thepensiverambler

[thepensiverambler]

A Grand Adventure

Fans, friends and critics hello again or to be more succint 'Hello Mum and Dad'. I know you wonder why i bother with these ridiculous exercises of vanity, and sometimes i do too, but the day i get picked up by the Times will render all these excessive blog posts worthwhile.

Now, to the point. I decided after a couple of blogs attempting to detail university life that it was not especially interesting to a reader. The monotony of it all makes impossible to write about, no doubt i would have bored you with sentences such "We went to the pub quiz but found it had been cancelled 6 weeks ago and so ended up just 'going to the pub' for the third time that week". Scintillating stuff.

Fortunately for us both i recognised the lack of literary opportunity fairly early on and with a little inspiration from a good friend named laziness I halted my writings in there tracks. More fortunately still however, i have something in stall that is worth writing about.

I have been to-ing and fro-ing about what to do this summer for a good while. I thought for a while i might walk the pyrenees. Too long i thought. Travel the balcans perhaps getting buses from city to city, no doubt that would have made for a hell of a blog. Too expensive i thought. Instead I've settled on the much simpler task of cycling Ireland.

Its bold and going to take a great deal of resolve from a man who has been found out of breath climbing the stairs of his own house but yes, that same man takes on the 2500 km journey with great abandon.

My dear friend Gabe will be accompanying me on this trip for the first week at least. Having lived with gabe for 4 years 2 of which we shared a room i feel we know each other quite well. Knowing Gabe well i know he is perhaps even lazier than I. This presents a mild problem. If he hasn't changed in our now 3 years outside of school then he will slow me down and inhibit me from achieving my ultimate goal of completing the wild atlantic way. If he's better than me at cycling then i will have the great shame of slowing him down and having our roles reversed. Either way, i lose but which is worse.

Obviously its him being better than me. I'd always rather have someone to blame for my failure than have to blame myself.

Any way some details for my many adoring fans. I will set off to ireland on Tuesday and with any luck start cycling on Wednesday. The level of organisation has been minimal if we're being generous and yet i think we are good to go. I mean, you basically only need a bike and i think the coast will be on my right hand side... even if its on my left I should adjust quite quickly.

I'll keep you updated as best i can but who knows how much charge or inclination i will have to write these tedious accounts of my ramblings.

[thepensiverambler]

HOME SWEET HOME

To cut a long story short, I'm back home now. Sunny old England. To make a short story long I we caught a bus to Istanbul airport, stayed in the airport for 5 hours, flew to Stockholm, stayed in that airport for 6 hours, flew to London Gatwick, caught a train to Hayward Heath, drove Sophie to Tunbridge wells then went home. Easy enough I suppose. As many of you know this blog was set up for you adorable people with a vague interest in my life to follow what i was doing in Turkey. I imagined the blog would stop after reaching the lofty heights of 8 followers but more importantly once the trip to Turkey was over. However, due to my enlarged ego i I've decided to do a couple of things may go slightly differently than originally planned. Turns out I rather enjoy writing it and turns out some of you like reading it occasionally so I've decided to continue writing it. Cue champagne corks. I can't promise any sort of regularity on the posts or any continuity regarding their theme. I will kick this dead horse until I can't kick it anymore. Originally I didn't want to be the weird kid at uni with a blog but after the hours of begging I have caved to the will of the people and have accepted that my blog is certainly not the strangest thing about me. The second thing I will do is transfer this blog to wordpress. It's not that I dislike Tumblr as a site it's just wholly irritating that you as readers must have an account to read it and I really feel it's stopping my progression to being the liberal Rupert Murdoch. I shall be continuing this blog on wordpress (link to follow).

[thepensiverambler]

Two boys who love leather

[thepensiverambler]

