Watermelons, pencils and Goodbye

Although yesterday BUDD said goodbye to Sulukule, I went back as I had aranged a football game with the kids! But i also bought some things to give to the kids as a last and final goodbye from BUDD!

So I met Gokce in Sulukule for one last time. While she helped a little girl with her homework Murat (Natalia's friend) and a friend took me for a walk. On the walk found some place which sold watermelons... so I told Murat he had to remind me where it was cuase I wanted one (Natalia and I have been obsessing bout watermelons).

So after my walk we played some football untill the men came to play their scheduled game, which turned out to be the best time to go buy the watermelon. So off I went with Murat, his friend, Bilal, Ali and a few others whos names i cant remember.

I got a whole watermelon, half for me and the kids and the rest to take home. So the kids took me to a park to eat it, and while we were eating an old lady sat with us and started talking to the kids (Looking at the untouched half a watermelon on the table). Eventually she asked if she could have some, and the kids said I should give a piece... she had piece and then called over another kids and handed her the half a watermelon... right... so me and the kids look at each other in amusement (Bilal in particular found it hillarious and said I should get it back) but then the lady explained she had many kids and had to feed them, so I let her have it...

So off we go back to the cafe ( and on the way buy another watermelon for BUDD) and there it was time to say goodbye... and this time it was for real... so I gave the pressies to the kids which they loved (amazing how much a pencil could mean to a kid) and then the sad part came. When Gokce told them I was not going to be there tommorrow... they did not like the news, Bilal's face went from a smile to a frown... he then came over to me and gave me a hug and said goodbye... (I was sooooo close to balling my eyes out, but I didnt want to cry in front of them) Murat then said he didn't want to talk to me cause I was leaving... (tears almost coming again)... but he then went with me to the bus stop

So I took my backpack and watermelon and slowly walked away from Sulukule... this "place" which gave me sooooooo much and taught me there is sooooo much more to life than money and all else...

So here I leave a goodbye to SULUKULE and leave a thank you for all they have done!!!

I sincerely hope I will come back to visit you all!!!

Tony

20th Day-Thanking Sulukule

Today we went to Sulukule to give back photos and a thank you poster (a few alternate images of sulukule). Though not many adults participated in the workshops, the kids did, and in the last three weeks they have become our friends, guides, bodyguards, teachers...They have been inspiring and I hope we were for them as well. One thing is clear, it's a long process. We have made a dent.

It took us some time to earn their trust as a class, we worked with them for three weeks. We never photographed initally without their permission and only did for our mapping excersises. As they felt more comfortable, we photographed more. Don't get me wrong...some loved to be photographed, but we had to be aware, since we were expected to bring the pics the next time we visited.

Our work is based on a participatory process, we want to plan with the community and have them make decisions for their place. So the whole us and them thing has to turn into a we for a bit. Once their organized, it's their work. The process varies from place to place- I'm still figuring it out. Though in text it may seem like a simple, straightforward process, it's not. It's kind of nonlinear and varies. You may think you know what it is, but does take time to understand it fully-I've been studying it quite intensely for six months now. I think one must be wary of preaching it, especially if they have never practiced or experienced it.

It may be that since we are foreigners, Sulukule was more welcoming towards us. The area has been the focus of some media hype where many people are curious to see how they live- take photos of them, write a bit about what they saw, publish their work and feel merry. They are treated like objects and I believe they should be offended at times. How can you trust these people? Why should you let them in your community? Sometimes people take advantage of the trust you have earned. How do we know when to trust? Trust, though a simple concept, is different story in practice- kind of like the participatory approach.-Meghna

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1PrrtxC1Sw&mode=related&search=

19th Day-Lantana-bday, reflection, and therapy

coming soon...

17th Day- Natalia-preparation

coming soon....

16th Day-Exploring businesses in the area and desing 'Curu Cinor' street

10:00 meeting for discussion. Feedback from the previous day activities.

14:00 visit at Sulukule: Ioannins & Meghna -field work:

Exploring businesses in the area and interviewing people.

Designing the road ‘Kuru Cinor’ that will comprise the proposal for a pilot project related to housing.

16:00 vistit at the café. Discussion with people for their jobs, their special interest for the music, the history of the area and their expectations.

Drawing with children.

19:00 meeting for discussion. Preparing the final presentation.

ioannis

15th Day in Istanbul
14th of May, 2007

After yesterday's tour, we all took a nap to regain energy to get back to our individual projects. We had a quick meeting to help Tony to organise the last details of the workshop. Yoannis helped him with the cards (he drew some cute cards representing some topics we would like to approach during the workshop.E.g.: where do the Sulukule residents think that should have a football field or a 'creche', or a school...etc). Natalia, Meghna and me helped him to finish the model (Iyad came to rescue us later). The model was divided in 4 parts: 3 were done using Lego (:D) and the last one was done using styrofoam. We finished at 5 in the morning!!! We tried to clean up the boys' living room because there were pieces of styrofoam and paper everywhere.
So, we went to bed when the birds were already singing; we slept three hours and got ready for the meeting with the professors at 9:30. We discussed each project and were given positive and cnstructive feedback. Shame we didn't have much time to work on them during the day because we all had to leave the hotel at 1:30 to go to Sulukule. Tony, Meghna. Lantana, Iyad and Mi were working with the workshop at the cafe. They were expecting more residents to join us but few of them did. It wasn't a problem at all because the ones that participated were very interested and gave us some nice inputs.
Once again, people from Sulukule were extremelly warm and friendly to us! The kids were the best, full of energy!!

