I met “Laila” when I was an English teacher volunteering with ReVi (Refugee Volunteers of Izmir.) As usual, I came into the classroom a few minutes early. But this time, instead of finding the usual Arabic teacher commanding the class, I found a striking young woman with black eyes dancing wildly in front of captivated children.
As she danced, the children danced. She danced to the left, then all the children followed her to the left. She danced right, and they followed her to the right. She gestured wildly and the sea of children before her, followed her movements with their arms. Then, when the song was over, she looked at me and said “Hello!” and bolted out of the room.
I soon found out that this dance instructor was also a journalist. Since then, Laila’s interviews with the Syrians of Izmir have been the main source for the articles I write. I hope that they will continue to be a source for my articles long after I leave.
Along with being a dance instructor and a journalist, Laila is also a fashion diva. Every time I see her, she is wearing something completely insane and pulling it off like a boss. Like an ember that never goes out, dancing high into the night sky, she is a bright light in Basmane; the large Syrian neighborhood here in Izmir, Turkey.
I had wanted to interview Laila about her fashion for months, but the language barrier had always been a problem. Now, with her English improved, we were able to talk vogue.
Before the interview, I met her and her mother after dance class, and the three of us walked up to her flat in the heart of Basmane. While she changed in and out various outfits, I talked with her mother in a mix of French, English, and Arabic. Laila periodically popped out of her room and re-translated and elaborated on our conversation for us. After capturing her three favourite outfits on film, we sat together and she explained the fashion to me.
“This is a good summer outfit. It’s a ‘blouza’ (blouse) and ‘tanoura’ (long skirt.) The pattern of the skirt is ‘zakhrafa’ which means something like, “old art.” When I wear this I feel happy and energized, and also relaxed because the shirt is light. It’s something I wear with friends. For example, last weekend I went shopping with my girlfriends and this was the outfit I wore.
Now about the shoes. They are white, which is my favourite colour for shoes. I only wear these shoes with this skirt. I got these shoes, like most of my clothes, in Kameralti [the gigantic bazaar close by.]”
“Yellow is my favourite colour. When I wear yellow, I feel energetic. It is the colour of the sun – of light. I usually like things simple and plain, which is what I like about the shirt. It’s feels light and free. I love jeans like this; bedazzled, and ripped a little. I have many pairs of pants that are ripped like this. The shoes are not exclusive to this outfit. They’re great for any of my other yellow clothes. This is an outfit for everyday.”
“I wear this outfit in winter because it keeps me warm when it’s cold out. I’m happy in this outfit because it makes me feel like a princess. It could also use a necklace, but the necklace would need to be a dark colour, unlike the light necklaces I have. I like these shoes because they’re simple and the black matches well. This is a great outfit for parties and special occasions. This is what I wore on my birthday.”
“I got this earring in Syria a long time ago- four years ago. I was 15 years old. I like the feeling of the feather, and the beads add to the old-style vintage look. It’s part of a pair, although the other earring of the pair is different.”
“Since I was a little girl I’ve always loved owls. I don’t have any brothers or sisters, so every time I was alone, like in the evenings, I felt alone like an owl. Also, she has black eyes, and I have black eyes. I got these earrings recently from a Syrian friend who lives in Istanbul.”
“I got this necklace from another Syrian friend who was here in Izmir. Now she lives in Sweden. I wear it all the time.”
“I like music so much. In my dance school in Syria, my teacher played a little guitar, and it reminds me of my teacher.”
There was one piece of jewelry I wanted to ask Liala about, but I couldn’t take a photo of. She had a small black jewel on her nose.
FIwith<3: I have to ask about the nose piercing. Is this a common thing in Syria?
Laila: No. But it is in Istanbul, where I used to live.
FIwith<3: And what do your parents think of it?
Laila: My dad – NO. He didn’t like it, but now he’s OK with it. My mother’s fine with it.
FIwith<3: Why did you get it?
Laila: I don’t know, I was in the mall with my girlfriend, who also had a nose piercing, and I saw a place where I could get it done. So, I got a small and simple nose piercing. I don’t like them big, just small and simple and black like the owl eyes.
[Glasses with fake plastic lenses] “I had real glasses in Syria but my prescription has changed. Now I wear contacts with the correct prescription. But I like glasses with big frames, so I have these fake ones that I wear with my contacts.”
These three outfits only scratch the surface of Laila’s style. After the interview, she sent me a digital mountain’s worth of photographs of gear and garments from her wardrobe.
“I care about the clothes I chose,” she said while contemplating about her style, “I feel confident and I also sometimes like to be different and distinct …but in a good way.”
It was a typical late afternoon in Basmane. The crumbling buildings echoed with the shouting of children and laughter from football matches in the street. Above us, women threw gossip at each other from between apartment windows.
I had impulsively decided to work with ReVi (Refugee Volunteers of Izmir) that afternoon, and I wasn’t regretting it for a second. As our volunteer group made the rounds, going from household to household, I absent-mindedly chatted about Russian politics with a new recruit. Sometimes children followed us, interrupting, speaking in clipped English phrases.
“Hello! What-is-your-name? Where-are-you-from? How-are-you? How-are-you?” It had been a week since I had come here, and it was nice to be back.
Basmane. Photo: Johanna Pruessing
The last house we were visiting was at the end of a long alley. We were taken into the house by the women of family, who welcomed us warmly and hugged and kissed the female volunteer.
The family sat us down in a large room, devoid of furniture besides a TV and piles of cushions against the walls. As the rest of the family trickled into the room, we got to talking about the usual things. The household’s health, education, and employment are always our biggest concerns. Overall, this family was doing well.
By the time the small talk was over, there were twenty people lining the room around us, not including the babies. We had taken out colouring supplies and bubbles for the children. The vibe was warm, so nobody was in a hurry for us to leave.
Then a young man came into the room with a cut across his face. It was explained that this man had come here from Syria ten days before.
“And now we will hear his story,” informed a Syrian friend that was translating for us. The man (I will call him “Ali”) had fled with his family from Raqqa, a city located in the central-north of Syria. Today Raqqa is the capital of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. As a consequence, the area is under attack by every side of this many-sided war.
Central Square in Raqqa. “Tomorrow will be better” is written on the fallen statue. Photo: Associated Press
Fleeing Raqqa is not an easy thing to do. ISIS has forbidden anyone from leaving the city, and will pursue those who try to escape. It also requires sneaking through an active war zone, and past all the de-facto borders that each side has created. Ali casually mentioned that he had to constantly drug his children so they wouldn’t make noise during their journey.
Ali and his family (eleven people in total) attempted the trip to Basmane eleven times before finally succeeding on the twelfth. Ali began telling us about his first attempt to leave with his family.
“We escaped Raqqa through an olive orchard and eventually made it to the Syrian-Turkish border. We waited until one or two in the morning and then the smugglers told us to go. We ran through the forest. There were maybe… a hundred or two hundred of us.
The Turkish border guards heard us and started shooting. At first I thought they were warning shots but I’m fairly certain I saw some people get hit by the bullets and crash into the ground as they ran. My family and I made it across the border into Turkey and we were picked up by some smuggler’s vans.
After packing us into the vans, they drove off. But there was a car pursuing us. The driver worried that it was the car of Turkish border guards. He drove very erratically and then dropped us off close to a grove of trees in the middle of nowhere. He told us to hide. We tried to hide, but the guards found us and took us to a gymnasium that had been converted into a prison for refugees. Eventually, we would be held in this gymnasium eight separate times. I celebrated Eid [an important Muslim holiday] in this gymnasium prison.
After spending a day or two in the prison, we were shipped back to Syria. The whole thing seemed suspicious. It felt like a set up. As if the smugglers and Turkish border guards were in communication. Now we would have to cross the border again. [The smugglers usually charge a lot of money to help people cross the border each time.]”
Syrian side of the infamous Bab al-Hawa border crossing. Ali and his family were taken back to Syria through this crossing many times.
