Mal Meydanı
we are on the road again, it is early in the morning, we have a long way to go
to town, to the square in town.
as we walk, we know each other, sometimes one after the other, sometimes side by side,
we walk through the fields, we walk through the dirt roads, we see flower buds;
they haven’t erupted with fragrant scent.
condensed drops of morning dew gleam from the leaves.
the evening workers, field mice, return to their dwellings,
who knows if our footsteps, our ornaments confuse them.
we step and clouds of dust rise behind us.
birds resting on the trees are about to fly, dogs are barking.
when it is winter, the soil gets hard and it is difficult to walk,
the wounds in our hoofs begin to hurt.
the cold air vaporizes our breath, and blears our eyes.
we get closer to the market, the owners walk ahead of us or next to us,
holding sticks, smoking all along, making an occasional comment,
someone may sing a song, but they rarely talk, they are always distressed for some reason,
always sorrowful.
we come to the market from every type, every size, large and small.
familiar eyes, familiar colors, familiar smell.
our wait together starts early in the morning,
why do we wait, what do we wait for.
someone comes once in a while, strokes our back, looks at our teeth, hoofs,
talks to the owners and leaves, we wait,
so passes the day, the owners joke with one another, drink something,
and we are on the road back home,
if they talk with the others at the market, if they exchanged some papers,
the owners are happy,
otherwise their return is more sorrowful.
the pain in our hoofs starts growing, we walk, we know the way back.
it gets dark, we approach the village and the smell of smoke hits our noses.
the door creaks and the barn’s warmth takes us in, we are calm now.
over there, we sometimes search for a familiar face,
one we have known since we were little,
one we have shared the hay, our breaths with.
but they are gone, where are they, where did they go, why did they go.
tiredness sets in, we fall asleep.
In the News: “…stockbreeders who came to the animal market from the nearby provinces wait in the freezing cold for 5 hours in hopes of selling their animals. Troubled by the drop of prices, villagers state that they are unable to trade.
Stockbreeders whose greatest source of income are cattle state that as a consequence of the rise in value of the Dollar, people prefer to invest in it.
The villagers who come to the animal market from the surrounding provinces wait in the biting frost from 4:00 to 10:00 for customers, and when they are unable to trade, many return their animals back home.
One villager notes: “Life for this region’s people gets more and more difficult. Villagers should be encouraged to farm livestock, but instead we are drowning in debt; we even struggle to pay for our tractors’ expenses. Besides, with the rise of the Dollar, the prices of hay have rose too. The villagers should be able to sell their milk for a reasonable price to get by, but they can’t find customers. Dairy companies find our prices too high. As a result, the cost of owning an animal for six months rises, and it doesn’t cover the expenses even if sold. Instead of investing in husbandry, people invest in the Dollar.”
This is Mal Meydanı.
This is where all beings of Mother Earth survive or turn into soil.
Kadir Ekinci’s lens presents us with frames from this routine.
Kemal Cengizkan
April 2018
Istanbul
English
