Dear Reader,
If you think that you
are going through surreal times that you could never have imagined due to
COVID-19, pause for a few minutes and see what you think of other surreal days back
in time. The details are as new to me as they are to you since I have
translated them from my diary. If I hadn’t written, hardly any memory of such a
traumatic event would have stayed with me. I enjoyed translating it from Turkish into English as I realized how it helped me (and hopefully others will feel the same) to put things in perspective.
The Izmit earthquake (also known as Marmara
earthquake) occurred on 17 August 1999 at 03 a.m. local time in north-western Turkey. The shock had a moment magnitude of 7.6 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). The event lasted for
37 seconds. Pretty darn long when you are woken up and shaken like that!
24 August 1999-
Tuesday. I woke up at 10 a.m. to the clean scent of my light blue sheets
and pillow and I thought yesterday must have been a dream. It was so unreal and
intense. Yeah, it was just a dream and sometimes - when they are very impactful
and vivid - I tend to write my dreams so I decided to record this one as well.
That’s all.
Then, I changed my mind. My favorite
procrastination strategy was to pick a book randomly and begin to read a few
pages. It was Tutunamayanlar by Oguz Atay ('The Disconnected') and the
random page was: Mısra 11: Word and Loneliness. Okay, I am going to
write this, but where to begin? With the phone call from Prof. Aysel Ekşi whose
NGO I once volunteered for, or should I jump right into the morning, 8:15 to be
specific where I knocked on the door of the Hilton Hotel room no. 757 in
Elmadağ near Taksim? “Sorry, I arrived a bit early, I commute from the Asian
side so…”, ‘Come in, no worries! Excuse our mess.” I look around. The huge suit
room is indeed messy with piles of cables like spaghetti, coffee cups, empty
candy and potato chips bags, newspapers…
A friendly bespectacled British man with a
goatee is the only person in the room (or so I think). “Sara will be here in
a minute, you can wait here,” he says. I thank him and ask whether he is a
reporter. “I am an engineer, but that guy over there is a reporter,” pointing
at someone in the corner. Tall, pale face with thin lips, an unhappy looking
man, forces a smile: “Hi, I am James.” I ask both of them about the shots since
I got a tetanus shot the day before when I signed up for volunteering as a
translator on any earthquake damaged site. They shake their heads: “There
is nothing really against malaria, and we bring our own food and water”,
pointing at the two boxes with Hilton stickers on.
Sara Beck shows up. She is young, hyper,
blond, tall and skinny, generously providing me with tips and information, and
is thus aware of my not knowing what to expect or how to behave in that setting
while they are going to film and interview, and I will translate. After they
finish their coffee, we go down and I meet the driver named Mustafa. We are all
waiting for someone called Jonathan Charles for some time already. Sara
is full of praises for him, assuring me that he is a nice person to work with.
Someone else introduces himself as the camera man (Michael) with a very subtle
German accent. I mention my stay in Germany the year before, and make some
small talk on the way to Adapazarı. Long after we cross the Boğaziçi Bridge,
they suddenly decide to go back to Atatürk Airport, also on the European side
where we started our journey from Hilton. What the heck, I wonder, and feel
disappointed for lack of planning. Sara tells me that it is much better to
follow a humanitarian aid convoy. It begins to rain again in the middle of
August. As we are crossing the bridge, Michael mumbles into the blue-gray
scenery and sighs: “Very beautiful place! It must be so nice to live here and
witness this scene often. What a beauty…”
We have about 2 hours of drive (160 km) so we
chat. They ask me many questions: What is the real population of Istanbul?
Military coup d’états of the past decades, the importance of Atatürk today,
politics in general etc. Michael and Jonathan arrived from Frankfurt this
morning on the same flight, and I soon find out that almost everyone on the bus
met this morning. They explain that the BBC has such a huge media network that
when something happens anywhere around the world, the staff in that region is
informed immediately and get together like they did in Hilton Hotel, and they
begin working to cover that particular situation. Once the news is covered,
each heads to their own direction to catch the next series of excitement. Radio
reporter James who flew from Scotland tells me that it is pure coincidence that
he ended up in Istanbul because the assigned staff’s wife just had a baby. He
says that he is already the proud father of two kids, not knowing that I would
never even consider dating people who lead such lives: “Hey, look at your
daddy, just reporting live the latest earthquake zone!” I gag my imagination on
the spot.
