eastern Turkey |
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| Istikal Street, Istanbul |
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| Serkeci Train Station, Istanbul |
28 October 2010
Sampler II - 2010 Travel
23 October 2010
"My Heart Did It"
Saturday, 16 October 2010
“ 'My Heart Did It,' thats what Kar Belaktus means” Linda said,explaining to me the name of the church. Linda? What a jolt of a name to hear on the high bluffs above the Tigris River. “We are Chaldeans.” She was short and plump with the eyes of an angel, and though her face should have been weathered, it was not.
After a planned visit to a Shabak community (a syncretic religion followed by a hyper-minority of Kurds) failed to materialize, I found myself racing across the tired autumnal landscape of upper Mesopotamia in northern Iraq to visit the village of Derabûn. Nazim, a young Yezidian, was at the wheel dodging the large transport trucks hauling goods and construction material from Turkey under a luminescent mid-day sky polished by the dust blowing from the south of Iraq. Eight-foot tall phragmites grasses huddled around the infrequent seeps and struggled to appear green in the hot wind. Gratefully Nazim kept the windows up and the air conditioning on as a radio station from Zahko serenaded us with class B American rap and hip-hop. We passed through a half dozen small settlements before reaching Derabûn, each of which was defined by religion – Muslim and not-Muslim. Christians and Yezidis found kinship with one another, both suffering from Islamic persecution intermittently throughout their histories, and intimately since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Derabûn is half Christian and half Yezidi, segregated only by the road.
Nazim and I first drove a kilometer past Derabûn to the ruins of what he said was an old fortress. It was an unremarkable collection of tall crumbling walls; the view of the Tigris on the other hand was anything but. Even now so late in the season, and in spite of Turkey's manic construction of a system of dams upstream, it flowed wide and shallow around intermittent islands. Soon the fall rains would come and briefly swell the Tigris with silt-laden water. Nazim came up behind me. It was not a fortress, he corrected himself after reading the bent roadside sign painted in white Arabic script, it was an old church – Mariam Adra. I suspected that during its history it had been both. As I walked back to the car against the wind, I picked the spikey burrs out of the socks that should have stayed home, while taking care not to step on broken glass.
Kar Belakrus' fresh white paint was as startling as Linda's name. It did more than reflect the filtered sunlight. Atop was a modest sized cross with clear light bulbs within its frame, and below it a sign colors yet faded with a literal image of Christ, his heart in flames on his chest. His skin was not weathered either.
Linda, in her blue flowered cotton shift, was sweeping under the portico when we arrived with her uncle, Zachary. She fetched the key and opened the side door. It was cool inside the simple church. The church had undergone a major restoration in the last 3 years Linda explained first in hesitant English then in soft song. She and Zachary showed us the improvements with quiet pride – the new ceiling 16 feet above, and the new rectory with the priests' and deacons' black cassocks with gold cuffs hung primly in the open armoire. (I couldn't help but think of their contrast to the thread-worn and dusty gray cassocks with red braiding that that I saw hanging on pegs in the bunker of the Armenian chapel in Diyarbakir, Turkey 9 years ago.)
Linda and her husband, the church's deacon, returned to Derabûn 5 years ago. It became too dangerous for Christians in Baghdad where some of her extended family had lived for some number of years. Her grandfather's house is right there, she pointed behind the church, next to which is the house that her brother now a Canadian citizen is rebuilding for occasional visits. And those olive trees next to the church, she told me, were planted by her grandfather and father. They will begin the modest harvest soon. And the six houses that lined the dirt lane next to the church were her family's.
We retreated to Zachary's garden, a small plot of grass that wasn't struggling to be green. His wife brought tall glasses of cold water, and then small cups of Turkish coffee that tasted so good that I almost suffered the dregs trying to get the last sip.
The wind wasn't blowing in the garden, but the sky was still burnished.
“ 'My Heart Did It,' thats what Kar Belaktus means” Linda said,explaining to me the name of the church. Linda? What a jolt of a name to hear on the high bluffs above the Tigris River. “We are Chaldeans.” She was short and plump with the eyes of an angel, and though her face should have been weathered, it was not.
