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AUNTY ELIZ: "WE MOVED TO ISTANBUL FOR THE KIDS" (VIDEO)
Edik Baghdasaryan
http://hetq.am/eng/articles/1872/
12:40, June 6, 2011
Eliz is a woman from Saritagh, a Yerevan neighborhood, who moved to
Istanbul eleven odd years ago. She's a veritable "ball of fire".
Sitting on the sofa like a mother hen, she gathers up her disabled
brother's kids under her protective arms and tells me her story. Eliz
says she made the move to take care of her brother and his kids.
Eliz resembles a traditional Armenian grandmother; barking out orders
to those in the house. No one dares do anything without consulting
her first.
Hakob, her brother, needed an operation and the children had to be
fed and clothed. She says there were no options left but to move.
"My brother was disabled in a car accident. Hovo was one and a half
years-old, Elizik was two and a half and Zhanna was a year older. We
had no way of making a living back in Armenia. Eleven years ago, it
was impossible to find any living in Yerevan. You probably remember
how it was like. I worked and raised the kids. I wanted to give them
a good education but it didn't work out," Eliz recounted.
Eliz is a woman in her mid-forties. Five days a week she cleans the
home of her Turkish employer. She also serves as a nanny. She's been
working for the same family for the past seven years.
Eliz sleeps over at the house and returns home on Friday night. She
told me her employer is the editor at some Turkish newspaper but
didn't wish to say more.
As I said, Eliz is a bundle of energy, but I detected a morose side
to her as well. She appeared worn-out inside from her work and life
in Turkey. It was something in her eyes.
During our conversation she said, "Please help to get my brother's
house back."
Eliz's seventy year-old mother is blind and resides in Yerevan along
with her brother's other daughter.
Eliz's older brother had been renting for twenty years before returning
to the family home. It was impossible for all of them to live together
in that 54 square meter house.
The two brothers wound up suing each other in the courts. Hakob was
left high and dry and soon became despondent. Life had ceased to have
any meaning for him.
"In a word, they were thrown out due to the decision of the court. So
I brought them here to Istanbul," says Eliz.
Trying to shed a little humor on the subject, Eliz told me to write
down her life story. "I'll translate it into Turkish. We'll publish
a book and get rich," she chuckled.
"No matter, just as long as the kids are OK. I'm a victim of my own
destiny. It's my fault and the fault of the government back in Armenia
that my Hovo serves tea in an Istanbul cafe. At least Zhanna works in
a textile factory and is learning to sew. She can return to Armenia
and find a job. But what about the boy?" Eliz asked.
Then, as if I was an official representative from Armenia, she
bellowed, "We want our homeland. We want the government to take care
of us. Sick people shouldn't be thrown out on the streets."
One evening, at around 9, I followed twelve year-old Hovik home from
his job at the cafe. There was another Armenian, a jeweler, escorting
us. I asked the man to find the boy another job; so that he would no
longer have to serve tea for his Kurdish boss. The jeweler promised
me that he would teach the boy the trade.
"I make about 100 Turkish Lira ($70) a week. What's hard is being on
my feet all day. You can't take a moment to sit down. The customers
want their tea. My junior boss really is a chatterbox who gives me
a headache, always saying I did this or that wrong," Hovik told me
afterwards at home.
The boy used to attend P.S. 167 in Yerevan. He said he had many
friends there whom he misses a lot. When Hovik's father asked the
boy what he wanted to be as a child, his answer was "a soldier".
Zhanna, Hovik's fourteen year-old sister, was uncomfortable and
said nothing at our first meeting. During our next conversation,
she confessed that she always aspired to be a painter. Her work was
displayed in the Yerevan school she was attended.
"When I was younger I wanted to become a painter but now who knows?"
Zhanna confided. She makes around 50 Lira ($30) a week at work. The
teenager leaves for work at eight in the morning and returns at nine.
"We sew dresses and blouses and attach buttons. I mostly work with
Turkish and Kurdish children. There aren't other Armenians at the
factory."
Aunt Eliz tried to get Zhanna enrolled at a painter's club but one
has to be a Turkish citizen.
"All four of us work here and get by somehow. The kids are little
dolls. I have to keep my eyes on them amidst all these Turks. I don't
know whether to stay or go back to Yerevan. God willing, we can save up
enough to buy a small place back home in order to return," Eliz says.
Hakob's wife also works as a house cleaner five days a week. He used
to receive a 10,000 AMD disability pension in Armenia.
His wife used to work at the Rossiya marketplace as a floorsweeper.
She made 30,000 AMD per month.
"The family income was 40,000. You do the math. That's 8,000 per
person. Deduct all the utility payments and what's left is just enough
for a loaf of bread every day. You ask why we moved here, so I'll
tell you. It was for the children. It was a tough decision. There was
no alternative," says Hakob. "It's like a prison here sitting inside
all day. At least in Yerevan I'd get around. There's no place to go
to here."
