Ch 36, Day 3: A Kurdish Town in Greater Istanbul





9.2
Kms, Aug 28, 2010








The
bus to the next town climbs straight up a steep hillside through some
rough and tumble neighborhoods with half-finished cinderblock homes.
There something very different about this place. Gone are the
high-rise apartments. Gone are the classy shopping districts. This
place feels more like a rough neighborhood in Mexico, not a suburb of
Istanbul.






The
Traveler starts to walk down the hill, and soon finds he is not
alone. A crowd of children are following him as if he were a modern
day Pied Piper. In other towns, he's gotten little more than a
passing glance from people. Here it seems that everyone is watching
him.






Down
below, the Traveler notices several large factories, belching out
dark smoke. Smoke that these folks have to breathe every day.






Finally,
at the base of the mountainside, the Traveler finds a park to sit
down in, to try and figure out what's going on here. What is this
place? Why is it so different? It will not take long to find out.






A
couple of guys come over for a chat. They don't speak English, so
one of them goes to search for a translator. They find a shop owner
who doesn't seem to mind leaving his shop to come and translate for
them. "We are all Kurdish" he tells the Traveler.






Suddenly
it starts to make sense, in a depressing way: Dilovasi is
a Kurdish town. And many Kurds, even when living in Greater
Istanbul, apparently are not doing very well. Many of they guys
don't have jobs, the Traveler is told.






"But
what about the factories in the valley? Can't people work there?"
the Traveler asks.






"Kurds
tend to have a lot of children... so it's difficult for them to give
their kids an education... so it's difficult for their children to
find jobs".






This
sounds a bit like the unflattering stereotype that Turks have of
Kurds. A stereotype that the Traveler has seen to be innaccurate
many times during his travels in Turkey. But clearly something isn't
quite right here. People of an often oppressed minority... having
children, lots of children... breathing in the fumes of factories
next door, but not benefitting in any way from those factories..
It's a troubling scenario.






But
soon they go to happier subjects. The fellows are happy for the
Traveler to paly some songs with them, and then share some Kurdish
music with him on their cellphones, music with a heavy, slow,
mournful beat. It does feel refreshing to be around people who are
much friendlier and eager to ask questions and chat with an outsider.
This is not something he experiences much in the average Turkish
town.






Finally
it's time to continue on. The Traveler bids his new-found friends
goodbye and heads over to the bus stop. A crowd of boys follow him,
shouting instructions. When a mini-bus arrives, they all shout in
unison that it's not the bus he should take. He crosses the
street... they all shout that he should't take that bus either.
Getting more and more suspicious that they are just making a fool of
him, finally an adult shows up and shoos all the boys away, and gives
him proper directions...



Definitely
a different world here in the Kurdish suburb of Dilovasi.






There
is one last suburb before the Traveler reaches Istanbul proper.
Gebze is a pretty standard town with a shopping area... a
large mosque... a park with an artificial waterfall... and a
pedestrian walkway lined with doner eateries...






And
now, finally, the Traveler hops on the train to Istanbul, the climax
of his entire Journey through Turkey.







Location: 41455 Dilovası/Kocaeli, Turkey

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