Protests

As I stepped out of my house last night it all started again. Streets articulated with the sharp sounds of kitchen pots and pans being beaten. Only a few at first, but as I walked up more and more people opened their windows to lean into the night and make their contribution. It spread. Eventually the drifting particles of sound gravitated towards each other and condensed into unity on the corner of our street. I watched flares being lit on the pavement. There was an infectious excitement among the crowds; inspired, empowered and caught up in the thrill of objection. There was a solitary policeman standing on the sidelines of the demonstration. I went over and talked to him. He told me that Erdoǧan is finished, and that the people wouldn’t stop until they got what they want. “And what do you want?”, I asked him, to which he responded with wild gesticulations towards the police badge embroidered into the cotton of his shirt, telling me he couldn’t say.  I later saw the same policeman in civilian clothes, smiling and waving at me from among the swathes of people marching through the streets crying out against the government.

Contradictions

A few nights ago we went to a Narghile bar. After smoking the Narghile for a while, my friend lit up a cigarette. Within seconds the waiter was at his side tutting and pointing to a sign on the wall. 'No Smoking'. He doesn't seem to appreciate the irony.

Showing flesh

Sitting in the crowded streets of Kadikoy on a Friday night surrounded by people celebrating the end of another week, we are approached by a young boy asking us for money. Nothing unusual in that. I am wearing a long black skirt that would be modest if it weren't for the ostentatious slit up the leg. The boy suddenly seems to forget about the money and begins to stare and point at the part of my leg that's showing. He starts waggling his finger and tutting at me and we come to understand that he is telling me to cover up. I blush and quickly yank the slit in my skirt together. He seems to have the best intentions at heart, but still, who'd have thought I could be made to feel so ashamed by a pious 14-year-old?

Bubblegum

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that in most Western European countries the bubblegum phenomenon saw both its advent and its demise some time in the mid to late nineties, along with platform shoes, yo-yo's and The Spice Girls. In 21st century Turkey, however, it's the commonest of things to see people walking down the street, sitting in a cafe, working in an office all loudly masticating before blowing a glowing, opaque bubble from their mouths. And it's not just pre-teen girls wearing pigtails. It's the high-powered business men striding through the streets in smart suits, it's the people working in the banks, it's the policemen. I once even saw an elderly woman in a full burka blowing the most enormous bubble from the small triangular opening around her mouth, nose and eyes. Somehow it just didn't quite seem fitting...

Picnics by the sea

One of the most appealing things about Istanbul is the sea that splits it. It’s the one stretch of calm in a city full of noise and revelry and agitation. With the onset of the hedonistic Istanbul summer,  it provides the perfect venue for city picnics. 

At thriving food market just around the corner, we filled a bag with humus, freshly grilled octopus, red pepper and ricotta paste, olives wrapped in anchovies, stuffed vine leaves and bakery bread still warm from the oven.

We took all this down to the water and laid our spread on one of the wide, flat table-like rocks next to a group of Turkish men contentedly singing old Turkish songs into the night. There we stayed and gorged ourselves until the last of the light faded and the iconic mosques of Sultanahmet glowed luminescent across the dark expanse of water.

Tophane on a sunny afternoon...

On a balmy Sunday afternoon a group of us gathered in a roadside park in Tophane to soak up the city (exhaust fumes and all). Our attention was soon being demanded by an ostentatious pair of male interpretive dancers who had made their stage on a neighbouring patch of grass. We all wondered at first if they had taken something, so childishly shameless was their prancing and frolicking, but it eventually became clear that their inhibitions were so low that no narcotics were required. 

This double act was not long without competition, however. As the sounds of a scuffle punctuated the steady drone of the notorious Istanbul traffic, our heads collectively swivelled to take in the latest spectacle. On first seeing the thrashing and struggling of a group of young men, we thought perhaps this was a rival dance troupe. However, when the knotted brawl dispersed to reveal a teenager with blood streaking from a knife wound in his arm, we realised that this wasn’t quite as benign as the performance to our right. In true ‘westerner’ fashion, we all started to make noises about calling an ambulance. This (in our view) seemingly obvious course if action seemed not even to occur to the small clutch of men surrounding the victim. In fact, he was saved by a passing dustbin man who, as casually as if he were tying his shoelaces, dropped his load from his shoulders, swept off the victim’s belt and fastened it firmly around his upper arm to stall the bleeding. He did this within about 30 seconds, after which he hauled his load back onto his shoulders and went on his way. Clearly this was not the first knife wound he’d dealt with. Still not an ambulance in sight, the boy was eventually bundled into a taxi.

Always something to see in Istanbul. 

Street beers in Galata

A Thursday night in Taksim. A group of us have just emerged (slightly deafer than before) from a grungy sort of rock bar - the type that has skulls and goblins painted on the walls. We all felt the need to be out in the open for a bit, so we bought beers and we walked. We walked and walked all the way down to the Galata Tower. On turning that final corner I could immediately see that this was the right place to be on a Thursday evening. Sprawled across the wide, cobbled steps were over a hundred people, enjoying the warmth of the night in the open air against the stunning backdrop of the Galata Tower, its yellow stones illuminated by spotlights.

We sat and drank and talked an laughed, and as the night unravelled we somehow got coerced into press-up competitions and arm wrestles with the group of Turks sitting next to us, we spoke to a man with a pet monkey who then charged us 5 TL for the privilege of petting it, and we joined a large circle of people doing the traditional Turkish dance to the tune of a violin-like instrument played by an ancient raisin of a man.

At one point I ambled a short way down the hill. After attempting a conversation in my (VERY) limited Turkish with the janitorof the public toilets, I stepped back out onto the hill and took a minute to take in the scene. The vast Galata Tower looked like something from a fairy-tale; the picturesque old buildings alongside it, shabby paintwork and wrought iron balconies; the crescent moon; the warmth; the Thursday night revellers on the steps; the sound of a violin cleaving through the shouts and the cries and the conversation. And I thought: this is what I'm here for.