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Bohjalian: A Little Hope amidst the Monastery Debris
By Chris Bohjalian on August 29, 2014
The other day I watched an eight-year-old boy named Ulash (pronounced
Oo-lush) spontaneously take a white plastic grocery bag and fill it
with potato chip wrappers, cigarette butts, and crushed plastic water
bottles.
Ulash (Photo by Victoria Blewer)
This was newsworthy not simply because small boys are not known for
their fastidiousness or their desire to make the world a cleaner
place.
This moment mattered to me because the boy was Kurdish and he was
cleaning the litter from the rubble of an ancient Armenian monastery
in south-central Turkey.
If you are reading this newspaper, of course, you know that most of
our church ruins in Turkey are littered with garbage. The monasteries
often have fire pits, where people have smoked or kept warm while
drinking. Sometimes the floors have been sledgehammered and the ground
dug up in search of gold.
One time, Khatchig Mouradian, for years the editor of this newspaper,
and George Aghjayan, a frequent contributor to the Weekly, found a
human skull--a monk most likely--that had been exhumed from a crypt and
left on the floor like a soccer ball.
Invariably there is toxic graffiti on the medieval walls.
But then there is a boy like Ulash and the sort of moment that can
give us all a little reason to smile.
It was another scorching hot August morning and a group of eight of us
had just arrived in Chunkush, a town on the road between Kharpert and
Diyarbakir that once had 10,000 Armenians and now has but one:
99-year-old Asiya, a hidden Armenian I wrote about last year for the
Washington Post. Asiya's mother had been present at the Dudan crevasse
when almost all of the Armenians had been slaughtered by Turkish
gendarmes and a Kurdish killing party in 1915. One of the Kurds pulled
Asiya's mother from the line at the edge of the ravine because he
thought she was pretty, and decided he'd marry her. And so she was
spared--one of the very few Armenians who were saved that cataclysmic
summer day 99 years ago.
The group picking up litter in the Armenian Monastery in Chunkush
(Photo by Eric Nazarian)
This morning we were back in Chunkush to visit Asiya. Four of us in
the group had met her in 2013 and four had not.
Prior to dropping by, however, we went to see the ruins of a medieval
Armenian monastery on the edge of the town. There we were met by
Asiya's son-in-law, Recai, who had first insisted we meet his
remarkable mother-in-law in 2013 and now was coordinating our second
visit.
All of us stood inside the sanctuary watching the light pour in
through the gaping holes in the walls. We surveyed the columns, looked
at the compasses on our cell phones to find east and confirm where the
altar had once stood, and tried not to step in the garbage that
covered the dirt and stones like fallen leaves in September.
Ulash and Khatchig Mouradian collecting garbage in the Monastery
(Photo by Eric Nazarian)
I'm honestly not sure who first reached down with his or her bare
hands and picked up a piece of garbage. But the first person I noticed
was Recai: He was plucking a once-white cigarette pack, now the color
of dirty snow, from the floor and looking around for a place to put
it.
Soon all of us were picking at the debris, doing what we could to
return a measure of dignity to this once majestic monastery.
And that's when Ulash appeared with the plastic grocery bag--what, a
moment earlier, had merely been more litter. He opened it for Recai.
Then he started gathering more trash, working with the relentless
energy of any eight-year-old child.
That boy, of course, was Recai's son, which was why my soul exhaled
for a moment and let in a little sunlight. He was Asiya's grandson.
Ulash filling his plastic grocery bag with trash (Photo by Victoria Blewer)
We will never know precisely what role that boy's very direct
ancestors may have played in the execution of the Armenians at the
Dudan crevasse, but we know that the Kurd who pulled Asiya's mother
from the edge of the ravine and then raised Asiya as his daughter
obviously was there.
And so the fact that Recai and his son cleaned the monastery with us
that day was one of those unexpected moments that provide a measure of
healing. A dram of hope. A reminder that wonder is still possible.
Chris Bohjalian's most recent novel, Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands, was
published in July.
