I am a Kurd who does not come from Kurdistan, but from Turkey.
	Until my sixth birthday I lived in a village. At home we spoke Kurdish. I only learned Turkish when I went to school.
The first year of school was very hard. I didn't speak Turkish and so the other children made fun of me. We were taught Turkish history and how proud we had to be of being Turkish. I began to doubt if there even was such a place as a Kurdish land.
	I had never heard the word "Kurdistan." My parents had forgotten who we were and we knew nothing about where we had come from. I myself think that we came from the province of Serhat, near Kars.
I was ashamed of my poor command of the language and strange accent, and was determined to learn good Turkish.
Family from the Netherlands spends summer holiday in place of birth, Aksaray, Turkey, 1972