Hundreds of Vietnamese Smiles / August 19, 2018

When the plane took off at about 02.25, we began to watch Istanbul by criticizing everything which Istanbul is typified, evoked, conceptualized and symbolized in our minds. I believe that if the light of the world has gone out, the light of Istanbul and its brothers will be sufficient for the world. It's like we're jumping around the world by bracing up from this city and it's going to be the city's call which going to turn us back.

firstly, our plane blent into a dark. Then we saw small towns and cities through clouds at times. after a while later, a redness appeared on the horizon. When the direction of our plane was east, we were confronted with the inevitable. It was come to us as long as we're gone to the east.  It's like we were on a trip to get out of the night, not to in. But if we were flying west at the same time, we'd need more time to get out of the dark. So why do cities grow west? Why the big migrations right to the west? Why the considerable amount of people say west without thinking, in response to the question 'east or west', and then they start to put the east on their agendas?  Necip Fazıl'ın Büyük Doğu'su ne demektir mesela? Sezai Bey'in Doğunun Yedinci Oğlu neyimiz olur bizim?   ‘Anamı sorarsan büyük doğudur / Batı ki sırtımda paslı bıçaktır' diyen rahmetli Akif İnan ne demek istemişti? Batılıların ‘Doğu Sorunu' dedikleri şey neydi? ‘Batı-Doğu farklılaşması bir boğuşmadır. Batı-Doğu boğuşması, aslında Batı'nın Doğu'yu sömürmesi hırsına dayanır. Bu hırs, Batı'nın sömürme gücünün son zerrelerini yitirene kadar devam edecektir' diyen Kemal Tahir ne demeye getiriyordu? Doğu ne yana düşer, batı ne yana? Bu yolculukta veremezdim bu soruların cevaplarını ama yine de sormam gerekiyordu işte. Belki gittiğim yerde bulacaktım cevabını, kim bilir?

after our plane landed at Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh City we set to work for completing the Vietnam visa process. a Vietnamese visa is issued two stages. You must receive a document by making your application through the consulate in Turkey and complete the visa purchase process at the airport. We're filling in forms. They want two passport photograph. I have old photograph.  I'm bearded now, but I'm beardless in those photos. Fortunately, IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation team was waiting for a visa there too. We formed a group and one of us gave our passports. We paid our visa fees after a bit handed over our passports. and the anxious wait was started. There were people of all nationalities. we're just waited.

Our visas were approved after two and a half hours. Now we're in the passport line. It took an hour and half an hour. Then we took our baggage and leave the airport. We felt warm and brotherhood on our faces. I don't know which one first. So I prefer to call it a warm brotherhood.

We were welcomed by Ahmet Emin who of middle height, glasses and dressed slacks and with a gorgeous smile on his face. he seems like from our homeland. From central Anatolia or Konya or Kayseri or Nevsehir. We greeted and hug. if I say it's worth this journey just for that moment, maybe I can explain the sincerity of the ambiance. it got dark. We're on our way to the hotel.

There were so many motorcycles along the way. tall buildings, a sparkling night and  a lot of people the majority of them young.

We came to our hotel in Saigon square. The square was closed. We took our suitcases and walked to the hotel. We left our suitcases, relaxed a little, then got back to the hotel lobby.

The unique taste threshold accumulated on the tongue of thousands of years in Turkey will always be a challenge on travel abroad. That's the way it is. Of course, the important thing is that you are sensitive on halal- haram(forbidden).  under these circumstances, you turn into people who are discouraged about food. Factors such as mixing sweets and salty, using spices too much, your distance to the place which meals are prepared, the uncertainty of the source of odors you are not used to and hygiene are worried you very hard. in such travels, the sine qua non of suitcases is lavash, fried meat, cheese, olives and certainly, tea which stacked with vacuuming.

Ahmet Emin has experience in this regard. He is aware of his guests' tastes from Turkey, which he loves for years. And he said that he understands us. When I came to Turkey, There was no food I couldn't eat it. Let's go to a Turkish restaurant , he said. we don't want to hurt you,  said one of us, laughingly. We all laughed at this meaningful joke, including Ahmed.

