“Ankara smells like a carcass.”

Ankara, the capital of Turkey and home to about four million people, has been experiencing water shortages and supply cuts for almost two weeks.  Hospitals haven’t been able to perform surgeries, nearby fields are bone dry, and fights have broken out among people queuing for water.  Citizens are calling for the resignation of the mayor, who said he couldn’t have known God had such a disaster in store.  Meanwhile the mosques on Friday were full of people praying for rain, including the Prime Minister and other top officials.

When I was in Ankara last week things didn’t seem so dire, and the city certainly didn’t smell like a carcass, as one editorialist put it.  I was really surprised to see all the city’s fountains working and every major road seemed to have a crew watering the grass.  Then again, those may have been further examples of the major’s ineptitude.

So far one of the most reasonable responses to the mayor has come from Ali Bardakoglu, the president of the Diyanet, who told the press that prayer is no alternative to taking precautions.