New job for me, farm life for Boncuk & the army countdown continues..

Posted on July 2, 2015 by livingtheturkishdream

I haven’t posted here for over 6 weeks now, I have a lot I want to post and write about but I just haven’t had time.

The main reason for that is that I FINALLY found a full time job! I started 3 weeks ago and I’m enjoying it. I’d been looking for work since December but had no luck, other than a few days for an agency. I had applied for hundreds of jobs and kept getting knocked back, even after going for interviews etc. Finally my luck changed and an agency put me forward for a 3 month placement for a really interesting company who are based inside Canary Wharf – I went for the interview and got the job. It was overwhelming at first, I’m not a ‘people’, so the first few days of travelling to Canary Wharf in rush hour was a bit of a shock, but not quite as overwhelming as the chaos that is lunchtime inside, and around One Canada Square and Canary Wharf. Thousands of people queuing up, buying, sitting and eating their lunch all at the same time – it was really horrible at first. I’ve found ‘my’ spot now where I sit everyday for lunch and read my book (oh, hello Mr Grey 😉 ) , and even though it’s still busy and overwhelming, the initial shock has worn off! This is the view I face everyday whilst eating my sandwich – isn’t it pretty? I work inside that middle building, on the 30 something floor – eeek. I’m actually enjoying the role and it’s such a relief to be back into a routine and earning money – the last 3 weeks have gone very quickly so keeping busy at work certainly makes the days tick by faster.

Berkay is also being kept busy in the army. He’s finding it a lot harder than he anticipated and he can’t wait to get out and have some freedom. He’s still based in Kayseri, although there was a scary moment where he faced the prospect of being moved to a more dangerous area – thankfully he didn’t have to go. He gets a few hours off most weekends so he can go outside and speak to me on skype and he’s made two good friends there who get the same hours off as him so he wanders around the nearby shopping centres with them for hours. He says they are all the ‘oldies’ and people refer to them as such, because they’re mid twenties and most people doing their national service are a lot younger than that. I’m glad he’s made friends. He’s been in there for 5 months this week – another 7 to go, and he’s counting every single day.

I’m still moving the marbles from my ‘days to go’ jar into my ‘days down’ one, and it’s a relief seeing nearly equal amounts in each! Berkay has a little list of days in the shape of ‘365’ that he’s ticking off one by one – bless him.

One of the things I was most worried about when Berkay went in the army was Boncuk, where she’d go and how safe she’d be. Initially she stayed with our friends for the first 2 months – and when I was there in April we took her to Berkay’s family’s village instead. Berkay’s brother promised me he’d look after her, but I was still worried because although they have farm animals and care for them, a dog is different. Turkish people don’t really like dogs like we do. They have their own dog, used to guard the sheep – they don’t feed it proper food, just bread and the occasional sheep/goat hoof when slaughtering time comes around. Needless to say, when we turned up with Boncuk, her bags of food and asked Berkay’s dad to save her a bit of fish from his dinner plate so that we could get her to take her worming pill, they thought we were nuts. Thankfully, Berkay’s brother is lovely and has been looking after her nicely, sending me photo updates and answering all my ‘Boncuk nasil?’ messages! He says she loves him and jumps up him wagging her tail whenever she sees him. He even takes her for walks, which is unheard of in the village, people look at you like you’ve got two heads if you’ve got a dog on a lead but think nothing of someone walking along with a flock of sheep instead. Last week Berkay’s cousin was visiting the village and sent me some photos – I was sat on the train coming home from work when I got them and it made my whole day, Boncuk just looks so happy doesn’t she? Such a relief.

149 days down, 219 days to go!

P.S I’m off camping this weekend, but I hope to have another post up sometime next week – I still have a lot of lovely photos of Fethiye to share. If you’re interested in more photos, join our Facebook group www.facebook.com/groups/TurkishDreams where me and 3 of my friends post daily photo challenges among other Turkey related things! (:

Trees, sunsets and a hidden mine.

Posted on January 18, 2015 by livingtheturkishdream

While we were in the village of Beyağaç back in November, we drove up a mountain road to a forest area and explored a little whilst hunting for mushrooms.

