Emergency relief for Gaza and Lebanon

I've been horrified to see the violence unfolding over the past year in Gaza and now in Lebanon – and felt helpless to do anything about it. I know many people feel the same way. That's why I'm dedicating my upcoming 38km trail race in Cappadocia to raising money for emergency response. 

The organization I'm raising money for, Medical Aid for Palestinians, is a UK-based charity that has been recommended by multiple friends and colleagues working in the journalism and human-rights fields. You can read more about the assistance they are providing in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon here.

Donate to my fundraiser

I also wanted to share a few other opportunities for helping people in this region. All of these organizations have been recommended by trusted friends and colleagues; I hope you will donate to whichever one(s) of them speak to your heart.

• INARA – Focused on providing medical and mental health care to children affected by conflict, INARA is responding in both Lebanon and Gaza
• Help one family survive and rebuild their future in Gaza – This is an individual fundraiser organized by a personal friend of mine, a Gaza-born photojournalist living in Istanbul
• Basmeh & Zeitooneh – This established organization running relief and development programs for Syrian refugees in Lebanon is mobilizing to provide urgent relief for families that have been displaced again by the current conflict
• Oshana – This organization founded by and for Syrian women living in Lebanon helps them earn a dignified living through handicrafts, but nearly all of the women and their families have been forced to flee their homes again; you can support them by buying products from their online store or donating directly to their crowdfunding page
• Beit el Baraka – A Lebanese charity founded to help families struggling due the the country's financial crisis, they are now providing relief to those affected by conflict; you can select 'South Lebanon Aid' when you make a donation

Running For Earthquake Relief

All of us in Turkey are still devastated by the major earthquakes that laid waste to vast swaths of the country's southeast on 6 February this year, killing more than 50,000 people. Across the 10 affected provinces, more than 200,000 buildings have been destroyed or badly damaged; millions of people are displaced.

The road ahead is a long and difficult one for the survivors. Many independent Turkish NGOs are doing incredible work assisting with immediate needs and longer-term recovery but they are in dire need of resources and support.

I'm running the Istanbul Half Marathon on 30 April along with other members of my Istanbul Expat Runners team to raise money for the Turkey Mozaik Foundation's Kahramanmaras Earthquake Emergency Relief Fund.

Founded by expat Turks living in the UK, the Turkey Mozaik Foundation is a registered, reliable charity that directs your donations to vetted Turkish civil society organizations as grants to carry out specific projects in the earthquake zone, from delivering emergency food packages and setting up clean-water infrastructure to providing psychosocial support and establishing safe spaces for women and children.

🔈 DONATE NOW 

Thank you for contributing to this effort through your donations and shares 💜

Solidarity = love

A truck full of aid ready to head 

to the earthquake zone

It's been just over a week since earthquakes ravaged southeastern Turkey and northwestern Syria, and 'unbearable' is the word that keeps coming up as we try to process each day's horrors. More than 35,000 people (and counting) are now dead in Turkey, over 5,000 people dead in Syria, and vast swaths of cities have been destroyed, leaving millions displaced in frigid weather. Everyone I speak to has been touched by this disaster, everyone knows someone who is gone forever or has lost everything. 

Through their pain, Istanbul and other cities around the country have rallied in an incredible way. Municipal buildings, restaurants, homes, galleries, and gyms were converted into collection points and filled with volunteers and donated goods. Film-crew trucks, moving vans, planes, and ferries were loaded up with deliveries of aid - winter clothes, food, water, diapers, medical supplies, tools, generators, sleeping bags, tents - purchased by individual citizens, governments, and companies alike. Shopkeepers helped box up donations and carry them out to cars, offered discounted prices, or threw in extra goods for free. The mobilization was stunning. It still felt excruciatingly insufficient. 

My heartfelt thanks go out to everyone who has given their money, time, or other resources in any way. To those who sent cash directly to me to be spent in Istanbul, I thank you for your trust as well. These funds bought blankets, warm hats, flashlights, batteries, underwear, sanitation supplies, grocery cards, medical supplies, three sturdy family-size tents (two with stoves), and tools for search and rescue teams, went to a fund to purchase container homes for doctors volunteering in the earthquake zone, and offered a bit of direct support to families left penniless.

