A Glimpse of Devastation

At 6.45 on Thursday morning I dragged myself from my cot to rendezvous with AKUT officers Aşkınay Tomanbay and Bircan Tolunay. Why they have to have such similar surnames I do not know. It just makes life difficult.

We were heading into the yayla or highlands above Manavgat, a town the other side of Antalya known for its waterfall. Now, for a while at any rate, it will be remembered for the 2021 fires that destroyed some 50,000 hectares of forest: an area twice the size of Southern England’s New Forest.

About ten lives were lost but many, many more were tragically affected. It is to raise money to help victims of this disaster that I and fifty of my fellow Turkish and Foreign residents will be swimming on Saturday 9th October this year.

Raising money is hard work but my experience has taught me that spending it is harder. That is why we are heading to the hills. To visit some of the people, see some of the damage and start deciding how to distribute the money that we will raise.

Bircan and Aşkınay know the damage from first hand experience. Two months ago they were there, treating the injured, running supplies, rescuing trapped people and animals. In one instance they even had to recover two incinerated bodies. But in any disaster, after an initial outpouring of support, the caravan moves on. However, real recovery takes an awful lot longer. We will be there for that second wave.

After reaching Manavgat and before heading up we met up with our guide Kanber. He is a volunteer with AFAD, an organisation established in 2009 to take necessary measures for effective emergency management and civil protection across the country. Unlike AKUT, it is funded by the Turkish government.

I took to Kanber straigtaway. Some people just give you a good feeling. Apparently there is a saying in Turkish “The party cannot start until Kanber arrives”. Neither Ash nor Bircan could explain the origin of the expression anymore than I can tell you why British people talk about somebody being a “Johnny come lately”.

What did Kanber or Johnny ever do to be thus immortalised?

Kanber is member of the Toros (Taurus mountains) Off Road Club. This group did a great job giving logistical support throughout the crisis days of the fire. Their help will be key in delivering the goods that we provide using the funds we raise from our swim.

Kanber told us that when the fires were raging, on a mission with three other volunteers to deliver equipment, he thought his time had come. He switched on his walkie talkie and sent his last message, saying that they were not going to make it out. They made it out by a miracle

One of the great and positive stories from this tragedy is the way that organisations, volunteers and villagers worked together, often without thought for themselves. It reflects really well on Turks’ spirit.

We reach the village of Yaylaalaan. Here there is normality. Turkish men are sitting drinking tea and playing Okey. When Hell freezes over, a few Turkish men will emerge to coax a flame and rustle up a glass of tea.

We sit, drink tea and talk to the Muhtar and other villagers. This part of the village with its beautiful, historic mosque has not been damaged. Afterwards, we drive on through a dead landscape that seems to go on for ever. As far as the eye can see are black trees on a scorched brown hillside. It brings to mind lines from T. S. Elliot’s The Waste Land

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. 

It was my new friend Kanber, whoever, who gave me the worst image of the day. He told me he will never forget the terrible sound of the tortoises screaming. The gentle, majestic tortoise that populates our mountains and lives upwards of 125 years. Thousands of them in unison screaming a piecingly high ululation. And now I cannot get that thought out of my head.

We arrive at a small settlement with another lovely mosque. Here there are the flattened remains of housing and AFAD have set up some trailer homes. Over the course of the day, I see many of these temporary homes. Often stuffed with plastic carrier bags containing the few possessions that villagers managed to rescue. Bircan dresses the foot of a young woman who has nasty looking burn injuries. I recall the Facebook video footage of desperate villagers in flip flops fighting fires with plastic bottles of water.

These villagers complain to us that they have received no help because their hamlet did not vote for the present Muhtar. Truckloads of furniture and equipment have been delivered to other parts of the mahalle but nothing for them.

It is an early warning of the difficulties that will confront us in arranging the fair and effective distribution of the help that is much needed. We hear stories of villagers exaggerating their losses and of people who have received compensation that is only a small percentage of what they lost. I am told that there is a dynamic in the Turkish culture whereby when aid there is an aid distribnution, everybody feels that they should have a share of it, irrespective of how they have actually been affected. Jealousies and resentments can abound.

I have no idea of the accuracy of all of this. I am outside my English Language Ex Pat Bubble. I am in the real, darker Turkey that most of us cannot see from the sun kissed pool terraces of our holiday villas. Our views are of fiery sunsets, blue hills, dappled pines and clear turquoise bays.

But I have learnt that anything can happen in Turkey: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Thank goodness I have Bircan, Aşkınay and Kanber. They seem to have a grasp and are entirely up for the challenge.

We press on for more miles through the blasted landscape. There is an encampment of people in tented structures by the side of the road. Ash  tells me that most of the pine trees will not recover from such an intense fire and huge numbers will be cleared and replanted. The Forestry Department uses itinerant workers from Adana for this work. They set up camps with their families, like the one we have just passed.

We pull in to investigate a ruined house where a shepherd lives with his daughter. Their herd of goats was lower down so escaped damage but their cottage is totally destroyed. They salvaged only a few bags of possessions now stored in a tent near their container home. A friendly goat entertains us.

Ash told me that villagers sometimes refused to leave their homes when the fire was threatening.

“This is all we have. If we lose it, we have nothing. What is the point of running”

I really want to help people like this to recover their lives. This shepherd knows no other life and wants no other life.

We drive on. Ash enlivens the ride by telling of how at such and such a point this and that happened; here he had been forced to turn back by the state of the road, there a firetruck from Ankara was nearly engulfed in a wall of flame before the Captain pulled them back in a desparate retreat. The city firefighters do not have the experience of those from the Orman Müdürlügü (Forestry Department). These are the men who are right on the front line, on foot and trying to hold back the advancing fury.

Our last call is the village of Sevinç where some 27 cottages were destroyed. Villagers here make their living harvesting leaves from the bay tree (defne), making carob molasses (harnup pekmezi) or keeping bees. They have lost their livelihoods. It is something we can help with.

The clusters of  metal containers are sorry looking substitutes for the stone and terracotta tiled cottages that once housed this hardy community.

The sun is going down and we head for our first and last meal of the day; köfte and piyaz and a glass of ayran. Food for thought!

All the money raised in this year’s swim including the money raised for our local AKUT branch is going to go to provide help and support for the people of the Manavgat yayla. Solving the issues of distribution and logistics will not be easy but Aşkınay and Bircan already have an embryonic plan.

Along with his fellow off roaders Kanber will be there. Because until Kanber arrives…

Help us make this happen https://fundrazr.com/e1rjfb?ref=ab_f7aAS7