While we were up there the sun began to set and the trees looked absolutely beautiful with the orange glow behind them and I couldn’t resist taking a few photos as they just looked so magical!

While we were wandering around we came across a mine, I’m not sure if it’s still in use but it was pretty creepy. I checked online and I believe its a chromite mine. I wandered down to the entrance and had a peek in, there were spider webs everywhere and it was really eerie, I don’t know how anyone manages to work in mines like this, it wasn’t very tall at all… it reminded me of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs!

We also found a huge hole in the ground, all sorts of weird and wonderful creatures live up in the mountains I’m sure, any suggestions as to what might have been living in this? It was quite wide and very deep, I couldn’t see the bottom.

We could see all of Beyağaç from the mountain, the views were stunning… fields, trees and farm land in all directions as far as the eye could see. It was so peaceful up there, although a little scary with the mine and I had visions of whatever animal was hidden in that giant hole coming out and chasing us back to the car… What a story that would have been!

Village adventure – day 3

Posted on December 3, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

We woke up on our last day in the village and knew we were going to be busy – we planned to leave the village at 12pm and travel to the nearest city center to visit more of Berkay’s relatives. The previous day Berkay’s dad had announced that since all the family was going to be together (including me, Berkay and both his brothers), something that happens very rarely, he was going to kill one of the animals from his garden so that we could all have a big family BBQ.
By the time we had woken up, had a shower and packed our bags ready to go, it was 10 o clock and Berkay’s grandad had just arrived to do the honors. I walked over to him to say hello with the traditional hand/head kiss and he seemed impressed by this, even more so when he said ‘nasilsin?’ and I answered in Turkish. There wasn’t much time to sit around and talk and we all headed out to the garden. I was walking around having one last look at all the animals and became friends with a goat, I was talking to him (yes…talking…) and he was licking my hand, it was all very sweet. Little did I know, that an hour later I’d be eating this goat for dinner.

Just 10 minutes after my encounter with the goat, Berkay’s brother walked into it’s little pen and led it around to the side of the house where they had been digging a hole. I knew what this meant, the poor goat was the chosen one.

I’m not sure what possessed me, but after giving him one last little stroke, I stood and watched as they removed it’s collar, laid it down with it’s head over the hole in the ground and tied it’s legs together. The goat didn’t protest at all, I guess it knew what was coming as much as the rest of us. Berkay’s grandad slit the goat’s neck, the blood drained out into the hole and that was that. Over in minutes. Quick, calm and as a little suffering to the goat as possible.

The worst part for me came after, was watching his grandad strip down a piece of skin from the goats ankle and blow air (from his own mouth…) into it, blowing the poor goat up like a balloon. I wasn’t entirely sure of the purpose of this, but I researched online and it says it makes it easier to skin them by doing this first. At this point I decided I didn’t want to watch anymore, and wandered back to the other animals instead, one of the sheep had actually escaped the pen it was in and was actually stood watching what they were doing to the goat… I wonder if it actually understood what was going on though.

I went with Berkay in the car to pick up his cousin and her daughter, who were coming back to the family house to enjoy the BBQ with the rest of us. It was a 20 minute drive and by the time we got back, the goat had been fully skinned and its meat was now lying on trays being chopped up into pieces. Including it’s head, eye, brain, intestines, liver and other organs. Bleugh. The family will probably make soup and other dishes out of these parts, they certainly don’t waste any edible parts – they even gave their dog the goats four raw hooves.

We all sat down to eat the BBQ, which included the lovely çintar mushrooms we’d found the day before, and it was really delicious. Of course I felt sorry for the poor animal we were eating, but I’m not vegetarian and eat alot of meat. We don’t usually think about where our food comes from because it’s all cleaned, neatly packaged and sold on supermarket shelves, we take it for granted and don’t consider where it actually comes from, so it’s definitely interesting, although a little disturbing, to see the process from furry animal in the garden to lump of cooked meat on your plate.

