24 Heroes

This Wednesday afternoon, in the exact opposite corner of Turkey from where I am, there was a major attack by the PKK (a Kurdish separatist group, labeled internationally as a "terrorist organization") against the Turkish military. Twenty-four Turkish soldiers died and at least 18 others were wounded in the attack.

Meanwhile, I was teaching my students leading my students in a lesson on comparatives and languages. For example-- "Speaking two languages is better than one language." "It is easier to learn a language when you're young than when you're old." In our discussion, we mentioned Kurdish and hedged around the "Kurdish Issue" a couple of times.

As Margot and I were walking back, we saw flags going up on some local businesses. "Huh," we thought, "Is there another holiday we missed hearing about?" I was so impressed and excited about this bonus holiday (and the fact that it was warm-ish and sunny out) that I took like half a dozen pictures.

When we got home, after a quick "corn in a cup" Margot and I found out what we'd missed at work.


 Clayton was watching a Turkish news channel and he told us about the deaths right when we walked in.  We sat down with him and watched the news for a while.  It was focused on remembering the soldiers-the segment's title was "24 Working Heroes" and in it we learned about the men who died.  We saw their grieving families, saw pictures of them relaxed and in military uniforms.  We heard their hometowns' names, and found out who was soon-to-be-married and who was already a father.

The last few days have been quite emotional here.  On Thursday there was a major rally downtown.  Some of my students were marching in it, and it was by far the most people I've ever see in Yalova.

Here is the view from Margot's office window of the crowd moving in.

After realizing what all the flags were for, we felt stupid for assuming they were in commemoration of something superficial--like "National Ataturk Saved a Kitten Day."

As you can hopefully see in the following clip, the marchers were passionate. Some (I hear from my colleagues who translated for me) were chanting nationalistic chants, some chanted religious chants, many waved or wore flags, and every person in the square took his/her hat off and sang the national anthem. (That link, by the way, is exactly what the anthem really sounded like because they blared the music from the political bus where the speakers are.)

There was another event in that square today but it was not as well attended...other than by the police who were there in full force.

I am safe and enjoying observing this anthropological event unfold (even if I make wrong guesses sometimes.) All my love and happy weekend,
-Annika