Two small acts of kindness. Compare and contrast.
IHH are a Benevolent foundation. That's with a capital B, meaning they have an enormous heap of money, which they donate to various charities.
To apply for a donation, go to their high-tech, military-style complex. To get in, you must surrender your citizenship card, passport, or equivalent documentation. This gets you past the guarded turnstile, and into a large prefabricated building, where you plead your worthiness.
In this case, after half an hour of mission-statement regurgitation (in which I spoke five words), we were told it would take a long time to process and consider our application. That's code for "Piss off, you're not prestigious enough for us."
After retrieving our documents from IHH border control, we drove disconsolately away.
Now, before all this, we stopped at a coffeeshop, where I was gently but persistently pestered by a girl of about seven. Homeless, and begging for cash. I gave her the contents of my pocket - five lira in coins. That was act number one.
So, my tent is cold. In fact, bloody cold because the air conditioning broke. In fact, abolutely fucking freezing. But last night I was warm because the families occupying the next tent along donated their heater.
Leaving them absolutely fucking freezing.
So today I bought them a new heater - 90 lira.
Five lira to make a beggar go away, versus 90 so I don't feel like quite such an imperial colonialist bastard. For the next three days.
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| Samboukas. Which are not the same as Samosas, apparently. Simple home pleasures are better if you can save some for a midnight snack. |
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