Around 3, 3:30 I went with Natalia and Yoannis to the streets together with a very nice Turkish girl. Yoannis had prepared a nice poster with pictures of the area and the objective was to walk around stopping to talk to random residents. We, actuallyYoannis asked most of the questions and took notes of everyhting!! Natalia and I were listening and trying to make communication with Murat, this Roma boy that loves Natalia, and other people that joined us. There were mainly children and women. People told us they like the way they live in Sulukule: they trust and help each other; the like busy streets where they can socialise, wash carpets, children can play, cars can park, etc. They don't like apartments! They prefer to live in houses the way they live now, but of course, in better conditions. The first person we spoke to was a 16 years old boy that lived in a house of 2 floors together with 8 people. They had a kitchen, bathroom and 2 more rooms. Another guy we met wasn't Romani but he told us he's been living there for many years and always inpeace with the Romani community. He also said he doesn't understand why the municipality wants to remove them from the area.
It was all very interesting!! I could write non-stop....
Assun, the community leader spoke, to us for a very long time.

At night, back at the hotel, we had a quick meeting and everybody was exhausted!!
So we went to bed early to have some good sleep and prepare for next days' meeting and projects' development......
Meetings, meetings, meetings........discussions, discussions, discussions.....
What are we going to do??? is it still a physical intervention?? Do we have enough time for everything?? What are we going to do after the final presentation?? Stay in istanbul or go to capadocia (to sleep because we are so tired)??
Help!!Help!! Can someone give us a light, please??


Renata

!3th May, 2007

13th of May, 2007

Sulukule's Candy Boy was supposed to write on the blog about today's events, but he felt sick.....(actually 4 of us felt sick!).
We went on a tour of Istanbul to learn about the changes the city has gone through. We went to a site outside the city where gecekondus were transformed into these mass housing schemes; we took a ferry to get to the Asian side of Istanbul; and more
Tony will talk about it on more details soon or later. ;)

13th Day - Discussing...

A whole day spent in the boys' living room on two things: feedback on the activities taking places yesterday and discussion on guidelines & actions for the next step.

Late as usual, our meeting began at almost 11:00 am... As there were 4 funerals in Sulukule today, it was inappropriate for our workshop to take place this afternoon, which was postponed to next Monday. Very sorry for Sulukule people. And instead, we stayed as the hotel discussing and preparing for the final busy week.

Starting with the three things yesterday, we shared with each other in experience and appreciation. The redoing of model building workshop came first. Plus the activities we took in last few days, Michael questioned the local involvement. Apparently, kids showed more interest than adults, and particularly less women, which is one of our main concerns about local engagement. Meanwhile, Yves recommended working with people, walking with a sense of distance, and planning with time.

The second one was last night's movies about the Roma in Sulukule and the general situation of eviction in Istanbul. From the movies, new issues were raised - market driven eviction under the control of the state, "unmolested occupancy", and "self-rehabilitation". By reclaiming the value and contribution made by occupants, the self-help approach can be considered and incorporated into our project.

Finally, feedback on Fener Balat rehabilitation programme. Different from what we are promoting now for Sulukule (participatory process), Fener and Balat programme was a top-down conservation process, in which the successful elements could also worth referring to.

Then it came the discussion on guidelines and actions. 8 guidelines and 7 actions were agreed on finally, though it was a really hard process. Emphasised by both Michael and Yves, a matrix illustrating the correlation and reinforcement of guidelines and actions was produced on one hand, and on the other, the articulation of two-phase boundaries helped keep concentration. The logical framework from UNDP System addressed by Yves was also helpful, from current situation to objectives both long-term and short-term, from inputs through actions to outputs, based on which we each chose one guideline and one action to focus on.

Lucky being with Michael and Yves, as well as Cassidy and Sara, and all of us :)

- mi

12th day- coffee reading

pretty good day today since we had the half day off yesterday.

