The ship was pitching heavily, an angry spray occasionally splashing against our window. The glass front of a duty free shop ran alongside the corridor. Its bottles jangled with each dull thud of the prow, and occasionally broke. I watched people walking down the corridor bump into tables as we rose, and the opposite wall as we sank. Most were leaving the cabaret bar at its far end.
Ankara
A man pressed my thumb down onto the greasy black ink pad, and into the space labelled ‘thumb’ on the page beside it. Forefinger, middle finger, ring finger, baby finger, one at a time, were all smeared in the black ink and pressed firmly onto the page. The man had an American twang, but looked like a Turk, dark hair and sallow skin. I shifted in my chair, it squeaked.
I sat opposite five smiling black politicians, framed on the wall. A beaded tribal doll was behind glass on a shelf, beside a Springbok jersey and a bottle of Cape wine, tilted to one side. Piles of brochures about investing in South Africa were fanned out on the glass table top. A broad-shouldered blonde strode into the room.
“Afrikaans of Engels?” she said quickly. Iain stumbled for his answer, taken aback by the address, comprehensible though it was.
“Uh…English, we speak English,” he replied.
“Welcome to Ankara,” she said warmly, extending a hand. “My name is Marieke, I’m the Consular Attaché.”
Sitting in our embassy in Turkey’s capital, we were back in a little South Africa, part of somewhere again. I had assumed Irish citizenship for the past four months, utilising my second passport’s advantages to travel freely within the EU. But now, I was South African again. We had come to receive ‘letters of recommendation’, required by the Syrian embassy for our visa applications. Continue reading Ankara>>
