I sent this letter yesterday but it did not show up. I apologize in
advance if it appears twice on your screens.
I went to Turkey in response to the invitation of a company that has a
chemical plant in the earthquake region. Four of us, a social worker, a
clinical psychologist, a psychiatrist, and myself, a developmental
psychologist, worked in group sessions with any of the plant employees,
mainly factory workers, and their families who wanted to attend. We tried
to help the men, women, and children share their experiences with others.
We felt that this would be a first step towards recovery, a step which
would help the workers themselves establish a long-term support system.
Immediately after my arrival in Istanbul in late August I met the other
people in my team. After two days of intense work of deciding on our
procedures and visiting the earthquake sites, we worked for over a week
with the administrators, managers, workers and their families. Some sites
were in Istanbul and others in Izmit. We followed the wokers' locale and
shift, making ourselves available pretty much any time.
Our visit to the earthquake sites indicated to me the limitations of my
previous understanding of this disaster formed from what I heard from my
own family, watched on TV, and read in the newspapers. Never in my life
did I have an experience so jarring. When we arrived in Golcuk, the
epicenter of the earthquake, we were met by silence and smell of decaying
corpses, still there arrested under the rubble three weeks after the
disaster. The city was is in ruins either destroyed on earth or submerged
under the sea of Marmara. The survivors were quietly digging into the
rubble using their hands with the hope of recovering something. Or else,
they were lost as they gazed into space.
I was overcome by profound sadness in listening to the victims' stories.
They talked about fear. Many of them were still in a state of shock trying
to make sense of the roaring of the earth, being shaken in the middle of
the night, and the flames over the sea. They were afraid that any
unexpected noise is a sign of it coming back. They woke up in the middle
of the night fearing that it is back. In fact, before they knew it, it was
back. The number of after-shocks when I was there reached 2,000, with the
most severe one occurring two days ago.
We talked about many things that can be categorized as the symptoms of post
traumatic stress syndrome. In an effort to protect the people's privacy
and to be able to maintain myself, I don't want to revisit individual
accounts in detail. I do want to state however that witnessing two things
was heart-wrenching: Listening to parents' fear of loosing their children
and children's having to come to terms with their mortality at such a young
age were nearly unbearable.
The workers and their families stated that the experience of talking about
the earthquake as a group was helpful. The indiviudal adults expressed
comfort in realizing that they were not the only ones in feeling in a
particular way. They also said that they appreciated in hearing that their
reactions to the disaster were only human. Finally, after our discussions,
they said they now understood why young children were constantly pretending
as if there was an earthquake in their play.
I returned after having recognized the enormity of the problem and my
limitations in providing relief. There are thousands of needy people who
are suffering from this disaster. There were still homeless people a week
ago. Some people are claiming to be the earthquake victims to get a tent.
Some others are looting, taking other people's possesions from the rubble.
Young children have disappeared, kidnapped, to be killed by the "organ
mafia" for their organs which are sold to those who can pay for a
transplant. The schools just started and they did not have any information
about earthquakes to use in schools.
If you want to help in any way, please let me know. I will then offer
information what you can give and to whom so that the help reaches those
who need it.
Artin
Artin Goncu, Ph.D
Associate Professor
The University of Illinois at Chicago
Educational Psychology (M/C 147)
College of Education
1040 W. Harrison Street
Chicago, IL 60607-7133
(312) 996-5259