Haldun was born, 13 September 1955 Thursday at 10 o'clock

Tales for the New Generation, as told by  Ayşe Hadiye Direskeneli

On September 13, 1955, Haldun was born in Cihanbeyli.

We are in Cihanbeyli in 1954. I am pregnant with my second child. Since I am not under the control of a medical doctor, I am having the usual troubles of pregnancy. At the end of the seventh month of my pregnancy, we moved to the upper floor of the first three-storey apartment building in Cihanbeyli. 

The rent was 15 lira per month. The first cleaning and moving processes of the house had exhausted me. According to our own estimates, twenty days before his day, I woke up in pain one morning.

Since there was no midwife in town, we agreed with the midwife of Tekel-Tuzla settlement nearby.

When local midwife Ayşe was sitting behind our house - quite old - she saw me going to and from school, she said, “Lady I give birth to all the brides of the town. She said, "I will give birth to you, too." I was also avoiding this offer saying "okay, okay".

On Thursday, September 13, 1955, at about 10:00 in the morning, my birth pain intensified. Your father, who went to get the midwife, was late. When the pain became unbearable, I said to my mother-in-law, "Mom, run, call the midwife Ayşe sister."

At that moment, I had a thousand regrets that I decided to give birth at home. Local Midwife Ayşe sister came and had her birth with her own method based on years of experience. She puts the mother on her lap and forces her butt from behind with a string. The child is suddenly born in front.

At that time, the midwife was brought up. It turns out that the tire is flat. The villagers of the Yavsan Salt mine help the fix  with the tire. The midwife cut off the umbilical cord. The conditions of hygiene were for God. I always thank God for not getting infected at that time and getting sick. At 1030, my second baby, Haldun, was born. He was a very beautiful yellow baby. 

Haluk suddenly became a four-year-old big brother.

Twenty days after birth, we all hit the road to new town Aydın Çine.

We packed our household goods in a truck. We drove in ten hours on dirty roads on the back of the truck. We stayed in a small house that was found when we arrived. We did not open the items for 3 days. 

Then we moved into a bumpy house found by the local prosecutor.

Cine town was beautiful. It was in the west. Our 2 years have passed here.

Haluk started primary school here.

Haldun walked and spoke here.

Yalova 20 August 1998 Thursday

Tales for the New Generation, my Wedding in 1950 by Ismail Direskeneli

In Year 1947, I finished Faculty of Law in Ankara. I am in Isparta for 3 years as a candidate to be  Judge. During the first two years of my judge internship, I met my wife Hadiye at a poetry reading night at the Girls Institute, the highest girls' school in Isparta of that time. However, in the meantime, in 1948, I served military obligation as a Second Lieutenant Military Judge in the 19th Division in Devrek - Zonguldak for a year. 6 months school, 6 months at field. Hadiye, was in the jury of the poetry night organized by the Institute for Girls, I was struck by her graceful attitude and her green eyes, unmatched in the world. On the other hand, the matchmaking intermediaries of Isparta's rich families surrounded my mother. My eyes didn't see any of them.

I wrote letters. I'm sending it by mail. Address to Girls' institute. With the hand of her host, Mrs. Makbule, I got an answer from her. She  brought it from hand to Courthouse. I hid those letters. “There was no love in it. It was addressed as "Dear Hadiye, Dear İsmail". Our generation was very elegant. As I said, when my days and nights passed with her dream, I went to his school one day to get to know her better. She was in the library. I went to the library. I sweated hot with excitement. I talked a little and introduced myself. We described ourselves in the letters. We left the school side by side together. Side by side had important meanings at that time. I held the job tight. Deputy Prosecutor Hasan Gebizli's wife Türkan Gebizli was the only university (Ankara Language-History) graduate of that time in Isparta. They were our elders. Türkan talked to Hadiye at her home. Hadiye told her that she was warm to the subject.

The year is 1949. On the other hand, Hadiye got to know my physics from a distance through the pharmacist Necmiye Hanım in the city park. Hadiye received positive information about me through my friends Fikri Özgül and the Deputy Director of the Men's Art Institute Ömer Bey. I was not idle either. I wrote a letter to a fellow citizen living in Istanbul and tried to determine whether she had spoken to others (?) From Cerrahpaşa Etyemez - Hobyar Neighborhood before. In addition, I obtained and examined the registry file in the Isparta National Education Directorate Personnel Department via My Uncle Tevfik Atal. There was nothing negative. On this occasion, I determined that Hadiye was on the honor list at Çapa Teacher Training School for 3 years. One night, we were at Prosecutor Hasan Gebizli's house in the evening. With her mother Fatma Müzeyyen was also present. His words, "The type of my daughter fits the type of the candidate", which is a lifelong family humor.

