September comes to an end, and weather the same hot. On the street it is warm and noisy. We work, gradually learning the city. This week there was an attempt to carry out a course photography. But apparently something does not add up.

But we went to the wedding. Or rather one of its parts. In Turkey, the wedding is usually divided into three parts. It is the second we've seen. Dance, Dance, feeling that guests will never get tired of dancing. Several hours, and traditional dances. Simple movement and rhythm incendiary. A couple of minutes and the legs themselves dancing. Everyone was laughing and happy. And all this without a gram of alcohol, but the fun is intoxicating worse. I enjoyed dancing. Not a very good dancer out of me. But the atmosphere of joy did not give, so sad about this.

I saw ritual exchange of rings. Connected the hands of young red ribbon, she passed through the rings and tied them together. Then the tape was cut. That's opened up a new future. 

The bride wore gold jewelry: bracelets, chains and rings. Contrary to the European tradition of bride's dress was not white, and light purple, in the European fashion. The bride and groom occasionally showered with money. Perhaps once it was coins. Gold, bronze or copper, they fell on the young giving them good luck, wealth and fertility. Now replace the dollar coin (not currently know them).

 And the green paper swirled in the air like leaves, reflecting the fusion of tradition and generations. And the children were running around like colorful birds in their colorful costumes, boys and girls make noise, jump and do what they wanted.

Oh, and topped wedding cake, a huge 10 floors. Bride and groom holding a knife cut the cake from top to bottom. And of course the cake was with pistachios. This product is generally added to all. I will not be surprised if in one day I will find spirits with aroma of pistachios.  Honestly pistachios have a long history in this land, even the legendary Semiramis grew them in their hanging gardens.

Honestly pistachios have a long history in this land, even the legendary Semiramis grew them in their hanging gardens. Equally honor, pistachios used in Solomon's beloved queen Saavskoy. And the book of Genesis does not miss a nut. One legend says that pistachios brought to the earth, Adam, taking seeds from paradise. Like almonds, pistachios, often transported by travelers on the ancient Silk Road that linked China with the West. So that this area can be considered as the birthplace of pistachios, these contemporaries of Mesopotamia and Babylon. So grateful residents erected a small monument to this nut. Yes, I actually did not miss the opportunity to eat sweets pistachio «hünkar beğendi» were just amazing and very sweet as any oriental sweets.

Tavla, the most-played table game

The second week has passed more quickly than the first and I think I am getting used to some traditions that make my days here in Gaziantep.

I was looking at my pictures and the first one I took is the picture of the most common and used table game :  I am talking about Tavla!

Here you see the game, and I'll try to explain to you the rules.
It might seems similar to draughts but it isn't.

There are two players, each one choose a different pieces color, normally you find red / white or black / white. Then you start spreading the pieces on the table, but not in a casual order. You should follow this scheme:

Then let's roll the dices (two for every match) and move your pieces depending from the number you made. If one dice makes 2 and the other 4 you can move one piece for two 2 steps and another for 4 or you can also move the same piece for 6 steps. The moving direction is anti-clockwise and your aim is to collect all of you pieces on the corner which is on your right...
If you match your adversary piece and that piece lie there alone, then you block it and your friend will have to re-collocate his blocked piece on the farther point, it means at the beginning (and the same if it happens to you!)

The special rule is this:  if your two dices make the same number, your chance to move the pieces get double for each of them!

...at the end....

Once all of your pieces are close to you, you start collect them out of the table....and the player who has no more pieces on it, so he's the winner!!

I hope I was clear hehe anyway you can find the rules of this game in many websites (like here).


It is very popular and you need to learn it if you are planning a long-time trip to Turkey so you won't get bored wher you cross a Turkish café! Like for us italians some cards games or Monopoli ...

Well, now you can play Tavla
while having a Turkish coffee!



à la prochaine !!

Sara

City of the Big Honey Apricot

After successful days off starting occupations at office, I didn't think that this week to be allocated with something. As I was mistaken. Everything began with such that Mahmud (ours with Sara the remarkable mentor), reported to us about somebody a surprise. To fair in Malatya.