Istanbul

We boarded our bus at 7 30 in the evening from Denizli. On the bus there were many things to do such as staring at the seat in front of you, staring at the window, staring outside into the darkness but my favourite thing to do was to turn on the television and watch that. This television had 2 channels, 1 was a Turkish drama about a television crew or maybe it was a poorly shot documentary, i'm not entirely sure, either way it was boring. My preferred channel was the second, a live stream of a camera on the front of the bus. The most exciting parts were when we were stuck in traffic and I could watch the bus driver getting angry with other cars in the reflection of the windscreen. But even these high quality entertainments couldn't keep me satisfied for the 16 hour journey. So at around 11 O’clock I decided it was time I got a little rest. It was glorious, I slept like a log right up until the moment that the child at the back had decided I didn't need more sleep. ‘No, no Freddie you have quite enough for one night’ he thought to himself at 3 in the morning. What made this worse is the fact this went on for hours. Literally hours. I had a headache from the screams. I envisaged myself throttling the child so that it might give me 5 more minutes of sleep. Infanticidal thoughts to one side I decided to be a little more productive with my time and spend it writing my last blog. Like a conch shell at the sea, I believe if you hold the post up to your ear you may still be able to hear those melodramatic wails. At 11 30 we arrived in Istanbul a mere 6 hours later than we’d be told to expect. We walked out of the bus station and found some breakfast, immediately we were charged an extortionate rate. Welcome to Istanbul indeed. We caught the bus into the centre of town and got off once we’d crossed the river. We quickly found out that we should be on the other side of the Bosphorus and so started to head in the direction we'd just come. It didn't take long for us walking to work out that literally every shop on the street was selling lighting. Everywhere we looked there were chandeliers, candelabras, spot lights and light bulbs each one more ostentatious and gaudy than the last. As we headed toward the bridge we realised we had a man following us. Joy. A creepy old man would stop when we stopped, walk when we walked and even video us, well not us, Sophie. He even had the balls to ask her for a photo, politely we said no and kept walking. Not being particularly confrontational in nature I concluded that if he followed us onto the bridge I would be asking him to depart a firmer manner. Fortunately this was not required as he ducked away before we reached the bridge. As we looked across the bridge I noticed for the first time why Istanbul has such a good reputation for being beautiful. The view across the Bosphorus is majestic. We got ripped off again for Çay whilst we used the WiFi to find a hostel. Hostel found and wallet thinned we set off through the spice market in the direction of our hostel. The spice market is a strange place with every shop selling the same products for the same price. It's also a rather difficult place to navigate with a large backpack. Nonetheless we succeeded in reaching our hostel without too much hassle. It's worth noting that I was in a foul mood at this point due to a culmination of lack of sleep, being ripped off and not have room to breath in the busy streets. After relaxing in the hostel for a little while we decided to go and see a little of Istanbul. My plan was to wander around the city a little and try and get a feel for it. Sophie was less than pleased with this plan, “Where are we going?” “What are we going to do?” “Are we finding something to eat?”. We wandered through a nearby park then on our return had a confusing disagreement about what to eat. I wanted dominoes, Sophie did not. We didn't get Dominoes. Instead we got Kofte meat, 6 wraps and a whole lettuce from a man down a back alley. We returned to eat it in our hostel where we met a man called John from England. John was a nice man, awfully well to do whom had just spent the past 52 days cycling through Europe with the aim of not spending a single penny. He told us he'd lasted 23 days but then his wheel broke. Sounds incredibly grueling to be quite frank as he told us it was incredibly lonely and that he was in fact trying to raise money for a mental health charity. The next day we slept in rather late, well Sophie did but I enjoyed the novelty of a phone, wifi and a bed. We left the hostel around 11 had a nice breakfast of corn on the cob and paid yet more extortionate prices to enter the Hagia Sophia. Its a beautiful building from the outside and there are some fantastic mosaics inside however the main attractions must be the vast amount of black scaffolding there is taking up half of the dome. There were other parts of beautiful construction such as the plywood sheets marking its as a construction site, they'd even made a slight exhibit out of a 20th century ladder they'd previously used. It was also interesting to see where all the whole sellers from across the river sold their gaudy chandeliers as hundred hung from the ceiling. The dome stands a 56 metres (i think i saw this at a glance) high and yet the low hanging chandeliers made it feel quite small. We left, had more corn and headed inside the Basilica Cistern. I don't really know what I expected but I expected a little more than what I got. It was a large room underground without much water in it. At one end their were some fish and perhaps the most exciting part of were the two Medusa heads on the bottom of two pillars. I really enjoyed a conversation we had with a man trying to convince us to dress up as sultans and have our picture taken. He told us about how difficult life can be in Turkey and more specifically Istanbul. He told us about his brother who had killed himself. Unfortunately his English wasn't fantastic so the conversation had to stop quite abruptly after that. After a brief stop for pide it was time for the Grand Bazaar. Grand doesn't quite do it justice. You could spend weeks in there and never hope to visit every shop, fortunately however most of the shops sell a great deal of similar stuff. We started off a little cagey but after having a long discussion with a scarf salesmen about Game of Thrones we opened up a little more. I decided I liked backgammon and that required a board with which to play. I am now the proud owner of a beautiful backgammon board. We walked a little further and a man coaxed us into have a look at his leather jackets. I really fancied myself in the one he picked out for me. I asked him how much. 1500 lira. My jaw dropped. How could anyone have so much money? He came down rapidly to 750 but it was still a colossal amount of money so we left. Again we were tempted into a mans leather jacket shop. This time i caved. 350 lira about £80. Ok so I'm not proud of myself, i could have donated that money to Imece. But, its high quality leather, i've had it appraised by many Turkish men. We tried to burn it with a lighter yet it wouldn't burn. I haven't eaten much meat whilst I've been in the village and haven't found myself missing it a great deal so i decided i would continue to eat less. Needless to say the hypocrisy is not lost on me but have you seen the photo of me and the man who sold me the jacket! I'm not vegetarian but i'm eating less meat, yet now with my jacket i wear my share of animal carcasses. Eat less, wear more.

