July 16, 2016

eerily quiet new day in turkey

....after what i would call a very "kuumottava" night. meaning uncomfortable, anxiety-filled. way over my comfort zone. i was at my friends bbq on the other side of kadiköy when someone was looking at their phone and said that the military has closed the first Bosporus bridge. thats odd, especially turks know to get concerned over something like that. i was still hoping its just related to a terrorism threat. but then we started getting messages from friends and the news started to unfold, thats there is a coup. over this time, the traffic on that street pretty much died, and doctor also messaged me that there are soldiers on streets and i should go home. felt like a good idea and i got home. i saw everyone on their phones and leaving bars at that time. military imposed martial law and curfew. i got home and saw people queuing to the shops, buying water and whatever food they could. i also popped out to get cash, water and some food. facebook was slowed down and twitter totally blocked. turkish news gave contradicting information and i relied on friends messaging what they saw on foreign media and what doctor told me. he was told way early in the night that he wouldnt be going home today, instead they called more doctors on shift. and all hands were needed because plenty of wounded and dead were brought to the hospital all night. doctor just went to bed now in the morning that things calmed down. i hope he gets to come home soon, although whats the point, he has yet another 24h shift tomorrow morning?

ppl queuing to buy food in a nearby store.


i can say i did not sleep well. only 54 days into our move, and the airport is suddenly closed and future feels uncertain. i woke up to jets flying close above, and bomb and gun like sounds further away, but i dunno what exactly was going on. and wasnt about to find out. the mosque was loudly giving extra calls to prayer or calling people to the streets. but im glad i insisted on sleeping, because i woke up to a very quiet Kadiköy. the quietest ever. no cars, no people. and there were the first rumours out that it was over. doctor messaged me that there were no more wounded people coming in and that he could go to sleep. then little by little i saw people on the street, the kiosk opened, pharmacy opened. by now ive seen a couple cars and motorbikes. i bet everyone will be on their toes for a while. i...just want to get safely out of this country.

Vox summs up the situation in less than 500 words.

yesterday i wrote;

NYTimes on Erdogan sculpting a new Turkey. nothing new perhaps but well written.


doctor finally got his 2nd family permit for going to UK (we waited for 3 weeks for this one). the old one would have been valid while we were going but its nice to have it cover several months. its just a permission to enter, not like you have to leave when it expires. EU law gives him the right to enter, stay and work, but UK has just made things a little more complicated... 

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