Photos

I know that this photo is not very good, but in a way I find it interesting and amusing ; also taken in the high altitude Kurdish village near Eleskirt.

At noon, as there is no restaurant in that village, Adem, my young guide for one day, invited me to his house for lunch… And his house was a source of wonders for me : in this village, all the various parts of a houses’s compound (living and sleeping room, kitchen, even cowshed and sometimes stable) are often under one roof, because of the extreme cold of the winter and to avoid having to walk in deep snow.

So, it is not unusual to see inside a house, a cow or a sheep dreamily passing in the corridor : they are part of the family, warming people in the winter. The place for sheep and cow (a photo of it, one of these next days) was not far from the sitting room.

But even if charming and very exotic, this house (which was not more about than 60 years old, they told me, altough it looked really antique) – had suffered badly from the last earthquake some 6 years ago and many cracks on the walls were apparent everywhere, so its inhabitants were not so reassured.

The woman who is laughing at my amazement to see one of the last of the young cows leaving the house, is Adem’s aunty ; she told me that she would have her teeth fixed «one of these days».

I had a simple vegetarian meal in that house : this suits me perfectly,- but there, everyone is generally almost vegetarian *by force*, because they cannot afford to eat meat very often.

Our conversation was very much about the hardship of living in such a remote place ; the men in this village are almost all working in west Turkey, generally employed in the construction business , and the women are left with the children and help each other in the daily chores.

It is difficult to get enough water in this village ; there are waterpumps only at some points and always out of the houses.