(funny how, yesterday, our row in the movie theater was sleeping with our mouths open while watching the romani movie at the french cultural centre. we apologize for that ;)

so we had a sort-of-break and good sleep to begin our day.

we started of getting feedback from the presentation the morning before, from the professors and among the students. overall i think it was a good presentation, althought we have to refine and improve on certain areas of the presentation. we had alot of content, just need to reorganize and restructure it more coherently, before thursday. when we are gona be presenting to a huge audience, beyond the academia arena. and by the looks of it, we'll be presenting to an international platform. HIGH PRESSURE noh? ;) but i think it will great because we have an opportunity to make something real out of our project, it wouldnt be just an exercise and requirement of the Msc we're taking. hehehe.

after the feedback we had a brainstorming session to come out with possible context of our proposal. its really great having Eve Cabannes here with us, giving input and feedback on something he's passionate and experienced about. noh? heheh. lol. then the group separated into 3 : meeting with fener rehabilitation organization, workshop taskforce, proposal brainstorm. (such big jargons we use in development ;P)

so whats next? we go and eat. at the point where our brains weren't functioning anymore and fresh air was desparately needed. i think most of the money spent (mind you alot) has only been on food. sigh ... i really like the area where we are, its easy and convenient to get stuff and food, perhaps thats the reason for the hole in my wallet. lol. blame the place, yea uhuh.

and during the eating session, one of the turkish students joined us for lunch/dinner/supper. and we were discussing about coffee readings as a turkish women's trait. so what else, i got myself a turkish coffee and had this girl (Berne, how ever u would spell it in turkish?) read my emptied coffee cup. the things that she said was amazingly and scare-ly accurate. about someone at home being really ill and getting worst, just hit the spot, and for it to be the first thing she saw out of my coffee cup was just scary. other stuff in terms of dramatic events that has been happening within this short period of time, of me dealing with hardship, about me wanting to just get away from everyone at times, of me distaning myself with someone really close and just being hopeless about the situation. dude...scary.... but on other positive things, she said that i would get good projects (which elaborated to mean good grades, so perhaps this project will bring all of us a good grade! lol), and i would proly meet someone new, and i am a pretty lucky person (i feel that i am, getting the masterbedroom with the 4 poster bed all by myself for 2 weeks! ;p).

so yea. right. then we continued our work within the group just to discuss about the possible "guidelines and actions" for out proposal. as usual im still up at 1am, which would mean that we ended the discussion late again. sigh .... i wana go to sleeeeep. so ... until the next blogger, GO SULUKULE!

suzaini zaid

11th day .... Interim Presentation

After long night of preparation for the interim presentation I think each of us had his/her daily share of sleeping hours with little deduction. Heading the university equipped with new advisor: Yves Cabannes. I hope that you ( Yves) can scratch your head like Alladin’s Lamp, and get some magical idea to help us in our project!!!! Ah I forgot that you have to be one of the audiences for our presentation first before you enrolled as instructor.

10:00 am: the presentation has to start now everything classified in the this small Flash memory , its nice to see the whole effort that all the team member effort capsulated in 1 * 5cm Plastic Box. Anyways when Meghna started the presentation the encapsulated data expanded back to show information, pictures and maps about our finding and direct observation about Sulukule, Romani community and Istanbul. Every one took his / her part in the presentation including the instructors ( thank you for your help). The presentation was an attempt to open dialogue and discussion about how invited people see the development of Sulukule. This was done by proposing some idea that can help open the discussion.

I believe that books could help you understand any subject, but if you want to feel reality and understand society dynamics in Istanbul, you have to conduct a dialogue about this subject. The responds that we got from the different sources showed that dialogue inside society clearly, Academics (Prof. Albert) with nice coherent social , anthological explanation about Romani community, perception and identity and belonging to the place. Hacer (A.L.A Representative) highlighted the social dimension and what will happen for people who could not afford the new houses in development. Numbers were flying around: owners who already sold their houses and others who live as tenants and will be pushed away. It not only that their was gap in information but also official source of it the municipality officials was absent. Thank you Cassidy for organizing the dialogue and keep it on track.

Sorry Sulukule that we couldn’t present for you our work because of the funeral. Thus we have to rest now for a bit after the preparing and presenting, but it’s not for long time. It seems (at least for us) that all of Istanbul’ dynamics have been capsulated in Taksim Square area even the French activities. As part of a 40 days 40 nights activity, a film about Romany music has been screened. The Romany Music float around the world starting from India passing to Egypt, Turkey, through Europe ……. and finally landed in Spain. The talented film director made the link visible between these communities and music. But what was implicit there is the tension between Romani people and the place. Children, music and education appear but then vanish from site to site, one site you will find a child listening to music and try to imitate the play. Another location, the child is the main figure who sings. The film showed the authenticity of the music, a music which stems from their way of life. It has not been taught through an educational system, it’s the way they participate with life and express their feelings about it. Besides all of this, what is the relation between Romani and the city can be inferred!!!!

After this , it was the time to rest , watching another film at home and relaxing , sorry the film was nice but we were so tired to see the end of the King of Scotland.