Ali went on to tell us of other attempts to journey to Basmane. Sometimes the Turkish guards would catch them. Once ISIS caught them. Another time it was the Free Syrian Army.
“The Free Syrian Army let us go, but told us it was really dangerous where we were, and to take my family further along the border wall before crossing. We walked along the wall and found a ladder. Unfortunately there wasn’t a ladder on the other side of the wall. We all had to jump from the top of the wall, which was three meters high.
Wall between Syria and Turkey. Photo: Bianet.org
While we crossed through the forest on the other side, the Turkish border guards must have heard something because they were searching the forest with flashlights. We tried to hide behind the trees. At one point a guard was on the other side of the tree that I was hiding behind. I didn’t breathe.
The guards didn’t find us, and after some hours while they were rotating their shift, we ran through the forest to get to the road [where the smugglers were waiting.] The smugglers put us into the vans as usual. When we were driving, something went wrong. The driver was driving so erratically that I thought the van would tip over. Then the driver dropped us off in the middle of nowhere. He told us there was a village down the road and to find protection there.
We went down the road and found some stables to hide in. After sleeping in the stables, we went to the village. In the village, the Turkish people chased us and yelled horrible things at us. They said we were dirty and we were ruining Turkey and things like that. Soon, the border guards came and arrested us. We were put back into the gymnasium prison and sent back to Syria.”
After his twelfth attempt, Ali and his family were able to make it to Basmane and tell us his story. I asked him if I could write it down. He said I should make a film instead.
View from Basmane. Photo: Johanna Pruessing
By the time Ali had finished his story, the late afternoon had become late evening. We thanked the family for their hospitality and started packing our things to leave. Suddenly a woman appeared with a large tray of hot drinks for us. Usually families will offer us Syrian coffee or tea, but this time they had made a warm pudding with cinnamon poured over it. It tasted like Christmas.
We continued talking and laughing long after the drinks were finished. The children had drawn elaborate pictures with the colouring supplies and spread them over the ground for us to see. Late evening had become true night. Still feeling warm and fuzzy from the spiced drinks, we finally got up and thanked the family again for their hospitality.
Then the family invited us for dinner. Half and hour later we were all eating our fill of incredible Syrian food. The food was so good that we couldn’t stop talking about food. We took turns going around the room talking about our favourite Syrian dishes. When the men spoke about their favourites, their gestures became grandiose. Using their arms to measure larger and larger imaginary meals, as a fisherman measures his best catches, they recounted where to find the best ingredients and dishes in Raqqa, and then Syria in general.
Basmane. Photo: Johanna Pruessing
When the meal had finished and the woman had cleared the plates, we talked a little business with the main woman of the house. ReVi is always trying to find ways to utilize the skills of refugees in order to help them economically. With a baby on her breast, we worked out with her the best way to set up a small project with her.
True night had become truely late. Finally, finally; full of warmth and happiness, we filed out of the house. As we were saying our goodbyes, one of the girls who had made the journey here with Ali, grabbed our female volunteer. “We should be friends!” she exclaimed happily in perfect, unaccented, English. “Please come again and we can have fun together!”
This summer I spent more time in Izmir’s Syrian neighborhood of Basmane than anywhere else. One of the reasons I like Basmane so much is that it’s one of the most diverse places in Turkey. The population of Basmane consists almost entirely of refugees from every part of Syria. This means I can have coffee with an atheist Yazidi Kurdish intellectual from a mountain city, and go next door and have coffee with an Arab devout Muslim trucker from a tiny village in the middle of the desert.
Without the normal social prisms that determine where people live based off of race, religion, social status, or money, Basmane has become a neighborhood of Syria’s bright stars, all concentrated into a single neighborhood.
One of Basmane’s brightest stars is Nour, a 19 year old Syrian woman. I met Nour while I was teaching at a volunteer-run school for Syrian children. She was the dance teacher. I was the English teacher. Later, I heard that she also wrote for the Arabic facebook page of ReVi, which is the organization that we volunteer under.
A couple months ago ReVi started a project where we gave children disposable cameras. The children took photos throughout their neighborhood. An idea for a book sprung from this project. To give the photos more context, we decided to interview the children of Basmane.
After interviewing the children, Nour wrote articles from them. Because the articles were written in Arabic, I enlisted the help of a couple more Syrians, in order to translate and edit what Nour had written.
These are the articles Nour wrote. According to everyone who has read Nours writing, she has a unique style, and it’s very beautiful. As an editor, I hope I have done these articles justice. Note: I have changed all the names of the children.
—
Nadia (written by Nour. translated by Ali. edited by Zac.)
—
Nadia was a shy 10 year old child who was full of dreams. When I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, she told me she wanted to be a famous singer like Arabic popstar Nancy Ajram. “She’s my idol,” said Nadia. We talked a lot. I started the interview with a question about her friends.
Nancy Ajram
Nour: Do you have any friends in Izmir?
Nadia: I have one friend here. They’re Syrian like me. I don’t have any Turkish friends. I don’t think the Turkish people have love for me.
Nadia then started talking about the photography project they did. “I was so happy when we were running through Izmir’s streets and taking photos. It was a really great day. When I saw the photos I felt proud of myself. I want to have another day like that.”
Basmane. Child’s photo the ReVi photo project.
I asked Nadia about her dreams about the future.
Nadia: I would like to travel the world and discover everything, and I’d really like to see Canada.
Nour: Why Canada?
Nadia: I don’t know, but I’d like to see it.
After that we talked about school.
Nadia: I was studying in Syria. I wanted to keep going to school there, but because of the war, I couldn’t. I also study here but I’m not happy.
Nour: Why?
Nadia: I don’t know why. Maybe I’m afraid. Maybe I can’t cope.
I got the feeling that she was scared in general, not just about school. Everything for her was unknown. She didn’t have confidence in herself. I changed the subject back to Syria.
Nour: If you could send a message to Syria, what would you say?
Nadia: I hope everything is beautiful in Syria. I don’t want to see children without education, or crying. I want to see everybody happy. Enough war. I don’t want to see people carrying weapons. I just want to plant love and flowers.
Basmane. Child’s photo from the ReVi photo project.
—
Aysha (written by Nour, translated by Noor, edited by Zac.)
—
Aysha, ten years old, told me that she loves reading and writing, but she’s still a beginner. She dreamed of being a teacher for children. She has four friends in Izmir, all of them Syrian. She loves them very much.
Basmane. Child’s photo from the ReVi photo project.
Aysha had a lot of things to say about the war, violence, and sadness because she had direct experience with them. I was struck by her intelligence, clarity, and maturity. She talked like an adult, or maybe better. She told me about everything she saw in the war.
“There was killing, blood, violence, right in front of me. Everything was so difficult. In the beginning I was afraid of everything, but eventually what I saw gave me strength instead of weakness. I have a lot of faith in Syria. I think it will go back to like it was before the war. Just like with me, the terrible things that Syria has witnessed will make it stronger. But it’s still hard to watch right now. I don’t watch the news because I don’t want to see my homeland like this. I want to see it be beautiful again.”
After that, we talked about Aysha’s situation in Turkey. She explained the difference between life in Syria and life in Turkey.
“My life here is not beautiful. Turkish language is not beautiful. It’s hard. I can’t learn it. As for school, I can’t learn there either.”
I asked her, “Why? What’s stopping you?”
She replied, “The world here doesn’t love me. We are Syrians and [the Turkish people] try to shame me for it. They want me to be embarrassed because I’m from Syria. But I’m not embarrassed. Never! I am proud that I’m Syrian. So many Turkish children give us a hard time. When they see a Syrian, they shout bad words. That makes me feel angry. I don’t want to stay here. My only dream is to come back to my homeland. I don’t want anything else.”
Basmane. Child’s photo from the ReVi photo project.
—
Kemal (written by Nour. translated by Noor. edited by Zac.)