[thepensiverambler]

PAMUKKALE

The night before arriving at Imece for the first time I had spent the night at Izmir bus station so it was fitting that on the day that I left I should return to spend another night there. I felt like a local as I strode into the vast station, unrolled my roll mat and spent the night in surprising comfort. We (Sophie, Davide, Matilda and I) woke the next morning to catch the ‘5 30’ bus to Denizli. Apparently ‘5 30’ really means 6 but soon we were on the bus for around 4 hours. During those 4 hours I snoozed a little and wrote my previous post on Sophie's phone. Having had wifi for only a couple of hours a week for my time at the village, I've grown accustomed to not using my phone a great deal. Upon leaving the village I took the opportunity to take my technological abstinence one step further by leaving my charger behind. (Edit from swood -if this makes it sound like freddie decided to challenge both himself and modern convention by deliberately leaving it behind, let me make it clear that all that happened was he forgot it because he’s a melt). With such powerful smartphones as we have today the hindrance is greater than simply not being able to contact people. I rely on my phone to track my location, take photos and most importantly to write my blog. I refuse to buy a charger as I'll be home in a few days and will be surrounded by a plethora of chargers. I shall instead rely on the kindness of locals to lend me a charger when and where they can. Upon arrival in Denizli we were loaded onto a minibus bound for Pamukkale. By the time our minibus left it was already full yet we kept picking more people up. First a mother and her 3 children stood patiently, then a boy around my age with an ear ring, then another mother and her 2 children. As the bus filled up I started to wonder at what point the driver would have to refuse people. I suppose everyone could have someone on their lap if they had to. Before it got to that stage the four of us were bundled off the bus and into another. This time we were alone. Instead of going to the bus station the driver took us straight to the office of the bus company he worked for. They told us to book a bus today or we probably wouldn't be able to catch one the next day. Unsure about our plans for the coming days we made our excuses and backed out of the office, had breakfast and checked into a hostel. At around 12 30 fatigue hit me. I don't mean to melodramatic but I was so tired I thought I might drop down at any moment. Was the labour of the village catching up to me? I decided there was no 2 ways about it and that if I wanted to be a functioning member of society in the afternoon I'd have to take a quick nap. A brief 2 hours later I rose to Sophie telling me that the Italians were waiting for me downstairs to go up to the salt flats. I dragged my leaden body from my heavenly mattress. We headed to Pamukkale’s main attraction; the salt flats. They were remarkable. I've never seen anything of the like, from a distance you would mistake it as for snow. When one walks on it barefoot, (and one has to walk it barefoot or the police would blow their whistles and shout) it was coarse to touch, like a gigantic roll of white sandpaper with water flowing over the top. The view from the top was absolutely incredible. We walked up to the top in the midday heat, all the while I was longing for the bed I had so rudely been dragged from instead of sweating buckets without enough water. Upon arrival we discovered there were more ruins to explore, so explore them we did. It was difficult to gain much information about the history of the ruins so we either had to use our imagination or just accept that we were simply admiring large old stones. Again, the main question on my lips was simply “how did they move all these stones around”. We watched to sunset over the salt flats whilst Davide and Matilda paddled about in the stream of warm water and then headed into town for a beer. 3 of us ordered draft beer which was as flat and watery as you could imagine. Safe to say the second round was bottled. We had an extremely late supper where I asked the waiter if I could use his phone charger. Despite our hostel being opposite a fantastically tin foil covered club after dinner we called it a night. I was in a bed with WiFi. What luxury. Such privilege had been the stuff of dreams during my days in the the tent but now it was a reality. The day before our hostel owner had she could give us a discount on her brothers Paragliding company. After little more gentle haggling and looking worried it would be too much she agreed on a price of 100 lira (25 euros). It was dirt cheap and we couldn't say no to such an offer. We rose, sho wered, breakfasted, paid the man got in a minibus and a few minutes later ran of the side of a cliff. We flew over the ruins, the salt flats and landed in a rocky car park, shouted and waved at the people below us. It was, in a word, amazing. Afterwards, the experience was soured a little by our pilots trying to convince us to buy the photos of our experience. It would have been another 100 lira therefore doubling the price of the flight. It was not a hard decision for me. Afterwards we had lunch with Davide and Matilda before saying goodbye to them as they will fly home on Wednesday night. Sophie and I had decided we were going to try and see how far along toward Istanbul we could get tonight. We didn't have much of a plan it has to be said. We asked shop owner after shop owner if they had any scrap cardboard we might use to make a sign. It took 45 minutes before we found a kind roadside shop owner with a fantastic beard that gave us Çay and cardboard. So with our sign and our thumbs out we sat and waited. We waited for a while and then decided that we were on the wrong side of the road. We crossed the road and waited some more until a car full of people stopped and told us to go on the other side of the road. We crossed the road again. Maybe our sign wasn't big enough? We wrote Istanbul much larger on our sign. Still no one stopped. Perhaps people weren't getting the idea that we weren't expecting them to take us the whole way. We wrote Denizli, on our sign. About 10 minutes later a man in a white car stopped and picked us up. He dropped us in Denizli saying that if we crossed the road we would surely get a lift to Istanbul. We were full of hope and wonder but before we could set up shop by the side of the motorway and man came to talk to us. He spoke no English. I speak next to no Turkish. Regardless we were able to understand that he was advising Sophie should wear more clothes as with the clothes she was in it would be very dangerous. ‘Ok’ we said and I passed Sophie a hoodie despite the sweltering heat. He then explained to us that there would be no direct way to Istanbul and that most of the cars on the road would be headed to Ankarra that night. He kept asking where we would sleep that night. We didn't know. The plan hadn't been that coherent. After a long while on the grass beside the motorway this kind man offered to take us on his motorbike to the bus station. We accepted as he painted a pretty dim picture of our chances of getting a ride to Istanbul today. So on the bike we got. All three of us and our bags. It turns out we were with the most careful man in Turkey. He'd stopped to make sure we were safe and the he drove slowly and without any sharp movement. It's was 3 kilometres to the bus station but we had to pull over for 2 breaks. As I believe our drive was struggling a little with the weight pressing upon him. When we arrived at the bus station our dutiful tour guide took us in and made sure we were looked after by an English speaking bus company employee. We had two choices; we could get a bus to Izmir, stay the night there and try and hitchhike from Izmir the next day, or we could catch a night bus. We flipped a coin. Izmir. Sophie decided she wanted to go to Istanbul. Istanbul it was.

