The man who suddenly starts talking to me is angry. ‘This is not how it’s supposed to be done’, he says, ‘this is not how it’s supposed to be done’.
We are standing in a so called ‘Kurban Kesim Yeri’, an open air space designated by Istanbul municipality to butcher animals for the Feast of Sacrifice. Mainly cows are slaughtered, but …
I went to the Netherlands for a week, and even though I always intend to keep reading the Turkish papers online, I never really manage to do it: when you’re out of the country, somehow the news doesn’t get through your skull very well. Now that I am back, I’m catching up on the news and again I realize why …
And once again the governing AKP shows it doesn’t like alcohol: a well known municipal fish restaurant on the Anatolian side of the Bosporus has decided to no longer serve alcohol. The municipality of that part of town has a new AKP mayor, and he made the decision that is all over the newspapers at the moment. It’s the second …
When I came out of the post office, I saw a woman standing in a corner, hiding herself a bit. I looked again, and saw she was eating some kind of muesli bar. I guess she didn’t want anybody to see she was eating during Ramadan. She was wearing a headscarf. Maybe she was trying to fast but just couldn’t …
Two weeks ago, Arzu Erbas, a Dutch woman of Turkish descent, was killed in Amsterdam. Amsterdam local newspaper Het Parool quickly found out that the killer was probably a man of Turkish descent as well, and it could be the case that it was the father who was forbidden by court order to see his child and was several …
No change in the law was needed for quite a big change that was made in Turkey’s education system: the YÖK (Higher Education Board) decided that graduates from normal high schools and vocational high schools have the same chance of entering a university based on their scores in the ÖSS (on which I wrote a blog recently). Previously, …
Üsküdar for beginners (2): Şakirin Mosque
Since last month, Üsküdar has had a brand new masterpiece of architecture. It’s a mosque, but not just any mosque: the Şakirin Camii is designed by a woman and is the most modern, light, open and female-friendly mosque I have ever seen. It’s an absolute must-see, as is the big, huge, immense graveyard that surrounds it….
I am walking around a village in the southeast of Turkey when I see some women baking bread in an outdoor oven. We start to chat a bit, the usual ‘where are you from, what are you doing here’ type of conversation. A few children look at me curiously and one of the girls, about eight years old, asks out …
The skin and the tail attached to it
After two hours, all that is left of the cow on the spot where it came to its sacred end, is its skin and tail. Folded into a neat package, the tail nicely draped over it.
I don’t know much about butchering, (nothing actually), but what I saw today was definitely craftsmanship. I somehow expected a big, muscular man to come …
Children, phonecall and chocolates
Next year I will do everything right. At Ramazan Bayrami (end of Ramadan festival) I mean. What went wrong this year? Well, nothing serious, but still. I remember my first bayram in Turkey, which was, I think, three years ago. I knew nothing, really. Children in the street wished me a happy holiday, and I liked that so much. Then the …
Recent Comments