That night I also excitedly read a few poems that I had memorized before, in order to be the best in the eyes of the literature teacher. She was not idle either. She asked me whether the Heavy Penalty was established in the district of Dinar, its duties and privileges. In other words, her close interest in my job was a sign of her love. I remember now that Hadiye used to curl her hair with bigodies and wore a white dress for that night. I was wearing a well-ironed navy blue suit, white shirt and tie. It was winter. The hosts also attended the two-hour sweet and pleasant conversation. Together we asked permission and scattered around our homes. Things got faster after that day. I brought Hadiye's  other documents from Istanbul as required for the marriage ceremony. In the meantime, I abandoned the family surname “Kılıç” chosen so from the catalog, which did not show me the slightest interest in my years of education and was essentially not our family name in violation of the surname law, and bought our family nickname “Direskeneli” in 1949 by court decision. Only me.

I searched for the source of the word Direskene for years. I have identified one of us, a Turkish settlement center called Diresken, in former Yugoslavia, today's Macedonia. In fact, I went to Direskene village, where I went when I was 12, and one of our elderly relatives, who was alive at that time in the village of Direskene, had to emigrate from Macedonia 3 generations ago in the 1870s and migrated collectively to this region of Eğirdir as a family. I also found out that this village was called Direskene, and later when my grandfather İsmail's father Ahmet Efendi migrated to Eğirdir Imaret District, we were referred to us by the nickname Direskeneans. We are Direskenelizade Ahmet Efendiler.

There is a rival family in Eğirdir. The other reason I changed the surname of Kılıç is to get rid of the mortal animosity between this family and our family that dates back to years ago. There is an allegation that Demirci Efenin was hanged by a person from the other family during the Egirdir raid. Demirci Efe's men took away the property of the hanged person. In the meantime, Efe had a few young people from our family hanged on the excuse that he did not receive enough respect and hospitality.

I asked for the birth certificate of the Hadiye to my home address. I realized I was doing wrong. My sister opened the letter. When she learned the seriousness of the work, things got messed up at home. One night, they carried all the furniture of the house with my mother to the neighbor, with the thought that my sister would move to her new house, including the Isparta carpets, which I had my mother donated with my own money and later given one to my son Haluk and the other to Haner. The house was empty. I left the house, buying nothing but a radio and backgammon. We started the wedding preparations by renting a separate house in Isparta. We got married on September 9, 1950 in Isparta Army Guest House.

We got married two months later on September 9, 1950. I was getting 156 lira and Hadiye 126 lira per month. Hadiye and I were paying 20 Turkish lira each for house rent before we got married. By the way, we rented a house in a garden for 40 lira for our new marriage. Two halls and the upper floor were in the style of today's villa. The owner of the house was sitting on the ground floor of the house. They could see us down from the floor and us through the gap when they raised their heads. If we dance while singer Necip Aşkın is singing tango on the radio, the host complained, "You are knocking on our top." Behind our house were poplar trees and a flowing stream. When the host got involved in our dance, we made it a habit to go out on the balcony at night and watch full moon. I still love to watch the moon with Hadiye.

While the total salary of both of us was 282 lira, we saved with this money, and with the spiritual contribution and organization of those who love us, we had a beautiful wedding with lemonade but plenty of fun at the Isparta Army Guest House. My wife's wedding dress was sewn in the Institute. Isparta also had two taxis at that time. They were both busy and expensive. We went to the Army House with a phaeton wearing the "Marie Antuanette" style wedding dress of the Institute teachers. My Mother-in-law and Sabahat came walking behind. We carried the house we rented with a horse carriage. I carried the remaining stuff on foot, from the stove pipe to the hanger dress. After 50 years, Hadiye hits her head from time to time as a joke and says, "I did not know that the judges were so lame." I wore the black dress I wore at the wedding with two corrections over and over again for my sons circumcision and weddings. I can still wear it as needed. I sewed the dress for 14 liras.

The wedding night opened with the tango song "You are like a daisy, white and thin". The Governor of Isparta, Chief of High Criminal, Regiment Commander, senior team were all there. The young people had a good program. The orchestra played the beautiful tangos and waltzes of the day. The Silifke team formed by the soldiers enlivened the night.

