I have sorted out my phone. Somehow the number has been expired and cannot be extended so I have a new one - 5316987129 - at great expence (not really - Julia said that global roaming cost her $300 and I will have got away with half that including all calls). I was going to get more lira from the ATM but all the ATMs in town had queues a mile long and I want one without someone looking over my shoulder. Van has about 600,000 people, and just about all of them appeared to be in the streets when we went there. It also has a high unemployment rate but this would have been the end of the working day and tomorrow is a public holiday.
We visited three Syriac monasteries. One was empty. The other two had two and three monks respectively. These are major monasteries - the center of Syriac faith before 1932 and other major centres. Someone said that they were between four powers who wanted to take their children when they were 18, so the children had to leave - to Lebanon, or some other country or Istanbul.
The children of people who have left the country are not allowed back. The Kurds have multiplied and most Syriac land is used by three generations of Turks or Kurds. Recently the Syriac church has won cases in the courts to claim back some monastery land and Syriac s have started to come back in small numbers.
They talked of hiding in the forest. There is no forest. There are quite a number of oak trees that are one to two metres high, but no large trees for hundreds of kilometres. In the war with the PKK the forests were all burnt down. Van is a completely new city because the Russians demolished it in 1919? and the surrounding area was also completely denuded.
I have sorted out my phone. Somehow the number has been expired and cannot be extended so I have a new one - 5316987129 - at great expence (not really - Julia said that global roaming cost her $300 and I will have got away with half that including all calls). I was going to get more lira from the ATM but all the ATMs in town had queues a mile long and I want one without someone looking over my shoulder. Van has about 600,000 people, and just about all of them appeared to be in the streets when we went there. It also has a high unemployment rate but this would have been the end of the working day and tomorrow is a public holiday.
ReplyDeleteWe visited three Syriac monasteries. One was empty. The other two had two and three monks respectively. These are major monasteries - the center of Syriac faith before 1932 and other major centres. Someone said that they were between four powers who wanted to take their children when they were 18, so the children had to leave - to Lebanon, or some other country or Istanbul.
ReplyDeleteThe children of people who have left the country are not allowed back. The Kurds have multiplied and most Syriac land is used by three generations of Turks or Kurds. Recently the Syriac church has won cases in the courts to claim back some monastery land and Syriac s have started to come back in small numbers.
They talked of hiding in the forest. There is no forest. There are quite a number of oak trees that are one to two metres high, but no large trees for hundreds of kilometres. In the war with the PKK the forests were all burnt down. Van is a completely new city because the Russians demolished it in 1919? and the surrounding area was also completely denuded.