After a planned visit to a Shabak community (a syncretic religion followed by a hyper-minority of Kurds) failed to materialize, I found myself racing across the tired autumnal landscape of upper Mesopotamia in northern Iraq to visit the village of Derabûn. Nazim, a young Yezidian, was at the wheel dodging the large transport trucks hauling goods and construction material from Turkey under a luminescent mid-day sky polished by the dust blowing from the south of Iraq. Eight-foot tall phragmites grasses huddled around the infrequent seeps and struggled to appear green in the hot wind. Gratefully Nazim kept the windows up and the air conditioning on as a radio station from Zahko serenaded us with class B American rap and hip-hop. We passed through a half dozen small settlements before reaching Derabûn, each of which was defined by religion – Muslim and not-Muslim. Christians and Yezidis found kinship with one another, both suffering from Islamic persecution intermittently throughout their histories, and intimately since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Derabûn is half Christian and half Yezidi, segregated only by the road.
Nazim and I first drove a kilometer past Derabûn to the ruins of what he said was an old fortress. It was an unremarkable collection of tall crumbling walls; the view of the Tigris on the other hand was anything but. Even now so late in the season, and in spite of Turkey's manic construction of a system of dams upstream, it flowed wide and shallow around intermittent islands. Soon the fall rains would come and briefly swell the Tigris with silt-laden water. Nazim came up behind me. It was not a fortress, he corrected himself after reading the bent roadside sign painted in white Arabic script, it was an old church – Mariam Adra. I suspected that during its history it had been both. As I walked back to the car against the wind, I picked the spikey burrs out of the socks that should have stayed home, while taking care not to step on broken glass.
Kar Belakrus' fresh white paint was as startling as Linda's name. It did more than reflect the filtered sunlight. Atop was a modest sized cross with clear light bulbs within its frame, and below it a sign colors yet faded with a literal image of Christ, his heart in flames on his chest. His skin was not weathered either.
Linda, in her blue flowered cotton shift, was sweeping under the portico when we arrived with her uncle, Zachary. She fetched the key and opened the side door. It was cool inside the simple church. The church had undergone a major restoration in the last 3 years Linda explained first in hesitant English then in soft song. She and Zachary showed us the improvements with quiet pride – the new ceiling 16 feet above, and the new rectory with the priests' and deacons' black cassocks with gold cuffs hung primly in the open armoire. (I couldn't help but think of their contrast to the thread-worn and dusty gray cassocks with red braiding that that I saw hanging on pegs in the bunker of the Armenian chapel in Diyarbakir, Turkey 9 years ago.)
Linda and her husband, the church's deacon, returned to Derabûn 5 years ago. It became too dangerous for Christians in Baghdad where some of her extended family had lived for some number of years. Her grandfather's house is right there, she pointed behind the church, next to which is the house that her brother now a Canadian citizen is rebuilding for occasional visits. And those olive trees next to the church, she told me, were planted by her grandfather and father. They will begin the modest harvest soon. And the six houses that lined the dirt lane next to the church were her family's.
We retreated to Zachary's garden, a small plot of grass that wasn't struggling to be green. His wife brought tall glasses of cold water, and then small cups of Turkish coffee that tasted so good that I almost suffered the dregs trying to get the last sip.
The wind wasn't blowing in the garden, but the sky was still burnished.
20 October 2010
Heroes Arrive Unexpectantly
14 October, Bersirin, Rawanduz District - Iraqi Kurdistan
Bordumin poured a thick yellow-brown liquid on a rag tightly wound around the end of a stick. Crouching, he reached forward and dabbed the most putrid of open sores teaming with worms on the pathetically thin dog curled as in death near the oak tree. The dog did not protest; it only feintly acknowledged. Borduman repeated, then poured more of the potion of motor oil and salt over the dog's bared and festering shoulder and side of the head, swathing it around with the stick.