Iyad Issa

10th day...natalia

9:00 a.m.: I have to wake up… it is almost the time of our meeting for work… “visioning”… yesterday we had a 15 minutes meeting in which each one of us (Renata, Lantana, Iyad and me) presented ideas… and then defined responsibilities… this is a good starting point even though we didn’t have the time to work on it… at least we could go to bed thinking about it…. Ok… there is no more time now to be lazy…. Time to take a shower… there are a lot of things to do today…. This will be such a long day… visioning group meeting, general meeting to review the presentation, modelling in Sulukule, finishing the mapping report, prepare the visioning advance for the presentation... so many things to do… time to start…. I have to go downstairs for the meeting… today will be at room 23. The phone rang… it was Iyad and he told: “Tony needs help to glue the map into the styrofoam…” Ok… change of plans… the material for the modelling should be ready… so the meeting group should wait… but everything is so important… 10:45 a.m.: it is almost the time for the general meeting for discussing the presentation… and I’m still in pyjamas… I have to go up stairs and take a shower… 11:00 a.m.: The meeting… Meghna started the presentation… and it is only the first slide and there are a lot of things to think about… now the framework… it is definitely not clear… it is necessary to change so many things… the discussion kept going on… and our group doesn’t have any slides… we will only speak about our ideas but I think there won’t be time to do that… it is actually 12:30 p.m. Tony already left the hotel to go to Sulukule… Ioannis and I have to be there at 2:00 pm… now I’m trying to fix the framework while the meeting is going on. 1:15 p.m.: It is really late… I couldn’t finish the framework, but it is already time to leave... we met Ipek and Asle at the hotel door, and went together to Sulukule… when we got off the taxi… the driver said something that of course I couldn’t understand… but Ipek told us… he said ‘be careful with your bags… kids here use to steel’… for me it is still hard to understand these people’s misconception… I have been here for a week and I think that this people are absolutely amazing… maybe because they are visibly different…. I don’t know but I feel they are more human beings than others… I know I don’t really know them but at least I feel myself more comfortable here than in other ‘good places’. Afternoon… making the model… the kids are amazing… they are really enjoying the activity… for us it is difficult to manage them… they don’t care about colours, heights, and all those organised stuff about models… but what can we do? Nothing!!… they are kids… so the best thing we can do is to leave them to enjoy the game… the drawing was manageable… but the Lego…. I don’t know if it was a good idea because it is such a great toy for them… but it is great to see them so happy… Now young guys are coming and since they already knew about Tony’s football skills, they asked him to go to play for a while… My friend Murat came … he is so cute…. I think he is 8… now he is asking for me and he finally found me… he is talking to me and I’m so sad I can’t understand him… I asked Gokce to translate it for me… she said my friend wanted to take me for a walk around Sulukule… ouuuuhhhhh!!!!! I’m so surprised! I really wanted to go but I don’t know if it is a good decision, because the workshop is still going on… I asked Tony and Gokce and they said it wasn’t a good time. So Gokce told him in Turkish that I couldn’t go at that moment but half an hour later. So it is time to work and it’s such a nice work!! Kids are all the time laughing, running and asking things… I went a little bit far to take some pictures and I noticed that the gender separation exists even between small kids. There are three tables: the first one has the organised kids, only boys… they draw the map putting different colours and adding buildings of different stories. They really did a good job! The second table has younger kids, boys as well… there were singing all the time… and drumming on the table… their draw was good as well. The last table was only girls… they were quieter but instead of the colour pencils they only have the markers, so they did the messy map… Personally, this has been the most exciting experience that I’ve ever had professionally: seeing these kids doing things, drawing, panting, singing, screaming, running, being happy, going home to take something to eat and then coming back to continue their job, the job we gave them for a while; seeing the people coming to ask us why we were there; seeing how they still believed there was something that can be done…. All this things make me believe that yes!!!! Something can be done… even though my experience says that who always wins the battle is the more powerful one… Sulukule community is telling me that something can be done… things can de changed… cities can be just… And now, I want to believe in this stuff… at least for a while… 4:15 p.m. almost time to go “home”… I mean to the hotel J… we have a meeting at 5 with Michael to discuss the “visioning” I think we don’t have anything yet… we have to go to the café where Iyad will pick me up… because I can’t go back by myself… ok, part of the game… actually even better… cause I never know where I am :p We are leaving Sulukule… Tony, Gokce and me… but my friend comes faster to tell me something… I couldn’t understand… again ask Gokce to translate it… (the language is such a huge obstacle!). My friend said again that he wants me to go with him for a walk… now I have time… I don’t know where I’m going… he is all the time talking to me… even if I don’t understand he doesn’t care… he is still talking to me… he took my hand to show me the way and finally I could understand something… he wants me to go to the park… he is such a cute boy! Now we are in the park playing in the slide… well, I know I said the same thing more than once… but everything is so amazing… after the park we went to the café… I was supposed to be there at 4:30. In our way to the café he wanted to go by one of the roads that Memduh told us to avoid because it was a private street. I was a little scared to go that way because I didn’t want to do something that makes them feel uncomfortable… I’m trying to explain to my friend that I can’t go there… but, it seems that everything is ok. An old man makes me understand that it will fine so we went down the street. In the middle of the street Murat showed me another way that goes to open space next to the café… And I finally got there… I said good bye to everyone and started to be ready to the following visioning discussion…. 7:00 p.m. such a long day!!… and there is still a lot of things to do… and I have a terrible headache… but it is fine because the meeting with Michael gave us clear ideas about the visioning… now we only need to have something ready for 10 pm, the time of our last meeting of this busy day! I have to go work… but I think I need to take a nap first… :p 8:00 p.m. I slept for one hour and I still have headache… but we are in panic because we have to produce something in less than two hours… 10:00 p.m. the last general meeting at least for today… I couldn’t believe that we would do something good… but it seemed that our work had coherence… at least… we already finished the meeting but there are still a lot of things to do for tomorrow’s presentation... noooooohhhhh!!!!!!! ncv

