Sun May 1: Mardin-Deyrulzafaran-Diyarbakır
Easter day. A bus of the DAC would pick us up at 11.00 to go to Diyarbakır. Some of us went to Mardin,
to visit the Easter mess in one of the churches, other stayed in the monastery to rest or explore the monastery.
The bishop of the monastery led the mess and the mess was in Turkish, Arabic and Aramaic (maybe also
Kurdish).
Demet Varli visit the ceremony with us and told us that the bishop was educated in Oxford and is a
open person that tries to support economical development in the Tur Abdin region.
The nomenclatura Mardin did attend the mess. That was why the church was surrounded by police escort.
The mess was a big social event of the Suryoye community and people were gathered in the garden-kind
of court yard for tea, sweets and eggs after the mess.
The reason for our visit to Diyarbakır was the opening of the exhibition ‘A Consumption of Justice’;
an exhibition in which our Bassam Al Khourri participated and we had to pick him up to come with us to Mardin.
Arriving at Diyarbakır was familiar, only... the streets were packed with policemen.
1st May = Labour Day and as we found out later, in the morning there were a lot of demonstrations
throughout Turkey.
The exhibition took place in two places: an exhibition space in the town hall and in the DAC.
Beral Madra held a speech, and we met some old friends.
We left almost immediately after the opening (with Bassam) because we had to be in time at the
monastery; it was a pity we could not join the artists of ‘A Consumption of Justice’ for dinner.
Passing by Mardin we bought the necessary thing for the evening and morning, and arrived at
Deyrulzafaran in time.
We did buy a cake for the monastery, and brother Johannes invited us for a farewell tea.