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2014/08/29/bohjalian-little-hope-amidst-monastery-debris/
From: A. Papazian
By Chris Bohjalian on August 29, 2014
The other day I watched an eight-year-old boy named Ulash (pronounced
Oo-lush) spontaneously take a white plastic grocery bag and fill it
with potato chip wrappers, cigarette butts, and crushed plastic water
bottles.
Ulash (Photo by Victoria Blewer)
This was newsworthy not simply because small boys are not known for
their fastidiousness or their desire to make the world a cleaner
place.
This moment mattered to me because the boy was Kurdish and he was
cleaning the litter from the rubble of an ancient Armenian monastery
in south-central Turkey.
If you are reading this newspaper, of course, you know that most of
our church ruins in Turkey are littered with garbage. The monasteries
often have fire pits, where people have smoked or kept warm while
drinking. Sometimes the floors have been sledgehammered and the ground
dug up in search of gold.
One time, Khatchig Mouradian, for years the editor of this newspaper,
and George Aghjayan, a frequent contributor to the Weekly, found a
human skull--a monk most likely--that had been exhumed from a crypt and
left on the floor like a soccer ball.
Invariably there is toxic graffiti on the medieval walls.
But then there is a boy like Ulash and the sort of moment that can
give us all a little reason to smile.
It was another scorching hot August morning and a group of eight of us
had just arrived in Chunkush, a town on the road between Kharpert and
Diyarbakir that once had 10,000 Armenians and now has but one:
99-year-old Asiya, a hidden Armenian I wrote about last year for the
Washington Post. Asiya's mother had been present at the Dudan crevasse
when almost all of the Armenians had been slaughtered by Turkish
gendarmes and a Kurdish killing party in 1915. One of the Kurds pulled
Asiya's mother from the line at the edge of the ravine because he
thought she was pretty, and decided he'd marry her. And so she was
spared--one of the very few Armenians who were saved that cataclysmic
summer day 99 years ago.
The group picking up litter in the Armenian Monastery in Chunkush
(Photo by Eric Nazarian)
This morning we were back in Chunkush to visit Asiya. Four of us in
the group had met her in 2013 and four had not.
Prior to dropping by, however, we went to see the ruins of a medieval
Armenian monastery on the edge of the town. There we were met by
Asiya's son-in-law, Recai, who had first insisted we meet his
remarkable mother-in-law in 2013 and now was coordinating our second
visit.
All of us stood inside the sanctuary watching the light pour in
through the gaping holes in the walls. We surveyed the columns, looked
at the compasses on our cell phones to find east and confirm where the
altar had once stood, and tried not to step in the garbage that
covered the dirt and stones like fallen leaves in September.
Ulash and Khatchig Mouradian collecting garbage in the Monastery
(Photo by Eric Nazarian)
I'm honestly not sure who first reached down with his or her bare
hands and picked up a piece of garbage. But the first person I noticed
was Recai: He was plucking a once-white cigarette pack, now the color
of dirty snow, from the floor and looking around for a place to put
it.
Soon all of us were picking at the debris, doing what we could to
return a measure of dignity to this once majestic monastery.
And that's when Ulash appeared with the plastic grocery bag--what, a
moment earlier, had merely been more litter. He opened it for Recai.
Then he started gathering more trash, working with the relentless
energy of any eight-year-old child.
That boy, of course, was Recai's son, which was why my soul exhaled
for a moment and let in a little sunlight. He was Asiya's grandson.
Ulash filling his plastic grocery bag with trash (Photo by Victoria Blewer)
We will never know precisely what role that boy's very direct
ancestors may have played in the execution of the Armenians at the
Dudan crevasse, but we know that the Kurd who pulled Asiya's mother
from the edge of the ravine and then raised Asiya as his daughter
obviously was there.
And so the fact that Recai and his son cleaned the monastery with us
that day was one of those unexpected moments that provide a measure of
healing. A dram of hope. A reminder that wonder is still possible.
Chris Bohjalian's most recent novel, Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands, was
published in July.
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2014/08/29/bohjalian-little-hope-amidst-monastery-debris/
From: A. Papazian