A quiet Sunday morning. This weekend was the most quiet of all here in Istanbul. I have been sick, with a sore throat and a weird temperature, so I didn’t go out neither Friday night nor Saturday. Thus, I woke up quite bored of the house and went out for a walk. First, I passed by the Dervish Lodge, close to Galata Tower. There was a show at 15.00 but it was 25 YTL and, in addition, I had already seen the whirling dervishes back in Amsterdam at Museumnacht in November. Therefore, I paid 2YTL to enter the gardens or silent-house, where most of the dervishes are buried. I took a lot of pictures; I don’t know what I am going to do with them, but the place was inviting.

On the way back, I passed by a Catholic church which is actually very close to our house, took some pictures and heard for only some minutes the songs of a Chinese community attending their Sunday service. And then I met Kanber; he was going out and proposed to join him. We had discussed some days ago that we should go to Tarlabasi in the morning, because after speaking to my informants but as well as with Kanber, I was informed that this used to be a very classy Greek neighbourhood. I knew already Tarlabasi from my birthday – night but I didn’t know that it was also another old Greek neighbourhood. The scenery now is of course much different, again very beautiful old houses but almost collapsing, and gypsy and Kurdish people are the present inhabitants. I have many nice pictures in my camera but also in my mind of this very poor but colourful neighborhood. Clothes were hanging from one balcony to another, children were playing in the streets, women were washing the carpets on the streets; then Kanber took me to a Christian church and there we found some Greek people sitting outside. The name of the church was Evangelistria and Mr. Vasilis, the verger of the church (καντυλανάφτης) unlocked the door and let us in. We were amazed; it is an old and beautiful church. For Kanber the experience was even more intense than mine because it was the first time he entered a Christian Orthodox Church. Mr. Vasilis told me that in the past, in the 60s, people were queuing in order to attend the Sunday's service. "But now"...he said, "we are so few". I asked him how many people were this morning in the service and he said around 10, 15 maximum. Yes, indeed, the community is shrinking.

The Greek schools have been closed these last two weeks, a thing that kind of slowed down my research. On Wednesday, I had a very interesting interview with the secretary of Zografeion Highschool, who told me –among other things- that the graduates of last year were 12 (big class, as she commented) and this year’s senior class has also 12 students. She also told me that she will give me the phone numbers of last years graduates but she had to wait for the principal to come back from a trip abroad. Consequently, after tomorrow, maybe I will have more informants. Let’s see…