My Volunteering Journey

It has been already one month that the project started, and time has spent sooo fast!

I enjoyed every single day. Ankara is a great place to be and as any capital city, everything moves very fast and there are a lot of things to do. We visited museums about the story of the town, Atatürk memorial and the old castle from the ancient times, but we also spent some good time playing bowling or eating in restaurants.

The missions we took part in with Anders were various, and I especially enjoyed the food delivery and to make Youtube videos. Sadly, the food delivery stopped, but we still get to shoot and edit the Youtube videos for Anders’ channel. It was no piece of cake but I really enjoyed it. I have the feeling that I have learned many things doing it, especially to put myself in the viewers’ shoes to make videos as clear and entertaining as possible. We shot a video about celebrating Ramazan and Easter at the same time, and we ended up cooking specialties from our home countries.

We arrived during the Ramazan period, when (almost) everyone is fasting, and the thing I liked the most during is time is that people easily invite each other. Once we get to eat with a lot of people, who were refugees from the earthquake, in a quite nice place that also serves as sport campus. There is also a special bread baked only during Ramazan, which was so good that we all miss it ☹.

Also, I’ve been stroke by people’s kindness: although most don’t speak English, they were always ready to help and explain things to us. To shop without speaking Turkish was a real struggle, but looking back at it, I must confess it was also quite funny.

Furthermore, food is also a crazy good discovery in Ankara. Here is a non-exhaustive list of what I have tested and highly recommend: of course Turkish breakfast, çiköfte, durum, cold baklava, goatmilk ice cream, çiborek, Izmir bomb, boyoz, çorba... 

Travelling in other cities was a big part of the last month, so we discovered some of these specialties in the places that we visited: for the Eid (sort of Ramazan holidays), we had days off and took the opportunity to go to cities near the western cost : Izmir, well-known for its nightlife, Ephesus, which is a delight for ruins and ancient Rome lovers, and Pamukkale, with its beautiful landscape of natural hot water pools.

Personally, Turkey has also struck me for other reasons : I come from the western part of France, Bretagne, and I’ve been amazed about how some traditions between my region and Turkey are close : some traditional songs and danse, like the one when you old pinky fingers and danse in circle with little steps, are pretty similar to what I’ve seen in small villages’ fest, and even the rhythm and the instruments sound alike. 

 

In conclusion, I really enjoy the reserved but undeniable charm of Ankara, and I can’t wait to see what’s next. We’ve planned to visit Antalya, Cappadocia and Sivas, and I hope the next month will be as joyful and interesting as the last one!