We were in deep in the Zagros Mountains east of Rawanduz, 15 kilometers from a major border crossing into Iran. Fully loaded transport trucks race down the narrow and winding road, one of which doubtless hit the shepherd's hapless dog days or weeks before. I had seen the dog from afar earlier in the afternoon, giving it only scant notice as the anarchic flurry of construction activities on Serwan's new house begged more attention. But after a new load of fresh and rotten cinder blocks had been dumped and tossed into unruly piles, Serwan and his makeshift crew of cousins turned to plotting out a grid where he would plant trees. It was then than Borduman and I saw the dog.
The name Bordumin means “bombardment.” He was born in the nearby village of Bersirini in 1974 during an aerial bombing of the village by Saddam Hussein's forces. Yet another of so many rebellions/armed conflicts/wars between the Kurds of northern Iraq and the Iraqi central government. This one followed a failed declaration of independence by the Kurds and preceded the orchestrated and unconscionable abandonment of support for the Kurdish military efforts by both Iran and the US. Once again, as during millennia past, the Kurds found themselves to pawns in greater politics. Sometimes blameless, sometimes not. This time not. Bordumin's next younger brother (7 brothers and 5 sisters in all) was named Shadamin, which means “happiness.” No bombs were falling when he was born.
When Bordumin showed me the dog my heart sank. After a few minutes of staring at it, I tolf him that if I were in America and found a dog like this in such misery with no seeming prospects for recovery, I would shoot it to put it out of his misery. Bordumin briefly considered what I said then walked off across the field. I thought he was going to get his gun, which of course he had as did most in this part of the world. I wandered off wallowing in the turn of events and didn't want to be anywhere near.
Twenty minutes later he came back and treated the dog. I was properly humbled. We watched in wonder as the dog slowly stood up, his rear left leg painfully useless. Bordumin nodded, then motioned for me to come with him. Far behind the dog followed. We went to the nearby roadside stop where Bordumin purloined a large fistful of bread scraps and an insecticide dust surely long outlawed in the States. The dog ate greedily and allowed Bordumin to dust him, then limped off to at least the hope of another day.
Heroes arrive unexpectedly.
April, 2012 Postscript: I returned to Bersirini to visit Serwan, Bordumin, and other friends. The spring grasses were vibrant, seeming to grow on bare rock as well as on the steep and thinly soiled slopes. I asked Bordumin about the dog. He told me that he saw it again 3 months after his treatment and it seemed fine.
Bordumin poured a thick yellow-brown liquid on a rag tightly wound around the end of a stick. Crouching, he reached forward and dabbed the most putrid of open sores teaming with worms on the pathetically thin dog curled as in death near the oak tree. The dog did not protest; it only feintly acknowledged. Borduman repeated, then poured more of the potion of motor oil and salt over the dog's bared and festering shoulder and side of the head, swathing it around with the stick.
We were in deep in the Zagros Mountains east of Rawanduz, 15 kilometers from a major border crossing into Iran. Fully loaded transport trucks race down the narrow and winding road, one of which doubtless hit the shepherd's hapless dog days or weeks before. I had seen the dog from afar earlier in the afternoon, giving it only scant notice as the anarchic flurry of construction activities on Serwan's new house begged more attention. But after a new load of fresh and rotten cinder blocks had been dumped and tossed into unruly piles, Serwan and his makeshift crew of cousins turned to plotting out a grid where he would plant trees. It was then than Borduman and I saw the dog.
The name Bordumin means “bombardment.” He was born in the nearby village of Bersirini in 1974 during an aerial bombing of the village by Saddam Hussein's forces. Yet another of so many rebellions/armed conflicts/wars between the Kurds of northern Iraq and the Iraqi central government. This one followed a failed declaration of independence by the Kurds and preceded the orchestrated and unconscionable abandonment of support for the Kurdish military efforts by both Iran and the US. Once again, as during millennia past, the Kurds found themselves to pawns in greater politics. Sometimes blameless, sometimes not. This time not. Bordumin's next younger brother (7 brothers and 5 sisters in all) was named Shadamin, which means “happiness.” No bombs were falling when he was born.
When Bordumin showed me the dog my heart sank. After a few minutes of staring at it, I tolf him that if I were in America and found a dog like this in such misery with no seeming prospects for recovery, I would shoot it to put it out of his misery. Bordumin briefly considered what I said then walked off across the field. I thought he was going to get his gun, which of course he had as did most in this part of the world. I wandered off wallowing in the turn of events and didn't want to be anywhere near.
