martes, 2 de marzo de 2010

An Emigrant Story


Mehmet Kar. He is an emigrant. Last week we met in a restaurant. He is the member of our project. We both ate our fish and spoke about his emigration to Turkey. He is 53 years old. He was born in Macedonia, in Skopje. He emigrated to Turkey with his family. He has double identity. After Ottoman Empire lost her domination over Macedonia, they decided to move to Turkey. His father was soldier in the Macedonian Army, in the socialist party’s Tito’s era. They were rich, they had plenty of fields. Why did you emigrate? I asked, at the same time I saw a big amount of water tumbled from his eyes.
“This is too difficult Ayşe” he replied. “
We have lost our family, relatives, friends. Maybe I cannot remember easily but my parents remember.
“What did you do after coming to Turkey?” I asked.


“We had nothing” he replied.
Turkish goverment showed a place to them at the east parts of Turkey. They rejected. They settled in Yalova. They were poor but they worked hard. The society was different, culture was different.
“I could not studied.” He told.
His biggest ambition was educated himself and we participated Turkish Faundation for Combating Soil Erosion, for Reforestation and the Protection of Natural Habitats. He educates himself about nature. He substantiates his ambitions in education and also I learn lots of things about nature with him.

3 comentarios:

Pedro Cantero dijo...

Dear Ayse
Thank you for your interesting article. Its really emotive to know the stories of many inmigrants. And, specially I think that you are right in your last words: we can leaarn many, many things of them. Perhaps many more things that we can offer them. Its one of the best experiences of without barriers

Cherif dijo...

This is a strong story. I was not there, but I can fell that it was difficult for him to go in some details about his immigration process. He expressed a lot of feelings during the interview. There is allways a lot of feeelings connected to an imigration process. Somtimes you miss people and things, somtimes you feel angry or desapointed and somtimes you have hope and happiness for your new life. For a successfull integration in a new socity, it's important to controll all these fellings in a positive way and focus on the opportunities that the new country offers.

GRETA Chalon-Louhans dijo...

Dear Ayse,
I'm sure this meeting with this man was a very enriching and moving experience. With the united garden, I work with an immigrant of Madagascar. I helped him to write his curriculum vitae and it was very hard to him to speak about his past.