Youtube clip about us!

Most of you people have already seen this, but for those who haven't, here we go once more.

I am now volunteering at a farm in the middle of Fethiye's little mountains, closest village is 40 minutes' walk away. We do have wi-fi in our cottage but being all poor travellers, we don't have any device to catch the signal :D so we just hitch-hiked to the village with Ansel to get to an internet cafe. We play cards every night with him and our other volunteer friend Mahna, so much fun!! (You can also see them both on this video). Mahna is from Iran and Ansel from U.S.A. but we are all citizens of the world :P
Tomorrow I'm leaving Üzümlü, going back to Istanbul to see Celine, who is now living there because she found a 4 months' job giving art workshops to children! We also formed a band with Ansel and we'll try to go sing in Istanbul's streets, see if we can make some money or at least provoke a few smiles :) I even taught him an entire song in french, he's an excellent student, we can already have complete conversations even though he didn't know any french before!

Here is the video, it was filmed by 2 australians who were living and working with us a couple of weeks ago, they are on a biking trip around the world; they started from Holland and they will be crossing Asia towards India and end up back home in Australia, planned arrival in a couple of years :D awesome! They are making videos about their experiences, so they made this little ''reportage'' about us :)) I also definitely recommend to follow their other videos, they are super funny people! Enjoy :)

P.S. a more detailed post about this Dikencik farm coming soon, don't worry. Hopefully with pictures, when I find a good computer and a normal internet speed in Istanbul :)

The Horse-Farm Disaster

Hello you!

I am still alive, been now 10 days at an organic farm / guesthouse near Üzümlü -village. But I still haven't told you about my last farm experience with Celine and Manon so HERE WE GO!

The place was held by a brittish couple settled down in Turkey since 6 years. Of course, they still didn't speak turkish. We took a dolmuş (local mini-bus transport) from Fethiye town to Yeşilüzümlü-village (it means green grape valley) and we had to walk down to the house of our new host with brittish instructions. Frenchies got themselves lost and at the end we were brought to the place by a jendarma-car passing next to us (local police).

We had our first ''lunch''. Meaning pieces of bred with jam or cream cheese... Our inner little french-culinarists died inside us in slow and torturous pain. Luckily we got often access to the kitchen so we got to cook ''real food'' too, getting to use these little things called vegetables. Since the beginning, I was not thrilled to be around horses (I am scared of them and I also have absolutely no interest in them), and I had warned everybody in advance that I wasn't going to go near them. My tasks for that week included walking one of the dogs, preparing breakfast (sometimes pancakes sometimes omelettes, yumm), washing the dishes and helping out with the dinner. The tasks in itself were not complicated so it was okay but the atmosphere of the place and staying inside all the time were quite complicating factors. Also the girls had a much worse experience struggeling with horses that were acting crazy and not following orders.

Our host, the brittish couple, would watch TV with every single meal. In the afternoons and evenings it was hollywood movies, in the morning it was an episode of the Supernatural-serie. I cannot describe the joys of seeing zombies in front of your breakfast toasts every single morning. We also got bad luck with weather, it was raining almost all week which made the whole place very muddy so the girls had to be struggeling with the crazy horses in several centimeters of  mudd. Yes, they would bite the girls, even the supposedly nice ponies. They would also block the entrance of the stable leaving you stuck behind them. All the horses had quite bad pasts and they were quite wild... One time Celine tried to ride the pony called Lıttle Star (lol) and the pony escaped and Celine had to run after her. Manon and the brittish woman couldn't help because they were riding their own horses... Celine came back to the house feeling super frustrated and she said she would immediately leave the place if we weren't there with her... She slammed the door and went for a walk and we didn't see her for the next 3 hours :D

I am so lucky they didn't force me to be with the horses, although they would try to make me come to the stable telling hour-lasting stories about their ''touching'' stories and how the volunteers who stayed 3 months could finally gain the trust of the horse aaaand blablablaaa. I know some people are definitely into horses etc. and that's not a problem. I just wish they would respect the fact that I have absolutely no interest in them. What can I say. Some people love to tune their cars or clean their house for hours. Some don't. I could sing the whole day, others would get bored. That's life. Respect.

I did meet very nice dogs at that host's place, actually I have made great dog friends in almost all the places I've been to. I also learned to respect the fact that some people want to dedicate their whole life to a project -like horse caring- that would not be my first (or last) choice. Also learned about brittish eating habbits, so now I can definitely say they are not for me. Of course I know also that I must not generalize and some english families must eat very good food. I also learned to not be affraid of gigantic dogs in herds. The technique is to first get to know them, go sit down at their level and dedicate some loooong minutes to pet them and give them hugs. Next thing you know, they will remember you and obey your orders somewhat better than with a stranger. Yes, there was 4 dogs at that place, 2 german sheperds and 2 mıxes of german sheperd and turkish cangal (huuuuge dogs!). The 2 mixes were still puppies but they were already almost as tall as me when they were standing on 2 feet :D

But the most important thing I learned there was this: always trust your instincts.
With potential volunteer-hosts and wıth everything in life. If you feel that a place is maybe not right for you, it probably isn't. Always listen to your feelings, your instincts, your sences (all 6 of them ;) ) and make your decisions acording to them. :)