The need is huge, and will continue to be for a long time, both for humanitarian assistance and longer-term rebuilding. Civil society in Turkey is brave and determined, but needs support. I urge anyone who can to give – now, later, regularly if you're able – to any of the local NGOs listed in my "how to help" post.

How to help after devastating earthquake in SE Turkey and Syria

[Updated 14 February]

We woke up Monday morning in Istanbul to devastating news from southeast Turkey and Syria, where a 7.8 magnitude earthquake and dozens of aftershocks overnight have now left more than 30,000 people dead in Turkey and an additional 3,000 in Syria, with tens of thousands injured and the death tolls still expected to rise further. Thousands of buildings have been destroyed or damaged, included historical structures. Here’s some reliable ways you can help:

Donate money to NGOs working on the ground in Turkey:

(** links are best bets for donating from outside Turkey/with international credit cards. For reference, 500 TL = 26.50 USD / 25 EUR / 22 GBP / 35.50 CAD)

** Donate to the esteemed Turkish volunteer search and rescue organization AKUT (Türkçe'de bağışlar: https://www.akut.org.tr/bagis-yap)

** Donate to reliable civil society groups that are providing immediate relief and medium- to long-term recovery to survivors via UK-based Turkey Mozaik Foundation or US-based Turkish Philanthropy Funds (100% of donations go to recovery efforts in both cases).

Donate to the Istanbul Medical Chamber to buy medical supplies and containers for doctors to stay in while volunteering the earthquake zones. They are sending regular convoys of volunteer and supplies by car from Istanbul.

** Donate to the volunteer response being carried out in Turkey by the trusted, independent NGOs İhtiyaç Haritası (Needs Map) or Ahbap. 

** Donate to Hayata Destek (Support to Life), a Turkish NGO experienced in providing humanitarian relief and working with underserved communities. 

** Donate to the Lubunya Deprem Dayanışması solidarity fund to help LGBTQ+ people impacted by the earthquakes, or to the Aman Project specifically to help affected LGBTQ+ refugees. (Depremden etkilenmiş ve destek ihtiyaç olan LGBTQ+ kişiler yardım başvurusu yapabilir burada.)

Donate to efforts to help animals in the disaster zone coordinated by Dört Ayaklı Şehir (Four-Legged City), an organization recommended by a good friend of mine who is active with animal rights in Turkey. A Turkish vet friend recommends the Work Animals Rescue Foundation, which is doing similar work helping farm animals, street animals, and pets.

Donate goods in Turkey:

Donate NEW winter clothes/shoes, blankets, sleeping bags, diapers, baby formula, food parcels, hygiene supplies, heaters, generators, etc. at collection points set up by local/district/city officials. Check their social media accounts for the latest needs before buying/delivering: 

• Cihangir Semt Konağı (inside the İspark garage below Cihangir Park, upstairs next to the health center) 
• İBB Logistic Centers in Yenikapı and Kartal (call ALO 153 for details) - OPEN 24/7
• Kadıköy Belediyesi Başkanlığı building (Fahrettin Kerim Gökay Cd. No:2 in Hasanpaşa)
• Şişli Belediyesi Başkanlığı building (Darülaceze Cd. No:8 in Şişli Merkez) - OPEN 24/7

A full list of official collection points for earthquake aid in each Istanbul district has been posted on Instagram by Turkish Dictionary.

Buy tents, hygiene packs, coats, boots, blankets, sleeping bags, food packages, etc. online to be sent to the quake areas with İzmir municipality teams (try Firefox browser instead of Chrome).

Volunteer in Turkey:

Donate blood at Kızılay sites around Turkey: https://www.kanver.org

Multiple NGOs operating under the Afet Platformu umbrella are coordinating volunteer efforts for humanitarian relief in affected cities. If you speak Turkish and are willing to volunteer, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/230361452031037 

You can also sign up for Afet Platformu's donor pool and get updates on the latest needs.