8th Day- meetings, meetings, meetings

Today was the day of meetings. We meet with everyone, professors, lawyers, a chief (of fatih municipality), ngos, and after all that we have to meet with ourselves. About 10hours of meetings today. Now we must organize ourselves enough to make sense of it all. Our project, as michael states, "takes place in a complex, controversial, and contested situation". We don't know who is telling the truth. The answers all contradict one another. It's going to be difficult to propose something, but I am definitely sure we can come up with something better than the municipality's masterplan. Although they claim their main objective is to conserve cultural heritage, should their aim not be to provide a place that would allow the most number of romani to stay? Why are they not focusing on ways in which they may sustain, but also develop their cultural heritage? We are questioning how much their heritage is valued since it seems that this masterplan is pushing most of them out of the area they have resided in for centuries...-meghna

9th Day, 8th of May

After a week of very intensive work we deserved an easy day! So we got it! (don't you dare to think it wasn't well deserved!)
Today everybody woke up between 9 and 1o. We slept 1 hour and a half longer than the other days and it made such a big difference!! It's increadible! Everybody woke up happy today! :)
It was a lovely day here in Istanbul. Blue skies and perfect weather! We worked in the morning until noon. After the meeting yesterday night we divided ourselves in groups to prepare for the presentation due on Thursday and for the workshops in Sulukule. It's only an interim presentation but we have to be very organised so we know what we have to do next week (Oh my God we only have 10 days to finish the project! ).
At 12 we met in the hall of the hotel to go to the 'French Sltreet' of Istanbul. Just like most of the streets in Istanbul, Cezayir Sokagi is on a very steep hill. It is just off Istiklal Caddesi (a very busy commercial st where many pedestrians, a small tram and cars devide the space).
This street used to have Roma people as residents but it was transformed into this French style st with a lot of restaurants on the ground floor and residential flats on upper floors. The area is very charming and I have to say that the hill makes it even more interesting.

It seems that a group of French developers decided to rehabilitate the area that was quite run down. So they refurbished the buildings and added a landscape design. It looks like a perfect place to go for drinks after work or for a quick lunch, especially when the weather is nice.

There was only a problem: the prices are very high what explains why the restaurants were empty....Maybe if there were some shops there it would attract more visitors.....well, I still liked it. Natalia, Iyad, Mi, Sara, Cassidy, Michael and me had some food in one of the restaurants of Cezayr (Mi had a huge ice cream!). Meghna, Su, Lantana and Ioannis went to have a pizza somewhere else.

After the meal, Tonito and Cassidy went to Sulukule. Cassidy met Hacer (from the ALA) there and they both visited some houses in the area to try to find out how many people live in each house/room and under what conditions. They found out that some people share a room of less than 20 m2 with 5 or more people. They hardly have any furniture.

Tony met Gokce and both of them went to talk to some people to decide what would be the best place to have the workshop (model making).

The rest of the group walked down on Istaklal back to the hotel. We were checking some shops without buying anything. We still have 2 weeks to go and the drinks at night are tightening the budget for our 3,5 days holidays before we go back to London :)

Back in the hotel, we had to get back to work. It wasn't an easy task...the city and the weather were teasing us to stay outside. There is so much of Istanbul to see!! There's so much of Turkey yet to be discovered.....why can't we work for 3,5 and travel for the remaining 18 days?? Well, I guess we can't have everything....-renata

7th Day , 6th May 2007. Sunday Wedding in spring time

Ohh my god , it’s not only 10:00 am in the morning, but also the internal meeting started (the lucky person among us who managed to steal 5 hours last night to sleep). The Project Framework became clear more and more each day…… the objective of our project, vision, data collection, formulating proposals, and ours final product : the future image of Sulukule. Ohh we still have to fill these nice notions. It seems that the agenda had more than that ….. Our activities for the next week, the most exiting one that has been discussed was the idea of participatory workshops with local community about their needs and aspirations for the area where they have lived for centuries. Moreover some technicality had to be discussed : meetings…. Presentations… logistics. Oh god its endless cycle of work where each activity could lead to new project . I thought after 4-hour meeting and formulating ideas, concepts and preparation … that we will not have energy to do anything else.