—
Kemal was a fifteen year old young man who traveled from his home in Syria, to Izmir, Turkey. In Syria he studied up to the ninth grade, but couldn’t go further because he had to flee the war. He still dreams of becoming a nurse. In the future he wants to build a medical center.
When I first started talking to him, I felt that he was closed off. I couldn’t be sure, but there seemed to be a certain sadness in his eyes. It was like there were many things inside him that were sad and painful.
We start talking about his job and how employers and others treated him. “My job is to sew. Most of the Syrians who are living in Turkey work in this field.” He talked about how hard is it to work in Turkey, and the difference between Syria and Turkey. He saw big difference in treatment between the Turkish laborers and Syrian laborers.
“A Syrian laborer is not allowed to do anything, but it’s exactly the opposite of the Turkish workers. In Syria there was time for everything. We could work, study, relax, have fun, etc. But in Turkey most of the time is spent working. It’s unfulfilling but I have to do it!” I asked him why he had to work so hard. His answer surprised me.
“I am alone here. My family isn’t with me. They are still in Syria. I talk to them once a month because the internet is so poor right now. That’s why I can’t contact my family. I’ve been away from them for nine months now.”
Basmane. Child’s photo from the ReVi photo project.
He had been holding back from crying, but wasn’t able to control himself after saying, “I really miss my family.” It is really affected me to see someone who misses their family so much, without being able to contact them. Kemal began talking with me about his thoughts of going back to Syria, but an auntie intervened, not letting him talk about that.
I persisted, asking him, “Why did you decide to go back to Syria?” He told me, “It isn’t enough for me to be near my family. I don’t want to just send them money every month, I want to go to my home with this money.”
He ended the interview by saying, “You shouldn’t ask Syrians these kind of questions, because you are just like us. You got hurt and you have seen everything in this war.”
From all of my heart, I wish that peace returns to my country. I want to go back too.
—
Arabic versions written by Nour. Names are changed to different names, but the children are the same.
أحمد شاب عمره خمسة عشر عاماً سافر من وطنه سوريا إلى تركيا تحديداً إزمير وقد درس للصف التاسع لكنه لم يحصل على الشهادة بسبب الحرب و السفر كان يحلم ان يصبح ممرض وان يكون له مركز لمساعدة المرضى .
عندما بدأت بالتحدث معه شعرت بأنه منطوي و بداخله اشياء كثيرة ربما هي حزينة او مؤلمة لا اعلم ولكني قد رأيت الحزن في عينيه .
بدأنا بالتحدث عن عمله وعن طريقة تعامل الناس معه في العمل او في غير مكان فكان جوابه ” عملي هو الخياطة وانتي تعلمين معظم السوريين الذي يقيمون في تركيا يعملون في هذا المجال وقد تكلم عن مدى صعوبة العمل في تركيا والفرق الكبير بين سوريا وتركيا وفرق التعامل بين العامل التركي والعامل السوري فالعامل السوري مشدد عليه بكل شيئ اما العامل التركي العكس تماماً .
في سوريا يوجد وقتٌ لكل شيئ للعمل وللدراسة للراحة والتسلية اما في تركيا معظم الوقت في العمل هذا لا يشعرني بالرضى لكني مجبر على ذلك . !
وهنا كان السؤال لما انت مجبر ؟
هنا كانت الصدمة فكانت إجابته ” انا وحيداً هنا وعائلتي ليست معي هي في سوريا إلى الآن أخبرني ايضاً مرة واحدة في الشهر اتكلم معهم بسبب الظروف القاسية للإنترنت لا استطيع التواصل مع عائلتي وانا منذ تسع شهور بعيد عنهم شعرت وكأنه سوف يبكي وقد حصل ذلك عندما قال لي حقاً اشتقت لعائلتي ..
شيئ محزن ان تشتاق لأحد و يكون في مكان بعيد عنك ولا توجد طريقة للوصول إليه ..
أحمد حدثني عن تفكيره في العودة إلى سوريا ولكن عمته التي يسكن في بيتها منعته من حدوث ذلك .
كان سؤالي لماذا فعلت ذلك وقررت العودة إلى سوريا ؟
” يكفيني ان أكون إلى جانب عائلتي لا ان ارسل لهم كل شهر مبلغ من المال اريد ان اذهب مع هذا المال إلى وطني وبيتي ”
في النهاية قال لي لا يجب أن تسألي اي شخص سوري مثل هذه الأسئلة فأنتي مثلنا ايضاً تألمتي و ورأيتي كل شيئ في هذه الحرب .
آتمنى من كل قلبي ان يعود السلام لوطني وان أعود انا لوطني ايضاً .
—
ريماس :
طفلة في العاشرة من عمرها خجولة جداً لكن حلمها آن تصبح مغنية مشهورة مثل الفنانة نانسي عجرم قالت لي بأنها قدوة بالنسبة لها .
تحدثنا كثيراً كانت بداية اسئلتي عن الاصدقاء هل لديها اصدقاء هنا ام لا ؟
آخبرتني لديي صديقة واحدة فقط هنا هي من سورية ايضاً وليس لدي اصدقاء من تركيا لانني اشعر انهم لآ يحبوني .
ايضاً آخبرتني ” احب التصوير و ايضاً كنت سعيدة جداً عندما تجولنا في شوراع ٱزمير وبدأنا بالتصوير كان يوم رائع بالنسبة لي وعندما رأيت الصور شعرت بالفخر بنفسي واريد مثل هذا اليوم مرة ثانية ”
حدثتني عن آحلامها ان تجول العالم وتكتشف كل شيئ لكن البلد الذي تحب آن تزوره ” كندا ” لا تعلم السبب لكنها تحبه .
ثم تحدثنا عن المدرسة فقالت لي لقد درست في سوريا وكنت آتمنى أن آكمل لكن بسبب الحرب لم استطيع وهنا ايضاً أدرس لكن لست سعيدة لا ادري لماذا .. !
ربما الخوف او ربما عدم التأقلم شعرت بأنها تخاف من كل شئ جديد او مجهول وليس لديها ثقة في نفسها ..
بعد ذلك كان سؤالي لها ” لو طلبنا منك أن ترسلي رسالة ٱلى سوريا ماذا ستكتبين ضمن هذه الرسالة ؟
أجابتني ” آتمنى لسوريا كل شيئ جميل لا اريد أن ارى طفل بدون دراسة او طفل يبكي اريد ان ارى الجميع سعداء يكفي حرب لا اريد ان ارى سلاح بيد احد اريد فقط أن نزرع ورود وحب “
—
نور : عمرها عشر سنوات تحب القراءة والكتابة لكنها مبتدئة حلمها آن تصبح معلمة للاطفال . لديها آربع اصدقاء في إزمير وتحبهم كثيراً هم ايضاً من سوريا . حدثتني عن اشياء كثيرة عن الحرب العنف الحزن الذي مرت به تكلمت وكأنها فتاة راشدة كانت تتقن وتعلم ما تتكلمه وتخبرني عنه .. ” قالت لقد شاهدت كل شيئ الحرب القتل الدم العنف امامي كان كل شيئ صعب جداً بداية كنت اخاف من كل شيئ لكن هذا الشيئ مع الوقت منحني القوة وليس الضعف منحني الإرادة ايضاً ولذلك لدي إيمان قوي بأن سوريا سوف تعود مثل سابق عهدها لكني لا اشاهد الآخبار لانني لا اريد آن ارى وطني بهذا الشكل اريد ان اراها جميلة ” بعد ذلك حدثتني عن وضعها في تركيا وشرحت الفرق بين سوريا وتركيا من حيث الاصدقاء اللغة المدرسة ايضاً وقالت ” حياتي هنا ليست جميلة لغتهم صعبة ولا آتقنها ايضا ًدراستهم لا اريد ان آتعلمها وسألتها ماهو السبب ؟ أجابت ” أظن ان العالم هنا لا يحبوننا نحن السورين يريدون ان تكوني محرجة من آنك سوريا لكني لا اخجل من هذا الشئ ابداً بل افتخر أنني سورية . ايضاً هنالك اطفال اتراك هنا عندما يعلمون انك سوريا يصرخون بكلمات سيئة وهذا يشعرني بالغضب لا اريد ان ابقى هنا حلمي فقط آن اعود ٱلى وطني ولا اريد شيئاً آخر .. “
I met Nour at an anarchist collective in Basmane which serves as an unofficial hub for volunteers. For a couple months we would see each other from time to time and talk briefly, since I was always in a rush off to somewhere. The first thing I noticed about Nour was her English. Her English was remarkably good. The way she used it had an uncompromising sharpness to it, as if the words she used were still bright and fresh; untarnished by over generalization or cliche. Nour also had an unusually good memory. Sometimes I would see her weeks apart but she would pick up the conversation exactly where we had left off.
