two months

i hit the two month mark yesterday of my time in diyarbakir. i'm enjoying my time here much more now that i've met some friends. we had a conference in diyarbakir a couple weeks ago put on by the hrant dink foundation. in addition to hearing sweet presentations about minorities in turkey, i met some nice mountain turks and the four other foreigners apparently living here.

in other news, i ate an absolutely fantastic breakfast at mustafanın kahvaltı dünyası at hasanpaşa.

so much beyaz peynir, delicious white village butter, warm bread, and most important of all, honey with kaymak (clotted cream). the kaymak was dusted with pistachios and pomegranate seeds. yum.

later that day i bought knitted slipper socks at a women's microcredit store. they are pretty awesome, but i had to try on several before i found any that fit my massive feet. but now i have colorful socks and i supported women's handiwork.

Another earthquacke! Yikes! I'm glad I delayed my trip to Van. In the aftermath of the two earthquackes, some people have expressed hope for greater solidarity between Turks and Kurds. Elif Şafak just wrote a column to that effect, mentioning that Turks and other minorities died as well in the first earthquacke. That all sounds good, but I'm not convinced. Given the protest held the other day, and the violent police reaction, tensions are clearly high. Also, this is not just an ethnic issue, but also an issue of regional neglect. Those issues have to be dealt with as well, empty words of solidarity are not enough.

In light of events such as earthquackes and violence, some of my friends and family have expressed concern for my safety. The real threat, however, is far less menacing yet much more pervasivc: food. First it was the microbe invasion. Now I'm dealing with the aftermath of Kurban Bayramı. Heavy food and sweets every day finally came to a head, I was so sick the other night I thought I was going to throw up. Sadice said that she used to make some dish that was so heavy it made everyone sick. If there's a food that can make these people sick, I don't even want to be in the same room as that dish!

1 month

So I´ve been in Diyarbakır for about a month, and it seemed appropriate to write a blog post. The month has gone by both quickly and slowly. Before I arrived in late September, I had noticed increasing violence in the SE, and this has only escalated since my arrival. Diyarbakır has so far been pretty isolated from these events, besides a few protests here and there. People however, are obviously concerned about the growing violence.
It will be really interesting to see what impact the earthquacke has on this conflict. I sense a growing discontent with the state due to state response, and the poor construction which caused many of the buildings to collapse. Granted, poor construction is probably everywhere in Turkey, but in an area that already feels neglected, this earthquacke is bound to heighten regional tension.
But enough about politics. Things that are pleasant in Diyarbakır: the fact that there´s a bakery on every street. Going to the butcher and actually getting meat off of a whole animal. The extremely unnerving generosity of the people here. If I could just find some decent espresso....

i meant for this blog to be my travel blog, but since i am constantly feeling a bit like a misafir, i think i will just keep writing in this blog. because i am tired of livejournal. and i feel like venting my feelings on the internet.

i just moved back in with my parents on the island, have all of about $500 to my name, and need to graduate this quarter. this is not how i imagined my post college life. on that note, it's time for a hot beverage with some whiskey in it and bed.

i think this program has lasted too long, or not given us enough tatil, because ive taken to skipping lab and not doing homework. drinking and smoking nargile, clearly more important.

went to a lecture on turkish nationalism today after class. it was sweet, in the sense that i could understand what the guy was saying. i also didnt really learn anything new. also, totally denied possibilities of racism during ottoman empire, and during the early republican period.

i am wearing a pair of those pants that basically a skirt. they are floral print. i never want to take them off.

last weekend we had a really exhausting bogazici mandated tour with an extremely boring archaeology phd student. we saw some sweet stuff, but the tour went from 9 am to 8 pm (i got left behind at a bathroom at around 4:30, al-hamdulillah!). also, we were overloaded with details of architectural history, it would have been nice to hear some information about social importance of these areas (alas, might have deviated from the secular narrative). this weekend, strangely enough, no one signed up for the edirne trip with the same guide, and it was cancelled. i mostly ate, drank, and squeezed in a museum between the consumption. i was not crazy about the botero exhibit at the pera museum, but there were some pretty sweet orientalist paintings in the permanent collection. word.

today in discussion class we talked about discrimination. us american students were mostly bringing up discrimination towards african-americans, slave history, etc. our ta leading the discussion brought up discrimination towards women, especially in the east.....she mentioned honor killing, general sexism as being specific to eastern turkey. i'd like to look at this idea further, how the practices of honor killing is represented towards the "western" part of turkey, and also how the state deals with these issues.