Is There a Doctor in the House?
Trip Start
Feb 08, 2008
1
33
125
Trip End
Sep 11, 2009
Diyarbakir,
Turkey
Sunday, May 11, 2008
In to Diyabakir I was to go walking. The LP guide happened to mention some notion of possible robbery in the area of the castle wall I was to begin with. I had already heard mention of the unemployment in this region. And, I had been mugged in Istanbul four years ago, resulting in a couple of cracked ribs and a three night stint in a hospital. So I took some minor precautions. I left my laptop on top of the hotel room's amoire, and I wrapped my ATM card and a little extra cash in a plastic bag and put it under the vegitable tray at the bottom of the hotel room's refrigerator.
On the way to the southern, Mardin Gate, I stopped in to the Otel Büyük Karavansary for a quick look. Huge swimming pool, full of water, but no person. At the gate I decided to walk down, outside the wall, into the lush vegitable growing fields below the wall to get a perspective view of the wall. I noted, by smell and brown/gray color, the water draining from the city that was used in irrigating the fields. Nice, lush-looking lettuce, but I don't know. . . .
There was an entrance into a "basement" area of the wall near the gate. I saw some women sitting near by so figured it was safe enough to enter. Preparations were underway for what appeared to be a childrens' chess tournament. One official merely offered me a friendly, "welcome," and I watched one on-going game in which an elderly gentleman (one of the kindly officials) crush a boy of about 11. It was just a friendly, mentor-like game before the show got going.
On down the way, in my intended interior curcuit of the wall, were some fellows performing maintenance on the crumbling wall. A couple of guys were using sledge hammers to more or less square up blocks of basalt, and a couple of other guys were placing and mortaring them to shore up the base. (Sledge hammers are also apparantly used to butcher chickens, judging from the bone fragments I frequently find in chicken meals). Then, on into a fairly depressed neighborhood. The area next to the wall had largely been cleared of homes that used to abut the wall. Some still are there and occupied. And, where there are breaks in the wall, a convenient trash tip offers.
At the northeast corner the LP map notes "Military (Out of Bounds)." But nothing of the sort. It was wide open, and there was extensive and costly restoration work underway. I wandered in. After looking around some my curiosity was so piqued that I approached a young fellow asking if he spoke English. A few words, yes, but his friends knew more. We found them in what turnned out to be the St. George Church, then getting the most restorative attention. The first fellow said he was a soldier, just on a Saturday off. His two friends both spoke more English.
They didn't quite know what the larger story was either, but had seen a sign near the entrance to the area. On the way to the sign we paused before another building that had already had a new roof set on an extensive new metal framework. The one fellow, with longer hair and a kind of Van Dyke beard, started to remark on the structure of the two story building. He noted that of the seven arched openings the center was the largest and the two flanking on each side were each progressively narrower. Then he said that the two opposing stairs behind the openings didn't fit with the "facade," and must have been added later. I said, "That's a pretty astute observation. Are you an architect?" He said, "Yes." His two friends were soldiers, he was not.
I asked the soldiers if they had been involved in the recent actions against the PKK in northern Iraq. No, they were computer guys. I asked, from my knowledge of the Turkish Army policy, if they were from northern home towns. Yes. One from Erzurum, the other from Istanbul.
The sign revealed that this former military (prison) area was undergoing remodelling and restoration towards the establishment of a culture park. The St. George Church was to be an art gallery.
I had seem some of this type of restoration work to some Byzantine structures in Bursa a few weeks before. In a few years--well, several years--this corner of the Diyarbakir Castle Wall is going to be a very beautiful culture park. That was kind of the highlight of the day for me.
The next site was a visit to the former home, now museum, of the Turkish poet Cahit SıtkıTarancı.
Then back to exit the Mardin Gate, and walk the 1km to Gazi Köşkü, and example of a 19th century wealthy class home. I never made it.
Shortly out of the gate I was met by street urchins. Anyone who has travelled in Turkey knows about this. One can tell the level of education of these kids. The lowest level; well, of no real education at all, is merely, "Hello." All day long you get that. Sometimes you don't even know where it is coming from. But, from there it goes:
Second Level: "Where are you from?'
Third Level: "What is your name?"
Fourth Level: "What is your job?"
And that's pretty much it until the university level.
In Diyarbakir it has been augmented with, "Money, money." And such it was with this group. All of this I was tired of, and tried to ignore, mostly.
But I came to a fork in the road. The map didn't help. So I said the name of my objective, and that got a lively response, as they all thought to be "guides." But, in my further aloofness all but two drifted off. One, especially, kept pestering me--speaking Arabic, actually. I think. So I talked back to him, rudely, in English.
When we came to my sought objective, I thought I might shake him by just walking on past the place.
It worked. But then I had to keep going, and there was an objective: the On Gözlu Köprüsü (Ten-Eyed [arches] Bridge). Once there I angled for a picture of the bridge and the Tigris River and the Diyarbakir Castle Wall, but it just didn't make it.
Diyarbakir and Tigris River
I went to return by walking along the river bank. Eventually I was into a private vegitable field. The owner came to meet me, and we had a nice introduction. He was a young fellow with stained teeth. It was "his" field, but really the family's. He escorted me through the field and back up to the road--and also seeking some money for cigarettes. In this case I gave him a couple of Lira, after all for allowing me through his property. He wanted 5. Tried for 3, but didn't evidence an "attitude" with just the two, so I left it at that.
But he walked up the road with me, so, once again I bypassed the Gazi Köşkü. He flaked off at the cigarette opportunity.
The rest of the time I went the other quarter way around the wall. At about 6 I had a dinner in a very crowded Lokanta. Back at the hotel lobby a football game was on tv. I watched the first half, seeing the favored Galatsaray score two goals. Up to my room for a shower. And turnning on the tv to see if the game was there, found an old rerun of my favorite US soap opera, ER; in English with Turkish subtitles. Then I tried to write this up, but was too tired. So I saved it til now, when I woke up at about 4 am. My "desk" is the removed and over-turned desk drawer on my bed.
Before finishing this entry I want to return to a theme from a previous one, the archaeological site of Göbekli Tepe. I am still in the thrall of having had the fortune to visit that site, thanks to the chance to talk about it with a fellow lodger, Dave, a bean-pole, vegan Aussie, standing out at about 6'7". Two evenings ago I did some further research on the site, thanks to Wikipedia. Currently, I am having internet connection problems, so I can't supply the reference I wanted. But, there are two fascinating articles cited at the end of the Wikipedia entry for Göbelki Tepe in which the archaeologists are speculating that this site gave origin to the story of the Garden of Eden. Check it out!
Now, that "medical" question. Well, who else would you ask? This is some of the nitty-gritty of travel that you are almost only likely to find at this site. And this is a question I have had for almost 40 years, since my first time in Europe. Why are the european toilets designed such that the drain is in or toward the "front," and such that one's stool almost invariably leaves a smear on the porcelin? There was even one toilet in the very old cold water flat WC that I lived in in Köln, Gemany in 1972 that actually had a platform for the stool to rest on before flushing. Is there some divination that these folks are seeking?
