Sat May 7: Mor Yakup-Midyat-Salah
Again a regular day. The bus leaves with Jan, Tom, Juhee, one of the nuns and Sefer, the teacher of the
students at the monastery, for a walk in the mountains to visit some abandoned monasteries.
This was for all who joined an experience; we were stunned by the stamina of the nun. It was a
pilgrimage for the nun and Sefer.
The Suryoye buried their death inside the church and not at the graveyard. The ones that went on this
trip did experience a little the importance of the monasteries for the Suryoye in Tur Abdin. Sefer came from İstanbul, he use to be a goldsmith, the profession of a lot of Suryoye in Midyat and
also in İstanbul and abroad. He had his own shop in Izmir but sold everything to convert his life to
religion. He was a very kind to the students and would leave the same day as us to continue for Damascus to be at the service of the Patriarch of the Suryoye.
In the evening again a birthday dinner, this time of Bruno.
When we arrived in the monastery, one of the monks was sitting outside with some helpers from the
village, enjoying the evening. For us it was a nice coincidence because there was a birthday cake and
one of the boys (Daniel) who was staying at the monastery has also his birthday.
The monk told us, that they don’t celebrate their birthday and a birthday party was something he had
not had since long.
Also the Kurdish helpers had experience abroad, this time Germany, but were also not lucky and send
back to Salah. Some of them, as a boy in the village told us, had lost everything by trying to find
their luck abroad. The last Suryoye in Salah told us that also the Suryoye lost their property in
Salah to be able to pay for the visa and travel to exile.