her turquoise eyes - between hawalli & istanbul

By tarik hamad

I live between two countries, each with its advantages and disadvantages, between Istanbul in Turkey to Hawalli governorate in Kuwait, and those stories that I lived between two different societies in land, language and weather, a love story of a girl whom I called her turquoise eyes, she had a beginning as well as an end, I wished it hadn't written.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781667121826

Book preview

Her turquoise eyes

Between Hawalli and Istanbul

Introduction

Since ancient times, human beings marry, and reproduce not only within their surroundings Socialist, but also from other societies, this is his mother is British, and that is his mother from Jordan, and this is the daughter of an American or Polish mother, and so on and in Kuwait there are many One of the stable families with a foreign housewife, who had married her Kuwaiti husband for years far away, some of them married Iraqi, Turkish, Armenian, or Kurdish since the forties, and some of them married Arab girls from other countries as well., and it still happens to this day. Fortunately, there is no influence on the culture of children whose mother is European  especially If she is a Christian, for example  whether or not she became a Muslim, and if so the majority of them declare their conversion to Islam, actual or figuratively, because the Kuwaiti society imposes a specific custom from the beginning, either this foreign wife accepts it, or decides that she is not ready to continue her marital life, which she considers boring, inappropriate, or not accustomed originally, there are many cases in which marital life did not last for more than three months, and the wife decides to leave her husband and return to her country; because she could not stand the habits and tradition, or the hot summer weather, which burns the bowels to evaporation. There are also foreign women who settled in their homes with their Kuwaiti husbands, to be an excellent housewife, challenging her many women relatives her husband, who blamed him a lot for what he did, such as saying, What prompted you to marry a stranger? Aren't your country girls better? Because they know your character, and you know their character?, to come to us this girl with blue eyes who knows nothing about our customs and is not even good at cooking us! As if all the married life for these people consists in preparing food! To show them This foreign girl has terrific energy in her home, and she even learns Kuwaiti cooking, and is more proficient than them sometimes. I heard many stories about which a foreign wife suffered from her husband's family, that they treated her as if she was ignorant and did not understand anything, or as an infidel who came from the country of the infidels.

To spoil their son and her children from him in the future, and ignite jealousy among the family girls because of this intruder; Let them look at her with looks of contempt, and some of them, of course, with looks of admiration; because she represented the woman who left everything behind for the sake of the one she loved. She endured everything from a harsh atmosphere, a society about which she knew nothing, or even a completely different language, which she did not know at the beginning, or after a period of time had passed since she learned the Kuwaiti dialect, which she speaks in loose letters, and does not distinguish between the masculine and the feminine She talks to men in the feminine form, or to women in the masculine form, or two in the feminine, and I do not hide that this is somewhat funny, but what is the fault of this poor woman? In fact it is a struggle that is okay, because she learns for her husband and her children, who seeks in full agreement with her husband, that she does not take them away from their original environment, as they are Kuwaitis. The good feature of this foreign woman is that she raises her children on her language as well, for example a child at the age of six speaks at least three languages, which is excellent in my opinion, languages and their learning are not free of charge, but their mothers have used their language for them for free. In order to raise her children with a new language that will be added to their curriculum vitae; so the children will be half Kuwaiti and half ……. etc.

Sometimes it happens between these two spouses who are different in blood, lineage, and country to be separated; or their children to live between the two countries of their parents, and the matter differs relatively from one family to another. The prevailing situation is that Kuwaiti children are attached to their country more than their mother’s country, so if they long for something that is not as much as their longing for their mother’s embrace, which is no longer among them today. And as soon as the end-of-year exams are over, the children will start packing their bags and are happy to meet their mother soon, and spend a few weeks or months with her, but all that was mentioned previously was not the general rule for half Kuwaiti children, rather that some of them did not see their mother again since they left because of their father’s fear from being attached to her and leaving him forever. In general, not only Kuwaitis marry foreigners, but the whole world does this, but society's conditions are different, and in Kuwait often no one pays much attention to this matter. As for me, I will mention here the life story of Tariq or Aiden! Who lived between Istanbul and Kuwait. Especially since childhood, and Turkey in general, and what are the agreements and social differences.