After we arrive in Adapazarı, my initial
nervousness subsides. The buildings reduced to rubble and the despair on the
locals’ faces are just like what I’d seen on the screen. Repeated heavy rains
for the past days created a city of mud. People look desperate. More than one
staff on the bus ask me why the city has two names and which one they should be
using (I couldn’t tell but I guess Adapazarı, not Sakarya). Sara has no clue. In
fact, she just flew from Russia. I know so because whenever she gets a call,
she responds “hi, yeah, I am not in Russia… I am somewhere in Turkey…” and
talks more about Russia than here. Stories from Turkey have to wait for the
calls in her next destination. She is beautiful. She seems to be content with
her image. I keep this mental picture of her eating some cold fried potatoes
stuck together while listening to someone on the phone, nodding. She is easy to
smile and friendly with everyone but also keeps a clear healthy distance. She
looks so fresh and full of energy as if she just walked out of a beauty salon.
I cannot get upset or ironic with her thinking that she will be back to her
luxurious hotel room at the end of the day, can enjoy a nice shower or body
lotions, perfumes even, put on her pajamas and crawl into a comfy bed unlike the
people around us. She does a good job, enjoys being the bright program
producer, modestly comments that “Ozlem, see the real face of BBC, our lives in
mud and bus corners, don’t you think it’s pretty desperate looking?” (as the
bespectacled British engineer’s comments).
Sara must have done with self-interrogations
regarding her job, switching worlds between room-service calls to emergency
calls in a flood. She probably got used to it. The other Turkish
interpreter who tells me that he worked for a private TV channel for three
years is more critical than I am. He thinks the team members are acting so
British that imagining their base in the U.K (unlike nomads) so much so that
when he asked the time, one guy just told him the London time by mistake.
However, he too appreciates their work discipline and professionalism. The
permission before turning on the camera or taking a picture from each and every
person and the style of asking questions (calm and polite) are worth mentioning
and not very common in Turkish media.
My first task is to translate the conversation
between the deputy governor of Sakarya and Sara Beck in an ugly concrete
government building. The sleep-deprived dep-governor grants us his time and
heavy smoke of his thick cigar. Sara aims to learn what happened to the
British aid which seemed evaporated or distributed to the locals without
the proper signatures and records. After looking at the list of items that Sara
handed in, the man says they never received it. Everything is recorded at the
Atatürk Airport when the aid passed through the customs, she says. She insists
on getting a few names at least to track the aid further. He diverts fully and
mentions the young volunteers who came to help from Ankara on their
motorcycles. I keep on translating without facial expressions but I don’t have
a poker face. Finally, we are told to inquire the state hospital authorities or
village affairs unit.
Our next stop is one of the tent-cities as
they are commonly referred to. Everything and everywhere is covered with mud.
People made raincoats out of large trash bags and some of them tied plastic
bags in a way that covers their summer shoes. Most kids have no shoes, just
running around barefoot. There are many long lines around, each serving a
different item such as soap, food, cigarette, and donated clothes. One woman
who is sitting in front of a tent gestures, “Come over here, tape this so that
the whole world can see the situation, I am not ashamed of this, the ones who
put us through this should feel ashamed, not me!” We get closer and Jonathan is
observing and listening carefully. She introduces two of the kids running
around, one is ‘hers’ and the other one belongs to ‘her in-laws’ She says “I
don’t care about myself but what do we do if these children get infections?”
Her in-law comes and asks: “Where is the government? May God be pleased with
the foreign aid we received from many countries but look at the tent-city that
the government quartered us. Didn’t anyone consider rain by any chance?” One of
the kids wants to have my pen, and his mom reproaches, “Abla is busy
taking notes, don’t you see?” turns to me and apologizes: “They are playing all
day long, so oblivious of what has happened” She is very articulate
indeed, manages to communicate with Jonathan when talking about the kids, their
age, and which one belongs to who by using body language. I compliment her that
I am not needed because she is very good at expressing herself.
TO BE CONTINUED...
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