Nar­in stands on the edge of the Tigris Riv­er in Turkey, sur­round­ed by her fam­i­ly and a small gath­er­ing of Yazi­di elders, await­ing her long-antic­i­pat­ed bap­tism in the spring of 2014. Dressed in a white gar­ment, her small frame is bare­ly notice­able among the larg­er fig­ures of her rel­a­tives, yet her sage-green eyes gleam with curios­i­ty and qui­et antic­i­pa­tion. The sheikh, draped in tra­di­tion­al white robes, places a gen­tle hand upon her head, whis­per­ing words of bless­ing that invoke strength, wis­dom, and pro­tec­tion for her future. Near­by, her grand­moth­er watch­es intent­ly, her gaze filled with both pride and sor­row. As the riv­er flows steadi­ly beside them, she calls Nar­in “the cor­ner of my liv­er” and “the light of my eye,” affec­tion­ate phras­es that Yazi­di elders use to express deep famil­ial love. The cer­e­mo­ny, a sacred moment in Narin’s life, car­ries the weight of gen­er­a­tions, link­ing the present to the rich his­to­ry of their ances­tors.

Despite the solem­ni­ty of the occa­sion, Nar­in feels an ache in her chest at the absence of her father. A tal­ent­ed qanun play­er, he trav­els fre­quent­ly for work, leav­ing Nar­in to be raised pri­mar­i­ly by her grand­moth­er after the untime­ly death of her moth­er. His absence has been a con­stant in her life, a real­i­ty she has learned to accept, but on days like this, she longs for his pres­ence. The cer­e­mo­ny is near­ing com­ple­tion when an unwel­come intru­sion shat­ters the peace—a bull­doz­er, part of the Turk­ish government’s con­tro­ver­sial dam project, roars to life just beyond the river­bank. Its pres­ence is a stark reminder of the impend­ing destruc­tion of Hasankeyf, a place that holds cen­turies of his­to­ry, now fac­ing sub­mer­sion beneath arti­fi­cial lakes. The gath­ered Yazidis glance at one anoth­er with a mix­ture of frus­tra­tion and help­less­ness, know­ing they have lit­tle pow­er to stop what is com­ing.

Despite the protests of envi­ron­men­tal­ists and his­to­ri­ans, the gov­ern­ment has pushed for­ward with the dam’s con­struc­tion, cit­ing progress and mod­ern­iza­tion as its jus­ti­fi­ca­tion. The dri­ver of the bull­doz­er, seem­ing­ly indif­fer­ent to the cul­tur­al and his­tor­i­cal loss, yells at the group, urg­ing them to leave before the work begins. Grand­ma, a woman whose spir­it is as unwa­ver­ing as the moun­tains, refus­es to move, meet­ing his glare with qui­et defi­ance. The ten­sion is thick, but ulti­mate­ly, the group must con­cede, forced to relo­cate fur­ther up the river­bank to com­plete the cer­e­mo­ny in rel­a­tive peace. The dis­rup­tion leaves an unspo­ken mark on the event, a reminder that their home­land is slip­ping away from them, piece by piece.

As they resume the bap­tism, Grand­ma express­es her long-held desire to take Nar­in to Iraq, where a prop­er bap­tism could be per­formed at the holy Yazi­di site of Lal­ish. She believes that the sacred val­ley, untouched by mod­ern destruc­tion, will offer the girl a more pro­found con­nec­tion to her faith. How­ev­er, Nar­in has her own struggles—her wors­en­ing hear­ing loss, caused by a rare genet­ic con­di­tion, has begun to affect her dai­ly life. She fears a future where she will no longer hear the rush­ing of the Tigris, the songs of her peo­ple, or the sound of her grandmother’s voice telling sto­ries of the past. Sens­ing her unease, Grand­ma reas­sures her that love and mem­o­ry tran­scend even the loss of one’s sens­es. Though they may lose their lands, their rivers, and even their abil­i­ty to hear one anoth­er, the spir­it of their peo­ple will always endure.

As the cer­e­mo­ny con­cludes, a heavy silence lingers in the air, filled with both hope and sor­row. Nar­in feels the weight of her people’s his­to­ry press­ing down on her, the real­iza­tion that she belongs to a lin­eage marked by both resilience and loss. Though her bap­tism is com­plete, she knows that her jour­ney is only just begin­ning. The Yazidis are a peo­ple of sur­vival, their sto­ries flow­ing through time like the waters of the Tigris. Even as their world changes, even as bull­doz­ers erase their past, they remain. Nar­in, stand­ing at the edge of her child­hood, begins to under­stand that her life will be shaped by this same unbreak­able spir­it. And though the future is uncer­tain, she takes com­fort in the knowl­edge that she car­ries the lega­cy of her ances­tors with­in her, like a riv­er that refus­es to be buried.