I didn’t know anything about her past, but when I decided to start a project of asking refugees for their stories, she was the first person that came in mind – mostly because her English was so good. This is her story.
—
Nour was a quiet child, the youngest, and the only girl of four siblings. The first thing she told me about her childhood was that she was spoiled. “Growing up, I had a laptop, video games, dolls, a phone… so many things.” One night her mother bought her a kite. She couldn’t wait to play with it, so that night she ran through the streets flying her kite. Nour also had a bike and would ride it everywhere. For fun, she would go to the store for her neighbors and bring them back food using her bike. The neighbors tried to pay for her bike service. But Nour would deny their payment. “It was just for fun,” says Nour.
Nour was a sensitive child. She would break down and cry when other children were mean to her. If she saw a sick animal, she would take it in the house and care for it. She particularly hated seeing hurt animals. “Actually, I’m still like this,” Nour admits while pointing at the scraggly cats outside her window of her home in Basmane.
Like many sensitive children, Nour was also intelligent. Once her whole family went to a big park in Damascus, Syria’s capital city. There were lots of tall trees and enormous bushes. While playing, her and her cousins got lost. Scared and disoriented, the children around her started panicking. Nour calmed the group, telling them, “Don’t worry, we’ll find a way back.” She was then able to remember a sign she saw while they were playing. She recalled the sign like a photograph, and used the memory to guide the other children back to her family. For as long as she could remember, Nour was always like that. Her parents recognized her intelligence and put her on a path to become a doctor or lawyer.
Nour grew up a big apartment in Yarmouk, is a Palestinian neighborhood close to Damascus. Her father had a successful dry cleaning business. It was part of a famous chain called, “Snow White.”
Yarmouk before the war. Photo: https://alexioskonstantos.wordpress.com/
Yarmouk was the kind of neighborhood in which children played freely on the street. Nour spent her childhood outside playing soccer, hopscotch, and hide and seek. She and the neighborhood children went to a special school for Palestinians set up by the UN free schools program. It was supposed to be only for Palestinians, but because it was better than normal Syrian school, sometimes Syrians would secretly go there too.
One day, on her way to school Nour met a British man who worked for the British Council. His name was Michael, but she just called him, Mike. “Mike was tall and blonde, and very kind. Very cool,” Nour recalls. When he would see her, he would give her candy or biscuits. Once he gave her a Brain Adams tape. Nour still remembers the words to that tape. After around three months, Mike disappeared. Nour knocked on his door but nobody answered. “I knocked and knocked but there was nobody. He probably moved back to England. I was so sad.”
Like many children, things changed for Nour when she started going to middle school. She had to leave her elementary school, which meant leaving her friends. She was lonely. Sometimes she got bored. She would ask to go the bathroom and skip class instead. The teachers said she was smart, but she hated school.
High school wasn’t different. She hated that too. “I didn’t learn anything there,” says Nour. “The school was dirty and the principal was frightening.” The girls were naughty and the principal punished everyone collectively. The principal would hit the girls. “It was an awful place.” Nour would skip class a lot, but that hurt her grades. When she did stay in class, she only listened and didn’t participate.
However, outside of class, Nour was became interested in everything. She studied German and took a class in first aid. During this time, the Second Intifada was raging in Palestine and she wanted to be in the resistance. She held meetings. In addition to studying German, Nour went to an American school to learn English. She still remembers Barbara, the American principal of the English school. “She was so sweet. I loved her so much. She was the opposite of the principal of her Syrian school!”
Nour also became interested in boys. Worrying for her future, her family wanted to put a veil on her, but she refused. “There was one boy who fell in love with me to the extent that he was stalking me,” recalls Nour. “But I didn’t care. I didn’t love him back.”
By Nour’s last year in high school, her grades went from bad to worse, to the extent that she couldn’t graduate. But her family wouldn’t give up on their only daughter. Upon not graduating, they sent Nour to a private school. Seizing upon this blank slate, Nour decided to turn her life around. She went from skipping class to studying all night. “Once I stayed up studying for two nights in a row without sleeping.” In the private school she graduated first in her class. Everyone was surprised. They suspected that she had cheated. “But I didn’t, I just studied!” exclaims Nour laughing.
After graduating legitimately, Nour was able to go to university. In the beginning, she refused to be distracted by men, focussing solely on her studies. Her father and brothers warned her not to, ‘go to anyone’s home or car.’ She thought this was a good idea and decided to always follow this advice.
In her second year their advice was put to its first test when she met a Syrian man. “We actually met online,” said Nour, somewhat quietly. Nour’s friends had showed her a site called, Arab Talk. She started going there regularly, just to talk with people, but wound up meeting someone especially interesting. “After three or four months we fell in love.”
Following her family’s advice, she never went home with him but sometimes they would meet at a restaurant. Eventually the man met Nour’s parents but, “They weren’t into him. They told me, ‘You can do better. You’re going to become a lawyer.'” His family didn’t like Nour either. She was Palestinian and he was Syrian, which members of both families had a problem with. Particularly the man’s mother.
Nour’s boyfriend was the jealous type. He wanted her to wear a veil, and didn’t want her to wear makeup. He also didn’t want her to have a Facebook account. Nour didn’t have an account, but through a friend, she saw his profile. Then she understood. “His profile was full of girls and he was clearly cheating on me.” Nour was heartbroken. “I cried so much because of that guy.”
In her third year of university, Nour began to focus on criminal law. When she was a girl, she had read Agatha Christie. “Her investigations were a big inspiration for me,” she says. Nour wanted to eventually become a judge, a job that would suit her strong personality and rationality. Recalling her decision, Nour explains, “I had ideas about developing my country. I believe countries should be built with fairness. The world would be better if it could be fair.” Nour eventually wanted to become a judge for the United Nations. On the final exam for her third year she got 96/100. “I tried so hard to get 100% ! But the professors never actually give 100%. That’s their style.” says Nour.
During her fourth year of university, the first signs of war came to Nour’s neighborhood. “When the protests began, nobody knew that war would follow.” According to Nour, when a protest went through her neighborhood the police did nothing until someone shot at them. Then the police returned fire. The shooting continued until 2:00am.
In the coming weeks things only heated up. “When the first bomb exploded people ran out of their apartments to try to find where the sound came from. People were shouting, but just as when she was a child in the park, she wasn’t scared. “To be honest, I didn’t care that much,” admits Nour.
Things were different when more violence came to her neighborhood. She felt faint. “Everybody was hiding. There was fighting. There was gunfire. The sounds of automatic weapons echoed across the buildings. There were also heavier weapons, like the kind of weapons that attach to cars.” The buildings shook from the noise and the shelling. The power went out. Nour looked out her window and saw that the battle was directly under her building. After six hours it finally stopped.
Soon after that, Nour was at her university waiting to meet up with her friends. She had been waiting for a while. “I kept wondering, ‘Where are they? Where are they?’ Then I saw them. They were flying. Then I woke up in the hospital.”
