Besra's home

Besra is on the rooftop, tucking her skirt into her waistband as she stomps on laundry in a basin. The sun is shining, but it's still too cold for washing clothes. 

As soon as I reach the top, I ask, “Why?”  

She bought reusable diapers to save money for her three-year-old, but since they can’t go in the washing machine, she has to climb up to the roof and wash them in this cold. At the same time, she’s set up a samovar and is making tea.  

“Do you even know how much diapers cost?” she snaps at me.  

The weather is unsettled, shifting from spring-like warmth to chill. On the rooftop, there are two armchairs I love, a well-preserved walnut table of unknown origin, and in one corner, Besra’s small garden.  

To the left, Dicle Valley Houses. Ahead, hills of varying sizes, topped with the looming and dreadful Housing Development Administration (TOKİ) apartment blocks. Directly across, spindly white poplar trees stretch toward the sky, with the Tigris River flowing below.  

Fiskaya is a shantytown leaning against the city walls, filled with houses built from crumbling adobe. Despite boasting a view that rivals the villas and hotels of Diyarbakır, this neighborhood was shaped by people displaced from their villages in the 1990s. That’s why the wealthy and TOKİ have had their eyes on it for years.  

As Besra hangs up the diapers one by one, the streaks of gray in her long, waist-length hair glisten under the sun.  

Somewhere, a song plays: “Fisqaya’dan o yani.” It’s a song with a personality of its own—so people are still listening to it, then.  

Besra has lived here for about 15 years. She works in a villa where, as she puts it, “Even if I gave my whole life, I couldn’t afford to buy a single room.”  

Her mother passed away when she was just eight years old. That left her father, three brothers, eight or ten chickens, and two sheep.  

Her father remarried soon after. Then it was her turn. In the village, she had been secretly meeting up with Ahmet. When word got out, she says, “it was time to get married.”  

Ahmet, a mechanic in the industrial district, moved with Besra to Fiskaya in their first year of marriage.  

To Besra, Ahmet is a good man—a good man, but he gambles a lot. He doesn’t mean any harm, but he never seems to get rich either. As he pours tea, he sighs, “It just wasn’t meant to be.”  

For a few years, they managed to get by on whatever money came their way. They even saved up enough to travel occasionally. “We’ve even been to a concert,” she says with a smile.  

Besra sees the two armchairs on the rooftop, the souvenirs from the cities they visited, and the photos on the fridge—Mardin, Siirt, İstanbul, İzmir, Hatay—just five cities, as the spoils of those years when they could still make ends meet.  

Then came over 200,000 lira in debt, a leaky roof in the winter, and the looming threat of urban renewal that could demolish their home at any moment. And in the midst of all that, she found out she was pregnant with Yüsra.  

For a long time, she made mantı and pastries at the glass-terraced cafés overlooking Fiskaya. But as her belly grew, she couldn’t keep up with both housework and her job.  

After the baby was born, she started looking for a “real job.” She didn’t expect benefits, but she wanted at least enough money to pay for Yüsra’s school transport, fix the leaky roof, and maybe even stash away a little gold.  

One day, a neighbor told her about the rich people living in the luxury villas of Dicle Valley Houses: “Songül says you cook, you clean up, and since they’re old, you help with their medication. Oh, and sometimes, you have to change diapers.”  

Besra was already doing all of that every day anyway. Before she knew it, she had become the “lady of the house” in one of those massive villas.  

She leaves for work at seven in the morning. By then, Yüsra, only two years old, is still asleep.

The house where she works is two stories high with a garden, home to an elderly couple. According to Besra, this family was once wealthy. Some of their children live abroad, while others are still in the country. She earns 10,000 lira a month and considers it a relatively good salary.

When I mention that it doesn’t seem like much, she says, “Look, there are mothers in this neighborhood with no choice but to sell drugs. Imagine a mother poisoning other children just to feed her own.”

Dishes, cleaning, cooking in bulk for family gatherings… She tends the garden, handles hospital visits for the elderly, and sometimes rushes to help the homeowners’ daughter.

Most of the time, she spends hours alone in the house. One of the elderly is bedridden, while the other either says a few words throughout the day or nothing at all. This large, two-story home with its huge terrace becomes hers for those hours.

“Sometimes, when I finish all my chores, I put on my favorite show on TV, or I turn up the volume and sing at the top of my lungs. Who’s there to hear me? Just me and God,” she says with a laugh.

She loves all kinds of music—Azeri folk songs, dengbêj ballads, even random pop songs she hears on Instagram.

She doesn’t seem to love working, but she definitely loves the house she works in. The conversation keeps circling back to its fingerprint-proof appliances, the barbecue corner on the terrace, or the fireplace.

Besra’s own house is also two stories, but it’s heated with a stove. In the summer, it’s cool because it overlooks Hevsel Gardens, but in the winter, no matter what they burn, it never gets warm. Some doors and windows are made of wood, letting in a constant draft. “We have a samovar on our terrace too—what more do we need?” she says, defending her home.

Yet, as she describes the house she works in, she brings up its shutters: “They’re so easy to clean. If you installed those on a house in our neighborhood, people would mock you for a thousand years, but there, they just fit right in.”

Then, she starts comparing her home to others:

“One time, Ahmet and I were walking around Moda in İstanbul. He kept pointing at one house, then another. ‘Look at these places! What wealth!’ he’d say. But what caught my attention was the curtains. Some houses didn’t even have them, and the ones that did had them wide open. Ahmet said, ‘If you owned a house that fancy, you’d leave the curtains open too.’

He was right. In Fiskaya, every house has curtains. What would you even show off? A meal without meat on the table? The bruises from a beating? Or the crumbling walls of the house? Sure, our homes have great views, but inside, there’s nothing left but poverty.”

Besra often complains—sometimes to God, sometimes to the state. When she mentions God, she follows it with “God forgive me,” but she has no apologies to offer the state.

For 15 years, she has lived in Fiskaya, trapped between urban renewal projects and the drug trade. With the money she earns from the house she praises so much, she only manages to pay off one debt before moving on to the next. She has only managed to save five gold coins. She also has a bad tooth that she complains about constantly. “I don’t even have enough to get that fixed,” she says.

Fifteen of her 38 years have been spent in a house she doesn’t love, aside from its view. Yet, she has no intention of leaving it.

“And now the state has set its sights on these tiny homes. They’ll kick us out, build apartments here. And what will they give us in return? Rent money that won’t even cover three months in a two-room place.”

BEHIND THE CURTAIN: BENUSEN

Yeliz's home

4 March 2025

(ED/VC/VK)