Diyarbakir Old City

When I heard the bomb blast I mistook it for a thunderclap. I looked up to the sky; my only thought was, "It doesn't look like rain."

Minutes later, two ambulances bound in the direction where I had just come from navigated through the intersection where I stood. While waiting to cross, I still failed to make the connection. My only thought was, "Why don't the other drivers pull over to let them through?"

Several hours later, on a bus out of Diyarbakir, my mobile phone rang. My sister in the U.S. asked me where I was. How was I doing? I wasn't too coherent: the local time was 3:30 A.M..

"There was a car bomb in Diyarbakir. That's where you were, right?"

It was only after I hung up the phone that I pieced everything together.

Five killed in Turkish car blast