After eating, it was time to say our goodbyes. Berkay’s step-mum cried when we were going and gave us both big hugs. She is really sweet, she sent us home with a massive bag of onions, spinach, spring onions, nuts, butter, chicken and leftover goat, all things grown on their farm! I really, surprisingly enjoyed our time in the village, and I really didn’t expect to. It was just so peaceful there, so relaxing and it felt so far away from everything else, no worries, no thinking about anything.

us with Berkay’s stepmum.

But now it was time to change out of the village baggy pants, say bye to the lovely people and views and head to the city instead…

Village adventure – Day 2

Posted on December 1, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

When I woke up the morning after we arrived in the village and looked out of the window, I won’t lie, I definitely thought ‘what on earth am I doing here?’ – it was the first time I’d seen the place in daylight (at least since I’d visited 3 years ago..) and to someone not used to living this way, it was quite a shock to the system.

The room we were sleeping in was now freezing as the soba had been turned off all night, so as soon as we woke up we bundled into the living room with the rest of the household and sat around their recently lit soba, there’s something very cosy about the soba, it reminds me of Christmas with everyone sitting around the fire in their pajamas. We weren’t up for long when Berkay’s aunt walked in and started making breakfast right away, as I mentioned previously she’s kind of taken the role of housekeeper on now that Berkay’s mum is sick.

She came out with a tray of breakfast foods, spicy Turkish sausage (sucuk), tomatoes, olives, boiled eggs and some sort of lentil dish which was lovely to dip the bread in! Of course this was all washed down with a few glasses of Turkish tea. While we were eating Berkay’s brother had a phonecall that the daily village delivery of coal had arrived and said that he and Berkay could go an unload it all for some cash. I could have waited in the house with Berkay’s mum and aunt, but I knew that when Berkay said ‘we’ll only be gone 2 hours’ he was talking Turkish time, and I learnt a long time ago that Turkish time means add on at least 2 hours more to everything they say, so I decided to go with them. I had a quick shower, which was much like having a shower at our own house, no hot water from the solar panels and no electric shower meant it was a boiled water from the stove and a jug job – no complaints from me as I’m definitely used to that by now!

We drove to the village centre and as it was freezing cold outside and the boys had work to do, I sat in the warm car watching them and being nosey at the surroundings. I wanted to have a walk around the town, but I would undoubtedly be the only woman down there, so I thought I’d feel a little uncomfortable and decided against it. Instead I sat in the car with my laptop writing a couple of blog posts. I’d look up every so often and see Berkay pushing a heavy wheelbarrow full of sacks of coal into the warehouse while his brother and a friend were on the truck moving the thousands of sacks into his reach. It definitely looked like hard work, and the fact they were sweating when it was a mere 6 oc outside said it all. They briefly stopped for lunch and we all shared some pide, which was delicious. The boys stunk and were covered in black dust from the coal, but eventually 4 hours after they had started their ‘just two hours’ job (*cough*… Turkish time…) they unloaded the last sack and off the truck drove back to wherever it came from. Berkay got 60tl for his effort, which is very good money for just a few hours work, he’d been working here in Calis recently earning 20tl for a 12 hour day! It’s so typical of Berkay to be working during his little holiday, he hates sitting around doing nothing.

When we arrived back at the village house it was around 2pm and more of Berkay’s family had arrived to visit him, his uncle, aunt, cousins and even second cousins were all there to greet us. Berkay’s other aunt had once again been preparing a meal and came out with a huge tray of food for everyone present. We all gathered on the floor, sat around the tray and tucked in – this time it was salad, kuru fasulye, bulgur rice, dried meat and onion and a huge bowl of garlicky yogurt to dip bread into. After our pide we weren’t really hungry but know they get offended if you decline food, no matter how politely, so we ended up eating some anyway.

