The 23rd of April this year marked the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the turkish parliament. When he opened the parliament, Ataturk gifted this day to the future of the yet to be established republic and the world: children. For many Turkish kids (including elementary school me) Children's Day is possibly the only day better than a birthday. There'd be children's plays, clowns, cotton candy and popcorn given out on the streets....any type of children's entertainment you can think of. We'd have children in the offices of mayors and the prime minister (all kids would wish they could be the prime minister next year). Before the terror attacks started happening, when I was little, Turkish families would host children from all over the world and it was the best thing ever to have a foreign kid in your class in elementary school. At night, after spending the day eating candy and playing football by the sea with my cousins and random children and hearing "you are the future of this nation" from a hundred different adults, we'd go to my grandparents and watch the children's parade in which there were marching bands and kids in national dress from all over the globe. It was great.

This year, obviously, none of this happened. Which was pretty sad because it was the special 100th anniversary!!! (I remember calculating the years and being sad that I wouldn't be a kid on the 100th anniversary). But, kids still got very excited. Many apartment buildings were decorated from head to toe by drawings kids stuck on the windows. Many people posted their kids reading poems about Ataturk or about children and singing 23rd of April songs on social media. There were no kids in mayors' offices but the ministry of health made a pandemic committee of children and posted a zoom meeting of the "doctors" in which they propose things like: keeping supermarkets that sell chocolate open. At 21.00, everyone went to their balconies and sang the national anthem. It wasn't quite as cheerful, but it brought a sense of community to many people which was comforting.

Old people have still been stuck inside and many of them are very bored from not being able to even step outside during the last 2 months. I read on the news that they were considering giving them a 3 hr window to get some air on weekends, when everyone else has to be in lockdown. I called my grandmother to give her the good news. Once I told her what I'd read she said "you're lying" I said "No babanne (grandma) really" "lies" "A-a noo reaaaaally babanne" "come on you're making fun of me again, PUNK".... After a lot of insistence I was able to convince her that it was the truth. She wasn't as happy as I thought she would be. She said "listen to me, I ran away" I said "lie", she said "when your grandfather was taking his afternoon nap, I left the house and walked down the street towards Bagdat avenue (a very busy place) but then made a right towards kuzu street. I didn't go to  Bagdat Avenue or the sea bc I knew the feds would be there." "Smart move babanne" "of course, I planned it out." She apparently made it safely back without getting caught, before my grandfather woke up.

Ramadan also started last week. We were all pretty scared bc Ramadan usually means massive lines in front of bakeries of people trying to buy the pitas just in time so that they get one with enough time to take it back to the house and that it's still warm by the time they get back. Thankfully, they've taken pretty sensible measures and things seem to be going non-chaotically. As I do every year, I begged my family to fast all together this year, and they declined. Not for any religious reason but I'm just always very moved by the coca-cola ads of families breaking fast together. I try every year, they decline every year.

Nothing much happened this week apart from these. The number of deaths have started to drop and people are saying that we've reached the peak (we had around 120 deaths on the highest days). Hopefully we have bc my sister has started to claim that my hair is red: we've all started to lose it.

28 April 2020

This has probably been one of the weirdest weeks I have lived through, in terms of politics. An bear in mind, I've seen an attempted coup which involved F16s flying over my house; that time Erdoğan got angry, said "one minute" and stormed out of an international panel; and a whole period where the police would stop people and check if they had 1 dollar bills. This weekend was STILL a weird one, even byTurkish standards.

I'd already mentioned that there was a lockdown for people over the age of 65. In the beginning of the week, they introduced one for people under the age of 20 as well. And, by lockdown we mean there is a fine if they're seen outside the house: they're not allowed to leave at all.  My sister was DEVASTATED as the only person in the house affected by this. She kept complaining that this was taking away her freedom and should be illegal etc etc.....

Then came Friday night.... We listened to the health minister at 20:00, like we do every night, who announced the number of new deaths and cases. Once his statement was over we brewed our tea and were watching early 2000s sitcoms when my uncle called (at 22:30) and told us to TURN ON THE NEWS IMMEDIATELY.

BAMBAMBAM! Breaking News announcing that they were bringing a FULL lockdown for the weekend (again, meaning you cannot step foot out of the house, not even to throw out trash), AT 00:00 THAT NIGHT!!! We were lucky enough to have stocked (been able to stock) food that would last us two days but this wasn't the case for many people who ran to the streets: to supermarkets, bakeries, tobacco shops.... to stock up for the weekend in the 1.5 hrs left. Many many parts of the 30 big cities where this lockdown was implemented were PACKED.

Meanwhile, the mayors of the 30 big cities hadn't been informed that this was going to happen, so they too found out at the same time as us. The mayors were all on social media trying to clarify that they'd still have the bakeries deliver bread and water (we can't drink tap water) and that people shouldn't panic etc etc, but it was too late....

My favorite tweet about this is "If it were the virus itself running the country it couldn't have done such a good job"

Obviously, many people thought this was ridiculous. But, no one had made a statement announcing the weekend lockdown so nobody really knew who was to blame for it. But, this is Turkey, and things of this magnitude usually come as direct orders from the president.

THEN, yesterday night (Sunday), the minister of internal affairs came on TV. With his bald head shining under the lights he said "this was all my fault, forgive me my people, I resign" And, keep in mind, this is Turkey. People don't resign, so it was a huge shock.

Some guy in the black sea region attempted suicide once he found out that this minister was resigning. And some dude on live TV discussing these events farted.

THEN, BAMBAMBAM, Erdoğan was on TV again making a statement saying that he didn't accept the resignation. And so the dude is still online as minister of internal affiars?And once the lockdown was over at 00:00, the people went to the streets waving flags and honking the car horns, showing their support for the internal affairs minister.

Do you understand this insane weekend? Because I honestly didn't,

ahu

13 April 2020