YAYLADAGI, Turkey - In Turkey's Hatay province near the Syrian border, wedding season is in full swing: hair salons overflow, photographers are booked solid and cars stream with white flowers.
Across the border, a season of revolt is underway: President Bashar al-Assad's forces have razed through northern towns in the past weeks to root out dissent, prompting more than 10,000 Syrians to flee to Turkey. On one mid-June day, those two tides came together: a Turkish man and a Syrian woman, forbidden to marry because of a border, were brought together when tensions between the two countries took a turn for the worse.
For as long as anyone here can remember, lives on both sides of the border have been intertwined: families visit relatives across the border; tradesman and farmers cross to ply their wares and pick up supplies; men romance women into marriage. But the violence in Syria has upended the rhythm as the Turkish military increased its presence and Syrian snipers sit on the other side.
These days, crossing the border for many living in Turkey means surreptitiously bringing supplies to those hiding in the mountains or going back to razed towns to look for relatives. For Syrians, crossing the border now means safety and a life of uncertainty. And what used to be an easy commute to visit family and friends has transformed into, for those allowed to cross, a five-hour ordeal at best, fraught with checkpoints and wary soldiers.
At the checkpoint near the town of Yayladagi in Turkey, a line of cars, minivans and rusted pick-up trucks snakes along the road under the haze of the hot late afternoon sun and wispy plumes of exhaust. Turkish families and workers wait for permission to cross the border into Syria to transport goods or visit relatives and friends. Men step out of their cars to smoke as weary-eyed women and children, packed inside, peer out the windows at the parked traffic ahead.
Since the unrest in Syria began, once-routine border controls in Yayladagi have become slow and arduous, conducted under the cautious eyes of heavily armed guards.
Today, though, the sound of drums and the shrill wail of a zurna (a traditional wind instrument) pierce the still air, drawing closer. A growing group of women and men, young and old, huddle around the border gate, cheering and whooping as the frenzied pace of the beat whirls steadily faster. A row of elderly women wearing patterned headscarves and long skirts cling to the gate, waving kerchiefs in the air and dancing. Slowly, curious farmers as well as entire families start to step out of their trucks and cars.
Finally, a long-awaited convoy approaches from the Syrian side of the gate: an old, white volvo trailed by three more cars, all with Syrian license plates. Behind the darkened windows is a 24-year-old Syrian bride, enveloped in white silk and beads, her face hooded by a veil of lace.
SY-TR-Wedding-Border3"There was unrest in Latakia yesterday," Rimeh Bayrakdar says of her town. "There were a few problems at the border and it took us five hours to get across."
Her Turkish groom, 27-year-old Rasim Yuce, stands waiting in a shiny black tuxedo and a broad smile as the car rolls across the border line and the bride steps carefully out into the sun.
"I can't believe I'm marrying her," he says, eyes shining.
Together, the couple climbs into a ribbon-laced car dotted with bright red flowers as they join a caravan of festive cars making its way to the groom's village for the bride's traditional henna ceremony, the day before the wedding.
* * * * *
The bride is surrounded by Rasim's sisters in the beauty parlor, donning bright shades of pink, blue and mauve makeup as they wait for the hairdresser to tease, slick and curl their hair. Pictures of Jessica Alba and Hilary Duff hairstyles adorn the windows, and the women's husbands duck in and out of the shop to chase after running toddlers.
It is the wedding day.
Rimeh and Rasim, a Syrian hairdresser and a Turkish farmer, met 10 months ago during one of the groom's frequent trips to Syria to visit friends. For both, they say, it was love at first sight.
"I liked him right away," laughs Rimeh, sitting back in a worn leather chair as a hairdresser twists her blond-streaked dark brown locks into rollers.
After exchanging phone numbers and chatting everyday, Rasim started to travel back and forth across the border a few times a week to steal time with his would-be bride, even bringing her to Turkey to meet his family.
"I wanted to marry her immediately," recalls Rasim, speaking over the roar of the hairdryer in the barber shop just a few storefronts down from the bridal party's salon. "But first I wanted her to come to Turkey and show her how I live. To see if that would be something that she could imagine."
Rimeh's father refused to give his daughter's hand to Rasim, demanding that she find a Syrian husband. With tensions rising between the two countries, her parents feared the borders would be closed - that they would lose their daughter forever.
Rimeh recalls how her parents tried in vain to introduce her to other men in the hope of pulling her away from Rasim. "There were a lot of young men and families who came by," she says as one of Rasim's sisters re-fastens a loose bead on the bride's dress. "But I didn't want any of them. It just never felt right."
The couple found a way to sneak to cafes, restaurants, parks and the beach, playing hooky from work to get to know each other better. Rimeh says she was constant lying to her parents about where she was and her sisters were helping by covering for her.
The groom's best friend and business partner, Garib Islekyay, also helped the couple to meet surreptitiously by doing Rasim's work.
