“When in doubt, choose change.” – Lily Leung

I feel I owe everyone an apology. I am guilty of seriously neglecting my blog but there have been major changes in my life, some of you may be aware and some may not. I hope to briefly explain in this blog and intend to continue writing some more in depth pieces in the near future.

If you have followed my Voices blogs, you will know that my family and I are no longer in İdil. I never imagined that it would come to what it has, I truly never expected that we would have to leave our home.

To put it simply, İdil became too dangerous for us to stay. We were the first out of our family to haphazardly pack up our house and move out of the town. Followed shortly by my best friend, who moved to be with her parents in a safer part of Turkey. We spent 5 weeks in Didim and Bodrum, some time was spent applying for visas to Germany, most of the time was spent having a lovely holiday attempting to put what we had left out of our minds.

At the end of October, we relocated to Germany ready to begin the next chapter in our lives. I honestly didn’t think I was expecting to feel as comfortable as I do here. Everything just seemed to slot into place. We were so busy there was no time to think of how quickly our lives had changed and what the move would mean for our future. There had been no time for us to come to terms what we had been through, no time for us to get our heads round it all.

It comes as no surprise to me that now we are more settled. The seriousness of what happened is hitting home. When we lived in İdil, we lived in a neighbourhood with around thirty of my husband’s close family members, and many more of his distant relatives. There are now four of them left. All of them have moved out of the town to wherever they consider to be safe. My stomach lurches at the thought of our once full of life apartment block standing almost empty. I feel a lump form in my throat at the memories of our family picnics, barbecues, wedding celebrations and festivals. I can remember it all so clearly, I can remember the celebrations we had when HDP got into parliament. When I think of the hundreds of people, fingers linked, dancing to live Kurdish music celebrating that at last there may be some  justice for Kurds. A few short months later, the first curfew was enforced in Cizre, and civilian blood was spilt. Bodies in freezers, an old man shot for attempting to buy food for his starving grandchild, a wife murdered on her way to her neighbour’s house so she could contact her husband, a sick baby denied access to the hospital despite pleas from the desperate parents.

Now the second curfews are still going on, most notably in Sur, Diyarbakır and Cizre, Şırnak. Many more lives have been lost and my heart hurts everytime I hear news of more deaths. I know that this will not be the end, this is merely the beginning.

 

You can see some of my blogs for the Voices newspaper by clicking the link below.

http://www.voicesnewspaper.com/amy-idem-my-little-idil/

You can also follow Me, Myself and İdil on Facebook by clicking on this link – https://www.facebook.com/memyselfandidil/