Have an empty home/apartment you're willing to open up to a displaced family? Want to provide rent support to displaced people? Know someone who lost their home and needs somewhere to live? Apply to the Bir Kira Bir Yuva (One Rent, One Home) website set up by the İzmir Metropolitan Municipality and the charity İhtiyaç Haritası (Needs Map).

Thousands of refugees live in the affected parts of Turkey. If you can speak Persian or Arabic and want to help, contact the Göçmen Sendikası Girişimi.

If you speak multiple languages and are willing to work with or volunteer for international rescue and relief team or media organizations, you can sign up to this directory created by the Foreign Media Association in Turkey.

Donate to rescue and relief efforts in Syria:

** To support rescue and recovery efforts in Syria, donate to the White Helmets, the Syrian American Medical Society, Molham Team, the Syrian Child Protection Network (Hurras), Choose Love or Basmeh Zeitooneh (the latter two are also working in Turkey).

** Support the engineers at Field Ready Türkiye (Sahaya Hazır İnovasyon Derneği) who work in Gaziantep, Turkey, and northwest Syria. Among other things, they make cheap, low-tech airbags for search and rescue from buildings which have collapsed. "If we move fast they can make more," a good friend who previously worked with the team writes. "The workshops in Syria also have vast experience of fixing essential medical equipment, and making insulated shelters - both greatly needed right now."

Spread (good) information:

If you know people in the affected cities who have been left without shelter, some hotels and other accommodation facilities are offering free places to stay for earthquake victims. And here's a map of other places offering shelter and support.

Add locations of collapsed and heavily damaged buildings to this GIS map so teams can reach them more quickly.

Be careful about sharing information if you don't know the source; check with Teyit or Doğruluk Payı – both members of the International Fact-Checking Network – to see if claims on social media have been verified.

This post is a work-in-progress, I’ll be updating it as I can.

Üç bayan on the loose on the Karia Yolu

Pretty but scratchy
vegetation

"Three ladies, aren’t you scared??" the farmer asked incredulously as he pointed us in the direction of the gate that led out of his field and onto the dirt road climbing out of Bağlarözü bay.

Used to getting such responses to our hiking adventures in Turkey, we scoffed amongst ourselves at the question. But had we known what we'd be getting into before we finally reached his farm, we might indeed have been a little trepidatious.

Our first hike on the Carian Trail as it winds its way around the Datça Peninsula in southwestern Turkey started off easily in the beachside village of Palamutbükü, following rural roads past newly tilled fields with chamomile flowers growing wild on their edges. The signpost for Knidos pointed us up a trail into the scrabbly hills, and then down again onto a rocky path overlooking the watery gradient of blues where the Aegean Sea blends into the Mediterranean.

It all seemed so easy
at the start... 

Somewhere around the halfway point of what was supposed to be a 7.5-hour hike on "a mix of path and dirt road undulating around the coast," I was brought up short. We must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. But how? A rocky slope rose up steeply to one side of the narrow path; to the other side, there was only the sea. Pausing to contemplate the situation, I leaned on one hand against the rock and realized there were red and white paint stripes blazed onto the stone right next to my palm. So we were still on the trail after all. But there was nowhere for me to step next.

Right beyond my feet, the path ended in a steep drop-off to the sea, where the incoming tide crashed against a large, jagged rock, thwarting any thought of jumping into the surf. I sat down and scooted myself as far over the edge as I could go while still holding on, but my feet still dangled above the slippery rock. Even if I could make it down without twisting an ankle, or worse, we would be in the sea, with who-knows-how-many similar maneuvers ahead.

The path was supposed
to go above the shore,
not in the sea...

I recalled seeing a dirt road branching off up over the hills some ways back – maybe we could scramble our way up to reach it? Neither option seemed great, but we had to choose one, so up we went, trying to pick our way along loose scree and around unforgiving scrub. The undergrowth released aromas of rosemary, marjoram, and lavender while sharp, hard branches of other plants scratched into our legs.