Twenty minutes later he came back and treated the dog. I was properly humbled. We watched in wonder as the dog slowly stood up, his rear left leg painfully useless. Bordumin nodded, then motioned for me to come with him. Far behind the dog followed. We went to the nearby roadside stop where Bordumin purloined a large fistful of bread scraps and an insecticide dust surely long outlawed in the States. The dog ate greedily and allowed Bordumin to dust him, then limped off to at least the hope of another day.
Heroes arrive unexpectedly.
April, 2012 Postscript: I returned to Bersirini to visit Serwan, Bordumin, and other friends. The spring grasses were vibrant, seeming to grow on bare rock as well as on the steep and thinly soiled slopes. I asked Bordumin about the dog. He told me that he saw it again 3 months after his treatment and it seemed fine.
19 October 2010
Jema'iyye at Lalish, 2010 - A Small Portfolio
Yezidi'ism is a little known syncretic and monotheistic religion practiced by a hyper-minority of Kurds, mainly concentrated in northern Iraq (the semi-autonomous Kurdish Region, and Sinjar area to its west), but with a significant diaspora population in Europe. Other smaller regional populations are in Syria, Armenia, and Georgia. Lalish, in Iraqi Kurdistan, is the holy center of Yezidis - both in their cosmology and history.
Every autumn the Yezidis celebrate Jema'iyye, an 8-day long religious and social gathering. Thousands descend on this compact site, smothering both time and place. This was the third year I have attended. Below is a small portfolio of photographs I assembled for a documentary film being made by non-Yezidi Kurds from Arbil. With one exception,* identifiable faces are not included in these photos out of sensitivity to the Yezidis' precarious position both in Kurdistan Iraq, and the whole of Iraq. (*Sheikh Hadj is an already well-known Yezidi.)
For more information about the Yezidis see earlier posts on this site.
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| In the Baba Sheikh's "cupola" |
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| In the main assembly hall |
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| Leaving the main assembly hall |
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| Sinjari Sheikhs |
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| Youth next to car advertisement |
18 January 2010
Dengbêj of Diyarbakir.
2 October 2009, Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey
A dozen dengbêj, traditional Kurdish cantors of epic story-poem-songs, were gathered in the courtyard. I was among several visitors enjoying an understated and warm welcome. They were mostly older men, but not ancient, and all were rather nattily dressed in matched and mismatched western-style suits in various states of wear, as is the norm in Turkey. The ambience was as comfortable as a pair of old brown shoes of which there were many. They sung without musical accompaniment, their reedy and wavering voices saturated with sincerity, creating moods that swung between contemplative and joyful. There were brief moments of impromptu dancing. It was apparent that this group of men had shared many such days of camaraderie and mutual admiration, but also moments of competitiveness that comes with familiarity.
The muezzin’s call to mid-day prayer cawed over the open courtyard, but only a few gathered themselves out of their plastic chairs to go to the nearby mosque; the others enjoyed another round of sweet amber tea. The cadence was unbroken as a blind man wearing a black-and-white checked kafiya was led through the arched doorway to a chair among the others. He was greeted with welcoming murmurs and nods.
The place was the Mala dengbêjan (House of Dengbêj), a stone house in the narrow passageways of Diyarbakir’s old city, restored and opened in 2007 specifically to be a gathering place for the dengbêj. That it exists at all is rather remarkable as one considers the contemporary history of the Kurds in southeastern Turkey where just a decade ago any expression of Kurdishness was pronounced a crime against the State by the Turkish government. Through the years of the Kurdish separatist war in Turkey, and before, elements of Kurdish culture – including the oral histories sung by dengbêj - were first steadily, and then rapidly, withering away.