Edik Baghdasaryan
http://hetq.am/eng/articles/1872/
12:40, June 6, 2011
Eliz is a woman from Saritagh, a Yerevan neighborhood, who moved to
Istanbul eleven odd years ago. She's a veritable "ball of fire".
Sitting on the sofa like a mother hen, she gathers up her disabled
brother's kids under her protective arms and tells me her story. Eliz
says she made the move to take care of her brother and his kids.
Eliz resembles a traditional Armenian grandmother; barking out orders
to those in the house. No one dares do anything without consulting
her first.
Hakob, her brother, needed an operation and the children had to be
fed and clothed. She says there were no options left but to move.
"My brother was disabled in a car accident. Hovo was one and a half
years-old, Elizik was two and a half and Zhanna was a year older. We
had no way of making a living back in Armenia. Eleven years ago, it
was impossible to find any living in Yerevan. You probably remember
how it was like. I worked and raised the kids. I wanted to give them
a good education but it didn't work out," Eliz recounted.
Eliz is a woman in her mid-forties. Five days a week she cleans the
home of her Turkish employer. She also serves as a nanny. She's been
working for the same family for the past seven years.
Eliz sleeps over at the house and returns home on Friday night. She
told me her employer is the editor at some Turkish newspaper but
didn't wish to say more.
As I said, Eliz is a bundle of energy, but I detected a morose side
to her as well. She appeared worn-out inside from her work and life
in Turkey. It was something in her eyes.
During our conversation she said, "Please help to get my brother's
house back."
Eliz's seventy year-old mother is blind and resides in Yerevan along
with her brother's other daughter.
Eliz's older brother had been renting for twenty years before returning
to the family home. It was impossible for all of them to live together
in that 54 square meter house.
The two brothers wound up suing each other in the courts. Hakob was
left high and dry and soon became despondent. Life had ceased to have
any meaning for him.
"In a word, they were thrown out due to the decision of the court. So
I brought them here to Istanbul," says Eliz.
Trying to shed a little humor on the subject, Eliz told me to write
down her life story. "I'll translate it into Turkish. We'll publish
a book and get rich," she chuckled.
"No matter, just as long as the kids are OK. I'm a victim of my own
destiny. It's my fault and the fault of the government back in Armenia
that my Hovo serves tea in an Istanbul cafe. At least Zhanna works in
a textile factory and is learning to sew. She can return to Armenia
and find a job. But what about the boy?" Eliz asked.
Then, as if I was an official representative from Armenia, she
bellowed, "We want our homeland. We want the government to take care
of us. Sick people shouldn't be thrown out on the streets."
One evening, at around 9, I followed twelve year-old Hovik home from
his job at the cafe. There was another Armenian, a jeweler, escorting
us. I asked the man to find the boy another job; so that he would no
longer have to serve tea for his Kurdish boss. The jeweler promised
me that he would teach the boy the trade.
"I make about 100 Turkish Lira ($70) a week. What's hard is being on
my feet all day. You can't take a moment to sit down. The customers
want their tea. My junior boss really is a chatterbox who gives me
a headache, always saying I did this or that wrong," Hovik told me
afterwards at home.
The boy used to attend P.S. 167 in Yerevan. He said he had many
friends there whom he misses a lot. When Hovik's father asked the
boy what he wanted to be as a child, his answer was "a soldier".
Zhanna, Hovik's fourteen year-old sister, was uncomfortable and
said nothing at our first meeting. During our next conversation,
she confessed that she always aspired to be a painter. Her work was
displayed in the Yerevan school she was attended.
"When I was younger I wanted to become a painter but now who knows?"
Zhanna confided. She makes around 50 Lira ($30) a week at work. The
teenager leaves for work at eight in the morning and returns at nine.
"We sew dresses and blouses and attach buttons. I mostly work with
Turkish and Kurdish children. There aren't other Armenians at the
factory."
Aunt Eliz tried to get Zhanna enrolled at a painter's club but one
has to be a Turkish citizen.
"All four of us work here and get by somehow. The kids are little
dolls. I have to keep my eyes on them amidst all these Turks. I don't
know whether to stay or go back to Yerevan. God willing, we can save up
enough to buy a small place back home in order to return," Eliz says.
Hakob's wife also works as a house cleaner five days a week. He used
to receive a 10,000 AMD disability pension in Armenia.
His wife used to work at the Rossiya marketplace as a floorsweeper.
She made 30,000 AMD per month.
"The family income was 40,000. You do the math. That's 8,000 per
person. Deduct all the utility payments and what's left is just enough
for a loaf of bread every day. You ask why we moved here, so I'll
tell you. It was for the children. It was a tough decision. There was
no alternative," says Hakob. "It's like a prison here sitting inside
all day. At least in Yerevan I'd get around. There's no place to go
to here."