Judging by the gap in photos on my camera roll, it was a good two hours before we emerged onto the surprised farmer's land and were gratefully reunited with the fickle trail markers and (at least for a while) a wide road. As the daylight began to wane, shapes started to emerge from the rocky landscape we now shared with a few herds of goats – remnants of the city walls of ancient Knidos, our destination at last.

Istanbul's 'First of the Month Church'

"The ones for marriage are four lira; the rest are two lira," the older woman explained patiently as I surveyed the plastic takeout containers arrayed across the tables she and a few others were setting up on the sidewalk before the sun had even fully risen. Each small tub was filled with tiny colorful trinkets loosely connected in some way to the label on its lid: "araba için" (for car), "okul için" (for school), "bebek için" (for baby), and more than a dozen others.

Despite the early hour, a small trickle of people, mostly women, were already finding their way to this drab street corner around the back side of the sprawling İMÇ complex in Unkapanı, where high walls hid all but the cross atop the Ayın Biri Kilisesi.

I can say without a doubt that I've never run to church before, but not knowing whether this tradition that I'd heard about over the years would be continuing during pandemic times, I figured this way I would have gotten my morning exercise in regardless. So I pulled on long tights instead of my usual shorts, tossed a long-sleeved shirt, a T-shirt dress, and a scarf (just in case – having grown up Protestant and being nonreligious for decades, I'm never quite sure what the etiquette in an Orthodox church should be) in my running backpack, and headed out the door, catching glimpses of a rich violet and magenta sunrise between buildings in Beyoğlu and crossing the Atatürk Bridge over the Golden Horn with morning traffic on one side and fishermen lined up on the other.

The Ayın Biri Kilisesi, a Rum (Greek) Orthodox church, is best known – as its extremely literal nickname, "First of the Month Church," suggests – as a place to go on the first day of each month, to seek good fortune in some aspect(s) of your life. (Its "real" name is variously listed as Vefa Kilisesi, after the neighborhood, or Meryem Ana Kilisesi, based on one story of its origin, in which the Virgin Mary appeared in a dream to an Albanian Orthodox girl and told her that there was a holy spring underneath her family's garden and that a church should be built there.) As with many such folk traditions, actual religiosity seems to be no barrier to participation, with members of the majority Muslim population joining the city's few remaining Christians. After the year we've all had, I too figured any potential source of luck was worth giving a try.

After slipping my more-modest change of clothes on over my running kit, I selected five gold-hued trinkets from the tables outside the church, each attached to a short, brightly colored ribbon with a small safety pin: a hamsa/Hand of Fatima, başarı için (for success); a dragonfly, kariyer için (for career); a lock and key, huzur mutluluk için (for serenity and happiness); a heart, sağlık için (for health); and a slightly different heart, aşk için (for love).

Though I'm told the first-of-the-month ritual can draw hours-long lines when it fall on a (non-lockdown!) Sunday, on this Monday morning, the courtyard enclosed by the church's walls was serene. A handful of visitors sat on benches, chatting and drinking tea alongside some scattered gravestones and column capitals, while others lit candles inside a cabin-like building, or waited to get into the main church. One man walked around handing out candy, which I later learned is a show of gratitude displayed by someone whose wish made previously at Ayın Biri had been granted. 

Icons adorned the walls inside the small but prettily decorated and lovingly tended church, where a slightly bewildering array of rituals awaited. (Fortunately, I ran into a friend who'd visited previously and could provide some guidance.) From one booth, a man offered small keys for four lira each. Next were candles lined up on a stand with a slot for donations. In the corner, a priest asked me my name, then placed a heavy embroidered cloth over my head and intoned some almost inaudible words. Here and in a small chamber downstairs that also houses a holy spring said to date to the early 1700s, people paused before icons hanging on the walls. Holding up their little keys, they mimed the motion of unlocking each side of the cabinets around the images, or tracing their outlines. My nominally Catholic friend suggested I cross myself with each trinket as I moved along the line, which I did, crossing the one representing the wish I most want fulfilled in front of a few different icons for good measure.

If any of my wishes come true, I'll do as tradition holds I should and return the "blessed" key to the church, along with sweets to share with those who haven't been so lucky yet.

