The long road from Istanbul to the southeast of the Turkish country is snowy and slow.
This year, winter hit Turkey hard, but for the Turks, who until Sunday this week were still dealing with the weather, this is a negligible problem considering the fact that it is very difficult to meet a person in Turkey who does not have a relative or friend in the disaster areas.
Commoners, MPs, celebrities and diplomats.
Everyone you talk to knows someone who was injured, died or lost their home.
Our driver Harun, and his brother, drive us on the snowy roads, a distance of 13 hours there and 13 hours back.
We agreed on a payment of more than a thousand dollars for four days, a record salary for them, and we also take care of their lodging and food, which amounts, of course, to a kebab and some salad.
After 68 hours: a baby girl was rescued from the ruins in Turkey
As always in times of crisis, there are those who earn triple their salary, but when we stop at a gas station in the middle of the road, I wonder to myself if, in view of the poverty and misery that surrounds us from all sides, maybe we should have given him more money.
Soldiers, policemen, medical staff members and just volunteers drink chai to warm and stimulate the body for the continuation of the tough journey south.
Their eyes say it all.
Most of them do not know a word of English, but those who do tell us that they are traveling into the unknown.
No one knows what awaits further down the road, and if at all there will be more tremors.
But even here, at the coffee shop in the middle of the road, everyone knows someone who has lost touch with them.
Istanbul.
Very far from the center of the disaster, photo: Getty Images
Erdogan.
Is there anyone guarding the Turks who are out of sight?, Photo: AFP
As you get closer to Gaziantep and Kahramanmaras, you realize not only the dimensions of the destruction, but also that far from the center, the Turkish periphery lives and breathes at a different pace.
Although it is a Turkish city, the border with the extreme Muslim neighbors gives its signals in the city.
This is a conservative society, which of course needs rescuing hands and medical help, but believes in God, miracles and higher powers alongside modern medicine, and when a Muslim woman is rescued alive from the ruins, a group of local policemen surround her and hide her so that God forbid she is not photographed.
The backyard
It is a classic periphery, a huge backyard of the former empire, which dreams of returning to be an empire in the present.
The Jewish community in the city has dwindled over the years, but its remains can still be found here and there, before the earthquake wiped out everything including everything.
One of the most striking things is that these cities are closer to Israel by air than to Istanbul.
A comparison that makes you think that, like in Israel, when an attack or disaster occurs in the Israeli periphery, in Tel Aviv life goes on as usual
As a symbol of the victory of sanity, so too in Turkey.
The pictures are similar.
Photo: Oren Cohen,
Photo: Oren Cohen,
Photo: Oren Cohen,
Photo: Oren Cohen,
In modern and noisy Istanbul, mourning is quickly replaced by Turkish pride and life returns to normal in an attempt to help those who need help.
Not only because the earthquake was not felt there, but mainly because this is the Turkish character, to show that nothing, not even nature, can change that.
As we prepare for the return to the center and from there home to Israel, it is clear to us that with all due respect to Turkish strength and pride, it will take many years to restore the region.
This is not only about the obvious economic matter, but also about the question asked by the residents of the Turkish cities of the book - is there someone who watches over the Turks who are far from the eye?
A question that Erdogan will have to answer, and it is doubtful that he will have any answers.
These noise disasters almost always hurt the poor and the needy, and like the earthquake in Haiti, someone needs to tell the tens of thousands of children we met throughout our stay here, that they are not expected to return home anytime soon, and that no one knows when that will happen.
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