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Thursday
July 12th 2001
A
street vendor calling out his wares…’domates, biber’ – tomatoes
and peppers – a melodic sound that has it’s own ups and downs so
difficult for one to imitate, the sound of a building under construction
somewhere off in the distance on a lazy hot summer afternoon – the click
click of a hammer hitting metal coming from afar, children playing in the
playground; cheating in games and fighting over who is right, the clatter
and clink of knives and forks as somewhere a family has lunch on their
balcony and a city breeze rushing through the open window of my bedroom,
pushing aside the tule curtains and running over my face and hair as I put
Yusuf down for his afternoon nap. The
sounds of Istanbul that keep me so mysteriously tied to this city.
The economy is shot, politicians are corrupt, people are lazy,
unemployed, poor, education is frighteningly poor and yet, the city stands
her ground and she is still attractive to so many.
Even those who have to leave her for financial reasons leave so
much of themselves behind when they go and they long for her blue waters,
the heat of summer, the lazy boat rides across the bosphorus and the taste
of tea and simit in the afternoon as they roam the streets of some foreign
city miles from their home.
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