[thepensiverambler]

Ephesus

Berit and Berke had asked the group earlier in the week if we would like to take a group trip to Efes (Ephesus). The answer was a resounding yes. It was a really nice idea of them as 7 of us were planning to leave that day which would halve the number of volunteers in the village. So on Monday morning i woke a 6 30, packed up my tent and said goodbye to the village for the last time (maybe). We said goodbye to Berit and Ali as they weren't going to come on our excursion and all of us piled into the van to start the day. Our first stop was the most important of the day. Breakfast. It was a pretty standard affair, bread and jam, breaking a swing and me left feeling slightly ripped off. Our second stop was the Efes museum. It was SO COOL to learn about the history of Efes. Alexander the Great visited! It was not so cool looking at old pots from the era. I'm sorry but i just don't care about that sort of thing, its boring and irrelevant. I feel like the only reason such things are included in these exhibits is because they fill up a little bit of space in the museum and to compliment the archeologist that found them. I don't see how anyone call spend hours enthralled by a spoon unless it has a bit of apple crumble on it. The next stop was the home of the Virgin Mary for her last few years. I thought there might be a little more to do there but it turns out she didn't need much in those last years, just a humble small stone building. The irony has only dawned on me now as i write that such a pure, humble place has been converted to seek monetary gain, how Catholic. Having wandered through this small building we came out with pretty much everything thinking the same thing 'is that it?'. Perhaps thats the point of the place? Regardless, keen to get my money's worth I thought i'd go round again. The second time was much better, I prayed for a while and returned to join the others. We then saw 3 water springs from which one is supposed to drink. Each fountain, according to the legend would either give you money, love or wisdom depending on the one you drank from. Which would you choose? We didn't get that choice as Mahzar wouldn't tell us which was which. Apparently i drank from the wisdom one in the end. Unsure that i need any more and with my bank balance waning it was clear my prayers had not worked. We returned to the bus and headed to the main event. The big one, the one we'd all been waiting for. Efes Ephesus My understanding (i guessed) is that Efes is the Turkish name for Ephesus whilst the international name is Ephesus. I don't have wifi much so I'm not able to fact check this but i think I'm right and thats all you need in this post truth world. It was absolutely amazing. The ruins were colossal, the stones they used we gigantic and although others weren't so keen i thought the restoration was done exceptionally well. We wandered around the whole place for a while with the two highlights for me being Mahzar's guided tour of the toilets and setting the world to rights with Berke in the theatre. We sat there in the midday heat watching all these people striking ridiculous poses in this most beautiful of settings and moving on. They were on a photo shoot not a cultural visit. It seems to me that people these days are more concerned with being seen in these places than going to them to experience them for what it is. This wouldn't have bothered me so much if it hadn't been for the magnitude of this epidemic. For every 7 groups only one of them would not be taking a photo of themselves. This is a fact. I counted. Having talked through narcissism and Turkish politics it was time for us to pile back onto the bus and head towards some place to drink wine. You're thinking that maybe I didn't catch the name of the place but i confident this was how it was introduced to me. It was a bizarre hillside town in the middle of nowhere that was immensely crowded and touristy. The wine tasted sweeter than a fruit shoot and after calling it fruit juice quite loudly i didn't feel comfortable taking many more free samples so i sat patiently until it was time for us to leave. And that was it, Mazhar dropped the 7 of us at Izmir airport, we said our goodbyes and they left. I've enjoyed my time in the village and i'm proud of what i've helped to build there. The shame for me now is that im no longer a dynamic cog that helps to move things along in the village, I'm now just a step in the path that leads to the opening of the village. My work is now done and unless i return there is nothing more i can do. My temptation to return predominantly comes from the people i've worked with. Good, honest, hilarious people that helped to create an atmosphere of joy whilst we battled against issue after issue. Those that have stayed will continue this battle day in day out and my one hope is that remain positive in the knowledge that they are doing it all for a great cause.