When we leave a restaurant called Pasha, where you can find almost any kind of Turkish food, felt the humidity on our faces when we entered into the hotel room I asked myself what tonight's headline should be. I thought of Vietnamese faces I've met for over a few hours: Hundreds of Vietnamese smiles.

 

We are on the way to Muslims today / 20 August 2018

I am at Vietnam through an association that aims to act with the vision of being reunited through goodness, to create a sense of 'we are not alone' in the hearts of all the strange, oppressed. it's Sadakatasi Association.

I would like to quote a sentence that used by Sadakatasi Association to describe the scopes of activity it has set as a target;

To take as an example alms stones that symbol of courteous and aesthetics social aid culture and revive it.

I'm one of the witnesses of the Sadakatasi Association's works in different scopes. it carried out many works such as the construction of houses suitable for local architecture for Arakans in Bangladesh, the print and distribution of books containing religious information for children who learn Islam,  the construction of schools. in addition to these aid works, the slaughter and distribution organizations were carried out during eid al Adha, have importance. as part of the sacrifice organizations, there are not only slaughter and distribution works at the regions. sacrifice organizations guide on topics such as meeting, determination of new scopes of works, project productions, surveying of the projects produced, feasibility studies, auditing of the projects which were carried out.

Although I've know Sadakatasi Association since it founded, this is the first time I have had the opportunity to see an organization process closely.

…

We leave the hotel in Ho Chi Minh City and we set off the way. the noon comes. We have information that we're going to travel for about six or seven hours.  We will go to the areas where Muslims live intensively and carry out the slaughter and distribution works.  We are on the way to Muslims today.

It took a long time to get rid of the noise and crowds of the city. We drive off on a  highway firstly. after 10-15 minutes we became to move on a one-way road.

We're moving across in the opposite direction depending on the flow direction of the Mekong River. The fertile lands are on both sides. we move on the road by leaving behind us rice fields, local food sellers, the women who have designed the homes looking at the road as shops, official buildings equipped with symbols of the socialist regime, huge statues of heroism, Ho Chi Minh posters and tens of bridges.

We have a conversation with  Mucahid and our driver Khan occasionally. Mucahid is studying high school in Kuwait, but his Arabic level is not sufficient yet. Khan is very talented about body language even though he can only speak Vietnamese.

we are looking for mosques on the route where we are moving forward by looking for the sun, but there is not. We're finally laying our prayer rug at a gas station. It's good for all of us to have some silence that we've ended with takbir that tune of it was composed by Itri.

We're starting to see Muslim faces. We show each other the women in headscarves buy eid clothes to their children by holding their hands. The houses are in rows here. We pass through neighborhoods that better clean than other. Tiny restaurants with halal logos, mobile fruit trucks which carry fruits that we have difficulty pronunciation when we try to learn the names, mosque that was drawn some local architectural elements on it, the young people who are sitting cross-legged in turns singing in order, are the moments that remain in my mind about the evening that begins to cover up the day.

When we arrived in Angiang, first of all, we booked a hotel to stay in. We paid one-third of the price of the previous hotel which was in the central of Ho Chi Ming. We went to our rooms and rested. Then a table fitted out food brought from Turkey was established at the floor dedicated to us by the hotel officials. Then we go on an city tour on foot. We're having coffee at the coffee shop in the corner.

 in the morning, we'll go to    salat al eid firstly. Then we will carry out slaughter and distribution of sacrifices that were donated to Sadakatasi Association. You feel like have ants in the pants. I think the eid same thing. no matter how old you are, it fastens up you to your childhood.

…

I waked up suddenly. It hasn't been two hours since I fall asleep. I couldn't sleep again.  I thought of my country and the loved ones. They were my guests all night. When dawn, I became to say these:

a man can't forget just his mother and father among silence of the eve night.

Eid morning, Vietnam.

Now it's prayer time, firstly morning, then an eid.

 

Sacrifice keep you alive /Augustus 21, 2018

“I wish our dead hearts had been revived

I wish we'd turned back our faces to the truth and washed with alms

I wish we hadn't inclined to the world.”

