"I had no chance to choose my destination. Now I have to admit that I'm pretty scared in Ceylanpinar". Volkan Esen didn´t expect that the noise of the bullets would keep him awake every night in his first assignment as an English teacher.

Esen graduated from Ankara´s Education Faculty this year and he is one of the 173 teachers that have just arrived in Ceylanpinar -a thousand kilometres southeast of Ankara. This Kurdish town of 40.000 souls on the border of Syria was formerly known for a gigantic agricultural complex. Today it happens to be Turkey´s worst struck city by the Syrian war. Since October 2012, four residents have been killed and dozens have been wounded to stray bullets, shells and mortars.

22 year old Esen says he was already prepared for the cultural differences between Turkey´s west and east, but surprises are seemingly constant.

"Have you checked the facade of this building? It is full of bullet holes!”, exclaims the young teacher. It´s the guesthouse where teachers are supposed to stay in Ceylanpinar, but that has also changed over the past months.

"The teachers used to eat and sleep here but nobody wants to come here now", laments Nevroz Algic, the local Kurdish woman who runs the guesthouse. She tells Firat she has lost and 80 % of her customers because of the war. But material losses are far from being the worst:

"My husband was wounded by shrapnel, my youngest son is traumatized by the explosions and the oldest has quit his university studies". Just behind her, a merchandise train slowly roams across the "no man's land" between Turkey and Syria. It was precisely the railway built in 1911 the one to draw the borders between Syria and Turkey 10 years later. Istanbul and Baghdad were finally linked but local Kurdish and Arab families were divided on both sides of the border. Serekaniye´s north was rebaptised as “Ceylanpinar” whereas the south turned into “Ras al Ayn”.

After 12 years as a teacher in the private sector, Halit Cetin has arrived in Ceylanpinar seeking the stability of becoming a civil servant.

"In the public sector we have a salary of 2000 YTL –around 1,100 IQD- plus incentives ," this Maths teacher tells Firat. “The salary doesn´t vary that much but you can count on it for a lifetime”.

Çetin can apply to be transferred next year because he´s married to a civil servant. However, the majority of his new colleagues will have to spend a minimum of three years before they can leave. It will be six years for Sevgi Bay, a new English teacher who has arrived from Istanbul accompanied by her father.

"I'm getting married here next month with the man I met at university. I´m actually starting a new life here, in Ceylanpinar”, says the 21 year old woman. Were it not for the constant shooting, she says, she finds the place “much better” than expected. “Unlike in the west of the country, families here still value the teachers´ work", adds Cetin.

Arafat Kocigigit will spend five years as this Social Sciences teacher is among the few who chose Ceylanpinar. He arrived from Konya but his family is from Wan, one of the main Kurdish cities in Turkish soil. This 24 year old man finds “urgent and mandatory” the normalization of his native Kurmanji language in Turkey´s education system.

For the time being, coexistence in this border town is yet another collateral victim of the on-going war on the other side.

From his office at City Hall, Ismail Arslan, Mayor of the city for the BDP- the dominant coalition among the Kurds of Turkey- ensures that Ceylanpinar is paying a massive price for its sensitive geographic location.

"Here Kurds make a 60% of the population; a 30% are Arabs and the remaining 10% are Assyrians, Turks and members of other nationalities. Conflict is sowing distrust among us, destroying centuries of peaceful coexistence", this former lawyer tells Firat.

Since the beginning of the uprising in March 2011, the Kurds of Syria - the largest minority in the country- have vowed for a neutral position that has led them engage in clashes with both Assad and the opposition.

In July 2012, Syrian Kurds finally took control of the areas where they are compact in the north of the country. Serekaniye witnessed heavy clashes between the Kurdish and opposition fighters until both sides finally signed a ceasefire last July but Jabhat al Nusra, an Al Qaeda affiliate, rejected the truce.

In the streets of Ceylanpinar, rumours have it that Ankara is backing Islamists to fight the Kurds in neighbouring Syria, and even evacuating their wounded by ambulances to Turkish hospitals nearby like that in Ceylanpinar, or the bigger one in Urfa, the provincial capital.

"Turkey claims to be a democratic country but she is involved in a very dirty war. I truly believe that our problems will be over when Ankara stops supporting groups linked to Al Qaeda", the town´s Mayor tells Firat.

However, the official version is diametrically opposed:

"It is completely false that we are giving coverage of any kind to Jabhat al Nusra, or any other terrorist group. My government would never do such a thing”, Firat is told by Musa Ceri, District Governor and a member of the AKP -the ruling party in Turkey.

Çeri is seemingly more concerned about other threats:

"The Syrian Kurdish fighters are nothing but a branch of the PKK, the Workers Party of Kurdistan. If they finally get to reach an agreement and control their areas, terrorism will eventually extend to our soil", claims Çeri, while he admits that one of Ankara´s main fears is that Syrian Kurds ever build an autonomous region similar to that in northern Iraq.

Local coordinator Nuri Öztürk struggles to ease the adaptation of the new teachers. He prefers not to comment on Ankara´s alleged backing of Islamic fighters while he expects turmoil to be over “as soon as possible”. Priority number one, he says, is that the newcomers feel comfortable.

"The vast majority of them will leave when they finish their assignment here. We do as much as we can to host them and they also enjoy the respect of the local population but it seems it´s not enough”, the 42 year old Kurd tells Firat.

Back in the guesthouse, young Esen subscribes his coordinator´s words  regarding local hospitality but he adds that he will feel more comfortable when leaves his room with a view to the front line .

"I badly need to rent an apartment away from here", says the novice teacher over a cup of tea.

Just a few metres behind him, the call of the muezzin resembles an unheard call for peace amid the increasing sound of shooting.