My first month in Ankara

 My name is Stela. It has been exactly 28. days since I landed at Ankara airport and my feet touched Turkish land for the first time in my life, and to be honest dear readers i did not know a lot about Turkey. The journey started anyway, and my role here is to be a volunteer in Ander's organization for two months. 

 See through my eyes, the journey as a volunteer abroad, especially in a country as vibrant and diverse as Turkey, is one of empowerment, learning, and making a difference. A Slovak girl volunteering with Ander not only to bring hope of change and international support but also returns home with a wealth of experiences that will shape my future and inspire others to follow my footsteps.

For these two months, there are four girls who enter in my as destiny most likely our Sueda would say. We share an apartment together, which makes me feel very calm cause they came to pick me up on my first day in the middle of the night at the bus stop, and my plane arrived around two hours just to make you understand. But they have been so warmly welcoming and happy. Since then, i have never found myself in need, or it would be better to say, in lack of support..

Our main activities are social media support to share handcraft and linguistic workshops, but I want to talk about this topic in an upcoming blog.

 In this first month I went to Kapadoccia with a Turkish friend and believe me when I say that I was lucky. Let me explain to you why, here in Turkey, they speak English probably the most in big cities or bigger places, and if you do not want to have your phone in your hand for more that is necessary. It is best to have a Turkish friend by your side. It makes sense to me when you ask people what comes to their mind first when they say turkey probably for the biggest part it would be  their colourful cousine fullfill with different flavores from halva, baklava, burek, gozleme, meze and dolma and lets not forget about their famose keba. Their kindness and hospitality are for me personally take a first place. So far, so good, and just a small remainder If you are planning to come to Turkey around this period do not forget to pack a lot of warm clothes. I can feel in my bones that next month gonna bring me more joyful moments and new warm memories in the company of great young and open-minded people. 🙂