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Couple sues everyone in village, their only friend history
1.       tunci
7149 posts
 03 Apr 2011 Sun 11:46 am

Couple sues everyone in village, their only friend history

03 April 2011, Sunday / MEHMET ŞAHİN , ADANA

Hatun Dilci (65), who just three years ago retired after 34 years as a caretaker of the historic Anavarza Castle in Kozan, Adana province, is living out a somewhat painful period of retirement.
 

This is because there is no one left in the village of Dilekkaya, located near Anavarza, who has not been the subject of a legal case filed by Dilci. Thus, with all the local villagers angry at her, Dilci’s retirement years are not going as smoothly as they should be. Noting that she does not regret that her job required her to file complaints with the government, Dilci explains: “There is no one in the village who likes me nowadays. If I die, my funeral will be unattended. But the government does like me.”

The story of Hatun and Amber Dilci’s caretaking jobs is one that goes back 47 years. A poor couple, the Dilcis worked in the fields and tended livestock. One day they decided to build a new home in their garden so they could stop living in the tent-like home that had been sheltering them up until then. As they starting digging away at the ground, they uncovered an ancient mosaic depicting fish, though since they did not realize just what a treasure they had stumbled across, they were not very excited. It never occurred to them that this fish mosaic might one day open the doors to a new livelihood.

When news reached the local Adana museum director, he arrived at the site and examined the fish mosaic. The director immediately gave Amber and Hatun Dilci a prize of TL 500, asking them to do their best to protect the mosaic and suggesting a new site for the home they wanted to build. And so the Dilci couple set off to dig the foundation of their new home in a different spot, but this time around, uncovered a new mosaic, one depicting snakes. They decided not to tell the other villagers about their most recent discovery but instead covered it up and set off to tell the Adana museum director about this new mosaic.

Interestingly, they did not even have enough money at the time to pay for the ride into Adana, so they sold one of their chickens for TL 10 and headed off, finding museum officials to give them news of their latest discovery. The news of the “King’s Daughter Mosaic” was met with great excitement by Museum Director Hadi Altaylı. He again offered to reward them with money, but this time (upon the suggestion of other villagers) they refused the offer, instead requesting to be made official caretakers of this first-degree protected area. Their request was accepted; the region where the mosaics were found was far from the provincial capital and there was a shortage of museum personnel to staff every site at which they were needed. And thus Amber and Hatun Dilci were given uniforms and firearms, and set to the task of becoming caretakers.

After receiving this new task, the Dilci couple from that date onwards made it one of their greatest responsibilities to see that the mosaics as well as the world heritage site of Anavarza were not looted or mistreated by visitors. While Amber Dilci worked nights, Hatun worked days, protecting the 1,300-hectare site from looters and even from local Dilekkaya villagers. In fact, the couple wound up facing much resistance to their efforts, even being fired upon by some. They warned people not to touch even one stone in the valuable mosaics and at the historic site, and in the process they made enemies far and wide among other locals. The Dilci family even wound up taking about 90 percent of the local villagers to court over one matter or another, traveling on foot and sometimes by horseback to Kozan, 60 kilometers0 away, to lodge their formal complaints.

Hatun Dilci admits that “there is no one left who did not get in trouble with the law because of us,” but explains the reason for this in her own special style: “Well, for God’s sake! We tell them, ‘Don’t build a new house there,’ and what do they do? They try to break our heads with rocks. We warn them: ‘This is living history here. Don’t dig illegally, don’t break down ramparts you find,’ and they don’t listen to us; instead, they rush in to do just that. Every time we filed a formal complaint, they would have to go to prison. In time, there was no one left in that 115-home village with whom we weren’t enemies.”

Pointing to her head, she adds: “My husband and I had our head and arms broken so many times, but we never abused our positions of duty. Since we ourselves experienced much poverty, we never turned the other way and winked at anyone trying to get away with things.”

Despite the many threats that came to the Dilci couple over the years, they never crumbled. In fact, she explained their strength as caretakers, saying: “God protected us. A wall built well and sound cannot be broken.” Hatun Dilci explains that her husband, Amber Dilci, died 15 years ago, and she herself retired officially from the job with a state ceremony three years ago. So while Dilci, who has received a Certificate of Gratitude and Appreciation from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Adana Governor’s Office, is satisfied knowing she and her husband did the best they could, the fact is that she is still not liked by many of the villagers.

Despite her age, Hatun Dilci’s eyes sparkle, and she has a smiling face that exudes positive energy. She says she feels the problems in the air but does not wish to make too much of them. “The whole nation does love me, but the local villagers don’t. It doesn’t matter, let them not love me. If I were to die now, no one would attend to me. But even though the villagers are my enemies, the state does love me. I am thankful for God’s kindness

 

 

 

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