Yes, its there in the fourth, fifth whatever floor (what I can remember that we climbed endless staircase). Just 20 meters up the hill from our hotel, one of the most amazing panoramic views (on the roof of one of the splendid old buildings of Istanbul) over the Bosphorus & Golden horn….The whole history of Istanbul was floating and was reflected over the Bosphorus: Sultan Ahmet Area with Its Monuments: Topkapi , Heja Sophia, blue mosque….. the Asian side of Istanbul with its hill melting gradually in the water of phosphor , sneaking underneath the water of Bosphorus then again exit the water to articulate the European side (and vise versa). It seems that nature find its way to communicate before humans invented their own “bridges”. I can’t say more than , each time you visit Istanbul you will find million of possibilities to see Istanbul from new perspective.

Time to go Sulukule, to participate in the activity day ( we were invited to attend one of the activity of 40 days/ 40 nights). a lot of music, children, Romani performing to celebrate their heritage and culture with Istanbul …..no actually with the whole world. In a convoy of four taxies we traveled from the hotel to Sulukule, you can consider your self lucky if you had the opportunity to see Istanbul from two different perspectives, but I think we got three at the same day. It is Sunday , the Galata bridge is full of People whose fancy fishing , but what was more interesting to see is the parks along side the water full of peoples apparently they came from all over Istanbul to enjoy the nice weather, sun , water and for sure don’t miss the barbeque . Children playing, chasing each others or helping their mom to prepare the food. amazing how people give meaning to the spaces. The smell of the barbeque was nice …. Ah I miss spring Picnics ,,, I miss you Palestine.

Sulukule, Sulukule : was their everywhere : on drawings , shirts , and each corner of the place . you can see the success of the activity in the face of the children , women and men. What amazed me wasn’t the activity that took place, but the changing of space’s meaning. I remember seeing this empty plot of land from London, Amaizing how technology can help you in discovering the world!!! But this time the open space become place where Byram , Omar , Rajab , Amro , Ali …… Zeinab playing and exploring the world , asking ( in English) us about our name , nationality , religion ……. Oh good the world seemed wide and very diverse for them and us at this moment ( but the best part for them is still Nigeria). The space turn to be theatre in one hour, you need small tour to starting from the main street penetrating children’s minds and aspirations that have been hanged in the walls. Heading the café you have to listen to 10 stories and smiling to 50 others. Grapping a cup of Chai , suddenly you will find yourself in the middle of wedding , the drum player, dancers, violin player…. every body was celebrating, but where is the bride and the groom?


Behind small metal door in a brick wall near the café, Same wedding continued and took place. Preparation for the musical night: installing the wooden stage, electricity cables everywhere and speakers … etc. But deep look to the surrounding you can see the whole community is their, children of coarse everywhere. Men are forming their own groups in strategic location and engaging occasionally to talk to the visitors. A Women sitting on balcony, other women looking , watching and chatting. handsome young men and beautiful young women here and their engaging with others by short talks , responds or even by fast noisy cars ride .After long preparation the music started to play , the lyrics were in language that we couldn’t understand but the music language was universal and clear full of love, happiness and hope.

The main actors were the bride and the groom : the children. Byram war trying to use his basic knowledge to communicate with us, but suddenly he became official translator ( Senin adimiz ne?). More and more he become commentator and talking about political issues like Iraq and Palestine and South Africa. Ali was talking about things I don’t know but he mention Shish Kebab, oh thank you for the ice cream that u gave me it was enough . and the A’shora with cinnamon is perfect as well.

Toni, your colleagues from London ( The Budd Students ) waiting for your offer to include them in your football team that you are busy to prepare for 2010 world cup in South Africa. Iyad Issa

6th Day- Sightseeing

Saturday 5th May, 2007


Today was our day off, or at least it was supposed to be.
After a late start at 10:30 a.m. (for the first time in a whole week!! Oh THANK GOD) we set off for the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sofia (typical tourists for the first time).

Off to the Blue Mosque first: with its lovely gardens. Unfortunately we couldn't go past the inner courtyard, because prayers had begun so we decided to go across to the Hagia Sofia, which is just about 500m away from the Blue Mosque (actually it's directly opposite, in a straight line!!!).

Just enough space to get a group of 6 architects, an engineer, surveyor and geographer separated for over 30 minutes (people, the fact that there was a crowd there doesn't count).

The Hagia Sofia was just as lovely and quite grand, with one chandelier as big as my room back in London. Exquisite mosaics, intricately worked marble and brass fittings I could go on and on.
After this the group split up and Michael, Iyad, Tony, Renata, Natalia, Ioannis, Mi and I left for the Topkapi Palace while Sara, Meghna and Suzaini went to the bazaar.

For about two hours we went on tour of the palace and dined in style on the Konyali Restaurant balconey overlooking the Bosphorus.