Cahit Zarifoğlu

The waiter asks which breakfast option we want to eat from the menu that comes in front of us in the hotel's breakfast saloon. After a peek through it, we're agreed on the option of cheese or onion eggs. Our laughter fills the empty breakfast saloon. Ahmet Emin came. He ate some olives from the table, put some cheese between the bread. On the one hand, while eating with an appetite, on the other hand, he confirmed his words with the help of gesticulating 'they are very delicious', he said, 'very delicious'.

Our vehicle was on way to one of the Muslim neighborhoods. As soon as we crossed a bridge on one of the reaches of the Mekong river, we arrived at the Muslim neighborhood. We moved on by passing the houses that were constructed of dark brown and durable trees. the view was familiar. Children who have just been bathed, women who are prepared to welcome the eid by wearing their best clothes, men who wore white dresses on the way to the mosque…

We're coming to the mosquefront. There's an iron bridge built by Dubaiers on our right and flowing river on our left. The mosque is full, the eid prayer is performed. We also start the say pray while they are saying pray. After a while, between the voices of 'Eid Mubarak', we've congratulated eid ourselves by embracing each other and our Vietnamese friends

We're coming to the area where sacrifices stand. tens of cattle stand side by side. inhabitants of the neighborhood are coming with us to the slaughter area. the butchers just came. We start by choosing the best of cattles for our donors. We hang our banners and butchers wear our specially prepared clothes.

The first cattle is gotten to the ground expertly. the butcher with  sharp knife  positioned behind the cattle's throat. helpers are waiting in the wings in case a possible negative case around him. Women are a little further behind with trays in their hands. Children trying to look at the cattle through their father's legs… I'm giving the procuration to the butcher by reading seven people names. When the first blood falls into the ground, a great history flows through my eyes, from Habil to Ibrahim, from Ismail to Istanbul to  An Giang city of Vietnam.

We witnessed a great organizational ability while the names are reading one by one. The butchers were master of slaughter. skins of the cattle were flayed conscientiously and swiftly that I had never seen before. the meats chopped into large pieces were transported to the chopping area established in the mosque courtyard by inhabitants of the neighborhood. and there were fruits brought for us... One of the most respected ladies of the area comes to us.  I think she's asking us intimately "did you eat something?" Ahmet Emin says laughingly "they do not eat" After a brief speech, a little fire is started in front of us. A thinly chopped slaughtered meat is placed on the fire. Just salt, don't worry, says Ahmet Emin, with a brilliant smile. After a while, there was only meat on our plates. But there's another plate with it, sauce. You can use it as salt says Ahmet Emin. I'm dipping a piece of meat into the sauce. I tasted some salt, pepper, and lemon. not half bad.

The sun is not at the summit anymore. its place is ground anymore. Our slaughter process ended. Preparations  for distribution are continued. when the sleeplessness and tiredness are merged I  became a person sleeping under the fan on the mosque's tiles and using his arm as a pillow.  It's called a short midday nap, siesta. now, the turn to distribution of  carefully crafted sacrificial meats to the needy. The task was shared. The area we're going to distribute has been determined, other teams have been organized. We're set off.

It's an indescribable feeling. to deliver the trusts that were sent to the most beautiful people in the world from Turkey  Muslims and to be given the prayers of the people who take their hand to their hearts with a sweet smile on their faces each time…

There is a mosque in the distributing area, Jamiul Azhar. We saw a lot of tombstones in the mosque garden. The arrival of Islam to this region dates back to old times. the story of 'Muslim merchants' that are often told for Islamic territory in the Far East was told for this region.  Especially thanks to Muslims from yemen region, the people of this region have get Islam. They describe themselves as Chams nation. About two centuries ago, Chams Muslims lived under one kingdom. Then, they fell apart and separated into Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. They make up 1% of Vietnam's population. They have their own language. There was no connection between chams and  the Muslims. they kept themselves by keeping their traditions.   we learned that Muslims are underwent and the region was lagged behind due to the French coming to the region, the socialist regime that sprang because of a culture of strengthening and resistance, and the years of war of Americans. Muslims contact with the world newly. The function of relief organizations going from Turkey to the region, Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities and TIKA, have incredible consequences in this topic.

When we're done, we felt sweet fatigue. We relieved tiredness thanks to the people that wave goodbye when we left the neighborhood.