The Girls' Institute teachers, who were often not yet married, had a bit of a whim at the wedding and beyond. For example, they did not make Hadiye's bride head. Sabahat, the childhood friend of Hadiye, who came from Istanbul for the wedding, made Hadiye's bride head style. She sewed a dressing gown overnight.

In an agreement conversation with Hadiye, "What qualities do you look for in a spouse?" she asked. In response, "I look for qualifications based on gender equality that prevail in all contemporary, civilized countries." I said. So, "I look for not only physical but also mental beauty in the woman I choose." In addition, while 50 years ago it was rare for a woman to have a higher education, I - not necessarily - stipulated this condition and contributing to her home by working. Because the working woman knows how to earn money, I stated that I plan to choose the educator of her children from the pedagogically qualified teacher.

I struck him that I wanted to share my black and white days with me, in short, to establish a home based on equality without exploiting each other. Our salary was low, we had no comfort, but we had love. Our first crop was our first son Haluk. Hadiye started to vomit pregnancy while moving from Isparta to Cihanbeyli, our first place of duty. Two months later, we moved to Konya's Cihanbeyli district, which was my first place of appointment.

Yalova 15 August 1998

Kazakhistan 1996

In early 1996, TengizChevroil (TCO) joint venture asked their major contractor company Bechtel of USA to make condition assessment of the existing thermal power plant in the Tengiz field at west of Kazakhstan. Bechtel transferred the request to their recommended boiler supplier, Babcock & Wilcox Company of McDermott Group of companies. The Group decided to send two site supervisors/ managers to Tengiz Oil field.
Mr. Alan E. Reid, Service Engineer from Babcock & Wilcox International Inc of Barberton, Ohio USA, and Mr. Walid A. Bader, Area Marketing Manager from McDermott Offshore Drilling Inc of Houston Texas USA were sent to Tengiz Oil Fields in Kazakhstan in June 1996.
Condition assessment study of the existing steam boilers would be made on paid basis, and hence all expenses would be paid by the client and a lump sum engineering fee (50K USD) would additionally be paid to the invited company.
Since we were the B&W’s closest JV company to the Tengiz site, I was also asked to join the team to support them at site and get ready for necessary proposal preparation if/when needed in future.
Tengiz field, in western Kazakhstan, is located in the low-lying wetlands along the northeast shores of the Caspian Sea. Discovered in 1979, Tengiz oil field is one of the largest discoveries in recent history. The city of Atyrau, 350 kilometers north of Tengiz, was/is the main transport hub of Tengiz oil. Many nations are involved in a large geopolitical competition to secure access to this source of oil.
I took the appropriate/ connecting flight from Istanbul to Budapest to catch the next charter flight of Chevron/ Bechtel employees to the Tengiz Oil fields. At Budapest Airport, our team has gathered. Our flight was from Budapest to Atyrau of Kazakhstan on a charter flight weekly operated by Hungarian Airlines on a Tupolev 124 Russian made plane. Other passengers were Chevron employees from Louisiana Gulf offshore or onshore oil fields, riggers, diggers, mechanics, oilmen with difficult southern accent and the engineers from Bechtel London office, mostly British nationals, as well as employees of auxiliary services such as catering, logistics etc.
After 4 hours of flight, we landed in Atyrau airport. It took almost four (4) more hours to pass the custom clearance for all 150 passengers, since there were no computers for registration and all paper work was done manually. Then snacks and water were distributed. We were invited to board buses to go to the Tengiz oil fields almost 350 kms far from the airport in the desert. Vehicles were old Russian made, with no air conditioning. All curtains were down; all windows were wide open in order to reduce the desert heat. Road was in single lane wornout, sometimes rough bare soil with loopholes all the way.
After 3 hours, buses stopped on the open-air, in the middle of desert, people shouted as “Peace Break”, which had a different meaning but equivocal. Men lined up on one side of the empty road for relaxation and smoking, and leg stretching, ladies did the same on the other side of the road. We repeated that ritual two more times before we reached to the camp site in the oil fields.
Estimated at up to 25 billion barrels (4 km³) of oil originally in place, Tengiz is the sixth largest oil field in the world; recoverable crude oil reserves have been estimated at 6 to 9 billion barrels (0.9 to 1.4 km³). Like many other oil fields, the Tengiz also contains large reserves of natural gas.
At the camp site, we were given individual rooms with bed only but no toilet, no shower in prefabricated barracks. Our barracks were allocated for local Russian/ Kazakh female workers/ office staff/ lawyers/ accountants and for the international service staff who were in Tengiz Oil Fields for short term stay.
We were supposed to use the common toilet facilities in the middle of the barracks. Respective Men/ Women Toilets, and showers had no doors at the entrance nor anywhere inside, all open.
The next morning we had registered, filled many forms, administration took Polaroid photos and created ID cards which we should expected to carry all times. Then we took crash course on safety for one full day.
Since the oil from Tengiz contains a high amount of sulfur (up to 17%), 9 million tons of sulfur byproduct has been stored in sulfur blocks. We saw those sulfur blocks in piles.
The crush course on Safety was because of any dangerous gas / sulfur leaks which happened in the past in similar sites and resulted many human losses. In that safety course we were taught what to do in case of any dangerous gas leak, where to go, how to use our gas masks, how to vacate the site, where to escape. In the end we took a written examination and got certificate / license to work in the site.
The TengizChevroil (TCO) joint venture has developed the Tengiz field since 1993.
