"How everything started "¦"

"I have a dream "

...one day to start up an agency so that I can give work to my family and people at the base of Mt. Ararat." Kemal Çeven

As a child I always moved with my mother during the summer to our nomad camp at 3000m on Mt. Ararat. There I helped her with the lambs. Often hikers passed by who wanted to climb up Ararat. Back then my oldest brother Hallis was a mountain guide and hiked with many of these foreign alpinists to the top of Ararat. I always wondered how I could make it so I would climb up with him and stay on the top of the mountain.

Soon my brother Mehmet got his mountain guide license. He also hiked with alpinist from the whole world up to the snow and ice covered mountain top. I always wanted to join him, but we had 9 lambs and they were the future of our family. I had to look after them.

I asked my brother Hallis if I was allowed to hike with him to the mountain top. I was already able to speak a few German words. Besides my dream of getting to the mountain top I wanted to learn the German language. This was not that easy in my country, because in school we only learned Turkish but not other languages.

In the summer of 1994 my oldest brother Hallis took me with him to the top of Ararat. It was much harder and more exhausting than I ever imagined. At a height of 4600 m I got a very painful headache. I thought my head would explode any minute. But Hallis couldn't know any of this or he would have sent me back down immediately. So at 9 years of age, in July 1981, there I was, standing for the first time on the top of our Ararat. In 1990 at 18 years of age I received my mountain guide license.

In spring of 1990 Ararat was closed off. I woke up from my dream. For our family and many other Kurdish people a very hard time started. Our Kurdish identity, which means our language, our music and our culture was prohibited from use. The penalties for doing so were harsh. The military went through our country and often our houses were searched.

In the spring of 2000 Ararat was reopened for mountaineers. I did the first hike with a group of Turkish mountaineers. My brothers worked a lot for agencies in Istanbul and Cappadocia but also for Hauser excursions, the German Summit club and Alibert. But I didn't know if it could continue like this.

Should I start my own agency? We worked for the agencies for little money and were always dependent on them. I had the idea of starting up a family owned agency. In 2002 I started, with my second oldest brother Ahmet, a tourism agency called Çeven Travel.

"I have a dream "¦

...to be able to speak German, so I can get in contact directly with German, Austrian, and Swiss mountain guides and show many people our beautiful country and versatile culture." Kemal Çeven

Soon I met my future wife Tanja and we got married. In 2003 I went to Germany and since then I have studied the German language.

I tried to get in contact with German mountain guides and sent out letters to various alpinist clubs. One day the famous extreme alpinist Götz Wiegand called me. I met him, together with Frank Meutzner and the reverend Ulrike Aldebert from Munich. The three wanted to make, together with me, a movie about Mt.Ararat, which we did later that year (to look at the movie on SAT 3 and BR "¦ » »).

Since then Götz comes every year, with his groups, to our mount Ararat. During the winter months I live in Germany and organize, from there, your dream tours. From spring to autumn I live in my home country at the base of Ararat and guide tours. Many people in my country, through us, get work which they desperately need.