Turkey Istanbul to Cappadocia

Hello everyone,

At long last I can write a bit about my adventures in Turkey.

I arrived in Istanbul to a warm welcome by my host Filiz Telek. She organized my trip here. We had an easy trip back to her house which is in the older part of Istanbul. Had a nice meal in an outdoor cafe that evening. Ramadan was happening and so many people were fasting until after the sun went down.

Istanbul is the gateway between Europe and Asia. In many ways it looks like many cities with high rise apartments. This city reveals its culture through the architecture of large Mosques and Sultan Palaces.

The follow day we went to the spice market and I saw many things I hadn’t seen before. People were really friendly.

This boy was on his way to being circumcised…

I was on Acik Radio in Istanbul. It is similar to KPFA. We mainly spoke about the philosophy of permculture. Filiz interpreted and also let people know about the training in Istanbul.

This land is so similar to California, it’s amazing. Most of it is closer to Santa Barbara/LA area. The Black Sea region (which I haven’t been to) sounds closer to Northern California. I’m in Central Turkey now in Cappadocia. Central Turkey is surprisingly flat and hot like the Sacramento or San Joaquin Valley. Nights can be cool. There is alot of limestone everywhere and that means marble in the mountains…

Turkey is the cradle of civilization in many ways and has been host to people of all different ethnic backgrounds for hundreds of years. Because of this, surprisingly there is no “typical” Turkish look. There are blond Turks, Redheaded Turks, people who look like they are from Germany and Poland as well as dark mediterranean, middle eastern origins. It is very similar to the United States in this way. One would think that because the history goes back so far that there would be a sense of place and rootedness. Not so…Many people feel very disconnected from their ancestry and many don’t really know where they came from.

Culturally, the Turkish people are very kind and generous. There is a very high level of hospitality and personal attention that I have experienced here. Just today, for example, on the bus a man (a fellow passenger) was walking down the aisle to his seat with a bunch of grapes in his hand. I was admiring (at a glance as he walked by) how beautiful they were. He immediately offered me some.

We stayed in an ancient village outside of Konya called Sille. It was originally inhabited by the Greeks. We had a renovated stone house that originated about 800 years ago. The view was overlooking some caves made by Greek people over 2000 years ago. These caves are similiar to the ones in Cappadocia.

This is where we stayed…

Yesterday, Filiz, my magnificent host and I went to Konya, the home of Rumi. When we walked into Rumi’s tomb a wave of emotion and gratitude washed over us. Tears started to flow from my eyes and I looked over at Filiz and tears were streaming from hers as well. It’s hard to explain other than the energy was very strong there.

Konya is a center for the Kilim rugs. I bought a beautiful kilim rug yesterday. We were wandering around the town and I “randomly” walked down a side street and walked into a rug shop. It turns out the owner of the shop I chose as was an expert in natural dyes, wool and spinning. He commissions the weavers who are mostly nomadic women that live in hills of Turkey. They raise sheep and travel around nomadically like they have for hundreds of years. Some are Kurdish, some are Syrian, Iranian and other are random Turkish tribes that have been around for hundreds of years. The rug I bought was spun by a drop spindle and all dyes with natural dyes. It was tested for light fastedness by sitting it in the sun for 3 months.  ”Coincidentally” while I was in the shop a man from New Zealand came to visit the owner. Turns out this guy is an international expert on Kilims, has written several books on the subject. I saw a beautiful coffee table color picture book on Kilims written by him. He assured me I was in the best shop in Turkey for purchasing a Kilim. After drinking tea, looking at rugs, I chose one I absolutely love, then we all went out to a great barbique place and had melt in your mouth lamb and a foccaccia type bread, with a yogurt drink. Yum!

The course at Pastoral Vadi was a huge success. 50 people attended. Most were professionals and farmers from all over Turkey. Pastoral Vadi is a beautiful organic farm located near the Aegean Sea, close to where it turns into the Mediterranean. Some call this area the Turkish Riviera. There was a beautiful stream running through the farm that was blessed with lots of fresh clean water. We did many projects including building a cob bench, making compost piles, sheet mulching, swales and water works playing with all of the water flows around the farm, an herb spiral and alot of design work for the farm. We skyped with Bill Mollison and Geoff Lawtons course in Australia. It was wonderful seeing Bill again, even if it was over Skype. Lisa his wife was there as was his youngest daughter Eloise, who is gorgeous.

On the last day of the course, the people all responded with great enthusiasm to furthering the permaculture vision in Turkey. There was alot of organizing and networking going on to form a permaculture institute in Turkey. One of the people there named Mustafa is also working with Geoff Lawton and plans to set up a Permaculture Research Institute in Turkey.  I have been invited back to do a course just to the south on a beautful valley famous for it’s butterflies called Butterfly Valley. It is right on the sea. We visited there for a couple of days after the course, swam in 70 degree turqoise water and ate traditional Turkish food. It was lovely. They want to explore developing permaculture on this site.  Filiz and I will see if this works out. We need to have more conversations with the directors of this beautiful Valley.

After having some time off in Cappadocia,

we go to Ankara where I will give a presentation at the Middle Eastern Institute of Technology. Then off to Istanbul for a 4 day Permaculture and Community Resiliency workshop. We have about 30 people signed up for that. We got word this morning that the ceiling collapsed in the class room in one of the Universities we were going to use for the workshop in Istanbul. I think Filiz has already found a few options for an alternative site.

I’ll keep you posted how things are going.

The Journey continues….