The major partners in TengizChevroil are Chevron (50% ownership), ExxonMobil (25% ownership), the Kazakhstani government through KazMunayGas (20% ownership) and Russian LukArco (5%).
Every morning at about 05:00 hours you wake up, go to the common toilette section, get cleaned, return to your room, get dressed, board the service busses and go to the production site/ oil fields/ offices to work which was almost 25 kms far from the camping site.
Bus ride takes 30 minutes. It was a safety precaution for any gas leaks at the working site. We had individual gas masks. Oil field was in the middle of an empty stone/sand desert, no animal, no plant anywhere.
Each day we were working from 06 to 18 hours with one hour lunch break, for 6 days in a week plus Sunday morning.
The Tengiz oil field is one of the biggest in the world. It contains 24 billion barrels of high quality oil and six to nine billion barrels of recoverable oil. It is deep, having a target depth of 4,500 meters. It also contains significant gas reserves (18,000 billion cubic meters).
An area of major geopolitical competition involves the routing of oil out of this oil field. Oil from the Tengiz field is primarily routed to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) project.
The field required a great deal of infrastructure investment to develop. Most of this was designed and implemented by the Russian Technical Design Institutes, but a consortium of western contractors built the processing plant. The consortium included Lurgi, Litwin and Lavalin.
The second day we were exposed to the power house which houses in-door 7 each 40 tons per hour steam output capacity field erected steam boilers, which were in a very poor operating conditions, not properly maintained for a long time, barely serving the facilities steam demand.
We spent next two full weeks in the power house, inspected in and out of steam boilers, furnace walls, drums, generating banks, superheaters, safety valves, instrumentation and controls, pumps, external and internal steam pipes/ tubes, technical drawings. We took photographs, we measured tube and drum thicknesses. We noted every information of the subject boilers. On the site we drafted our preliminary “Site Report” to finalize the actual “Condition Assessment” report upon return to our home offices.
The only Sunday we were at Tengiz, we visited the nearby Turkish Contractor’s site a few miles away. Compared to our facility, which was purchased from the former Hungarian State contractors, and kept in operation with minimum renovation, Turkish site facility was new, and much better. Each worker/ technician/ engineer had a separate room with shower and toilet. They had satellite TV access, latest PC hardware and software, construction machineries, all in good condition, machine shop etc. They had delicious fresh food, and very civilized working environment. They were subcontractors of TCO and Bechtel at oil field, pipeline construction and engineering in the offices.
In our TCO offices at the oil field working site, each person/ engineer/ worker has to work full four weeks, then go to paid vacation for next four weeks, giving his space/ table/ responsibility to his/her replacement person. This type of work was/ still is called “28/28 rotation”. Normal working practice was such that they would be solving the easy daily problems and leaving the troubles to his/her replacement. In the offices it was my sincere feeling that they had very tense, difficult peer relations, stressful, sort of mobbing conditions.
At dinner time, we had choices of meat/ chicken/ fish all from frozen stock, plus rice/ pasta/ potatoes with some green salad, milky dessert and fruit juice. After dinner, we had nothing to do. We were taking our tea/ coffee, sitting on our dinner table and watching other people, having some conversation with the local ladies, and then we all go to sleep.
Office/ Catering/ Service works were handled by local Russian/ Kazakh ladies who were well educated personnel. They were lawyers/ administrative staff, typist/ translators etc. They were beautiful daughters of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky and Mussorgsky and you could talk on very intellectual conversations long hours.
At the end our site surveillance on the power house, we completed our site activity and returned to our offices at our respective countries. We exchanged our notes and completed and submitted our final “Condition Assessment Report” on the existing steam boilers to TCO authorities. In summary we were advising them that they should dismantle and replace the existing steam boilers, open a public tender to purchase new packaged steam boilers from international markets.
We also added our budget/ estimated / lump sum/ ball park proposal for new 4 each 70 tph packaged steam boilers for their budget. In year 1997 we received the order in open international competitive tendering for construction/ fabrication/ installment/ operation of 4 new package boilers within 12 months.
Our Client was BECHTEL International Inc. in United Kingdom, and we were responsible for the followings: Design and detail engineering, 4 each 70 tons per hour, steam boiler supply and installation, Supply and installation of Draft system, Feed water system, blow-off and drain system, external piping, raw water treatment system, condensate treatment system, Paint, refractory, insulation, automation of related equipment with material supply, Tests and commissioning, Operation and maintenance manual. Price was approximately 10 million US Dollars (in 2007 prices).
What happened to the young talented international engineers we met at the site. They had short term love affairs with the daughters of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy who were highly educated, sincere, romantic and delicate, and most couples ended up with long term marriages. Ladies of Tengiz desert left their country and emigrated to Louisiana USA, London UK or Istanbul Turkey. International engineers had high degree of possession instinct, which the local counterparts had minimal or almost lack of, due to long Soviet reign. So our companies have also worked for mixing cultures as well as genes.
Your comments are always welcome. Thank you & best regards