Between the two countries, and even within the same big country in all respects, the most important of which is love. Perhaps a novel of this kind will be unique in the Arab library, although I am also thinking that I will make it in the library of my second country, Turkey, with a copy in the Turkish language, my desire for the benefit of my loved ones, and my relatives there.

From here, the story begins from the Hawalli Governorate, which represents one of the six governorates of the State of Kuwait up to Turkey, and in Istanbul.

The author

Tariq Hamad

Kuwait in 1979

The beginning of the seventies was one of the most beautiful years that passed by my father, especially when his financial conditions recovered a lot, and he became one of the notables of the country, not out of nothing, but my grandfather left for him - before moving to the mercy of God - what helps him to start a project that he runs on good profits, but any project, regardless of the amount of money that you have, it needs wisdom and intelligence, and not to be swept away by the perils of this money, and that is what was characteristic of my intelligent father, as he formed wide relationships filled with intense respect for him by people in proportion to with the weight and wisdom of his mind, and his fear of God Almighty. He opened exhibitions and projects outside Kuwait based on his own look, or because he was planning something else. All his merchants were asking him why he invested his money outside Kuwait, especially in Europe, and opened factories in Turkey, including a dairy factory in the state of Risa , and a shoe factory in the state of Sakkara, as well as spinning and weaving factories, and factories for the manufacture of ready to wear between Istanbul and Urfa, and my father’s character, who is half Turkish from a Turkish mother from the state of Urfa , was the appointment of managers for these factories from his family, and by the way, they all speak Arabic fluently in a conversation only, but in the coastal Levantine dialect that puts the qaaf in its correct place with the pronunciation sharp for the letter, and clear, for example, I told you, Tariq, sit down.

The important thing  as I said he invested most of his money in Turkey, but in Kuwait he was limited to buying some real estate, some of which were registered in the name of my mother in honor of her, and as soon as I was born and raised by my Turkish grandmother, because my mother, who became an aristocratic woman, loves frequent visits to her friends , to show them the latest fashion trends, including clothes and jewelry, she did not have enough time for me, as for my father, he always travels for trade and work, and if he settled in Kuwait for days, I stay in his office and his contacts, despite all of that, my father loved me very much, and preferred me to any other thing in his life, and I used to comfort him with his many preoccupations, and I never complained about anything, because the hug of my tender grandmother, Aynor, was more important to me than anything else.

And if she is a strong woman, nervous and assertive in everything, and loves to follow etiquette, and principles even in clothing and cleanliness, as in the following dialogue as an example:

-Tariq, your nails are long, why didn't you cut them? Do you know that this is unacceptable? How do you pray and meet your God like this?

- Grandma, I forgot, please don't get angry, I'll cut it short

- No, no, bring me the clip, to do it to you.

Treat me with tenderness, and enjoy taking care of me to the utmost degree. We were a small family consisting of a widowed grandmother, and her son, who is my father, my mother, and just me , and after I reached the age of two, my father bought a very large villa in Istanbul in the Kerazli Tepe area, what I learned that the neighbors were all of the rich families that did not accept the neighborhood of anyone, as soon as they knew that my grandmother belongs to a family called Silahdar and they were from the class of great merchants until they welcomed the neighborhood happily, and the reason for that is that her father, called Bahaa al-Din Silahdar, was one of the well-known merchants in Istanbul and outside it, So my grandmother was the great agent to own this villa, which is considered a palace for the Turks, which is located in a neighborhood of palaces.

In Kuwait we also had a beautiful villa in the Jabriya area, which is located within the Hawalli governorate. My father bought it in 1978 when he got married directly to my mother.

