Faces of the war

We hopped on the bus for another 10 hour ride during the day. It doesn't bother us to travel during daylight hours since we get to see much of the country that we haven't visited, but to go over previously ridden roads gives us a sense of a waste of time and that was the case for the first three to four hours of this trip. But that was not going to be the most saddening part of this journey.

We spent the first few hours among reading, taking naps and a picture here or there. Then we stopped in the middle of nowhere were a minibus was parked along the side of the road. The bus driver made all the passengers move to the front of the bus, including us, giving us a gesture that made us think that the people that were about to come on board would not smell nice. Twenty people jumped on our half empty bus, they were between 1 and 40+ years old, well dressed and with exhaustion in their faces. They were lucky and all of them except one found an actual seat. I, very susceptible (almost irritably) to bad odors, found myself thinking that in reality these people did not smell bad ..."but I'm probably getting used to it"...

When the sun set the bus stopped at a roadside restaurant for dinner. When we stopped, the first half of the bus got off, including Steve. I couldn't find my shoes so I took my time and when I emerged from my seat twenty faces were staring at me. I realized it then! they weren't Turkish! They didn't get the message! Taking a few of my fingers up close to my mouth, I signaled to them that it was time for dinner and all at once they stood up and followed me off the bus. Steve was waiting for me outside.

From the terrace of the restaurant I observed their weird behavior. They took their time, they studied other people's movements, they stayed all together, they didn't know what to do, but there was something else that I couldn't explain about them. When they got the food, they all shared everything and they were feeding their faces with a frenzy, although none of them were undernourished. Then I remembered the voracity with which they consumed the water provided by the bus in individual sealed glasses.
Once back in the bus I asked the guy seating behind us where were they from and if he spoke any English. Another one siting a few rows back, a man in his mid forties told me slowly "Iraq". Then we realized they were refugees and all their belongings were plastic bags with probably their most valuable things and a change of clothes.

Steve and I put twenty faces to the Iraq war.

With a knot in my stomach, the next six hours of traveling seemed to last forever and were rough because we were seating surrounded by people like us, with families, friends, babies, futures and pasts. But they were probably coming from hell. Steve started to realize that their faces were different of the Turkish and even some of the young girls where very beautiful.

At one of the many military control stops I decided to get off the bus to get some air. A few minutes later the older man stepped out. When he saw the stars in the open sky he ran immediately back in to get his son and then showed it to him. He got teary eyes, needless to say I did as well. I had told him that I was Argentinean (didn't dare to mention the US for obvious reasons), he brought his son to me and taught him to say "Hello". He also told me he was traveling with three of his sons.

I had a million questions but I was not going to ask them. If the circumstances were different I would have probably already taken pictures, but they had gone through so much and I didn't feel like doing it either.

We said our goodbyes in Dyarbakir wishing them the best with looks that said more than a thousand words. They were heading to Istanbul, where family members were going to help them move forward, for us moving forward meant getting ready to leave Turkey.

Gaby