For a place with only 2,000 inhabitants it’s surprising how far Göreme’s tentacles reach -- I have visited friends from the village in Australia and New Zealand, and I doubt there’s a single country in northern Europe that lacks its Göremeli refugee.This dispersal took place in two main eruptions that spurted villagers in completely opposite directions. The first burst of migration took place in the 1960s and ‘70s, and was driven by simple poverty. At that time the factories of northern Europe were crying out for workers, and many Göremelis were happy to pack their bags and head off in search of a life less grim. Now, of course, they are reaching retirement age and some are heading south again to enjoy the fruits of their labor in the shape of smart new duplexes that festoon the Göreme outskirts. “The Germans,” the villagers call the returnees, which can be a tad confusing for outsiders like me.
That first wave of migration preceded the advent of big-time tourism, but the second wave followed, and was in part inspired by, the arrival en masse of foreigners from all over the world. Since 1988 a large number of young Göremeli men have found themselves foreign brides and moved abroad to live with them. Most have married Australians, New Zealanders and Americans because it is primarily Australians, New Zealanders and Americans who come to Göreme. The latest twist in the tale is that, as more visitors from Asia have showed up here, so more Göremelis are finding themselves heading east to start new lives in Japan and Korea. (A strange sort of linguistic apartheid applies in Cappadocia, and the bridegrooms from Francophone Avanos and Uçhisar have headed, in the main, for France.)
The downside to all this is that young Göremeli women are left struggling to find husbands. The answer often lies in the children of the first-wave migrants, many of whom have opted to stay in northern Europe, regarding themselves as much German, Belgian or Dutch as Turkish. So every summer sees a trickle of Göreme girls marrying distant relatives or friends of relatives, before departing to live in Germany, Belgium or Holland. Rarely have they seen these countries, and rarely do they speak a word of their languages. However even now the belief lingers on that the streets of Amsterdam, Brussels and Berlin are paved with gold.
In the meantime spring sees the homesick human swallows winging back from overseas. Some come to work the tourist season, others to catch up with friends and remind themselves of what they’re missing. For a few weeks or months they slot back into local life, perching on chairs outside the carpet shops from where they wistfully watch the comings and goings. Then one day we will look round and find them gone again, returned to their distant nests in countries far away.
Pat Yale lives in a restored cave-house in Göreme in Cappadocia.