My grandmother and my father used to live in a modest house in the area around me, and in al-Naqara in particular, which was originally my grandfather’s house - may God have mercy on him - so let's talk a little about this grandfather’s house. An almost normal house, but it is large, very clean, and tidy of course, and this is usually the Turkish women, my Turkish grandmother is good at arranging and is obsessed with cleanliness and styling things very professionally, and her neighbors were Armenians, and their children who were born in Kuwait, but they did not obtain Kuwaiti citizenship Of course, though the historical conflict and hatred between the Turks and the Armenians. However, her neighbor Paul's mother, was her close friend, and even resembled her in appearance, as if they were sisters, when I asked her  saying:

- My grandmother, Paul's mother is very similar to you, why is he close to you?

She responds with amazement, hiding a laughter trapped inside of her:

- No, she is Christian, and I am a Muslim, so how can she be my sister? You have to know, my son, that years, constant closeness, and love make your best friend on Like you.

This strange statement did not convince me one day, and perhaps she was trying to close the topic as an empty question! After my father married my mother, he bought our house, which is located in the Jabriya area, as I said earlier, and my father stipulated that my grandmother should live with them, because he is her only son, it is not permissible for him to leave her alone, and she agreed immediately. My grandmother did not abandon her friends after she moved from the old al-Naqra area, because they visit her a lot, and they are also visited.

In the beginning, my mother and grandmother's relationship was fine, and as soon as my mother lived a little with the situation, and I saw the daily visitors of her mother-in-law every morning drinking tea at her, my mother did not feel comfortable with the presence of daytime visitors in the house every day until she began to be bothered by this situation, and she decided to discuss m father about it; Let the following discussion take place:

- Nasser, can you talk to your mother about her visitors who are here every morning with their voices and loud laughs, and I can't sleep

- Glory be to God! Woman, you are on the second floor of a house whose area is seven hundred and fifty square meters, so how does the sound reach you?! Or do you just want to create problems with my mother? Close this topic, because my mother is alone during the day without them, please leave her alone!

- But, Nasser, I could not take it anymore, believe me.

- You discussed me now, and this is my response to you, and then do whatever you want. If you would be gracious, close the topic. My mother did not harm you, but treats you better than me.

Indeed, my mother closed the topic, and did not open it again at that time. During the first year of my young family's residence in the Jabriya area, I was born, in 1979; To start another problem between my grandmother and my mother, who will raise this boy? The quarrels began, the first objections being over mom's style in breastfeeding, my grandmother's refusal of formula milk, forcing my mother to breastfeed me breastfeeding, and my mother who was afraid of the negative effects of breastfeeding, which is the same problem that many women fear, which is sagging chest and body, and so on from the effects that may waste women's beauty and prestige in front of her peers.

My grandmother's family visited her in Kuwait from time to time, considering that their family relationship was not like other Turkish families, in which sometimes the brothers might be cut off from each other for some reason, either because the reason was due to distances between cities, or because of differences, or the desire for independence In particular, hardly any society is free of disagreements between relatives, and the family of my grandmother, Aynor, was in constant contact with her, and her brothers did not stop visiting her out of respect for the sacred bond of brotherhood between them, and considering that she is the elder sister between males and females, she is in their mother's place. As soon as I was born, my value became to the grandmother’s lover of the extent of her love for me, and here too the issue was in dispute between the grandmother and the mother who got too tired of this matter, even though our Turkish family did not visit us every day or every month except that my mother was not I endure them, not for one day of the year, and one of the things that bother my mother the most is being constantly on my grandmother's lap, I only support her legs.

From the character of the Turkish woman who sees herself what is called in the Turkish language Hamarat, meaning the Sunna lady in the Kuwaiti dialect, meaning the housekeeper of the same style, his details, and the vision of a maid with whom the name Hamarat shares, as for my mother, Amal designed with the utmost determination that Like other women in the country who are serviced by the maids, my mother used to find in herself that aristocratic lady, this principle is not in line with my grandmother's principles.

My father Nasser the always busy merchant father, who seeks comfort in his home after a hard day between meetings and tiring work; Upon his return, he collided with my mother's frowning face, and my grandmother, who revolted against him, said to him in her broken Kuwaiti accent!