That I made the first, it started to look for information on this city. Also wasn't mistaken. Malatya is the capital of apricots, as Kakhramanmarash the ice-cream capital. If New York this big apple, Malatya Big Apricot. Juicy sweet and yellow. And as it is necessary to an apricot this city grows on a tree. More precisely at a foot of mountains, under the warm sun of the southern Turkey. That it warm wasn't necessary to doubt not for a moment, day stood out the very hot. On it miracles didn't end. Malatya - as told me Sar, in Italian so call a certain illness. But actually it is more and more  romantic. Malatya is very ancient city and a cradle of civilizations. However, in Turkey always so, someone's cradle and history, ancient as sand and mountains of these places. And so the name Malatya of this district and to the city gave the Hittites, and to be translated it as honey. While I personally did not find there the bees, but I saw right in the honey combs.

Speaking about the trip, our trip began at 6:30 am. We had breakfast directly in the bus. Sweet rolls and juice what can be better. The road slowly flashed behind a window and in the head different thoughts climbed.

On a place we appeared around 11.00. Our Fair begins work at 14.00, after we were waited by a dinner and free time. A little wandering around the city in search of a place to exchange currency and shade, we went back to the bus. True, There were also troubles - force majeure. Sarah became ill and she decided to relax in the shade of the park.

Meanwhile, I and Mahmud, having found the bus successfully went for lunch. We dined in a remarkable place, something like a closed male community. People sat as befits men separately from women. Well what can I say lunch was delicious, as is prayer.

At 14.00 we were on a place. Sometimes we too happen are punctual. And so it began. In turmoil and crowd Mahmud noticed Sara, and she us, it was just luck. After a human wave we entered on the fair territory. 30 different cities in the southern and eastern Turkey today presented their regional traditions and peculiarities. Handmade and century traditions – here that I saw in each of pavilions. 

And certainly journalists. 

Our pavilion was presented by a mosaic, an embroidery, copper process and …. Baklava. You could find in each pavilion for yourselves something new and interesting. So in pavilion Van you could see a surprising cat. As I understood, it is a city symbol. It has the multi-colored eyes, one blue, and the second green. A cat of white color. It was magnificent. Having bypassed all fair, I gathered a lot of brochures and gifts. Very much it would be desirable to thank these people Teşekkürler! And in our pavilion life was a stream. Jasmine showed how to make a mosaic, near the sculptor created a copy of the ancient monuments of clay. And I'm trying to be helpful.

This fair was organized within the program of the social help of SODES. This program is realized in regional regions of Turkey. It is directed on employment among the population, fight against poverty and so on. Especially among youth and people with limited physical possibilities. More detailed and exact information about project can be found on a site http://www.sodes.gov.tr.

In a circle of friends, and at work, I forgot about the time. Alas, I have not had time to explore the historical sites of the Big Honey Apricot. That left only to admire the mountain scenery with 3 floors supermarket. At 17.30, we again boarded the bus and drove off, only now for dinner. Leaving the city, our bus stopped at a small shop with apricots. And I'm with Sarah as regular tourists have bought apricots. You know, and they, however, sweet as honey ...

Still round the corner there may wait

A new road or a secret gate,

And though we pass them by today,

Tomorrow we may come this way

And take the hidden paths that run

Towards the Moon or to the Sun.

Apple, thorn, and nut and sloe,

Let them go! Let them go!

Sand and stone and pool and dell,

Fare you well! Fare you well!

Lord of the Rings by JRRT (1:3)

Blue, yellow and easy drops of the green – only three colors, you can tell, but they can transfer what variety of shades and emotions. You sometime saw mountains? I don't …to these colors. «Everything is lost in a blue haze». Earlier it were only words, but now they found sense and were filled brightly. With anything incomparable memoirs and emotions. If when the person also thought that he is the tsar of the nature, probably this day it wasn't in mountains. The nature unforgettable beauty appeared before my eyes, and each new turn prepared the new opening, new places which I never saw and I will not see it is more. And I solved yes it is right, the first and the last. Probably, it was my the first and the last, Ice-cream in Kahramanmarash. Also it is necessary to admit that I didn't eat some similar ice-cream more anywhere.