[thepensiverambler]

Upcoming farewells

I'm so sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've tried to write, believe me I have but my heart just wasn't in any of the material I was writing making it sub par. I should have a few more posts over the coming week as swood and I plan to travel Turkey a little before heading home. This post is about goodbyes. I hate them. I know this is a cliché and no one like goodbyes but I've got to tell you nonetheless. I don't hate goodbyes in the conventional sense that I'm disappointed I won't see someone for a long time/ever again. I don't hate goodbyes because I'm an overly emotional wreck that never wants change. I hate goodbyes because I'm really bad at them. What do you say to someone you'll never see again? How do you wish them well for the rest of their life whilst sounding sincere? I don't. I can't. I don't have the emotional capability to express myself adequately in each individual goodbye. It's easier when you're just leaving for a long time I just say “see ya later”, turn tail and run. What more needs to be said? But when it comes to saying goodbye to someone forever it's a little more difficult. For this reason I have a few stock phrases I often pull out to help me in this most tricky of social situations. If you have been around me recently at a goodbye you will probably have heard one of the following. “Safe travels”, “Keep in touch” and/or “Don't be a stranger”. These are useful phrases to help the most socially awkward of you. I have also started to offer useful life advice at these departures. I give tips such as ‘don't let the bed bugs bite’, ‘the early bird gets the worm’ and ‘you're only as old as you feel’. Some say this might not be so helpful but I disagree. Many people forget to be wary of bed bugs, many lie too long in bed in the morning resulting in a desperate shortage of worms and some subscribe to a ridiculous belief that we can count our age by revolutions of the earth around the sun. It's something that is making me want to stay a great deal more time here in the village, so that I may postpone the farewell moment. If you are reading this and are saying goodbye to me in the near future, spare a thought to remember that I'm not so good at the goodbye scenario. It's the worst part of getting to know people quickly for a temporary period. It will probably remain temporary and after a while you become slightly desensitised to these comings and goings as you see them so often. Regardless, i will continue to hand out helpful advice or ‘pro tips’ for life at the appropriate moment.

[thepensiverambler]

'Meat and chips please'

In my gap year so far the countries I have visited have lived up to their reputations. France had cheap, nice (sometimes) wine, Japan had fantastic sushi and Vietnam served us lovely coffee. Turkey or at least Cesme has not followed this trend. I am of course talking about the Doner Kebab. It's a sad state of affairs when you start to miss Sevenoaks as a night out. I miss the sticky tables of spoons, sports bars pumping music but most of all I miss Marmaris. Nothing rounds of a night better than a large portion of meat and chips with vast quantities of burger sauce. Cesme is a nice enough place, but when I go for a kebab it makes me want to cry. I'm used to the succulent if a little questionable meat sticking together with my chips. The loud satisfactory crunch of the onion and salad beside the meat. Eating a kebab is an extremely messy business and only the most skilled ‘baber can conquer the puzzle without getting most of the food around the mouth and not in it. That is, at least, how it should be. I should have known from the early days of my travels that things weren't going to be as I expected. I still remember wandering around Izmir bus stop trying to find a kebab place that was still open. Yet I never did. Regardless i’d only have been disappointed if I had. My experience of Turkish kebabs has not been good. They don't have enough meat or salad or sauce. What I'm left with is a large, dry wrap. So immensely dry. Why do they not put sauce inside? Or at least offer me something? I have to ask for ketchup or mayonnaise which I find too basic for my acquired tastes. I need burger sauce! I watch the meat being cut and salivate as it drops from the wheel but when it reaches my plates it's dry as a bone. The thick pita steals all the moisture and gives nothing to me. It's as though the chef thinks ‘You know what that guy needs, less saliva’ and so he feeds me the Turkish equivalent of plain cream crackers. (Side note, really good party game is to see how many cream crackers you can eat in 1 minute. Also I'm craving party rings) Italy has pizza. Germany has sausages and beer. Belgium has chocolate and beer. France has a load of poncy stuff like snails and frogs. But Turkey I'm sorry to say does not have the Kebab.

[thepensiverambler]

Call me a voluntourist

At 7 O’clock on Saturday evening, 3 of us had been working on the volunteer house all day. We had around an hour and half left in the day and in strolled the group returning from Torbali. Suddenly there were 15 people in the area. Keen to get as much done before we lost the light we kept working whilst the rest stood round and chatted about the work. We were called for a photo with everyone in front of the house and then as soon as it had been taken those who had arrived, swiftly left. “There go the voluntourists” cried Teresa to there backs. No greater insult could have been said. You could call me any name in the book but to be called a voluntourist tops them all in this setting. But why is it such a dirty word? It's saying your intentions aren't pure. It's saying that you are a voyeur. It's saying you're using the guise of volunteering as a holiday. Voluntourism as a concept is a tricky one. It can bring a great deal of money into a charity which is obviously a great bonus but it means that as a charity you have to have your main goal and also the goal that your voluntourism plan is enjoyable and sustainable. By having two major goals you lose focus on the main one. As a volunteer I really understand the appeal of voluntourism, you feel you are doing something good which in turn makes you feel good and have a better holiday. But that's just the thing, it's a holiday. In a few weeks it's over, you go back to your house, live the same life you did before and you get to tell your friends about what a nice time you had and how (insert issue) is now quintessential to the wellbeing of the planet. That's OK when you're talking about saving turtles or counting limas, but when it comes to the refugee crisis voluntourism can not work. It creates an idea that refugees are less than human, animals in a zoo that people will go on holiday to see. For these people this is no holiday. It will not come to a nice conclusion with a sunset on a beach and a fancy meal afterwards. It will continue for years and years. The trouble is, I'm a voluntourist. I could have volunteered in England with homeless people. Working in soup kitchens, Barnardos or the dogs trust but I didn't. Maybe I can say I didn't have the time whilst I was at home but it's not a great excuse because I wanted to go away and volunteer. Why didn't I go to Dunkirk? Or to Calais again? The situation is still terrible there. But no, I wanted somewhere bigger, different and more exciting. Turkey. The situation here is pretty drastic, my help is definitely needed but, just like all voluntourists I will return home to my comfy bed and the crisis will be over for me.