- Nasser, listen, I am not inciting you with hope, but tell her not to bring her maid to my floor, and not to use my kitchen. If it is about making breast milk for Aiden (the name that she gave to my grandmother) then I am the one who will prepare it, is it not she who refuses breastfeeding? So leave it all to me, Glory be to God girls these days!

Nasser shook his head, restlessly, and said:

- Mama, please, there is no difference between you and Amal for taking care of Tariq.

- His name is Aiden, Nasir. You are the ones who called him Tariq, and I did not want this.

- Mom, we are in Kuwait and Aiden's name is not appropriate here. Have mercy on me, mom, please

In a firm tone, she says:

- What the problem of name Aiden Ha? Tell me! Aren't here among the strangest names? Aiden is the light from the sky.

- Okay, okay, mom, so what's next ... I'm tired?

- Tell your wife not to ask her maid for anything from the kitchen, just so she can tell me.

- As you like, mom, attend.

It's all funny, or comic. That's exactly what I mean, because the kitchen represents my grandmother's work that she loves, and its entry restriction is on the worker, so that it was equipped with a TV, and a small dining table to have breakfast on, and what he lacked for her to sleep in it! Her care for this kitchen made it one of the most beautiful home kitchens in the world in my opinion, the best food, and the most tidy, clean, and meticulous in the order she was attentive, and she knew if there was someone who entered her kitchen in her absence!

I was born in January of this year, and many comedic events took place during the months of the year that my mother conveyed to me later  regarding her anger towards my grandmother because of her behavior that expresses great love for her first grandchild, who does not speak to him except in the Turkish language only without Arabic, which was provoking my mother got angry, but my father soon caught up with the matter on his part, and I understood her that there was absolutely no harm in my grandmother speaking to me in Turkish, and my mother in Arabic.

My father was a political man with the utmost social intelligence, and he had an extraordinary ability to creatively contain various matters, and as soon as I reached the first year of my life, and it came to my first birthday, which my mother’s family attends, in addition to the Turkish Selahdar family of course, which my mother avoids sitting with them, or getting close. Even from them, the girls were close to my mother, considering that she was close to their age, but she did not like that proximity, and her behavior was not convincing, and so on every year.

My cousins from the family of Silahdar were very kind, and they loved the little Aiden as my grandmother called me who was provoking my mother, so she hurried, and called me Tariq, even if she did not want anything from me then! Was this called jealousy or something else?! Indeed, there was another thing, which is that she considered my grandmother's non-Arab family  as she says not commensurate with her social position, and she was too shy to let anyone know this wrong truth! Although they are many times more aristocratic than my mother and her family, perhaps the simple appearances that they are distinguished have had a negative effect on the eyes of my mother, who has never recognized that aristocracy, or that she thinks that they do not deserve it. Many Kuwaiti women at that time were turning to fashion and luxury of clothing, and the acquisition of international brands, in contrast to the very rich Silahdar family who, despite their richness, prefer only beautiful clothes and a good salary, and they do not pay attention to the triviality of things from brands, but they are very similar luxurious families who like to exaggerate their homes or palaces in a clearer and more precise sense. On my fifth birthday, which was crowded with children, some of them were older than me, and some of them the same age who gave me various gifts, and what I liked most of the gifts were those that were brought to me from Turkey and they were remote control cars connected by a cable; Since wire games had not appeared yet that year, the number of children attending was nearly thirty children, of whom twenty were Arabs, and ten children were Turkish relatives. In front of that childish vitality, they interacted with each other in the language of play and funny, beautiful signs. As for the mothers, they were divided in the salon: one side where Arab women sat, on the other side were Turkish women, and in one of the other corners were Arab and Turkish girls who could find English in one way or another, they would speak together, and if a word was missed I wanted to express something,  sign language takes the place of its pronunciation, how beautiful moments when two different societies overlapped, even if only slightly.