No rest for the development practitioner, indeed. We reconvened at 8:30 for more work and:

refined our project objective and methodology, assigned tasks to different members and made a timeline for the proposed activities.


photos will come on later















Lantana

5th Day - Mapping Sulukule

A really exhausting but productive day.

On arriving at the cafe in Sulukule with Ahmet (our colleague in ITU) at around 12:30, we just came across a band of well-dressed local musicians who were about to play music on TV Station.

Another activity taking place then was that men were expected to go to the mosque to pray at 13:00 every Friday, when everything takes time out. But it is not necessary for women to go.

At the cafe, with the help of the man with a broken arm, we defined the boundaries of Sulukule, which is much more focusing than that of the municipality project. Later, our walk and observation around this area proved that it is so different inside and outside Sulukule boundaries in terms of built morphology, street pattern and sense of community, etc: the streets are the core of their communal life full of interaction of the neighbourhood, which on the other hand does not exist outside the boundaries.

At 13:00 when the pray was beginning, we set out from the cafe walking round and observing this area. Several layers including built area, open spaces, circultation and activities taking place on the stages, etc, were allocated to us five respectively. Some of the buildings have been sold to the municipality; some looked fairly derelict and dangerous; and others, both houses and low-rise flats, were occupied by local Roma residents who conveys a strong sense of community as well as anti-demolition. Open spaces are for their communal life such as playing football. The big open space with some Romani squatters on the edge outside of Sulukule boundaries, which is always empty but used as their market, is now partly parked by the trucks of the municipality. Basic infrastructures are provided in Sulukule, and schools and hospitals are located near the area. The pedestrian communicative environment is never destroyed by cars. Everything here looks natural.

Our lunch was very delicious, which is a traditional Turkish food called Kofti, at the cafe. After that, we continued to complete mapping other parts of Sulukule and then turned to the wall. The man with a broken arm was really kind, who chatted with us like old friends very freely. We got to know more uniqueness about Sulukule and picked up more Turkish words from him. At the highway side of the wall, we found there was no interaction on the other side of the wall, although on Sulukule side there were lots. A man was keeping horses on the wall; a woman was picking grasses; and boys were flying kites...But the horses we saw were really thin...sigh...

Back to the hotel, we gave each other feedback of our group works. Firstly, the panel discussion told us, "for some people music is part of life; but for Roma people music is life". Though the experience in Balat showed a negative perspective, there are great potential to be imprived and to be taken advantage of in Sulukule. And our group also shared our mapping field work with others.

After almost one-week struggle, a master framework with detailed infillings are on the way, as well as a series of unsolved problems, methodologies, priorites, and particular tasks...

Just before the coming of the work, tomorrow will be off for rest and fun. Expecting...

- mi

4th day-Exploring the areas Fener & Balat and visit at mpc

morning 9.30, we met at Istanbul Technical University and we had discussion with an Ngo's representative about our plans to develop some workshops that can promote a participatory process.

10.30, meeting as a group with a Phd student (Mehmet) of ITU and visits at the areas of Fener and Balat. We found out that few Gypsies live in these areas. They have been pushed out as the could not afford the high prizes of the houses after many restorations projects that have taken place there. There are actually many interestings historical buildings in both of these areas and they are of the most beautiful areas in Istanbul. Some dpu students stayed in ITU developing the process and the objectives in depth based on the information we collected during the 3 days before.

14.15, preparation of questionnaire for the Instabul Metropolitan Unit.

16.oo, visit at Instabul Metropolitan Unit that is responsible for the masterplan and the urban design projects in historical city of Instabul. There were 15 different departments promoting different activities and plans.

18.00, dinner at Gunez Restauran on Istikal Street. Discussing and sharing information.

ioannis

3rd day

im sure everyone agrees when we started still feeling exhausted from the first 2 days, havent really got to properly rest.

but despite that, we all bucked up and pull ourselves out of bed to get going to ITU approx 840am. the weather was rainy and wet the whole day. different from the 2 sunny days we were fortunate to experience prior. tough luck! heheh.

ok, got to ITU and conducted task force description, deriving from the task forces that was conjured the day before. due to the weather being wet, we spent the morning session in ITU, gathering data, discussing, lunch-ing, coffee-ing, and chit chatting with few Turkish students that would probably be working with us for this project (just our luck that they seem interested in Sulukule, yay!)

as the afternoon progressed, we separated into 2 teams, going to 2 separate venues : the Wall investigation (with 2 other ITU students, by CAR, lol!), and the NGO meeting.

the wall investigation was so much fun! eventho it was wet and rainy, the wall is just spectacular and impressive, soooo grand! took alot of pretty pictures! (from inside the craziness of the car driven by ahmet, lol! and from ontop of the wall). data gathered just from one visit - walls incorporated with modern function; housing, hotel, commercial - fancy green parks along the bank, which is across the highway with no proper accessibility to pedestrian is just silly - and also the mafia could be involved in growing vegetables, who would have thought noh? lol!)