"Rasim was always leaving his work behind to go to Syria to meet and see her," says Garib, watching the groom through the mirror as the barber applies a shiny coat of gel. "I had to pick up his slack. But I gladly did that for my friend."
The couple says they were growing increasingly desperate after seeing each other for months on the sly.
"I was always fighting with my parents at that time, threatening that I would run away if they wouldn't let me marry him," adds Rimeh, who runs her own salon in Syria's Latakia province.
"My family and friends suggested I kidnap her since her father wasn't giving his permission," Rasim says. "But I wanted to do everything the right way."
But as the unrest in Syria turned increasingly violent and President al-Assad's forces started pushing through towns and villages along the border, Rimeh's father finally relented to Rasim's persistent requests, partly because he was worried about her safety if she stayed and partly because of Rasim's special weapon - his mother.
"I finally went over to Syria with my son," said Zekiye Yuce, Rasim's mother. "I said that I would not leave their house until he gave us his daughter."
* * * * * * *
Tucked away among the looming hills and craggy landscape along the border, Rasim's village of Aslanyazi is a seamless blend of two cultures, where both Turkish and Arabic are spoken at home.
These days, the once-sleepy hamlet marked by a massive clay bust of former Turkish leader Kemal Ataturk has rapidly turned into a haven for fleeing Syrians who chose to settle with friends or family rather than head to Turkey's Red Crescent refugee camps.
"Our village is so close to the border that if I turn my stereo speakers toward my window and turn up the volume, the music can be heard in the town across the border," says Garib.
Town folk in Aslanyazi have been pooling money and buying bread, baby food and medication and smuggling them over the border to Syrians now hiding in the mountains in makeshift tents.
"The Syrian military set fire to these peoples' homes, crops and animals," said Garib, recalling how the villages looked after Syrian forces took over the entire region. "The fields are dry now."
Just across the border in Syria, though, Rimeh says she was shielded from much of the turmoil in her home country, even as tensions spilled over into surrounding towns and villages near hers.
"We learned more about what was going on in Syria on television broadcast from other countries," she says. "When I see Syrian refugees in Turkey and hear their stories, I can't believe how little I knew while I was in my own country."
For Rasim, it was clear he and his bride would start their life together in Turkey, not Syria.
"I did think of the possibility of living (there) but I felt like it was too dangerous and difficult," he says.
Still, says Rimeh, it wasn't an easy decision to leave friends and family behind in Syria in favor of a new life in Turkey.
"We love each other very much," she says, resting on a woven couch in the salon. "If I didn't love him so much, I wouldn't move to Turkey."
Soon after, Rimeh slips into the wedding dress she wore across the border the day before.
"I'm so happy. So, so happy," she says, blushing. "I was so afraid our love would never turn into anything."
Despite the violence and danger traveling to and fro across the border everyday, Rasim had no doubts.
"It was a very hard period for us to stay together," he says, smoothing his jet-black hair with his hands. "But I never for a minute gave up."
* * * * * *
From the salon, the wedding party climbs into a series of cars, one bearing the words "Evleniyoruz," or "Just married." The convoy winds along dusty rural roads against a slowly setting sun, weaving through a lush green and sparse brown landscape. As they travel among rolling hills and imposing mountains, they stop at times to beep horns or shout out greetings to farmers passing by with horse and cart.
When they reach Aslanyazi, they are greeted by dozens of cheering friends and relatives in a modest village square. Upbeat Turkish and Arabic songs blare from oversized speakers as the elderly take their places among rows of plastic white and green chairs set up along a wall.
At moments, Rasim and Rimeh sit side by side, holding hands as they watch brothers, sisters, cousins and friends slowly dance the traditional Halay, picking up speed every minute. Then they join in, stepping lightly into the circle and holding hands with the many Turks and Syrians who have arrived in white vans from surrounding villages.
Night falls and flood lights are switched on, shrouding Rasim and Rimeh in the shadows of dancing guests and overgrown trees. This, says Rasim, is the day he has dreamed of ever since he met Rimeh. Now, he's looking to the future.
"We want kids but we will wait a few years so that she can get settled in and maybe set up a (salon) in Antakya," he says.
As Rimeh bids farewell to the crowds of her family who have journeyed to Aslanyazi for the wedding, she says she will miss Syria and she doesn't know how often she can go back but she knows she made the right choice.
"My place is at my husband's side," she says. "I'm happy where he's happy."
The guests slowly file out of the main square and into cars, vans and trucks. A Syrian man and who recently fled to Turkey climbs into a rusted pick-up truck with a Turkish friend. He says they are preparing for a tricky journey over the mountains the next day.
"We are going to Jisr al-Shighour," he says, referring to one of the latest towns to be razed by Syrian troops.
Instead of returning home as usual there, he says, they will look for relatives who didn't make it out - despite reports that Jisr al-Shighour is abandoned and empty, a ghost town now. Turning their backs on the glare of the floodlights and the thud of the beat, they ramble off down the road, disappearing into a dark mountain bend.
