Kurdish Hospitality Part I

3 weeks ago, Christopher and I went on a journey through South-Eastern Turkey and Iraq.  Here is the first chronicle of that adventure.

Upon arrival in Diyarbakir, Chris and I decided to do some exploring.  Right in the heartland of ancient Mesopotamia along the Tigris river, the city was founded in 1500 BC, and has because of its strategic location, has been home to a lot of conflict.  The city has changed hands from the Hurrians, the Urartu, Assyria, Persia, Alexander the Great, the Seleucids the Romans, the Arabs, and finally the Ottomans in 1515 (though there have been many wars since then as armies invaded from Anatolia, Persia and Syria).  Renowned across Turkey and even the world as a center of Kurdish identity and resistance (see the conflict [arguably genocide] in the 1980s), Diyarbakir is bustling and beautiful, and not very touristy.  Walking down the street from our hotel towards what used to be a tourism office, we found ourselves in a very local bazaar, built around a 12th-century mosque.  It was really fun to people watch, as the style of hijab is different here, and most of the older men cover themselves as well, as they twirl their prayer beads and frown at the younger generation’s exposed hair (I covered and was glad of it).  Since the building where the tourism office was supposed to be is now a crumbling ruin, we asked some locals for help, and upon a communication breakdown, they called their friend, who spoke fluent English and who gave us great directions.  After offering to show us around, which I declined, anticipating a scam, we were on our way, and successfully found the office of the bus company we were looking for.  The very kind, adamantly Kurdish gentlemen we spoke to booked us overnight bus tickets for Friday night to Suleymaniyah, in Iraq.  We’re really excited.  While we were figuring out the paperwork, their ordered lunch arrived, and we were offered no choice but to join them in sharing their meal.  We eventually pulled ourselves away, and made for the extensive basalt city walls (at ~6km long, second in length only to the Great Wall of China, and almost twice as high).  Diyarbakir is a proud and unapologetic place, and as we wandered along the walls we weren’t sure if the stares we were getting were motivated by curiosity or animosity.  After thoroughly turning ourselves around in the bazaar, we emerged, dazed and confused, into the sunlight, and were greeted by a middle-aged, kind faces gentleman with an exclamation “I think you are my Canadian friends!”  It was Sirac, the man from the earlier phone call, and he very excitedly offered us a cup of tea, which we accepted.  Moving through the winding streets, he seemed to know everyone, patting children on the head, greeting grumpy looking old men with contagious smiles, and eventually we arrived at his shop and were offered orange cay (it tasted a lot like hot orange crush), chatting the whole time about politics and the Kurdish struggle.  When he didn’t try to sell us anything, and declared that he wanted only to make us ambassadors of Kurdistan, we agreed to follow him around for a bit.  He brought us first to a lovely restaurant, where he showed us one of the only remaining signs of what used to be a thriving Jewish population, an ancient Star of David carved into the ceiling.  We then walked into one of the Diyarbakir House Museums, made of black basalt, which apparently keeps you cool in summer and warm in winter.  There were gorgeous stencils painted on the stone around the central courtyard, and rooms branching off of it for different seasons, with insulated winter rooms and partially underground, very breezy summer rooms.  We were then led to witness an experience I will never forget, the Denge Evi.  In a Kurdish seniors center, the Dengbe Evi is a tradition of storytelling through song and chanting.  Kurdish elders were sitting in a row on kilim couches at the front of a courtyard, with chairs arrayed in front of them where younger people and a few tourists were sitting.  These wizened old men, some of them in PKK guerrilla gear, take turns singing or chanting about pain, torture, violence, genocide, love, friendship and above all, freedom.  The melodies are hauntingly melancholic, and some of the singers were incredibly charismatic... I felt like I was under a spell at some points.  The elders who are listening to the chief singer join in with a hum when singers pause in their song, which we later learned was affirmation of their pain, a sign of commiseration and solidarity.  It was seriously beautiful, and one of my favorite Turkish experiences thusfar.  Afterwards, we visited an Armenian church, supposedly one of the largest in the world.  The archways were enormous, and in order to improve acoustics, ornately carved circles have been taken out of the columns, which would have made the traditional orchestra easy to hear from all sections of the church.  There was interesting documentation outside about the genocide of the Turkish Armenian population, and an Armenian gentlemen came to tell us a bit about the history of his people in Diyarbakir.  We then returned to Sirac’s shop, and poked around the (much more reasonably priced than Istanbul) handicrafts, eventually emerging with an amazing kilim pillow for the nook.  We returned to the restaurant with the Star of David on the ceiling, and enjoyed a traditional Kurdish dinner in the courtyard.  We finished our evening with a delicious Turkish coffee, in whose grinds Sirac was able to read our futures.  Our day in Diyarbakir was really amazing, and we will definitely return for more Kurdish hospitality one day.