Hays Travelogue

Dear Family and Friends,

First Military Gate at Tower 1

We spent Sunday studying military architecture with FARIT (Friends of the American Research Institute in Turkey. Part of Constantinople’s defense from Byzantine times until the Turks conquered the city in 1453 depended upon 6.5 kilometers of walls that ran from the Marmara Sea to the Golden Horn. Despite invasions, earthquakes, and cuts for modern transportation, much of the walls and many of the towers and gates are still intact.

We began our day at Panorama 1453, a 360 degree painting of the siege and conquest of Constantinople, complete with sound effects and hordes of people. After that, we went to the Marble Tower on the Marmara coast where the land walls and the sea wall met. From here, we walked and occasionally bused our way north and east to the Golden Horn. Along the way, we learned about history and architecture, like why the lowest place in the wall was the most vulnerable and the difference between a military gate and a city gate and why the towers are free-standing. We were able to climb up, on, and through the wall in several places.

Gardens in the moat of the Belgrade Gate, Towers 22 - 23

Today, parks and gardens line much of the wall, creating a long and restful green space for the modern city.

I made a Google map of the trek that you can see here.

The Flickr photos are here.

You can see the painting of the siege here. There are a lot of other 3D representations on this site. It’s fun to browse through, but a bit dizzy-making.

The website Byzantium  1200 has some nice graphics of old Constantinople. The site is a bit confusing. Click on Contents in the sidebar and on the new page, you can select the buildings you want to see – for instance, Blachernae Palace or Theodosian Walls or Hagia Sophia.

If you are really into this, Wikipedia has a comprehensive article about the walls and towers here. Actually, if you are really into this, you should come for a visit!

xox

Tags: 1 Comment

Dear Family and Friends,

We spent last week, spring break, in southeastern Turkey. This is the Kurdish part of Turkey, but it is  close to Iran, Iraq, and Syria so it is also influenced by those cultures. When people ask me what my favorite part was, I find myself saying Urfa.

Melanippe, the Amazon Warrior Queen

Urfa, or Sanlıurfa, a medium sized city on the Euphrates side of Mesopotamia, has quite a history. It claims to be the city where both Abraham and Job were born. Each prophet has a cave and a spring or well that are the destinations of many pilgrims. The water from Job’s well is supposed to have curative powers. In the middle of the city, in the middle of a big and pleasant park is the Pool of Sacred Fish where Abraham was thrown into the fire by Nimrod. Urfa takes its religious history seriously. In 2005, the city was in the midst of clearing land on which to build a mosque, a church, and a synagogue when they uncovered a large set of Byzantine mosaic floors from an 11 room villa. The building plans have been put on hold while the mosaics are uncovered.

The old city is full of beautiful stone houses, churches, and mosques. The charming alleyways that wind their way through these buildings all seem to lead through the bazaar and to the park. Everywhere we went, the school children wanted to practice their English. “Hello. What’s your name?” Dozens of times we answered this question. Once or twice, it was put to us by a granny!

Policemen take a supper break.

Urfa is a good base camp for visiting several other sites: the oldest known temple, Göbeklitepe (c. 11000 BC), the historical city of Harran (c. 6000 BC), and Mount Nemrut with its giant stone heads. It’s easy to drive to these places and after a day of sight-seeing, you return to laid-back Urfa, eat some spicy kebab and shepherd salad, and have some tea in one of the tea gardens in the park.

Team Urfa visits Job's cave and well.

Some other great things about Urfa are head gear, traffic, and stools. First, the people, men and women, in wear purple head scarves. It’s like they are all on the same team or something.

Second, the traffic is remarkably calm. It is slow and leisurely. It is pedestrian-friendly.

The tea stools are waiting for you.

Third, everywhere you go, there are these cool little stools to perch on. I think Mike will make some this summer for our own tea garden.

Urfa was the last place we visited before returning to Gaziantep where we had began the break.  From Gaziantep, we drove a long elliptical route to Diyarbakır, Midyat, and Urfa. The only disappointment was the snow on Mount Nemrut. We tried to drive to the summit and were within 8 kilometers when we met up with the snow plow  that had cleared a one-lane path through the snow that was at least 5 feet deep. I guess that isn’t all bad, because we will return to Urfa this fall and finally get to Nemrut and the giant heads.

xox

Tags: 2 Comments

Hi Everyone,

Mike’s school will be on spring break next week, so we have a trip planned to southeastern Turkey. Here’s a link to a Google map of what we are planning.

I think most points on the map have some information about what is there.

More when we get back.

xox

Tags: No Comments.

Dear Family and Friends,

This year I volunteered to tutor two members of Istanbul’s refugee and migrant community. My students are very motivated to improve their English reading and writing skills, so the work is very gratifying. In spite of the hardships they face, they are inspiring and strong women.

Gifty

Gifty is a 38-year old woman from Ghana. Her original goal was to get work in Europe. Now she thinks she might return to Ghana and start an import – export business. Her family wants her to return, but she is trying to earn enough money for her son’s university fees.  As a child, she attended school for six years, married young, and had three children. Fifteen years ago, she was in a terrible traffic accident. The woman on one side of her was killed, and the woman on the other side lost both of her legs. Gifty’s injuries kept her  in the hospital for a month. During that time, she lost her memory. After her memory returned, it became apparent that she had lost her ability to read and write. Tests determined that there was no physical cause for this, so the loss was probably due to emotional trauma. Her dream of having her own business motivates her desire to relearn to read and write.

Gifty’s story is similar to many economic migrants in Turkey. They pay money to someone who promises them ‘paper’ and work, but the paper and work never appear. They cannot get work without work permits; they cannot get work permits without paper – visas, resident permits, etc. Without work, they have no money. Without money, they cannot move on. Often, their visas expire, and there are additional fines to pay if they try to leave. In Gifty’s case, she lost her passport when her purse was stolen soon after she arrived in Istanbul. Because Ghana has no embassy in Turkey, passports are handled by the nearest embassy – in this case, Italy – and  a new  passport will cost her 300 Euro. She been able to earn small amounts of money from part-time work as a hairdresser, nanny, and housekeeper, but not enough to get a new passport or pay her son’s tuition.

Rabi

Rabi  is a 30-year old Ethiopian woman who lived most of her life in Sudan. She is an asylum seeker, meaning she has applied for refugee status with the United Nations, but has not yet received a decision. She had completed four years of school before a series of personal tragedies forced her father to flee to Sudan. The story of her arrival in Turkey is harrowing. She, too, paid money to someone who promised to get her and 63 other people to Greece. When their boat sank off the Turkish coast, they spent over 24 hours in the water before the Coast Guard found and rescued them. During those hours, many people died from cold and exhaustion, including a child and a pregnant woman. Once Rabi and her four friends reached Istanbul, they had no money, no place to live, and no food. They slept on a beach and begged for food for two weeks before they got themselves sorted out.

While in Turkey, she met and married her husband, a man from Guinea. When his visa expired, he was deported. At that time, Rabi was pregnant. Her daughter is now 8 months old.  If Rabi receives official refugee status, she will be able to resettle in another country.  She is motivated to improve her English because she wants to provide a good life for her daughter. She spent much of this winter without heat and electricity because she had no money to pay the bills. When I asked if her husband was able to send money to help with her expenses, she shrugged and said, “He is African; he has no money.”

Lately, both of these women have expressed a desire to write about their lives. Maybe the next time you hear about them, it will be in their own words.

Love to you all.

xox

Tags: 2 Comments