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Hello friends,
Today – June 13, we had a wonderful day and night. It all started at 11 am when Yüksel arrived at home with a friend of his we hadn’t met yet, Mehmet. We settled into the living room and had çay and talked as best we could with Yüksel and Mehmet, using hardly any English. At a certain point, Yüksel told us he had to leave but would soon be back, leaving us with Mehtmet. We continued trying to communicate using the dictionary and google translator, since Mehmet is a very sweet and nice person. At 2:00 pm Yüksel called to invite us to Kizilay where he was waiting for us in a cafe we always go to. So we thought he was in Ardiç Cafe, where we often go. On the way, Peter went to pick up his laptop which he had left to be repaired 2 days ago. Florent and Mehmet continued towards Ardiç Cafe, but Yüksel wasn’t there. Mehmet called and he was in a place we’ld never been to, Kurduz Kultur Cafe. It was right close by and Yüksel was waiting on the street. Peter took longer than we thought and after almost an hour Yüksel called to see how he was. Peter answered in 5 minutes and went to the Ardiç Cafe but he couldn’t find Yüksel. The same scene is repeated and again Yüksel is standing in the middle of the street, with his angel face, ready to take him to the cafe. There were many people around a table, Florent and Mehmet, and then a round of greetings to introduce Peter. There were 2 editors, Vedat and Cevahir (a nice lady), Nevin (also a woman, journalist), Hakan, Ayhan and a little later, Zafer, arrived who saved us since he could speak English, and a nice guy with his son. Quite a group. We understood that Yüksel wanted to introduce us to his friends so that they could find out more about Silo’s Message. There were some very beautiful conversations about the populations’ problems, Nevin and Cehavir gave us new information. It seems that in Ankara every day and every night, the police and protesters face each other. At 4:00 am last night there were water cannons, gas and other kinds of violence. This was around Park Kugul, 20 min from Kizilay. People continue meeting each night in this place and go back every day and they don’t want to stop. In Ankara there are no artists or dancing or the beautiful things Eduardo mentioned on his email. They said that in Ankara the atmosphere is more tense and less playful, maybe because it’s the capital and Erdogan and his government are close by. They wanted to know what we thought of the situation and we said what we saw and that everyone around the world was watching and again saying that many friends show their support in other countries. There were other issues as well, talking about the long story of this part of the world and questions on how to change things. At this point, we said our things and talked about the need of a new social mysticism and the waking up of entire peoples to produce a deep and radical change. Transmitting thus, a possible vision of the future. It was all very pleasant and everyone showed real interest. At 4:30 Ayman called us, our new Syrian friend, and we invited him over. He came right away and was quite happy. We had a meeting with Handan at 6:30 pm at Ardiç Cafe to go meet a friend of hers, a social worker, she wanted to introduce us to. So it was time to say good-bye because we had to go to Pamukkale to buy Florent’s bus ticket for Istanbul. We invited Ayman to go with us since Yüksel wanted to stay a bit longer with his friends. It was a beautiful meeting with very nice and open people.
We went to buy the ticket for Florent and reached Ardiç Cafe in time to eat something fast since we hadn’t eaten anything yet. A while later Handan arrived and we were on our way. We had a 30 minute walk under a pretty heavy heat. We met a very nice man, whom we thought was Handan’s friend and greeted him quite warmly. Only at the end of the conversation we understood that she didn’t know him at all and explained to us on the street that they had changed personnel. Handan is a genius in these things. She adapts without any problem, continuing as if nothing untoward had happened. So, going back to the meeting with this person not even Handan knew, who is a social worker as well. We talked about social work they are doing there and that they keep the store open for people seeking refuge from the police. Very nice. He talked a lot to Florent who is also a social worker in Paris. In the meantime Yüksel and Mehdi were in touch. Yüksel wanted to know if we were going home because he was cooking for us, which we confirmed and invited Mehdi to have dinner with us. Before leaving we invited the social worker, whose name is Bülent, to come to next week’s Message meeting and gave them our calling card and Handan exchanged phone numbers.
At 8:00 pm we reached home where Yüksel and Mehmet had already dined but prepared a good meal for us too. We had çay and some great conversation, waiting for Mehmet and one of Zehra’s nieces who was coming with him. The house was filling with people, Mehdi helping Yüksel prepare a good Kurdish desert. Zehra came directly from work at the market, by surprise, hungry like a wolf. We had lots of fun looking at her face when she saw Yüksel’s food. After eating we were with Zehra, Handan, Ayman, Mehdi, Florent, Peter. Yüksel and Mehmet had gone to take to the bus stop since Mehmet needed to leave for the city close to Istanbul where he work and lives and Zehra’s niece to her house. The atmosphere had risen to a wonderful intimacy among us, very soft, friendly and light, like bubbles. There was also lots of laughter and good humor. In this situation, some asked and other sang. Ayman was the first, singing a very happy song in Arabic. Mehdi sang a song from his region in Iran and did it in such a moving and soft way we were all touched and quiet, connected with what he transmitted. It was a song about the heart. We filmed everything. After it was Handan who sang like an angel and then Handan and Zehra sang together some very touching songs. It was so good being together, we were all so connected. When we left, we all went to take Handan to the metro and then Zehra to her bus and Mehdi to his, they all expressed we were a very beautiful family. Something very good and intimately soft took place again and we are all very happy.
Clicking on the second photo to the left, you will open an album with the other pictures of the day.
A strong and warm hug to all,
Handan, Ayman, Zehra, Mehdi, Yüksel, Florent & Peter
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