FATMA (KURDISTAN)
In July 2018, Alexia traveled to Hakkari with Kurdish singer Alî Tekbaș to meet his mother and some of the singers with whom Alî had studied and interviewed as part of his ongoing work to preserve and document the bardic Dengbêj tradition.
Hakkari is a small city nestled in the beautiful mountains near the Iraqi/Turkish border. After flying into the city of Van and driving three hours through setting sun and haunting mountain ranges, they arrived after dark at Ali's family home, a small apartment complex inhabited by the family. Shared by two of Alî’s brothers, one of his sisters, his mother, and his sibling’s families, the building has many units but feels like one big house. As the car pulled into the driveway, heads popped out of the various windows on each floor and people started calling Alî's name, welcoming him home. On the second floor, just beaming at us, was Fatma, Alî's mother.
Fatma has a warmth that fills the room, as generous with her love and affection to a stranger like Alexia as she was to her own son. As you enter the home you become one of her children.
Her openness and love present a stark contrast to the tragedy, loss and heartbreak she has endured in her life. In her efforts to protect her family from the violent war waged against the Kurds in Iraq by Saddam Hussein, Fatma and family had to flee Iraq as refugees on multiple occasions before eventually settling in Hakkari, Eastern Turkey, and making a life there.
Ali recently wrote this short piece about his mother:
“I was 27 when my mother told me this story.
My mother gave birth to 10 children in very difficult conditions.
I was very upset to hear of the struggles my mother suffered while she was pregnant with me.
On one of her many migrations between Iraq and Turkey, while she was pregnant with me, she wanted to throw herself and my three sisters into the river.
If my big sister had not convinced her not to jump in the river she would have done it.
Sometimes I thought that I was a burden for her. It was a very strange feeling.
Now I am alive and I feel her and I can hear her. I am sharing her thoughts, her feelings.”
Despite the trauma she endured, Fatma seems to have come out of it with a deep commitment to love and community. She is a woman of great passion, tenderness and warmth, embracing the people and the world around her with an infectious love.