[thepensiverambler]

The past week

This week has been a roller coaster of emotions. I mean, maybe not a roller coaster. Maybe a gentle country road in a slightly unreliable Renault which makes the odd clunk and splutter but in the end brings you to top of a beautiful view. So what has happened to cause such a scintillating week to occur. A lot, but in many ways not so much. It's been slow progress in the village, after fitting the roof to the kitchen my main occupation has been the ‘earth bag house’. This is grueling work as each bag we fill weighs around 28 kg. This makes the bags tough to work with yet apparently having something between my legs qualifies me to work with such materials. The work interests me less than when I was working in the kitchen as the problems that occur aren't particularly interesting and one spends the vast majority of one's time putting sand on top of more sand. It's now getting much more difficult as we get higher to place this ridiculous sizes bags. Why could we have just bought some bloody bricks? After 3 months in the village Massaki has left. Sad is not how I'd describe our farewells to Massaki. In typical massaki style he was playing baseball with a bat he had carved right up until Ali told him it was time to go. It still feels a little as though he may come back with his school boy backpack on, like he always would when he came back from Izmir. With Massaki leaves a great deal of laughter and a healthy chunk of madness. On the weekend we got horses. Don't ask me why we got them. I don't know. No one knows. I've asked many people and the only answer I have so far is that they're sweet and fun to have. I might understand if they were able to plough the field. They are by no means plough horses and even if they were, once is a foal and it's mother is pregnant again. Call me a grumpy git but I want no part of the whole idea. It's a waste of time, money and effort so when at 10 in the evening and they had escaped I'm afraid I decided the keen horse whisperers could deal with the situation. Working 6 days a week means that if we wish to have a life outside of our work we have to take a small hit on the sleep side our lives. To keep my sanity I try to persuade everyone to go for a midweek beer at least once a week. I believe it improves morale and therefore productivity (that's how one justifies going out when you're working the next day). This week 6 of us headed into town and went to our usual bar. We had a really good time and I ended up telling them all the story of how I met Eylul. Needless to say that just like you my avid readers my friends’ interests were sparked. I was given a Turkish sim card and after little prodding I was persuaded that I should try and call the future love of my life. At 1 30 on Friday night I thought why not. I hit dial. It rang. And rang. And rang. 8 times. I counted. My heart was beating hard against my chest. ‘Please don't answer’ I thought to myself ‘please don't answer’. She didn't, thank God. I texted her instead but I'm afraid that as I write this on Saturday evening I'm still waiting on her response. Unfortunately, my Turkish sim has now run out credit requiring me to top it up to find out if the girl of my dreams knows I am the boy of hers. For the first time ever, I read my blog aloud to an audience. Unfortunately I started with the post ‘I promise I'm happy’. I was called out for saying MSF recommended 600 when in fact it was amnesty international (don't quote me on this). After that embarrassment I read ‘Ruddy Nora’. This was much better received. It made me realise I should definitely proof read a great deal more (at least once). Sorry for that… but I normally am posting and writing in a rush (this being no exception). I didn't particularly enjoy the reading if I'm honest. It's strange because I like the idea of people consuming what I write I really don't enjoy watching them consume the content. It's like watching a teacher mark your homework. As an inexperienced writer everyone's a critic and they're looking for slip ups. I can feel it as people scour my work for silly mistakes. I would do the same if I were reading your blog but that doesn't make the experience any more pleasurable.

[thepensiverambler]

