'Money! Hello!'

Diyarbakır was once the centre of the Kurdish resistance movement where the battle between members of the Kurdistan Workers Party(PKK) and Turkish army took place. Rumors have it that it remains as a stronghold of the Kurdish identity and tenacity until to date, which appears to be a cureless tumor in the entire Republic of Turkey.

And this was the reason I came to Diyarbakır.

Diyarbakır city wall

People have been telling me that Diyarbakır is a bit rough around the edges where the city is still filled with military troops and tanks and unemployment rate still remains high, but I ignored all. Neither do I care about. I will never see the world by other except my own eyes.

And they were probably right.

While wandering around its massive circuit of basalt city walls, with Keisuke, one of the kids who followed us to ask for money and apparently appeared to be annoying, suddenly took out a knife and threatened me after I indirectly asked him to piss off.

Seeing the knife, I initially wanted to shout, not to draw attention but to show my unbelief and anger on him so that he would realize his wrongdoing. I wasn’t sure what was holding me back at that time, perhaps I was too surprise to have been threatened by a kid with a knife.

I told Keisuke to speed up the pace towards the main gate because he seemed so innocent and completely unaware of that.

Kurdish kids

If you are in Turkey and never encounter kids asking for money unceasingly, I will chop down my head and let you sit on it. Instead of saying ‘hello’, ‘money’ will be their first greeting. It’s so so so sad to know that shouting ‘money’ has become their way of saying ‘hello’ and they were only kids!