The retreat place is incredible.
We arrived at the retreat place in an Armenian village called Aghdzq. The place is a big two-storey house having large verandas and surrounded by a big garden, which is placed beside a deep valley. The Holy Mountain Ararat with its magnificent presence is in our view. A waterfall with its refreshing sound and its vibrant appearance is smiling at us across the valley.
Unfortunately, I could not take in the whole beauty around, since I feel very tired after having had a long trip from Istanbul to Yerevan and having spent a couple of long nights preparing for our retreat. Not only that, we have spent our whole morning in the marketplace (bazaar) to buy colored paper, colored pens, ribbons, envelopes etc. which we plan to use in our workshops. The bazaar in Yerevan was chaotic as I am familiar with this hoo-ha from Turkey. You could find cheap and good quality stuff from the bazaar, but you usually are wrecked after that experience.
I just wanted to lie down and rest.
Living together is fun but requires responsibility.
Unfortunately, resting was not possible since there were many things to be planned. We rented this retreat place and the arrangement was that they will supply food for us 3 times a day but we need to take care of keeping the place tidy and clean since we did not want anyone in the house other than our group members. We cared for our intimacy and this decision brought new responsibilities:
Who is going to take care of the cleaning and tidying the kitchen? Who will serve the food? Who will collect the rubbish? Screendoors should be kept closed all the time since we do not want mosquitos suck our appetizing blood. Who will take care of that?
At the end, we decided to rotate for all the work that needs to be done. Lists on big papers were hung on the walls to enable people to write their name for the required work.
Crossing borders between Turkey and Armenia triggers fear and anxiety.
Apart from the logistics, our main concern was whether the people who were coming from Turkey could pass the Georgian border? Hazal and myself arrived a few days earlier but the majority of people coming from Turkey were supposed to arrive this evening. Since the border between Armenia and Turkey was closed, they needed to travel via Georgia as we also did.
It was a long journey and I did not feel safe on the way. I had the fear in me that if someone would understand that we are Turkish, how would they react to us? After we arrived at Tbilisi airport, we needed to take a bus to come to Yerevan and then walk across the Georgian – Armenian border since the customs control wants to check our documents face to face. Luckily, we did not experience anything unpleasant. I remember only the coldness of the customs officers which is probably a general attitude in the whole world. If my work would be to separate people from each other using borders, I might have taken a cold attitude, too, who knows.
At the end of the evening, we were relieved since most of the participants from Armenia and Turkey have arrived except Nina and Meline, who are supposed to come tomorrow morning. After this long day my only worry in my head seems very funny now: Have the Turkish team brought a flock of wool which we have forgotten to get from the bazaar?
Such a nice worry to have.
Senem’s Diary
In the evening, we opened up our suggestion box
We created the suggestion box idea because we thought that some people might be shy to express themselves in front of everyone and when we are living together there might be some things that they might feel uncomfortable but could not tell it and that’s why we thought that everyone who is in having your suggestion could write it and put it into a suggestion box. The purpose of this suggestion box is also that maybe we would like to share something nice that we taught during today and that’s also a possibility it to share.
Akşam suggestion box’u açtık ve önerileri tartıştık. Orada yazan önerilerin dışında LGBT cinselliğini konuşmayı önerdi Rüya. Nurcan Rüya’nın ”birbirimizi naısl tatmin ediyoruz onu da konuşalım.” cümlesine takıldı. Bunun üzerine Rüya ”lezbiyenler nasıl sevişiyorlar merak etmiyor musun” tadında kışkırtıcı bir çıkış yaptı, ben de bu çıkışa çok sinirlendim ve tartışma anlamsız ve gergin bir boyuta taşındı maalesef. Neyse sonunda uzlaştırıcı şahsiyetler Ayşegül ve Ebru’nun çabalarıyla Nurcan’la Rüya arasındaki gerilim sona erdi. Benle Rüya arasındakini de Şehri ve Tuba çözümlemeye çalıştı ama onlarla da gerildik ilk önce. Taraf tutmaya başlanınca ortam iyice gerginleşiyor. Ne zaman ki taraf tutulmaktan vazgeçiliyor, işte o zaman her şey daha sağlıklı bir şekilde tartışılıyor. Nitekim sonrasında Tuba ve ben kalpten bir konuşma yapabildik ve ben kendime dair bir çok çıkarımda ve özeleştiride bulunabildim.