I promise I'm happy

My friends, family, family of my friends whom are now my friends and any other unfortunate person to have stumbled across my blog I'm sorry the regularity of these posts is slowing. I don't want to bore you by repeating myself so I choose to post less often. My second apology is that the posts (including this one) may occasionally be a little downbeat. I try to write this blog as starkly and as honestly as possible so if I occasionally stray into the realms of seeming a little melodramatic or overly emotional im sorry. On the other hand to leave out these emotions would give you readers an inaccurate representation of my experience. Where to start? It was Berit’s birthday last night so we all went to the beach, I went skinny dipping and after we sat and talked for a long while. I then spent the night at Berke’s house which was very kind of him as I really was in no fit state to make my way back to the village at 5 in the morning. We slept a few hours and then went to the cafe. I spent the day snoozing, on Facebook and watching the latest episode of Game of Thrones. It was busy in the cafe all day today and as the day went on I wanted more and more to be alone with my thoughts. Unsure as to why I felt this way I decided it would be best if I walked to the village so I might have a little time to myself. I now realise that I had some emotions to process. 2 boats arrived in Chios last night. Once again whilst I had been at the beach there had been desperate families making the treacherous crossing. They will now sit in the overcrowded detention centre. The MSF say that this centre should not have more than 600 people, the EU says not more that 800 and the military that runs it's says not more than 1000. There are well over a thousand refugees already in the detention centre. 7 white helmets volunteers were murdered last night. They were shot whilst they were sleeping. For those of you that haven't already please watch the netflix documentary about the white helmets as it's very powerful and poignant. They are a group of first responders that will rush to the scene of any bombings or trouble with the aim of saving innocent victims of war. They don't care which side the victim may be on, all they care about is the preservation of human life. They're not professionals in anyway, they are volunteers who love their country and the people in it. The job is massively dangerous and since they have started their work 200 volunteers have lost their lives. The fact that someone could murder these men whose intentions are so pure. I read the news on Facebook and forced myself to read all their names. Ziad Hassan Kadhanoun, Bassel Mustafa Kassas, Mohammed Shabib, Mohammed Dib al-Har (Abu Kifah), Mohammed Kroma, Obaida Radwan, Abdulrazzak Hassan Haj Khalil. I never knew them but just reading their names realises them a great deal more than just knowing 7 of them. Men with lives, families, they ate, drank, laughed, cried, and loved just like all of us. You may not hear about this atrocity because it's lost amongst chaos that is the Syrian civil war. It's instances such as these that cause me to become fatalistic about the world. What does it matter whether Donald Trump says he will nuke North Korea. Until he does it’s just a pissing contest between an elderly man who should know a lot better and a small child that is trying to convince all the adults he is in fact an adult. They will not nuke one another because if they do it will cause chaos and uproar. On the off chance that a nuclear bomb is dropped it will be the worst day in the history of mankind.

[thepensiverambler]

Ruddy Nora

The joy of volunteering in such an international environment is that there is a beautiful exchange of cultures. A ‘give and take’ situation in which we learn from each other about culture and language. Just this morning I was eating bssissa with dates, later I drank tea with a Turkish dump yard owner and this weekend I bumbled my way through a Turkish barbers. Despite these culturally enriching experiences the most prominent exchange is currently not between Turk and Brit but instead between Brit and Italian. Construction sites have a reputation for being a hive of masculinity, culminating in practical jokes, swearing and wolf whistles. If a wolf whistle was ever heard in the village the whistler would probably be thrown out 5 minutes later. Practical jokes could be played but apart from the occasional dousing with a watering can I'm yet to experience any. This leaves us with swearing. Swearing may be a stretch for the exclamatory phrase ‘Ruddy Nora’ but, to quote Polly Stenham that's “fucking semantics”. This phrase along with ‘Bloody Nora’ is perhaps my main gift to my Italian workmate. It's makes smile to myself everytime I hear from the opposite side of the kitchen the Italian accent uttering old phrase. In return I now swear solely in Italian in the workplace. When I bend a nail, hit myself with a hammer or when Massaki starts to clear all my stuff away before we’re done with work, an English voice can be heard massacring the beautiful language. When I am searching for a tool amongst the chaos that is our construction site, generally complaining or enquiring why Massaki has started to laugh unexplainably I choose to butcher Japanese instead. The combination of Japanese and Italian workmates means that I will occasionally compile sentences from our three languages. The sentences are nigh on incomprehensible to anyone but me. Nonetheless I will persist in combining the languages I have tried to learn in my life. There have been numerous ‘Ruddy Nora’ moments this week so far so here is a quick run of them. Ruddy Nora moment No.1 I am determined to become a true Arabic man and working the entirety of my time here in flip flops. This is a slight death trap however as, when building a house out of pallets, there will undoubtedly be nails lying around. I have stood on a few, some have gone through my flip flops but today is the first day that blood has been drawn. Ruddy Nora moment No.2 I woke up on Tuesday morning snoozed my alarm and that's was the last I saw of my phone. I searched every night for is thinking at first it was under clothes, then under my roll mat then at a later stage under my tent. It must have been quite the sight to have seen me in my wholly boxers climbing under my tent. My phone was nowhere to be found and was not found until 2 day later 10 feet clear of my tent. No doubt it had been carried away by ants or a group of industrious wasps. Ruddy Nora moment No.3 I received an email from Leeds University saying they wanted me to pay my £200 deposit for my accommodation. Seeing as I hadn't had a phone for the past couple of days the email came as quite a shock and to be quite frank a bit of an insult. In email communication with the university I never feel I have much choice, they prefer dictatorial style of writing which implies a significant amount power over me. Regardless, I have come into town to give the greedy bastards my money because I don't know if I can continue to sleep in a tent whilst at university. Ruddy Nora moment No.4 When I was told it was my turn to clean the bathroom. This would have been fine but I couldn't be bothered to wander round in search of a mop so instead I did the cleaning with sponge, including the floor. Again, this would have been fine had I not kept walking through the area I had just cleaned to get to the sink creating my muddy footprints. Eventually I planned my clean a bit better and got the job done (ish) only to be told at supper by Kenneth that he wouldn't clean the bathroom until I had. Flabbergasted that he hadn't noticed my efforts I was appalled and lost for words. Ruddy Nora moment No.5 My flip flop broke. It's happened to all of us and some stage. It's a sad sight seeing someone try to hop along with a broken flip flop but my workmates didn't have to see it for long. Part of the bottom of the strap had snapped of so I replaced it with a nail. There's something about the fact that whilst I avoid nails as best I can all day long I am constantly stepping on one which fixes my flip flop that makes me feel both rebellious and dangerous. Like a poacher may hang the head of his prized prey I hang a nail in my flip flop to show I have conquered it. Ruddy Nora moment No.6 If you ever see me with a fig in my hand be sure to slap it away and then slap me for my weakness. I adore figs, but they do not adore me. In a moment that harks back to a time in which I ate far too many dried apricots meaning I was stuck to the loo for a few days the same thing happens with figs. I'm considering selling it to cosmo as an extreme dieting technique. ‘Shit away 30 pounds by eating nothing but figs’ may not have the sexy appeal that other fads have but it certainly has the right effect. With every rapid need to run to the loo I mutter to myself “ohhhh Ruddy Nora”.

