Fréderike Geerdink - independent journalist

Aferin, aferin!

21/12/2007/0 Comments/in Other /by fgeerdink

Grandmother tosses a piece of meat towards me. Plop! About one and a half kilos I suppose, with quite a lot of fat on one side. I put the knife on the meat at an angle. First I want to get rid of this fat. With an arching motion I throw it into a bucket. The rest of the meat I cut into small pieces.

Yesterday this cow was in the shed bleating its last bleats. Until the butcher came. A moment later blood streamed through the snow and plastic boxes were filled with organs, legs, slabs of blubber, the head. Mother and daughter were helping. They tore apart legs, carried away parts of the animal, sharpened knives and the axe.

This morning I found the beast on the kitchen floor and soon after that grandmother, mother and daughter were sitting on the floor around a round table to cut and chop the enormous cow parts. I would like to help, I say. That’s not necessary, mother says, and by the way, it’s rather difficult. True, cutting a rib cage or rump or leg into pieces, that might be too much for me, but in the meantime grandmother cuts big chunks of meat into small pieces. In my best Turkish I say: ‘Those small pieces I can do, shall I give it a try?’ They make room, I sit down cross legged, take a big knife. The box between grandmother and me is soon filled. These smaller pieces are for the family, the bigger pieces are distributed to poorer families in the village, just as tradition dictates.

I cut meat like never before. Around me pieces of rib cage, legs, shanks, a bucket of greasy offal, a box of scraps for the dog, and my foot gradually feeling wet from a small pool of blood. Grandmother is enthusiastic about my work. Aferin, aferin! (bravo, bravo!), she says again and again. A pan is put on the stove, the first load is prepared for dinner tonight. But then I don’t touch the meat. I’m still a vegetarian.

A wonderful show

19/12/2007/0 Comments/in Other /by fgeerdink

Military action against the PKK in northern Iraq is intensifying. Several planes have bombed targets and the army says no civilians were killed. And once again, I’m amazed by the way some newspapers write about it. One applauded the ‘wonderful show’ in which the Turkish army showed how well equipped and trained they are. Well, they probably are, but ‘ a wonderful show’? Another one cheered something like ‘Yeah we gave them a beating’ on the front page. These sorts of things go against every rule of journalism I know. Where is the critical point of view? Where is at least the effort to be objective? This media show is not so wonderful…

A beautiful mahalle

14/12/2007/0 Comments/in Other /by fgeerdink

One thing I remember from the time I lived for two months in the Istanbul mahalle (neigbourhood) Kuzguncuk, is when my doorbell rang a few times and a man appeared to ask if ‘that car is yours and if so could you remove it?’. The man was maybe working for one of the film crews which quite often were on location in the mahalle. I saw funny things happen from behind my work desk, from where I had a nice view over a street and small square. One guy, for example, seemed to be hired just to walk around and pick up tiny bits of rubbish like cigarette butts, small scraps of paper and leaves off the street, with a bag in his hand. Once I didn’t know there was a crew working around the corner, and was at first frightened and then surprised when I saw one man running after another, then the men shouting at each other and eventually hugging – it was a soap opera being recorded.
I live in another neighbourhood now. It’s not at all interesting for filming – to begin with, the guy picking up rubbish from the street would need a whole team of colleagues here. Now I hear the people of Kuzguncuk are getting a bit sick of one film crew after another occupying their streets. They are gathering signatures now to urge the crews to at least follow some basic rules. One of them would be that they leave the streets as clean as they would like them for their own filming, as it appears they leave more and more rubbish after filming is finished! Someone even suggested the crews could contribute to a community chest from which community activities could be paid for. Very good, I support the Kuzguncuk neighbourhood. When you have a beautiful mahalle, you had better make the most of it!