Beatings at Schools

Our 1968 generation was subjected to violence at school. It was very violent.

My primary school classroom teacher used to put a bench beating on us, and if we made a lot of noise when she left the classroom, she would hit all of us with a ruler, but she would scipt the District Governor's son.

As a lesson to other children in middle school, the small innocent students who were caught were beaten, the teachers encouraged each other to beat students, my art teacher pulled the ear of a student by forcing him and his face was distorted as if he was in pain.

In the years of 1965-1968, there was a serious beating of teachers at Ankara Atatürk High School. But the most mischievous, naughty students always run away, they are not caught, and the naive, the frail students, were beaten. This time, the job of beating fell on the floor manager assistant principals, most of whom were  sports teachers.

I was in the last year of high school, the school was almost over, we are on the break between classes, we ran down the hall with a friend, we chase each other between the desks in the classroom. There was a sudden silence. I looked back, he stands at the classroom door, said "come here", what could possibly be, I did not do anything important. I walked calmly towards the door. I got a terrible slap in the face, like a volleyball player hitting the ball so hard, I must have turned around. I could not recover for a long time.

Years passed, the sports teacher who slapped me retired, bought a land on the seaside in Ayvalık Burhaniye with his savings, first set up a tent camp there, added volleyball basketball tennis courts to the empty area, then enlarged the facility with the loans he received, the tent areas became bungalows, cafe restaurant swimming pool added.

In the 1990s, I had a job to site seeing a place in Çanakkale cement factory before an important tender, I rented a jeep from Izmir airport, stayed two nights in one of the Behramkale motels, and on my way back I wanted to go by the sea shore. I came across this camp. I knew the place earlier. The time was September, early in the morning, I parked my car, went inside, told the attendant at the door that I wanted to visit the facility, the owner of the camp was drinking tea at the cafe with his ex-teacher wife. They invited me, I sat at their table, tea came to me. I told him that I was a graduate of Ankara Atatürk High School, a common topic emerged. At the end of the speech, I reminded my teacher of the great slap he threw at me in the last year of high school, he turned red. No more conversation, I left.

Now there is no beating in schools, on the contrary, teachers are subjected to violence, there is no failing in the classroom. Students pass the class, then they pile up in the university entrance exam threshold

In our time, it was said that students of private foreign language schools with a fee do not get beaten. TED, Yükseliş and Yenişehir colleges in Ankara were such privileged schools. But I see that the students were beaten by violence, and the students were also subjected to serious violence.

That generation of those abusive teachers have left this world. They left bitter sorrow behind them.

You definitely have a similar unpleasant incident, you have a memory of being beaten at school, it's been a long time, but tell it, don't let it go, with my deepest respects.