As for older women, avoid the other part. Because they were unable to understand with them, and vice versa, and if the ethnic reason was to dominate the matter, I was at this party very lively, and happy to the fullest degree, playing and talking with this and that, and I share with them what I have games, so they share happiness and innocence with me, and frankly I felt close Turkish children are more of me than Arabs - as I leaned toward them more - perhaps because of the integrated Turkish life that my grandmother Aynor put me in, and made me get used to it, even if she was in Kuwait.

All of my mother's relatives were jealous of a young man who was fluent in speaking Arabic and Turkish fluently. To change the speech with amazing speed from Arabic to Turkish with every call to it:

- Tariq, come here!

- Okay

Or in Turkish:

- Aiden, come here = Aydın gel burayan

- Wait = bekleyın

Some of my mother’s relatives started trying to lower my destiny with jealousy and envy, by saying that your son should not learn the language of these foreigners! (With great respect to the non-foreigners) However, they are not foreigners, but rather Turks, and here lies the ignorance of races. In Turkish, I wonder ?!

And if this is not the subject of our conversation, rather its place is to demean my fate in front of my mother, and her incitement to my grandmother Aynor, so their eyes did not show mercy to this half-Arab and half-Turkish child until my tongue stuttered; For an unknown reason, pronouncing became very difficult for me, until I became ashamed of speaking in front of anyone until I regained my self-confidence with time, and things returned to normal with the grace of God, then the legal spell that my grandmother reads and blows on every day, in addition to drinking water that is read on him, she forced me to drink it.

My birthday party has ended, and everyone in the audience left for it, and our home is as it was quiet, as if a storm of joy had just left it, that beautiful house in which I spent the most beautiful childhood memories and moments, I will not forget that big ballroom and the courtyards in which I play with my friends in our old house.

Istanbul for the first time

This city that I used to hear about during the tales of the past that my grandmother told me in the form of old tales, and the stories she used to tell me, from heritage and history, or about some myths, and about the Silahdar family, and her grandfather the Ottoman officer found it, and I felt it, and it expresses the missing for her city that she lived the last years of her life as a young girl before her marriage to my grandfather. In the correct sense, it is the city where their eyes first met, and they loved each other, in fact the birthplace of this storyteller grandmother is the state of Shanli Urfa or as some call its Urfa only. People there are impatient and do not like to prolong matters. My grandmother was born and raised until the age of twelve, then in the year 1950, she and her family moved from a father, a mother, her brother Muhammad and her sister Asma who were very young and before the birth the rest of her brothers went to Istanbul for the purpose of business.

Whereas her father, my grandfather, Bahaa Al-Din, was a famous merchant in the city, and after the emergence of the establishment of modern private companies at that time in Istanbul, he decided to transfer his business from the rural countryside to the vital big city, or the important commercial center in Turkey at the time; Because of its contact with Europe and Russia, as for the Arab countries, Syria was in the first place in dealing with Turkey.

Istanbul is the city that is considered a completely new starting point for the Silahdar family's commercial life, as they move from the countryside to the city center with large streets, many branching alleys, and the almost European life, and as my grandmother Aynor told me about the moment they arrived in Istanbul for the first time, reaching the port of Eminonu and their feeling of intense fear, and astonishment at the momentum of people, crowding, and the grandeur of the city, and the leader with this fear was her mother Rabaa, she did not get used to all this noise, and she did not see him with her eyes in her life until she was shocked by him for the first time in this place, and she began to cry and wail, as if she had lost a dear one, and it is very funny according to my grandmother's story that whenever she heard the voices of the sellers in the open market shouting loudly the words Come on, try by yourself were getting more and more crying.

Of course, the arrival of a strange family is evident from their accent, and their corny skin that they are from distant villages puts them under the people's gaze, especially since these eyes were more stimulated towards them because of Raba crying, which put Baha al-Din in an unenviable position with the passers who blamed him, because they believed that he treats her cruelly, and he was not spared from ridicule, some of them told him: Oh man, your wife is not used to the city, why did you not leave her there and come alone?!

At the time, Bahaa El-Din felt very angry after he tried to silence her in various ways to no avail, and it is known that the rural man is somewhat difficult to handle and nervous, and it is not possible for a fly to pass in front of him. They