Selam dear reader, and welcome back to my Izmir report! Two months have passed since my last blog post, and a lot has happened. New workshops, new places, and new people have impacted my last weeks, and a more or less consistent daily life has evolved itself.
I am continuing to prepare and lead different Conversation Clubs for German or English learners across the city and have started to feel less anxious conducting these. After spending almost every day as the person responsible for a group and aiming to foster conversation, one starts to get used to being outgoing and social. It feels like one toughens up, and I’ve gained more confidence in myself, which I hope also applies to the Workshop participants.
Even though every workshop is different, the work often gets repetitive, and I find it hard to be creative enough to come up with more activities. Luckily, we volunteers can exchange ideas and advise each other, which helps a lot.
Throughout the past two months, we have already organized three different cultural nights. These events are held at the PI Youth Association office and aim to share and present the culture of each volunteer’s home country. The French and Italian cultural nights were fantastic. We sang karaoke, danced, competed in quizzes against each other, and, best of all: ate amazing food. Éclairs, crêpes, club sandwiches, parmigiano, focaccia, and tiramisu- everything was gone by the end of the evening.
Before the German cultural night, we bargained at the bazaar for German football jerseys, even though the seller promised that they were the original ones, of course. During the German night, I realised how much I really missed German food, even though it may not have the same prestige as French or Italian cuisine. We prepared typical dishes like potato salad, fermented cabbage, yeast plait, bread, Quarkbällchen, and various cakes and sweets.
Other highlights in November and December were our trips to Pamukkale, Gaziantep, Mardin, and Diyarbakır.
For a weekend, we stayed in Pamukkale and explored the limestone terraces and the ancient “Hierapolis” ruins. The landscape and nature of Pamukkale are completely otherworldly, but I think the Roman city captivated me the most. I immensely underestimated the size of these structures, and seeing them up close made me realize even more how rich in history Türkiye really is.
For our Mid-Term Seminar, organized by the Turkish National Agency for all ESC volunteers, we visited Diyarbakır. As Diyarbakır is on the complete other side of the country, we seized the opportunity to see a bit of Türkiye’s southeastern part. Our first stop was in Gaziantep, where we met up with our wonderful volunteer friends, who work for another organization. Unfortunately, we experienced heavy rain, which consequently meant we had to walk around in wet shoes for the rest of the trip.
Antep already displayed a big contrast to Izmir in so many ways. I really enjoyed my stay in all three cities because I could learn more about the diversity of culture, history, and peoples of Türkiye. I found the old town of Diyarbakır particularly impressive – the huge city walls, the Great Mosque, the Armenian churches, the bazaar, and mainly, the overall atmosphere were stunning.
Until February tekrar görüşmek üzere.
