My Neighborhood

Leaving my building, descending its once-elegant wide marble staircase, I head to the street, and am greeted by the scores of cats that inhabit the neighborhood, and who sleep who-knows-where but who feed off of the informally-created piles of trash that spring up around the streets for want of trash cans. At this early hour, 7:30 in the morning - really quite early for Istanbul, as most everything opens at 9:00 am (also the hour my classes start, but they are far away) - there are surely more of these cats on the street than people (which at this hour translates mostly to men), and this is why I am able to take the picture of the corner building. During the rest of the day, and well until 10:00 or 11:00 at night, there is invariably a woman or child peering out one of the building's windows, and as I've come to feel like I am, for now, part of the neighborhood, I wouldn't have taken the shot at any other time.

In fact, there were many times that, walking through the area in the afternoons after coming back from Turkish classes, I saw the neighborhood kids, sitting around, taking turns riding a kid's bike, throwing whatever they got their hands on to throw back and forth, dodging the cars that barely fit on the narrow, hilly streets, as if through the lens of my camera. But I never actually took the pictures - I was slowly feeling my way into developing a relationship with the neighborhood children, and didn't want to disrupt that or upset anyone, as I've heard that at least some of the older women are truly averse to having their pictures taken.

Anyway, I found that befriending the children was notably easier than developing any kind of relationship with the older folks in the neighborhood (which lies right between an old Genoese tower and an Ottoman canon factory). The residents of the area are largely from Siirt, just north of the Turkish border with Syria and Iraq, and in addition to Turkish are split between between those who speak Arabic and those who speak Kurdish at home. The older generations, who grew up there, are as a rule, traditional. The women cover their heads with scarves and don't seem to go far from home; within the neighborhood I see them generally in front of their houses or on their balconies. As most of what they need can be had on the same street where they live - men come by with either trucks or pushcarts selling gas for the home, vegetables and bread, which the women sometimes buy on the streets, sometimes by lowering money into buckets from their windows - I wonder at times whether or not they do ever find the occassion to go very far.

That said, this is not an Islamist neighborhood, which also exist in other parts of Istanbul. In those areas, one can notice in the dress of the men as well that they are religious - as they usually wear small woven skull caps, have short, trimmed hair and a long though trimmed beard. In these neighborhoods, which I have walked through in long sleeves during midday so as not to offend anyone, one sees many women in full black garb with only part of their faces showing. My neighborhood is not like this. (I don't wear long sleeves in my neighborhood. This is in part simply due to the fact that it is home for me right now, and it is all I can do to get through the days already covered with a layer of sweat by 8:30 am, but also, and more importantly, because I don't get the sense that I am terribly disrupting anything or upsetting anyone by doing so. I am also not the only foreigner in the neighborhood; I have two French friends who live nearby).

In Tophane, my neighborhood, the families are simply traditional, but one can also see these traditions changing a bit with the younger generations. I don't see young girls, even those who have hit puberty (a time some say is the marker for when a head-scarf should be worn), covering their heads, except as they are preparing to go to the mosque on holidays. They dress in t-shirts and long pants and are always out playing on the streets. It is with girls of all ages and the youngest of boys that I first started developing relationships - walking home in the evenings I smile and say hello or good evening, and they seem to get a real kick out of it at times. When older people aren't around, they even approach me occasionally, and ask me if I am Turkish or a foreigner, or sometimes they just cut right to the thick of it and ask me in a sweet accent where I'm from, in English.

Somehow, one day, about two weeks ago, passing by the neighborhood crew who already recognized me as a regular in those parts, I decided to ask them if they wanted me to take a picture of them - maybe I already had my camera out in preparation for something else, I can't quite remember what prompted the question, but nonetheless I asked. I was met with a spontaneous "Evet, evet, evet" (yes, that is, in Turkish). They all ran to get into the picture, and then began the scuffling - someone wanted a picture alone, someone else only with her sister, other kids tried to ruin the shot by jumping into the frame.

I took pictures of them in front of the gate of the Crimean Church (built by the English in 1856 after they helped the Ottomans win the Crimean War against Russia) and in a dark passageway under one of the buildings. At the other end of the passage way I saw the shadows and heard the voices of other children, but when I asked them who those kids were, whether we should invite them over to join in the pictures, the oldest girl in the group responded. "Never mind them, they are a different group, and we don't talk to them." That was the end of that, I figured, and probed no further.

During the photo session, I got to talking to the kids, learned their names and their ages. I made them guess my age. Their estimates ranged between 20 and 25. One girl, to get her bearings in the game, asked if I was married (it would be hard for them to guess my real age, almost 27, with a negative answer). I took a number of shots and promised to get them developed and bring copies to them the following week.

Two days later, walking by the same corner, I saw the same kids sitting around, but as the street opened up, I saw the oldest girl, Beshire, in a long pink dress with synthetic flowers placed evenly amongst her freshly-curled hair. What was the occassion, I asked. She told me that she was getting married in two hours. I remembered that she had told me that she was 14. I wondered what the wedding at 14 would entail. Would they begin to live as husband and wife? Where would they live? I didn't actually ask her anything about it, but she had questions for me: Did I have my camera on me? (I didn't). Could we make an appointment to take pictures of her all dressed up? (We did - I went home for the camera).

A few days later, I brought developed pictures to the neighborhood, and handed them to Beshire. I figured that she would distribute copies appropriately, yet the next day as I walked down the hill I met with the plaintive looks of the neighborhood boys who complained that they had gotten too few, or none, from the batch. I promised more pictures.

As for Beshire's wedding, it's hard for me to notice any changes. I've never seen her husband and I'm not sure if he lives with her family now or quite how it's done, but she is clearly still living in the same home as she did before. Anyway, not much time has passed since the ceremony - the henna from the wedding is still stained on her hands. When I walked by today I hung out with the kids for awhile, and Beshire told me that her mom wanted me to come to her house. It seems that I had graduated to forging relationships with the older people now as well.

Beshire's mother was sweet and gave me two kisses on the cheek as I entered, as is the custom here (especially, in traditional arrangements, men-to-men and women-to-women). She too, although she didn't say it, was eager to have her picture taken. She told this to me in so many words by showing me a picture of her other daughter's wedding, which she didn't like of herself, she explained. She was dressed in a black head scarf and was knitting something for a new toddler in the family. But when we began taking pictures she went into the other room in search of a white scarf for reasons that still elude me. Beshire told her older sister and sister-in-law to put on their head scarves, since the pictures were going to be sent back to the "village" (Siirt), but they didn't want to. The mother asked me if I wanted anything to eat, and ended up bringing in stuffed green peppers and grape leaves, as well as Ayran (a thin yoghurt drink) and Turkish coffee with milk (since when is Turkish coffee served with milk!?!?!) Deciding it would be wisest not to begin to explain the simplest truth (that I am lactose-intolerant), or even an easier-to-translate version of it (I have allergies to milk?), I drank the milky coffee and figured I'd just suffer the consequences later (although here I am, many hours later, writing comfortably and uninterrupted from a cafe table ...)

She invited me to come back any time. Whenever I was bored I could come over, she explained, and she would feed me. Also, she had me know that I could feel entirely comfortable at her house, as there were no men there (she used a Turkish form which belittles things from near repetition: I wouldn't find any "erkek, merkek" in her house is what she actually said, a form which translated into the Yiddish-inspired English would come out as "men, schmen"). How old was I, she asked. I'm old, I explained (because I knew what the next question would be). When would I get married (it came). Soon, I assured her, soon, maybe next year. I'm not actually sure she would've have understood if I explained to her a different truth, which is that I was nearly 27 and had no clear plans of marriage.