—
In the hospital Nour didn’t appear too hurt from the shell that had killed her friends, but she had a high fever. “Something was seriously wrong with me. My muscles were feeling weaker every day.” The doctors decided that the fever had moved into her nerves. They did an operation to try to save her nerves, but after the operation, Nour was unable to move her feet, wrists, and hands. From that day forward, she has been unable to walk or use her hands.
In the hospital she became extremely depressed. Her hands and feet were curled and paralyzed. Her friends had been killed in front of her. “I had a fiance who left me after hearing about my condition. I was so tired.” Her mood was black. The doctors worried about her and sent her to Lebanon. Her mother and one of her brothers, who had been hurt by a separate explosion, came with her.
In Lebanon, Nour moved to a Palestinian area. Technically it was an old Palestinian “refugee camp.” In reality, it was more like a poor suburb. As the months and then years passed by, and the war in Syria became worse, Nour refused to abandon her dreams. “If I stopped caring about my future, I would whither away.” says Nour. She repeated this many times throughout the interview.
Food line in Yarmouk, 2014. Photo by AP: www.ap.org/
Nour still wanted to complete her school and become a judge. She was only four classes away from graduating. However, now she had the added complication of needing an operation to fix her hands and feet. “The only place I can get this kind of operation is Europe,” explains Nour. Unfortunately, being Palestinian as well as being a refugee, banned her from using any kind of legitimate travel options.
Currently, our international legal system has removed all obstacles for the Western college student who want to spend their spring break partying in Berlin, but locked out the college student who needs to finish their studies to become a judge in a nation in need of justice, as well as an operation to save her feet and hands.
After waiting for three years in Lebanon, Nour decided to try another way. The plan was to go to Turkey, from Turkey to Greece, and from Greece to Germany, where she could have her operation, and continue her studies.
Nour couldn’t fly straight from Lebanon to Turkey, so she had to go back to Syria first. It was a little tricky because of the travel restrictions for Palestinians, but she was able to find a way for her mother, her brother, and her to do it. Her first stop was Damascus. After three years she was finally back home, but she couldn’t stay. If the rest of her family knew that she was in Damascus, they would prevent her from going further. “They knew how dangerous it was. I couldn’t even say, ‘hello’ to them. It was so hard.”
From Damascus, Nour, her mother, and her brother, flew to Qamishli; a border city between Syria and Turkey. In Qamishli they joined a group of 35-40 people. A lot of the group consisted of children. The smugglers gave them a little food, though it had gone bad. There was no bathroom, especially not for people who couldn’t use their legs, and Nour was also on her period. They stayed there for a night waiting for the smugglers to tell the group when and and where to go. The smugglers told the group they would have a 10- 15 minute window in which they could travel. They warned the group, ‘If you fall, get up right away. If you see someone fall, just keep running. You don’t have time to stop.’ The man carrying Nour wasn’t sure if he could make it in time. The smugglers also told them that the route was through a minefield, so they had to twist and turn through the wilderness in a specific way to avoid the mines. Nour became afraid and got a fever. Suddenly the smugglers told them to go.
The first man carrying her fell down twice. He hurt his hand. Nour was passed to another man. She was carried over his shoulder. It wasn’t very comfortable. Then she was passed to another. She recalls, “We could hear the Turkish border patrol coming so we all laid down. The patrol didn’t see us.”
Finally, they were able to cross the border into Turkey. Smugglers immediately packed them into a windowless minibus and drove to Mardin, a Turkish city close-by. The bus was designed to hold 20 people, but 40 of them had been packed in. In the bus Nour couldn’t breath well, but she was so happy to have crossed the border. The smugglers told them, “Tomorrow you’ll be in Izmir. The next day, you’ll be in Greece. After that, Germany.” It sounded so simple, but the border crossing took a toll on her frail mother. Nour’s mother became sick and disoriented. Nour couldn’t leave her. Her friends left with the smugglers the next day. “They are living in Germany and the Netherlands now. They call me sometimes.” says Nour in a matter-of-fact tone.
Mardin. Photo: http://diyarinfo.com/
After her mother recovered, a relative that told them to go to the coastal city of Didim, which was only 11.5 kilometers away from the Greek island of Farmakonisi. The relative told them that he would help them find a smuggler to Farmakonisi. They stayed in Didim in a hotel, waiting night after night. After waiting for 12 nights, they decided to go to Izmir to find a smuggler themselves.
In Izmir, they were able to find another smuggler, and joined with a group of 50 refugees. When night fell, they were led to a boat. It took the group an hour to walk to the boat. On the walk, Nour was carried by a Turkish man. “He was very scared. I could tell it was his first time doing this kind of thing.”
When the group reached the boat, it was obvious that it was far too small to hold them. There were 50 people, including children and babies, but it could only fit around 20. The driver of the boat told them they had no choice but to get in. The only alternative was to go back into the forest “…but the forest had dangerous animals and mafia prowling it,” explains Nour.
The smugglers draped Nour on the side of the boat and tied her legs together to keep them from flailing. She was very uncomfortable. “I prayed because I thought that this could be the last [hour] of my life.” After the boat starting moving, Nour started checking the GPS on her phone. She realized they weren’t going to Greece. “We were just going along the coast! We spent 30 minutes along the coast of Turkey. I think the boat driver was too scared to go to Greece.”
After half an hour, the driver thought he heard the Turkish Coast Guard coming. He panicked and crashed the boat against the rocks. The overcrowded boat quickly began filling with cold winter sea water. The driver jumped into the sea and swam away. Other men did the same. Those who couldn’t swim away began screaming. “We were sinking into the rocks, but I wasn’t scared. Believe me, I wasn’t scared.”
After 30 minutes, the Turkish Coast Guard actually came. The Coast Guard and the refugees tried speaking to each other, but nobody could understand because of the language barrier. “All I understood them say was, ‘No Greece.'”
After the Coast Guard rescued what was left of the group, they were taken to a detention center. “We were wet and it was cold. They made us sit on the floor, which was also cold. We were made to sit there for 12 hours; wet, cold, and starving. I realized I had lost everything in the boat crash: my passport, my papers, my clothes, everything. I had nothing left.” After being released, the Turkish guards told the group that they were free to leave, but not to try to go to Greece again. Nour told them, “Of course I won’t leave. I love Turkey.”
Refugees being transported to a Turkish detention center. Photo: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
After the failed attempt to go to Greece, most of the group went to Izmir to get their money back from the smugglers. The smugglers were reluctant to comply until a rich man in the group was able to make some convincing threats. With most of their money back, the group went back to Didim and found a different smuggler. “A deal was made and we were put into a hotel room. We had to stay very quiet there. We couldn’t turn on the light at night, and in the day there wasn’t much light our room. There were no windows.”
Again, a small windowless bus came to pick the group up. But this time Nour couldn’t get in the bus. She was claustrophobic. “I just couldn’t go in.” She recalls. “It was made to fit 15 people, but there were 40 of us.” Her mother went in the bus, but the smugglers decided to put Nour into a separate car. “This would have been OK,” says Nour, “except the driver wasn’t sober. He had brought his girlfriend along and they were drinking together. What should have been a short drive took an hour. We drove through strange back-streets and weird places.”
Nour finally made it to the boat, but before they could take off, they heard the police coming. They ran into the forest. “We could see that the police were looking for us. We stayed still in the forest. It was so cold. Then we could hear the mafia looking for us. We knew it was the mafia because they acted and sounded different. “…We could see their flashlights searching the forest for us. We got down and hid.” While they were hiding, Nour could hear the howls of wolves and wild dogs. She was especially worried that a snake would find her in the darkness.
The coast of Didim, closer to the city. Photo: youtube.com
“We weren’t sure what to do. We decided to walk back. Since we came by car we knew it would be a long walk back, especially in the forest.” Her mother had to carry Nour and she fell many times. Her brother tried to carry her, but being weak from a bomb explosion in Syria, he also fell.
