Quick update from Diyarbakır

Hello everyone,
I'm in Diyarbakir right now, and it's been the "most interesting" place I've been to so far in \turkey. We got here yesterday to find pretty much the entire city shut down; there were 14 PKK members killed in the mountains last weekend, 3 of their funerals were here on Tuesday, and demonstrations accompanying the funerals killed another 3 people. There were more demonstrations yesterday and last night, and 6 more people died. We're doing the smart thing and leaving early tomorrow morning, instead of late Sunday; this is the first place where multiple local citizens have told us it's unsafe. On the bright side, they did say it would be better today, and it is: stores are open, and women are out on the streets, and the pazar was fairly normal. Still, yesterday was pretty interesting: there were two eateries open in the city, and perhaps 5 or 6 shops. Even the street-corner simit sellers were packed up and empty. Of course, I checked my email here today to find a nice warning from the US Embassy saying "The Department of State advises U.S. citizen traveling or residing in Turkey to avoid [the town of Diyarbakir]." Would have been nice to get that on Wednesday, but oh well. Just figured I'd post an update so that those of you who knew I'm here this weekend know that I'm just fine, and that I'll be moving on to somewhere with fewer machine guns and police tanks tomorrow.

more updates later, of course,
-R