After an hour or two of more chatting and cay drinking, the guests left, Berkay’s mum had a nap, his dad was at work, his brother was busy with the animals and we had some time to ourselves. We had a quick look around their garden and farm area behind the family home, I’d been dying to see the animals ever since we arrived. I love animals and love the idea of having a farm, although I’d be rubbish at it as I’d never be able to bring myself to kill them for meat or sell them, I’d get far too attached. Berkay’s family has a lot of animals – sheep, cows, goats, chickens, turkeys and a dog. Berkay’s dad wakes up at 6am every morning to milk the cows and they use the milk for drinking and for making butter. They have a baby cow which is only a week or two old, they still feed it with a bottle! It was so cute and so fluffy, I stepped into the cow shed and managed to stroke it – I love this photo of it trying to lick my hand – what an action shot! They also have one lamb at the moment, just look how in love with it Berkay was.

While we were walking around I couldn’t help but think how beautiful and picturesque the scenery was – so much countryside, farms and green hills as far as the eye could see.

Since we had some time to ourselves, Berkay said he wanted to take me for a drive so that he could show me the house he has born in and a few other important places for him around the village. He kept pointing out things his Grandad had made and built, trees Berkay himself had planted as a child with his nan and telling me stories of the things he had done with them. He always speaks highly of his grandparents, they raised him as a baby as his mother and dad abandoned him when he was only 28 days old, he’s still not seen his mother since and knows nothing about her, and although he is on speaking terms with his dad, he definitely had a stronger bond with his grandparents, who have both now passed away, he showed me the cemetery they’re both in too.

He drove us up to Esentepe just as the sun started to go down and we got out to take a photo of the beautiful scenery – it was pretty to look at but it was freezing cold, I ended up wearing my hoodie and Berkay’s thick leather jacket on top! The sun was just starting to go down but before it did Berkay said he wanted to wander through the trees and try and find some çintar mushrooms – special wild mushrooms that are a seasonal delicacy here in the south west of Turkey. A few minutes after starting searching I heard him shout “Danni, come here, I found one!” he was so excited.

He’s definitely the expert at finding them, he knew how to spot them under a pile of twigs and I was just walking around aimlessly not really knowing what I was looking for… I found a lot of ‘normal’ mushrooms, but no çintar ones, until I spotted a giant orange thing sticking out of the ground.. “look how big this one is…” I said, and then Berkay informed me it was exactly what we were looking for. I was very proud of our little mushroom stash, you’ve heard of the saying “bringing home the bacon”, well we were definitely “bringing home the mushrooms” and we took them all back to Berkay’s family ready to eat on the BBQ the next day.

After all the mushroom picking, food eating and tea drinking, we were exhausted and settled back in the house for the evening. I decided to change my outfit to fit in a bit more and put on my comfy ‘village’ flowery baggy pants. We ended up going to Berkay’s aunts house with his brothers and played OKEY, ate more sunflower seeds and drunk more tea… I was starting to think I’d end up looking like a glass of tea if I drank anymore…

Our village adventure – Day 1

Posted on November 26, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

Berkay’s family have been asking us to visit them for a long time and it was just impossible during the summer, however, now that it’s winter and life is moving by at a slower pace, we had the chance to make the trip. His step-mum is quite ill and recovering from an operation so we were hoping our visit would cheer her up a little.

They live in a town called Beyağaç in the Denizli province, it’s a town 1.5-2 hours away from the city centre. Instead of travelling on the bus from Fethiye for 6 hours, we rented a car for a relatively cheap amount (150tl for 3 days) and made the journey in just 4 hours instead, even with the cost of running it taken into consideration, it doesn’t work out much more expensive than the bus tickets, that’s the plus side of having a car that runs on LPG instead of petrol.

We left Fethiye at 1.45 pm on Friday and arrived at the village at around 6.15 pm. I was really looking forward to the drive because I knew it would be beautiful and I wasn’t disappointed, we had amazing views of the mountains and it was a relatively easy journey with nice roads. That’s the beauty of Turkey, you can reach almost any city just by following a single road. When in one place you can see sign posts pointing in all directions, directing you to other cities hundreds of miles away. Imagine being in London and seeing a sign post for ‘Manchester’ – it would be weird, but it’s normal here. So simple.

As we were driving further inland, we began to feel a bit chilly. When we reached a town near Tavas and stopped to fill up on gas, we realised just how cold it was. Freezing. We had to turn the car heater on to defrost ourselves.