It was my first night without the tent, the first Waterfalls and the mountains, the first peaches directly from a tree the first fig heated up by the sun a. In total in a novelty all for the first time. I think, the word the first is ideally suited to these days off. Equally, as well as opening word.

How many words remained not stated, how many emotions I not in forces to describe, it should be felt, it should be seen. My friends looked at me with easy surprise, let so, but I felt as the child who wants to try everything on tooth. The first unleavened wheat cake from the home furnace, the kind woman which prepares it all the life. For it it simply work. And for me art and the whole world. She never thought that it something special, and I didn't think that it something ordinary. And I thought that there are things which we consider as a trifle, routine, and for someone this small miracle, as a stream in the middle of mountains.

The only thing that afflicted me, it that my friends in Belarus, won't see these miracles, not to share with me pleasure from the seen. It will be only mine precious memoirs, my first time.

Today, sitting at office, I think, how many possibilities we miss, being afraid of something and as presence of friends and people which will tell to you is important fly, forward, be not afraid, after all it is your last chance.

First Week Impressions of an Italian Traveler !

I flew from Venice to Istanbul one week ago.
The impact has been strong: from a peaceful, no-car and waterful small city to a big metropol like Istanbul...
I jumped into a landscape which was absolutely new for me. The language, the colours and smell of people and street, everyhting seemed caothic and amplified when I get off the plane and through the metro I reached Taksim (the city centre) but while I was waiting to board on the plane and during the flight I already could perceive a different tone.

A girl in the tube gave me some tip on how to reach the Sabiha Gökçen airport, so I went to Taksim to take the bus and at night I was arrived in Gaziantep! My one-day travel was came to an end and I have been received by my new friends and collagues at the airport that brought me home!
The house was great and my roomate Yana is a beautiful person as well.

My working week passed very fast even if it has been intense and at times tiring because I had to get used to a new routine. I was surprised to see the office too: many women and girls are spending the day making artcrafts... something difficult to find in my city, Milan, where these kind of jobs are reserved to old men and maybe very few young 'alternative' people.
Me and Yana started our Mozaic course drawing shapes on a paper and reproducing them in a framework!
Then we started to taste the different foods and, I must confess, it's a harder life for me, vegeterian, 'cause everybody eats meat and this seems to be the local specialty.

I had my first english lesson and it was funny and interesting at the same time: many people has a low english level but somebody is really good at it... I hope to be useful to help my students improve their knowledge because I think that english is an important tool for the people.

And what else, I wake up every morning with the bird's chant, and this is great - they have built their nest just in my window! - and some times during the night, if my sleep is not deep, with the mosque prayer of 4.30 am - and this is less great :)

We had a kind of wild weekend camping close to the lake Dongel and I really enjoied it... I will charge soon some pictures of me, Yana, Mahmut, Zeynep and his friend among the trees and the river, a dreamplace where you can have lunch and sleep on some special wood platform built on the water stream!

My second week is starting and who knows which adventures it wıll take... the prayers are now loud in the air and for me it means that lunch time has came!!

Gate Dicle and Fırat. Meet you!

Hello! Today is my day 8^th in this city beautiful. The narrow streets of the East met me not familiar scents and sounds. Architecture, language, the people - everything was unfamiliar and strange. Our house is close to the religious heart of Islam - mosques. So our peace life the voice of the imam pleases. Five times a day he calls to prayer of all believers.

Acquaintance with the cultural life of eastern Turkey, I started with tea and coffee and shisha. Here is one interesting tradition of drinking hot tea on a hot sunny day. In this unusually small cups for me.

Office work brings pleasure. The people here are sympathetic and kind, they are always happy to help despite the language barriers.

I was very embarrassed when one of the women gave me two bracelets from his store.

I lead lessons in sewing toys. This is a very unusual experience to explain to people not knowing their language as well as what to do. But I hope that they like.

they learn me to draw and do a mosaic of a stone. Maybe I'm not very talented at it, but I try.

Yesterday I tried another traditional dish "Ali nazik". Motherland of this delicacy was Gaziantep. It is very easy to prepare and very tasty.

I would also like to say a big thank you to the host organization. Guys you are great!

First Week