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Life When You Are an Elderly Kurd
The BBC
December 2004
Simple life
Zeynep Zeytin lives in the village of Geyiksuyu, in the eastern Turkish province of Tunceli:
"I wake up and take the animals up to the mountain to feed, then I bring wood back to burn and then I clean, and I take care of my children.
"I have one son who is leaving for the military and that's deeply upsetting for me because he is the only son."
Forced out
Zeynep looks out over the Munzur mountains. She came to this village when the military forced her out of her own in an attempt to deny support to the Kurdish paramilitaries, who hid and lived in the mountains.
"Back in our own village we were better off. We had a garden. Here we only have two rooms and it is not good. My husband is remarried. We have two small cows and a goat.
"It's not enough because we have to pay lots of money to feed them, and for our necessities. That's our income."
No help
There are new houses in the village, provided by the government for those it wants to return to the land. But Zeynep is unhappy that she has not received help. She had already bought and built a house with the proceeds of the livestock she sold when she was forced out of her village.
"The government didn't give me my house, I made my house - with two rooms. I had to build this from the beginning. The government gave some help to some other people, but not to us."
Borrowed money
Zeynep helps hold a goat still. It is to be killed in honor of her son's imminent departure for military service. But she says she has little to live on.
"The money is not enough, we keep borrowing money, then we work more to pay that money back. That's how this family runs, all borrowed money, all money paid back and again the government didn't give us any housing this year."
Helping out
Birgul, one of Zeynep's six daughters, works half the year in the capital, Ankara, in a clothes shop. She comes back to the village in the summer to help her mother. She's just been in to town, which is why she's dressed in modern clothes. Normally she'd be in traditional village dress.
"I work 12 hours a day when I am in Ankara. I'd like to stay there, but there is work to do here, work with the animals. I need to help my mother. We want a proper house, with a proper kitchen and bathroom."
Oppressed
Feramuz is marked with the blood of the slaughtered goat. He is not happy about going into the army:
"I feel I have to go, it's my duty, but of course I am a bit confused because we have been oppressed a lot by the military.
"They burnt our village in the middle of winter, they only gave us a tent, nobody came and asked how we were, we were in a really bad condition. And under these conditions I am going to the military. What can I say?"
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