“After walking for hours like this we saw yellow lights. It was a house! We approached the house and we were attacked by guard dogs.” Suddenly the guard dogs were called off. A man approached the group. “He saw that there were children with us and hurried us into his house. Being in the house was wonderful. It was so warm. So, so, warm. …The man of the house told us how dangerous this area was. He told us that there were, ‘Lots of mafia and wild animals.’ …He drove us the hour back to Didim.”
Back in Didim, Nour’s relative introduced the family to a different smuggler. By this time, the borders between Greece and Europe were closing completely, so people were getting desperate, including the Arab workers of the smugglers. Unusually, the Arab smugglers would be travelling with them the whole way to Europe, because this was also their last chance to escape.
The EU closing it’s borders. Photo: http://www.ibtimes.com/
On the journey to the boat, an Iraqi man carried Nour. In the darkness of the forest at night, he thought Nour was a boy. “It was better he thought I was a boy, if you know what I mean.” recalls Nour. “The man kept telling me, ‘Don’t be scared, don’t be scared,’ but the smugglers were carrying weapons to protect us against the mafia, which scared me.”
When they got to the boat, Nour was put in the center. Someone was sitting on her legs, which was painful, but she didn’t want to say anything because if they tried to change positions, they might rock the boat and collapse it. After they set off to Greece, something went wrong and they spun in circles for while. After that, the motor died. People began to panic. They were saying the boat was sinking, though Nour could see that it wasn’t. Their panicking however, did start to collapse the boat. Things were getting dangerous.
The Coast Guard eventually found them and brought them back to the same detention center. This time the group was held for two days. Again, they had to sit on the freezing floor. Again, in wet clothes. Again, without food.
“We were so hungry. …Then the guards told us they were going to send us to a hotel. Instead, they put us on a bus that drove for eight hours. We were still without food. …and they began beating people. They beat a two year old child for playing. I was sure they were going to beat me as well.” Nour began to feel sick and faint again.
When the bus reached Izmir, they dropped everyone off on the street and drove away. Soon after, a smuggler took Nour and her family into an apartment. He told them he could take them to Greece. They gave him the last of their money and he ran off with it. “We had no money left so we had to sleep on the street in Basmane.” Her brother and mother were frail. They were defenseless. It was a dark time.
Photo of Basmane I took approximately the same that Nour arrived.
Then an Arab journalist discovered the family and put them in a hotel. A Norwegian journalist was also able to help. “Things are better now but I still don’t know how I’m going to pay the rent this month.” says Nour.
Two months ago, a man from the anarchist collective was brought to the family. He introduced the collective to Nour and her brother. Describing the collective Nour says, “They has helped me so much. They don’t have money, but they do their best. There are people from different countries and they have different skills. It’s nice to hang out there, and it helps me improve my English. …they don’t treat me like a ‘refugee.’ When I’m there, I’m just a friend. …Sometimes we hang out there, sometimes we leave Basmane together and get some fresh air by the sea.”
—
Since living on the street, there is no doubt that Nour is in a better place now. A friend has set up a crowdfunding page to help her raise funds so she can legitimately get to Germany, get her operation, and complete her Law degree. (Which you can find here: https://www.youcaring.com/noor-oghlo-592524) A British doctor has recently visited Nour and told her that with help she, “is likely that she could make a full recovery.” Other volunteers and friends (usually volunteer-turned-friends) have started looking for other ways to help her. She is also fortunate in that her mother is also the best cook in Basmane.
When speaking of Nour, there is a universal love for her. She has a way of bringing everyone together and putting a smile on their faces. One volunteer-turned-friend writes, ” [Nour] is one of the smartest and most vibrant people I met during the month and a half I just spent in Turkey.” Another writes, “…after the bombs, the fleeing, after crossing the formidably lethal Turkish border and having her dinghy sink on her way to Greece in the night, she’ll tell you in perfect English with a smile on her face that these hurdles just make things a little more exciting.”
However, while the support of friends and volunteers is good to have, it never lasts long. Both of these friends have left Turkey since meeting Nour. As will I, and all the other volunteers she meets in Turkey. Luck and fortune in Basmane is relative. While Nour has the support of an international group of kind-hearted people, she still doesn’t know how she’s going to pay the rent this month. At the moment this future judge still balances on the fine line between living in the street, or sleeping with a pillow.
I originally started writing this about someone I met in Basmane, but I’ve decided to make that an entirely different article. This one will just be about Basmane. The second article will be about the woman I met.
I live in the city of Izmir, which is on the west coast of Turkey; a giant country that forms a three-way bridge between the Middle East, Asia, and Europe.
I arrived in Izmir on New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2015. Shortly afterward I began working with the large population of Syrian refugees that came here with the intention of smuggling themselves to the Greek islands just off the coast of Turkey.
Most of the refugees in Izmir live in a neighborhood called Basmane. It is in an old section of the city, built on the side of a hill. Basmane is made up almost entirely of apartments converted from ancient mansions, abandoned churches, and other structures built a dozen generations ago. The apartments are in a state of arrested repair, or simply falling apart, but their aged beauty still reverberates down every street.
Streets of Basmane. Photo by Keli Scott
The streets in Basmane are narrow enough to feel like alleyways, although sometimes these alleyways skirt vast undeveloped fields where Roman ruins lay untouched by museums or tourists. At the top of the neighborhood there is an empty castle whose origins change with every person I ask.
I do not know the history of Basmane but I believe the street layout was planned by giving a one year child a crayon and paper and telling them to have a go at it. To complicate things more, all the streets are randomly numbered rather than named. It’s almost impossible to remember addresses and give directions. For example, here are directions for the half-mile walk from the train station to the castle:
Take 1297 street to 967 street. 967 street turns into 1291 street, which turns into 954 street, then turn right at 1021 street, then turn right 1023 street, which becomes 1008 street. Turn right on 5262 street then right 5263 street, then right on 5260 street, then right on 5264 street, then right on 5250 street, which will bring you to the castle 🙂
Basmane. Photo by Keli Scott
I’m not complaining. Basmane is my favourite place in Izmir. I spend most of my time there. Packed to the brim with people from every part of Syria and Iraq, I hear languages that haven’t been named and see clothes I cannot describe. The streets are lined with grandmas who look at least 150 and full of packs of playing children. Because I teach the children (and some adults) here, I am always recognized. Most of what I hear when I walk through the streets is, “ ‘ello! ‘ello! ‘ello!” Children shouting from the windows, from the streets above and below me, sometimes even from the cars, “ ‘ello! ‘ello! ‘ello!” It is a neighborhood full of life, action, and laughter.
Of course, it is also a neighborhood of hardship. Only the smugglers, the mafia, and a few volunteers choose to live in Basmane. The rest are here because of other reasons. Recently, I’ve had time to start asking how people how they got here.
Which leads me to the second part…
(which can be read here: https://fromizmirwithlove.wordpress.com/2016/07/12/nour/)
In the last entry I wrote about my first impression of İzmir. Now I’m writing about my second impression. This is an impossible task. After over a month’s worth of attempts at capturing my second impression, this version is my fourth, and final attempt. In this telling, I have cut İzmir into two halves, although like a gem, this city is cut into so many more facets, each one sparkling in the warm sun.
The yoga moms of San Francisco, the overexposed cityscape of Los Angeles, the blandification of the United States in general, it all seems like a distant dream. As if the memories are something that I forgot about and then re-remembered incorrectly. I can’t remember why I left, and my reasons keep changing. Was it the overwhelming greed? The politics? The empty libraries? It doesn’t matter what it was anymore.
I am not there anymore. I am here. In Turkey. In İzmir. Where cold nights smell like coal, the ocean is the sea, and men tussle other men’s hair just for fun.
Raechel, you asked what I am doing in Turkey. I am finally writing you a reply. Here it is. I want to say that I’m doing what I came for, which is to be giving some form of relief to the torrent of refugees that come to this city. To be documenting, writing, organizing, and teaching. I’m not doing any of that yet. I was in a teacher training program for most of the time I’ve been here, and now that I’ve finished I find myself between jobs, flats, and stages of life in general. Soon enough I’ll be doing what I came here for, but this is what my life in Turkey looks like now, in this blank space of my schedule.