Epiphany on the Golden Horn

The bell began ringing out at 12:30 pm sharp, its sound carrying to the water's edge from an unseen church somewhere behind a cacophony of buildings in various states of (dis)repair. No gentle tinkle but an effortful pealing, it continued for a full five minutes as the assembled crowd shuffled a bit impatiently. As its clanking ebbed away, voices murmuring in both Turkish and Greek came to the fore and police swept the spectators to the sidelines. The Patriarch was arriving.

Every year on 6 January, Istanbul's small remaining Greek Orthodox community celebrates Epiphany, the baptism of Jesus – a day they call Theophany – at the Church of St. George in the Fener neighborhood along the Golden Horn. Following what I'm told is always a lengthy mass, the congregation processed to the nearby waterfront, where they joined the awaiting press cadre, at least one Turkish tour group, and assorted other bystanders as a drone circled overhead and small idling boats churned up the waters.

On a pier across a short stretch of water, two men in swimming briefs paced, stretched, and swung their arms. All the while they each kept a keen eye on His All-Holiness Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, as the elderly archbishop slowly ascended a platform set up for the occasion, topped with a scroll on a stand.

My position in the crowd meant I couldn't see the movement of the Patriarch's hand, so before I knew it, the two men were in the water, racing to be the first to retrieve the wooden cross that His Holiness had tossed in as per tradition. Pointing my camera in their general direction, I clicked as fast as I could until after one had reached the cross, kissed it, and held it triumphantly aloft. It was all over so quickly; as a woman next to me laughed to her friend afterwards, "I don't even know what I took pictures of!" 

Similar ceremonies were prevented in Greece this year due to the coronavirus pandemic – in Thessaloniki, police and coast guard patrolled the waterfront to prevent them, according to the Associated Press – and both the crowds and the number of participants in Istanbul were much diminished. (Last year's event drew some 30 swimmers on a frigid day, many of whom had traveled from Greece or other Orthodox countries.) But I was pleased to have finally (after all these years!) witnessed this distinctive event, getting my renewed vows to Try More New Things^TM (2021-Style, i.e. locally) and resurrect this long-moribund blog off to a good start, at least for now...

Outdoor dining is dead, long live outdoor dining

I'd been eyeing the roadside kebab shop for a while, as there seemed to be a steady stream of customers whenever I walked by after my physiotherapy sessions. Then, quite suddenly, all indoor *and* outdoor seating at restaurants and cafes was banned once again in Turkey as a coronavirus prevention measure. Takeaway, however, was still allowed. On this particular day, I was starving, having missed lunch; the weather was still mild, despite it being early December; and I figured I could furtively scarf down a dürüm in a couple of minutes while lingering on the street corner out front.

But I hadn't given Turkish ingenuity and hospitality enough credit.

No sooner had I approached the server standing outside the door and ordered my Adana dürüm (acılı, tabii ki, ama domatessiz lütfen) than he had swooped up a piece of cardboard and placed it just so on the edge of what used to be the shop's outdoor-dining area. (Can't sit on the cold ground, your reproductive organs might freeze.) 

As I sat on my cardboard-covered perch, eating my dürüm and sipping my ayran, situated at a safe distance away from other customers doing likewise, I noticed there were people sitting in the cars parked in front of the shop. They were eating their kebabs as the server dashed back and forth to their car windows to deliver post-meal tea and retrieve the empty glasses. It was almost like being at an American drive-in.

Restaurants, cafes, and bars are suffering heavily during these shutdowns, to be sure. But these examples of resourcefulness are cheering in their small way. A neighborhood bar is packaging up its cocktails to go and bottling its mixers for sale. The owners of a popular meyhane have opened a takeaway meze shop and even deliver locally by bicycle. One street in Karaköy is doing its best impression of a European Christmas market, the scent of cloves and cinnamon drawing passersby to long tables outside bar-restaurants that are selling cups of mulled wine and slices of cake to take in hand as you stroll. It's something I've not really seen in Istanbul before, but a new tradition I certainly wouldn't mind seeing endure after the pandemic is (inşallah) behind us next winter.

