Diyarbakir is a different kind of hot than Istanbul. The city has one of those little airports, at least the civilian side of it is little, where you climb down a staircase and then walk to the terminal and I had soaked through my shirt by the time I reached the baggage claim. Military planes making sorties to bomb the PKK in Iraqi Kurdistan take off from the same base and scream over the city. I'm the only one who stops and looks up like they're something noteworthy and I will try to break that habit.
The taxi driver cursed a double parker in Turkish and Kurdish and told me that such behavior made life unlivable and then blew through a red light to cut off a whole line of cars a few blocks later. He dropped me off in front of the municipality, which is BDP-run and so Kurdish language newspapers and calendar commemorating Kobani resistance are everywhere. A friend of a friend at the municipality sat with me and I was so happy to be speaking Turkish in a real conversation for a change that I blathered on my thoughts about ISIS and Obamacare to excess but he liked me and he and his municipality coworker seemed to have nothing better to do that afternoon. Then we drove around and picked up fresh milk in a plastic bag and picked up and dropped off one of his 10 siblings and then he dropped me off with my host, Giyas.
I had forgotten how incredibly hospitable people are here--like Iranians except they don't spoil it by constantly talking about how hospitable they are. Actually I feel deeply uncomfortable with hospitality from poor people who refuse to take rent in a way that I didn't used to when I traveled and blithely took whatever I was offered as if by birthright. Over tea and nuts in the evening Giyas and his sister told me all about how hard life is for them and how she wanted to move to Canada with her husband.
I feel the kind of numb discomfort toward these stories and requests for help with migration or education or whatever that white bourgeois New Yorkers feel toward homeless people. I used to be genuinely interested and try to make friends but the gross inequality creates an inevitability that he will write me on facebook in 6 months and ask again about migration or other help and I will send him a useless NGO or university link if I respond at all and just not want to deal because I have moved on and know it is a pipe dream for him anyway. Money exchange makes things cleaner. Maybe I will move to a cheap hotel with an internet connection and a shower that isn't just a faucet on the wall at waist level. spoiled
The taxi driver cursed a double parker in Turkish and Kurdish and told me that such behavior made life unlivable and then blew through a red light to cut off a whole line of cars a few blocks later. He dropped me off in front of the municipality, which is BDP-run and so Kurdish language newspapers and calendar commemorating Kobani resistance are everywhere. A friend of a friend at the municipality sat with me and I was so happy to be speaking Turkish in a real conversation for a change that I blathered on my thoughts about ISIS and Obamacare to excess but he liked me and he and his municipality coworker seemed to have nothing better to do that afternoon. Then we drove around and picked up fresh milk in a plastic bag and picked up and dropped off one of his 10 siblings and then he dropped me off with my host, Giyas.
I had forgotten how incredibly hospitable people are here--like Iranians except they don't spoil it by constantly talking about how hospitable they are. Actually I feel deeply uncomfortable with hospitality from poor people who refuse to take rent in a way that I didn't used to when I traveled and blithely took whatever I was offered as if by birthright. Over tea and nuts in the evening Giyas and his sister told me all about how hard life is for them and how she wanted to move to Canada with her husband.
I feel the kind of numb discomfort toward these stories and requests for help with migration or education or whatever that white bourgeois New Yorkers feel toward homeless people. I used to be genuinely interested and try to make friends but the gross inequality creates an inevitability that he will write me on facebook in 6 months and ask again about migration or other help and I will send him a useless NGO or university link if I respond at all and just not want to deal because I have moved on and know it is a pipe dream for him anyway. Money exchange makes things cleaner. Maybe I will move to a cheap hotel with an internet connection and a shower that isn't just a faucet on the wall at waist level. spoiled
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