I found myself in a small cafe in an alleyway with new friends. It was so small that my leg hung precariously onto the road, and I had to move it from time to time in order to not get hit by taxis. There were four of us there; Mo and myself, and two new friends; a man named Adam and a woman named Kadın. Everyone was talking and laughing and touching each other. My non-precarious leg kept brushing against the Adam’s. The contact was a foreign feeling for me, but a totally normal occurrence Turkey. Kadın who sat in between Adam and Mo, sometimes alternated between clinging onto Adam or clinging onto Mo. It was like we were all in a train car, rolling on tracks that skirted this busy alleyway.
The waitress played Bob Dylan’s Desire on the old record player and served us Turkish coffee. Sometimes she joked with Adam and Kadın in Turkish, but I didn’t know what they were saying. Everything at the cafe reminded Adam of his childhood. At some point he grabbed a handful of nostalgic candy which we all sampled. Most were flavoured lightly with cinnamon.
Turkish coffee is served in small cups that hold about as much coffee as a couple thimbles. Maybe half a shot glass or the fourth-largest Russian doll in a set of six (not including the secret extra extra-tiny one.) If the coffee is good, which it always is, the last quarter of the small cup is very fine silt. So really, with Turkish coffee you are drinking about as much liquid as would fit in the fifth-largest Russian doll in a set of six, then you are left with a thick layer of silt on the bottom of your cup.
Our flat has no internet, and cannot get internet. Nobody here has heard of this problem or knows what to do about it. I mean, yes, occasionally a horse-drawn cart can be seen on İzmir’s main streets, but this is 2016 and nobody in İzmir doesn’t have internet. Except the American couple in Karşiaka who are living like it’s 1993.
With the lack of internet problem, I have predictably begun devouring books. Luckily there is a serious book culture in Turkey. In most commercial areas there are bookstores on every block or two. Almost every bookstore focuses on selling school books, fiction, and a little non-fiction. There is a noticeable slant towards Communism and the classics – just like me.
Kadın flipped her tiny coffee cup upsidown onto her saucer. There is a form of fortune telling that uses the silt of recently drunk coffee as a medium for the sixth sense. You make a wish, flip your silt-filled coffee cup upsidown onto the saucer, and wait until the silt settles.
I have a secret that I was willing to slip at the cafe. I am a fortune teller. I haven’t done it years, and I haven’t memorized the tarot cards, but given the moment and the medium, I will happily tell someone’s fortune. Before I was 21 I would tell people’s fortunes for alcohol. It was a great system. The secret about reading fortunes is that everyone wants their fortune read, even if they’re like me and don’t believe in fortune telling.
After some time had passed I took Kadın’s saucer and carefully lifted the upsidown cup from the saucer. If the cup had stuck hard to the saucer, her wish would have come true. I liked Kadın so I wanted the cup to stick, but it didn’t stick as much as I wanted it to. Then carefully, I righted the small cup and peered into it. The thing about fortune telling is it really does involve a sixth sense. My eyes could see the silt, but then another sense of mine opened and with the new sense, I peered into Kadın’s future. My ears heard nothing, but through peering into her cup I could hear Kadın’s future as plain as you can hear these words coming out of your screen.
I listened and watched. The future is alive and factual. At least Kadın’s future was. She was a bright person, which made the act of telling her fortune easy, and luckily for me, I saw some good things in it, which made telling her what I saw especially easy.
After hanging out with Adam and Kadın, I walked with Mo to the promenade that hugs the Aegean Sea. In İzmir they call it the Kordon. It was almost warm for the first time since Winter began, so everyone was buzzing. Teenagers and couples were hanging around, listening to old music, knocking back beers on the edge of the sea, while old women and men walked amongst them selling flowers, tea, and nuts. Kids on rented bikes casually rode by us on the winding bike path.
In a Turkish book I recently devoured, an old woman complained that she missed, “the fullness of the moment.” Although the book was published before I was born I completely understood what she was talking about. When I was younger I would drive aimlessly around Los Angeles with my friends, lovers, or people who were somewhere in between. I always followed the fullness of the moment, wherever it would take me. Sometimes it was to some rocks by the ocean, where the bioluminescent waves crashed down and sprayed the air with salt. Sometimes it was into the mountains where the stars grew brighter with every mile. Sometimes it was into the unknown, where a lighthouse or a desolate cafe could be discovered. But later I divorced the world I knew, and with it, the fullness of the moment. Now finally ready to reconcile with the world, I have and followed the moment here, to Turkey. To İzmir.
After our stroll down the Kordon, Mo and I took the ferry home as the sun set. The sky had been cloudy and devoid of blue, but as the sun sunk into the sea, the clouds caught fire and warmed our open ferry as we approached the evening on our side of the bay. It was truly night by the time we made it to the produce market by our flat, and the air was thick with coal smoke.
Basmane
İzmir is a city that has wrapped itself around a large bay, so it has no center. But if İzmir did have a center, it would be Basmane [Baz-ma-ney]. Basmane is one of the oldest parts of İzmir, and it has a separate feel to it. While it’s not exactly poorer, it’s certainly not richer than the surrounding area. It is like a condensed town within a city. Basmane is my favourite part of İzmir.
Basmane is a traditionally Arab area, so naturally, it became the hub of refugee activity. Perhaps because of this, time in Basmane is detached from the rest of İzmir. While most of İzmir casually strolls, people literally run in Basmane. Motorcycles swerve through the thick crowds of pedestrians like lightning bolts navigating through falling rain drops. Taxis and Polisi vans barrel down the same pathways like boulders from Indian Jones. Everyone gets out of the way just in time, every time, which is about every five seconds. Arabic music blares from cafes and cellphone shops. Life jackets, inner tubes, waterproof id holders, backpacks, blankets, flashlights, and solar powered lanterns are common wares, despite the relative lack of migration during the Winter. OK I’m just going to say it. It feels like the wild west and I love it for that.
Fruit stand in Basmane.
This kind of place, where hope and confusion and creativity and madness and despair make contact with each other, is exactly the kind of place I was born for. Don’t get me wrong, this is a place of sadness for some people, especially for those who sit on the wall of the Basmane metro station looking alone and unsure, but the refugee situation here in Basmane is not whatever you think it’s like. Unlike Europe, Basmane is not the end of the line for most refugees. It is the transit point from Turkey to Europe.
The movement here is intoxicating. The fluctuations, the tides, the inhalation and exhalation of so many different kinds of people who dart in and out of the mysterious side streets, conjure descriptions that could fill a thousand pages a second.
Mo and I stayed in Basmane for a few nights before we found our flat in Karşiaka. Now with more free time, we decided to give our old haunt a visit. Upon exiting the Basmane metro station, Mo and I crossed the main street and began our stroll into the de facto gate of Basmane: a cluster of cafes, food carts, semi-abandoned looking hotels, and a large, old, but very active mosque. At the edge of the mosque gate a woman covered in tight colourful clothes called to the people inside, presumably asking for money.
Basmane before the cars wake up.
As usual in Basmane, the place began to take over my body. The beating of my heart switched to the rhythm of the passing taxis. Swerving motorcycles aligned my line of sight so that I could see in all directions. The cats, the cafes, the smell of rock and exhaust, the people I could see lounging in the doorways and the people I couldn’t see on the other side of the old cracked paint that loomed on all sides of me.
Instead of walking straight through to the main section of Basmane, we chose a quieter side street of old broken hotels. Men (always men) watched us quietly from cafes. Mine and their curiosity constantly tangled in the silence to form a single unanswerable knot of a question. Who are these people and why are they here?