we met again to regroup and discuss the day's events. so from the NGO meeting, the group had collected alot of information concerning the Sulukule area and of the development project. (more and more talking .... we talk soooo much, its never ending!!!!!)

the heavy task of analysis all the info, daily info, mind u! and more loooong-discussion sessions! lol! sigh ....

anyways, its all good and fun, good learning experience. everyone seems to be positive abt the project. we all have a common goal, which helps from not ripping each other's tongues apart. this group has alot of patience. both, the students and the professors. group dynamic they say!

so, now it is 1145pm, will try to get more rest, scheduled for a very loooooong day tmrw. sigh ... hope the sun will come out and play, but according to BBC, not gona happen. sigh .... ;)

-suzaini zaid-

Day 2 in Istanbul

Well our second day didn't start in the best way (for me especially)... lol... We went grocery shopping yesterday for the basics like milk, bread, cereal etc. So this morning I woke up looking forward to my bowl of cerial, but when I had my first spoon (FULL on top of that) i realised that what was in the cereal was not MILK but something else, which was not meant to go with cereal... CONCLUSION: no breakfast:( But on the lighter side it was Iyad's birthday!!!! (more on that storyline later;))

(boys from Sulukule, the one in blue loved Natalia's drawings)

Plan for the day: Have discussion on yesterdays events at ITU then walking and travelling around Istanbul.

Anyway BUDD met at the cafe across the hotel ready to go to ITU to discuss the project. Walking down to the metro (or tunel, not sure) we saw loads of policemen at which point we remembered it was Labour Day and there was likely to be protests so the main sqaures (Taksim) were not the best place to head off to (on the way to ITU). Which meant we had to return to the cafe and have our discussion (and have some coffee).

The discussion was on our impressions of our day yesterday in Sulukule and our impressions of
the area. This was intersting as a lot of intial questions we had were answered the day before and thus were trying to connect all we learnt to possible options for development of Sulukule.

The objective of our discussion was to 1) Compile a vision for Sulukule (how we think Sulukule to look like in a couple of years) and 2)what mechanisms are needed to achieve that vision. Various tensions and contradicatories were discussed within the dimension of urban development... Social Cohesiveness VS Cultural Diversity, Internal Production VS External consumption of the Romani Culture etc... With some discussion we arrived at some themes for our vision of Sulukule.

After a long break we met again to discuss the issues related to information gathering and divided ourselves into teams to gather information tommorrow. Most of this discussion was on the details of the information needed, such as detailed questions (for interviews), maps needed etc. Although we did not discuss the plan for each group colectively (we will tommorrow), we did put in alot of work today which will be important to move to the next stage of the project... but it will be important to share each sub groups plan as this will avoid the problem of overlapping information and different sub groups going to actors with the same questions.

After finishing at about 7pm we rested for while before heading off to Iyadji's birthday dinner. We all had some goooooood food (Turkish kebabs and stuff) before singing happy birthday Iyadji and eating his birthday cake. After dinner some of BUDD went off for some drinks while went back to the hotel to see the Chelsea loose to Liverpool....

Tommorrow will be our first day of fieldwork, so there something to look forward to!!!

Tony

meeting istanbul and sulukule

We arrived last night around 11pm local time, slightly exhausted from the journey and lugging our suitcases up a very steep staircase. I am still sore. The city is full of inclines and stairs and we are all hoping we will be very fit by the end of our trip.

The city is very charming, friendly, and bustling. We are staying in a touristy area but it does not feel this way- perhaps its not tourist season. We were introduced to a few students and faculty of Istanbul Technical University. We gave them an overview of our research, interests, and methodology in regards to our project in Sulukule. Sulukule consis

ts of a Romani community which has existed for over 1000 years nearby the Istanbul Ancient Wall (UNESCO World Heritage Site). The residents, like many margi

nalized communities in urban areas today, are threatened by eviction. Many have been forced to sell their properties to make way for new Ottoman style housing developments. We have to do something about this.

We arrived to Sulukule with two students from the University who helped translate our questions. Initially the residents were apprehensive of our being there but I think our diverse group may have triggered some curiosity. We are all from different countries and not a very threatening looking bunch. We were invited to dance with some of the women and children who were quite fascinated by Lantana (our Nigerian colleague). When she did not respond to dancing to their mu

sic, they changed it to Missy Elliot. They were fun and hospitable. I wish I could speak to them and pick up some basic conversation at least. The homes were definitely dilapidated, but surprisingly in not as bad conditions I had imagined. We met Sukru the president of Sulukule Romany Culture Solidarity and Development and some local residents. We asked them about their community and the future prospects. From what we gather thus far, the community has strong social ties, wants to preserve their cultural heritage (dancing and music), would like to remain where they are, and have more negotiation power with the local municipality. Currently we are in the mist g

athering information and envisioning possible scenarios which could alleviate the situation. We hope to find a common ground where the city may respond to the rising land markets and preserve their cultural heritage-meghna