It’s 8:30 in the morning in Kas and the sun is already unbearable. We have taken some excursions for that past two days and today we are going to just kick it here at the beach. We leave in two days to head up to Istanbul for a week so we need to rest up for the big road trip. Yesterday we went to Greece and were unimpressed, although the Mousaka was excellent. The antipathy of the Greeks toward the Turks is palpable there and we were glad we were only spending an afternoon on the island.
The most frustrating thing about being in a country whose language you don’t speak is the inability to communicate with the residents. So far, the Turks we have met only speak a limited, functionally discreet English. Their best second language here at least seems to be German, but my German is too limited to manage much of a conversation. Luckily there are two English dailies here – a centrist one and a left-leaning one. News items of interest: A mayor and a few members of a local parliament in the south east I believe, were convicted and sentenced to a three year jail term because they allowed Kurds and Armenians to speak their native language when dealing with the government administration. Turkish is the only language allowed in government. Seems like a pretty harsh reaction.
There is a lot of blustering about the hard line Turkey will take against the Kurdish party that is outlawed (PKK) in Turkey and its excursions into Turkey from across the Iraqi border. Apparently there are negotiations with the US on how to handle this delicate situation, but the press is adamant that Turkey will cross the border if Iraq and the US don’t do something about the problem. Too bad we can’t find out what regular Turks feel about all this. Maybe in Istanbul we’ll have better luck with English.
Now that we have this wireless connections on the beach, I have more time to upload photos, so stay tuned!
Over and out for now.
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1 comment:
Hey ma,
Love to see you using our lingo. Too bad about Greece but hopefully Turkey turns out to be much more inspiring. I love the pic of your little humble abode on the bottom of the blog it helps us to picture your life in Tanzania. I cant wait till we come together after your 5 month adventure and my one year abroad cause we will have so many amazing stories to share. I miss talking to you and Ali since honestly I learn so much from you both. I hope you don't worry too much about us here and I'm sure you'll be happy to know that juju will not be going to the community with me in these next few days. I have been organizing a conference in the community for the last two months where 13 embassies will attend, the UN and the OAS. It is finally happening and so I need to go for it but in the last two weeks the FARC killed two police officers less then 5 min from the front entrance of the community and the paramilitaries retaliated killing one of the humanitarian zone leaders. There has been lots of combat and the paras have put up random check points on the road up to the community. Obviously with all this going on I asked papi to take care of the baby while I am gone. He is really happy about spending time with him so its all working out. Please don't worry about me ma, as an international human rights worker I'm pretty safe its the community that I worry about cause things are getting bad again. Do you know what your job in Tanzania will be yet? Can't wait to hear all about it. Please give Ali my love and check your email cause juju is working on an email for both of you. Miss you tremendously, and I love and respect you so much!!
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