Upon glimpsing another the end of this road, I took us onto another side street. It was empty save the eyes that I felt on us. As it was Sunday, or possibly because this was Basmane, all the stores on this street appeared closed. Not wanting to go deeper into the side roads, and being a bit hungry, I brought us through a dusty alleyway into the fray of the main road.
The warmth of humanity once again flooded my senses. Women, men, children, motorcycles, cars and taxis, buzzed around in more directions than the road would comfortably allow. Mo and I joined the chaos, taking the same route that we used back when we were staying here. We comfortably got back into the groove of navigating throughout the clusters of vehicles and groups of people.
Then up ahead, there was a different kind of energy. A fight? No. It didn’t feel like that. Though something was up. As we pushed our way through the large cluster of people, aided by cars honking like mad cows, we saw a middle-aged woman lying on the ground and people swarming around her with curiosity and concern. I am colour-blind so I have a problem seeing blood, so I wasn’t entirely sure of the situation. But she appeared to be in shock, most likely fainted from the rapidly warming weather. Unable to speak Arabic or Turkish, my continued presence would have been a distraction and gotten in the way of the people helping her, so I stayed away and continued on our route. Unfortunately that was where we were going to eat.
Some time later we came close to where we began our walk. The street opened up a little and the pedestrians thinned out. A shopkeeper came out of her shop and gently shooed away some children playing under a fruit stall. When we completed the circle by reaching Basmane station, we decided to go to the bazaar.
It was Valentine’s day and I wanted to buy some boots for Mo; the kind of boots that Turkish girls wear. On the way to the bazaar, we walked through a different section of Basmane. This area was defined by a major road, had a wide sidewalk, and was lined with office buildings rather than flats. The area mostly consisted of tailors, high quality garments, and house supplies, although life jackets and inner tubes were prominently displayed among the business attire. I had been in this area a couple weeks before and there were more of these kind of things than I had previously seen. The weather was getting warmer, and with each degree of rising temperature, thousands more people will be passing through Basmane. I look forward to meeting them.
Along the way we passed a garment shop that was featured on the front page of the New York Times. I remember reading the article while standing behind the cash register at the grocery store I was working at. It wasn’t that long ago. Still just a few months past. I wrote about it a few weeks ago on my Instagram account:
After reading, I needed to go to Izmir. I had no choice. Last week I was walking down the street and ran across the shop pictured in the New York Times article. In a way, this was the exact place that pulled me here. The geographical center of my new life. I walked inside the store and bargained for a really nice shirt. It was one of the owner’s birthday and we all ate cake together and laughed a lot. Then his friend took me to a tailor to get the shirt better fitted (part of our deal that was made in the brokenest of broken English/Turkish). It’s funny to think that they’ll never know how important their store is to me. I wonder how many other moments like this happen. I wonder if we really understand how much we affect each other, even from tens of thousands of miles away.
Bottom: NYT photo. Top: My photo.
Passing by the store this time, I saw that they had put more life jackets out on display. Today was the warmest day yet. Tomorrow is supposed to be warmer. I walked with Mo down the Kordon for two and a half kilometers. Looking down into the clear water of the Aegean Sea, we saw dozens of jellyfish swimming in the sunshine. On the Kordon, couples, business types, clusters of teenagers, and families swam among the black and white waves of marble.
And that’s how this in-between chapter of my life ends. In half an hour I will be at a meeting with a group of volunteers who help refugee families.
Today I arrived in Stockholm, Sweden by way of Oakland, California. The plane flight was uneventful but noisy with babies. Throughout the ten hour plane flight I probably got less than an hour of sleep – which in the excitement of travelling to Stockholm, I barely felt. However, I can recognize the lack of sleep in my writing. On the plus side, I spent almost the entire flight learning Swedish.
After we finally arrived at the Stockholm airport, Mo and I bought the cheapest meal we could find since we had not eaten anything during the flight. Our first meal abroad was a very cheesy bread pastry and a coffee from 7-11, which is everywhere here in Sweden.
Revived by the food and coffee we bought a bus ticket to downtown Stockholm. We exited the bus in downtown Stockholm late in the evening, and despite all shops being closed, we decided to explore the city.
We had been warned that it would be cold in Stockholm, but it was only 0 degrees (32 degrees Fahrenheit) – just cold enough for the snow not to melt. Downtown Stockholm was a winter wonderland of a city. Thin blankets of snow felt more ornamental than cumbersome. There was no wind to freeze our faces, no snow sludge to collect on clothes, and no precipitation to make us wet. Besides the perfect weather, I had never felt safer in a city. Most impressively, many of Stockholm’s parked bicycles did not have locks on them. They were simply left outside, apparently vulnerable to thieves and weather.
Wandering through Stockholm at night felt like wandering through the pages of a warm fairy tale. The empty buildings and abandoned streets were clean and glistening with ice and snow. As this was right after Christmas, every single window had a traditional Swedish candelabra in it, lit by warm LEDs. Many windows also featured large paper lanterns in the shape of stars. Sometimes we would stumble upon torches set on the ground, still on fire, burning silently outside of entry ways.
As this was a weeknight, people were relatively scarce on the streets. While many of the people we saw were Swedes, a large portion of our fellow night-wanderers were Arab refugees, which could be found scattered upon every other downtown block.
I did not expect such a strong presence of refugees, both men and women – many elderly – roaming the magical Stockholm streets. Many of the refugees carried or were surrounded by piles of IKEA bags which I assume held most of their possessions.
Upon leaving a subway station, I came across a group of young Syrian women who had set down their IKEA bags in the front entrance. Before stepping over the pile of blue and yellow in order to leave the station, I locked eyes with one of the women. She was younger than me. Her hair was covered with a colourful hijab. Her face was beautiful, made up as if she had just come from a wedding or celebration. But her body was covered in drab, dirty clothes to protect her from the winter.
I opened my mouth to say something but realized I did not have the vocabulary to express anything I felt to her. Her bright eyes said the same thing to me. What else was there to say? If I knew better Arabic I would have said, “I am here for you. What do you need here? What can I do?” But that would not have been the whole truth. I was not Stockholm to help her. I was going to where she had just left from, traveling the route of the refugees in reverse.
The experience did not leave me feeling completely empty. That moment of communication with the Syrian woman alleviated a major fear I had regarding my purposes for travelling to Turkey. Promoting communication is, by far, the biggest asset I have to give to alleviate the refugee crisis. I am not rich, I am not a politician, and I have no connections with NGOs. But I do have my film and writing, my ability to organization, and my patience. However, if those assets are not useful due to major cultural and linguistic barriers, there is nothing I can do to help. Being able to have a complex moment of communication by just using eyes gave me hope that I can work through the cultural and language barriers that I will encounter with Arabs, Afghans, Africans, and Turks on a daily basis.
The next day Mo and I woke early – well we actually didn’t sleep due to the revving motorcycle in our dorm that took the form of snoring person, but we decided to leave our bed around 6am. We wandered the still-quiet streets among refugee families and Swedes going to work. After travelling across the old-fortress island, which looked even more fairytale-like in the light of the rising sun, we travelled back to the hostel for a cheap breakfast. After breakfast we gathered our belongings (everything we owned) and waited in an indoor mall for our bus back to the airport.
The indoor mall was filled with even more refugees who were keeping warm and dry. We sat down to an African woman for a few minutes while waiting for the bus. Beside me, she sang hushed songs to herself, or perhaps us. When I stood up to leave, she stood as well, as if to follow us. “Are you going?” she asked in quiet English.
“Yes.” I said. “And you?”
“Yes” she said very quietly, from some far away place. I looked in her eyes and saw nothing I could recognize. She opened one of her bags to show me something, but all I saw was cloth. Sensing I was about to dive into a rabbit hole I backed off, smiled at her warmly, and walked away. She watched me leaving as if she expected me to turn around and come back. But I didn’t.
Now, as the sun sets in the Stockholm airport, less than 24 hours after we arrived, we are leaving – this time to Istanbul. And then to Izmir, our new home.
fromizmirwithlove 