Eventually we reached the town of Beyağaç, it’s actually a lot larger than I remember, with a population of 7000 people. Driving through the main town centre I saw a few apartment blocks, a post office, police station, school etc.. and of course the customary Ataturk statue (there’s one of these in every single town in Turkey). It’s very much a working farming town – most of the businesses deal with fixing tractors, delivering and supplying coal, animal food etc..

Berkay’s family live a 5-10 minute car drive from the main town centre, up on a hill surrounded by fields and beautiful scenery. They have wooden shacks behind their house full of animals, sheep, goats, chickens and cows. They use the cows for their milk, eggs and meat. They even make butter from the cow’s milk. Almost every fruit or vegetable they eat they have grown themselves. Everything there is very simple, back to basics.

We went inside and were greeted by his step-mum (from now on I’ll just call her his mum, as he has never met his birth mum), aunt and brother. All gave me a big hug and kisses both sides of my cheeks, as is the norm here in Turkey! ‘Who is that?’ I said to Berkay referring to the neighbours sitting in the living room that also joined in the hugging, ‘no idea’ he said… You have got to love their friendliness! After the welcome greetings were over, I felt a little more relaxed, I’m always nervous about that first ‘hello’ – mainly because I always end up in a panic about the polite way to do it. It’s normal here when greeting someone significantly older than yourself, to kiss their hand and then raise it to touch your forehead. It’s polite and shows that you respect your elders. The only person who really expects this in Berkay’s family is his father (and elderly neighbours etc). As it happened, his father arrived later than us so I had time to prepare for ‘the hand kiss’, I seriously practiced with myself first…

After his father arrived it was time for dinner. Berkay’s aunt is the main carer of the house, she goes every day and cooks, cleans etc, mainly because Berkays mum is ill, but also because her husband died a few years ago and her daughter has her own husband and house to take care of. I think she enjoys going to other people’s houses to spend her time being useful and so that she’s not so lonely.

The village is very traditional, the women do not work, they just stay home, cook, clean and look after the children and animals. I suppose it’s like going back in time 50 odd years in the UK , when housewives were the norm, and not frowned upon like they are today (in my experience, stay at home mums etc are often considered ‘lazy’). If I were to walk around the town centre, I would stick out like a sore thumb and it would be very apparent that I’m not from the area, not because I’m a foreigner, but because I’m a woman. There are just no women wandering around there, ever.

Anyway, the dinner was lovely. We had rice, chicken (fresh from the garden), an aubergine dish, yogurt and some fresh crusty bread. It was served in the traditional way here, in big metal bowls on a large tray on a blanket on the floor. The whole family sits on the floor to eat and shares food from the same bowl/plate, although everyone has their own fork/spoon. I really like this way of eating actually, it used to be a strange concept but now we do it so often it’s normal. It works out well if you don’t like a certain food too, instead of being served a plate of something and feeling under pressure to eat it, you can avoid it and take spoons of something you do like instead, they’ll never even notice! I avoided the yogurt, as I’ve still not quite grasped the concept of having yogurt served with dinner, but very much enjoyed the aubergine as I have become addicted to that since living in Turkey this time!

After dinner, everyone sat down with a glass of Cay and had a gossip, I have no idea what they were saying as I find it really difficult to understand a word. When in Fethiye, I can understand a lot, but there in the village it was different, I don’t know if it’s the dialect or if they just speak at super speed, but I can’t keep up with it. I just sat taking the atmosphere all in instead.

We were then served another large tray of fruit, watermelon, oranges, grapes, apples etc, sunflower seeds, nuts and cake. I didn’t want any but it’s rude to say no so I ended up eating a whole bowl of sunflower seeds, as you do, it’s impossible to eat just one!

We were really tired after the day of travelling so as soon as the neighbours went home at 10pm we headed to bed. Berkay’s mum wouldn’t let us sleep on the sofas in the living room or the cushions in the other bedroom (there’s only one bed in the house)- she made us take her bed instead, even though she’s sick. Bless her. These people might not have much themselves, but they are very welcoming and would give you anything.

Part 2 of our village trip coming soon!