Social solidarity amid COVID-19: Ways to help the people who need it most

Image via New Economy Coalition

I read a comment recently about the coronavirus pandemic that really resonated with me: We may all be in the same storm, but we're not all in the same boat.

Every day, it seems, I read (and sometimes write) about how this disease and its wide-ranging impacts are laying bare long-standing inequities in our societies, about the workers who can't afford to stay home, the refugees who don't have a home to stay in, the women for whom home in the most dangerous place, the 30 million people who have lost their jobs in the U.S. alone.

It's a stark reminder that as fear, loneliness, and insecurity batter us all, some of our vessels are definitely more seaworthy than others.

For those of us fortunate enough to be safe, employed, and in good health right now, I've compiled this very incomplete list of ways to help those who aren't. If you're an American who's received the $1,200 stimulus check and doesn't need that financial assistance, I humbly suggest joining me in donating all or part of that as a way to start.

And please do reach out to propose any recommended additions to this list.

Read more »

Pide to the people

"Sıcak sıcak sıcaaaaak!!!!"

"Var mı, pide isteyen?!?!"

Since Turkey began weekend lockdowns in its large cities earlier this month – fully confining everyone except certain essential workers to their homes – normally raucous Istanbul has been eerily quiet on Saturdays and Sundays. No matter how late of a lie in I indulge myself with (because really, what's the point of getting out of bed when you can't leave the apartment?), the silence of the streets outside hangs heavily, as if the whole world had vanished while I slept.

Then it happens. The low thrum of a small van inching its way down the street, followed by the crackle of a portable speaker, or an unamplified, full-throated cry. "Geldi geldi geldi!!!!"

Sometimes it's just one voice, other times a competing cacophony. Either way, the sounds break the silence, and the spell that seems to have been cast on the neighborhood. When I pop my head out the window, faces up and down the street mirror my own. The old, infirm, or simply weary lift baskets over their windowsill or balcony railing, lower them on a rope, and wait. The rest stuff a few coins in pockets, slip on some shoes (what are those again?), and rush out the door, not wanting to miss the highlight (OK, the only event) of the day: bread delivery time.

For many Turks, a meal without bread is unthinkable. An estimated 20 million loaves are sold daily in Istanbul (population 16 million) alone. I've seen Turkish friends refuse to eat breakfast because there was no fresh bread, only the slices left over from the day before. A Turkish colleague told our WhatsApp group that even during the 1980 military coup, when tanks patrolled the city’s empty streets, bread was distributed in large trucks to each house or apartment.

So certainly a little thing like a global pandemic wasn't going to keep the halk from their ekmek. The Interior Ministry's curfew order included an exemption allowing people to leave their homes to walk to their nearest bakery. Politicians jostled to be the heroes providing bread to the cooped-up masses, posting videos on social media with soothing footage of loaves coming out of ovens and being brought to homes. And local bakeries took to the streets with their delivery vans.

I'll be honest – even as starved for activity and interaction as I am on weekends, the standard white loaves, more air than bread, weren't going to entice me to run after the bakery van. But this weekend, their siren call became very beguiling, with the addition to their offerings of the Ramazan pidesi. This pillowy flatbread is made during the holy month of Ramadan, when observant Muslims abstain from food and drink during daylight hours, then sit down to a fast-breaking meal called iftar at sunset.

Even for the non-religious, the sight of people coming together each evening, whether at huge tables set up by the municipality or on small stools set up around a newspaper-covered folding table, creates a sense of shared urban conviviality. Of course in 2020, coming together is tehlikeli ve yasaktır, as is jostling in front of the fırın to buy a fresh-out-of-the-oven pide in the last possible minutes before iftar so it's still piping-hot at fast-breaking time.

On weekends, then, buying pide from the bread van is about as close as we can come to a communal experience. So I wasn't going to miss out on that. And if a bread that's usually torn into pieces and shared has to be eaten by one person while it's still warm and at its tastiest, well, it's the kind of year in which sacrifices must be made. But only one pide a day, no matter how many times the vans cruise down my street. Even in a pandemic, you have to draw the line somewhere.