Clubbing in Diyarbakır

Last weekend our group of ten U.S. students, along with two of our program directors, Neşe and Erika, flew to southeast Turkey for four days. Coming out of the airport in Diyarbakır* was like arriving in an different country.

Every day of the trip was like an entire week, a film in fast forward (but as Kate aptly put it, every week here has felt like a month). All I could do was grab onto a few images, a few anecdotes...

The first thing that struck me was how almost every woman was covered. Our program coordinator Neşe had warned us to bring at least short sleeves (no shorts or spaghetti straps allowed) --although the temperature never dipped below 90 degrees during the day. But I still felt out of place wearing a t-shirt -- many women had the lower half of their faces covered and all wore long loose skirts.

Diyarbakır boasts a wall almost 2000 years old, as well as evidence of 9000 year old human settlement. This is the area of the world where human civilizations were first born and died: ancient ruins from before history, crumbling churches, heat and dust, rocks and old wells...

Small boys pound metal hooks for storefront gratings,** old men gather in coffee houses to play backgammon and sip tea, everyone watches as we pass, children run after us with packs of tissues or cheap jewelry for sale. Omer, our guide, (officially provided by the local government for our protection, and probably surveillance) and our occassional guards chase them away with a hiss and a whispered word.

And it is in this religious city, this capital of Turkey's Kurds,*** that Omer and the manager of our hotel decided to take us to a club in the evening. Of course, since we had to get up at 7 am the next morning, we got there much earlier than the usual midnight crowd. I drank a glass of rakı, the Turkish alcohol made of anise seed. It is mixed with water so that it turns a milky white, and usually served after every course in a traditional meal. Here we had it with fresh fruit (Diyarbakır is famed for its watermelons). We danced to Turkish, Greek, English, Arabic and Russian pop and disco and house music. Unlike American clubs, couples dancing together barely touch. Men danced with men or alone, and broke out in freestyle with no compunctions.

Walking back from the club at night, past the red "no photographs" signs near the military buildings, the fountain square, the alleyways, the ringing disco music, it was one of those "wow, this is Turkey" moments...

*****

Tonight we are taking a ten-hour van to Antalya, the tourist hot spot on the southern Mediterranean coast. We will scuba dive, hike, and relax. Hopefully I will have time to reflect and less blog posts to catch up on when I come back.



*Please see the link "Map of Turkey" for a location and brief description of the places we visited.
**I will post pictures on Monday.
***This only struck me after we left: the entire time we were there, although we met with many other religious and ethnic minorities, and saw many Kurds, we never actually interacted with any of them. Perhaps this was because we were so closely maneuvered by the local government, or because we didn't ask, but it is one of my biggest regrets for this trip...