The blind dengbêj, Hafis Ali by name, sat quietly and patiently, head resting on his staff made of river alder still wrapped in its dark red bark. A long piece of black plastic pipe lay across his lap. The singer who monopolized much of the afternoon paused between songs, paused long enough for Ali to put the pipe-flute to his lips. The others welcomed the change as he played, then sang, the voice and flute conversing in melancholic voices. When the tempo picked up they twirled their prayer beads which up till then relaxed among the absent-minded fingers. The silvered dengbêj tried several times to regain his prolonged moment, but Ali’s firm voice gave him no quarter.
I returned to the House of Dengbêj a month later after traveling through Iraqi Kurdistan. Familiar faces and voices were in the courtyard, including the elfin and locally renown Seyidxan Boyaci.
And there were others as well, some much younger, singing to the measured and heartfelt approval of the old guard, demonstrating that for the meantime at least, the Kurdish dengbêj tradition in Turkey will not be lost.
_______________________________
For a thorough, if not rather academic, discussion of the dengbêj of Diyarbakir, please visit http://ejts.revues.org/index4055.html to read Clémence Scalbert Yücel’s “The Invention of a Tradition: Diyarbakır’s Dengbêj Project.”
To watch an Kelly Stuart’s and Emrah Kanisicak’s video of Seyidxan Boyaci singing, visit Mesopotamia Q at http://sazny.blogspot.com/.
A dozen dengbêj, traditional Kurdish cantors of epic story-poem-songs, were gathered in the courtyard. I was among several visitors enjoying an understated and warm welcome. They were mostly older men, but not ancient, and all were rather nattily dressed in matched and mismatched western-style suits in various states of wear, as is the norm in Turkey. The ambience was as comfortable as a pair of old brown shoes of which there were many. They sung without musical accompaniment, their reedy and wavering voices saturated with sincerity, creating moods that swung between contemplative and joyful. There were brief moments of impromptu dancing. It was apparent that this group of men had shared many such days of camaraderie and mutual admiration, but also moments of competitiveness that comes with familiarity.
The muezzin’s call to mid-day prayer cawed over the open courtyard, but only a few gathered themselves out of their plastic chairs to go to the nearby mosque; the others enjoyed another round of sweet amber tea. The cadence was unbroken as a blind man wearing a black-and-white checked kafiya was led through the arched doorway to a chair among the others. He was greeted with welcoming murmurs and nods.
The place was the Mala dengbêjan (House of Dengbêj), a stone house in the narrow passageways of Diyarbakir’s old city, restored and opened in 2007 specifically to be a gathering place for the dengbêj. That it exists at all is rather remarkable as one considers the contemporary history of the Kurds in southeastern Turkey where just a decade ago any expression of Kurdishness was pronounced a crime against the State by the Turkish government. Through the years of the Kurdish separatist war in Turkey, and before, elements of Kurdish culture – including the oral histories sung by dengbêj - were first steadily, and then rapidly, withering away.
The blind dengbêj, Hafis Ali by name, sat quietly and patiently, head resting on his staff made of river alder still wrapped in its dark red bark. A long piece of black plastic pipe lay across his lap. The singer who monopolized much of the afternoon paused between songs, paused long enough for Ali to put the pipe-flute to his lips. The others welcomed the change as he played, then sang, the voice and flute conversing in melancholic voices. When the tempo picked up they twirled their prayer beads which up till then relaxed among the absent-minded fingers. The silvered dengbêj tried several times to regain his prolonged moment, but Ali’s firm voice gave him no quarter.
I returned to the House of Dengbêj a month later after traveling through Iraqi Kurdistan. Familiar faces and voices were in the courtyard, including the elfin and locally renown Seyidxan Boyaci.
And there were others as well, some much younger, singing to the measured and heartfelt approval of the old guard, demonstrating that for the meantime at least, the Kurdish dengbêj tradition in Turkey will not be lost.
_______________________________
For a thorough, if not rather academic, discussion of the dengbêj of Diyarbakir, please visit http://ejts.revues.org/index4055.html to read Clémence Scalbert Yücel’s “The Invention of a Tradition: Diyarbakır’s Dengbêj Project.”
To watch an Kelly Stuart’s and Emrah Kanisicak’s video of Seyidxan Boyaci singing, visit Mesopotamia Q at http://sazny.blogspot.com/.
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