[thepensiverambler]

THE PAST WEEK IN MY THOUGHTS

I'm apologise I haven't posted all week but here are a slightly disordered collection of my thoughts throughout the week. I hope you're able to follow me jumping around a little bit. I’ve mentioned briefly in the past that Imece is interested in working to become independent from donations by setting up a business side of the charity. They're looking to acquire a farm on which they'll keep 300 sheep as a trial run on the first year, farm the 5000 fruit trees already on the land and hopefully make a large profit for many years to come. They plan to then put profits back into the village I'm currently working on. The reason for doing this if it hadn't been clear to start is so that they can move away from donations and become an ‘independent charity’ (copyright on this term belongs to the Pensive Rambler). I hate the idea of fundraising. At least on a small scale such as myself it would require me to go onto Facebook to a lot of people I don't know all that well and say “look at me, I need your money to go and help people. If you're lucky maybe I'll post some photos about my life changing experience and can continue to post 6 months down the line with scintillating captions such as ‘miss this’ or ‘wish I was back here’. You'll really help me to find a child I can pose with to show just how much I changed people's lives in my 2 weeks of volunteering, it doesn't matter about the colour of the child as long as they're not white no one will question it.” ‘You wouldn't have to go on Facebook though’, how better can I reach a vast number of people that have some sort of connection to me? If I were to make appeals to family and friends in person that's even worse and I could never do it in person. It is, a common thing for charities to ask the volunteers to do though. ICS, Raleigh international and Imece all ask of their volunteers. Ok, not quite Imece but an organisation called Balkan route that often sends German volunteers to Imece sets them up a fundraising page. The idea behind these small scale fundraising projects are so that by sending little Jimmy to Turkey the grumpy uncle that normally spouts borderline racist comments from his wingback armchair will now give money he never normally would. By pulling on heartstrings you can draw blood from the driest stones. To me it makes sense to have a money making department instead of fundraising department and then treat donations as icing on the cake. To have a consistent, reliable stream of money entering the organisation rather than these peaks and troughs one gets with donations. I don't mean to take anything away from most fundraisers, it's really useful and money is always a problem here. People will do it with the best intentions but it's just not my thing to go asking people for money. There was a time in Japan I went to 7 11 on a beer run and got everyone's beers. I asked them to pay me back when they had the money but of course people forgot. I'm no loan shark but it meant I lost about £15 because lots of different people forgot about the couple of pounds they owed me. I suppose this maybe why the idea of earning one’s own money and putting it directly back into the charity appeals so much. The week This week has been quite slow work. Vittorio and I have focused our efforts on building a structure entirely out of pallets. It has been fraught with problems. The beams aren't straight, the pallets aren't level and the windows won't close. Today we spent the day mixing batch after batch of concrete for the floor of the building which of course wasn't level. It's felt more and more like a large DIY project. I wrote this entry at 1 15 on Sunday night I'm currently looking out towards Chios on a popular Cesme beach. To my left are holiday goers in tents, one with a bonfire and numerous people sat outside. About 10 metres away from me lie my friends, asleep. We came to the beach to relax and have a nice evening and after a while of Vittorio strumming away at the guitar everyone nodded off. It's seems my current life is entirely comprised of clichés. I spent the evening surrounded by my friends looking up at the stars whilst and Italian struck chords and sang. The moment was at its most cliché when the 6 of us sang along to hippy anthem no.1 Imagine by John Lennon. I am the last one awake and as I look out over the short stretch to Chios i imagine myself swimming across. Would I make it? It’s pretty rough tonight, i probably wouldn't. If I didn't, it would be in the news. Not necessarily the BBC but perhaps the middy or the chronicle. Strange to think of all the nameless people that have lost lives attempting the crossing. So I did end up falling asleep on the beach with the others until about 3 o'clock when a beach cleaning tractor nearly ran us over. Rudely awoken by shouts and horn hooting we decided that it would be best for us to drive back to the village. I found out on the morning of my posting this, 120 people attempted the crossing last night. There are now 50 people (20 adults and 30 children) sat in the jandarma I visited a couples of weeks back. Visa’s Today I was talking with a Turkish girl, Kesire about visiting England. She said that it was hard for her to get a visa. At first I didn't believe her, I thought back to my panicked purchase of my Turkish visa in the airport, why should the reverse be any different. I looked it up and low and behold she was right, it's massively complicated. Whilst I can understand why visa situations may vary from country to country, it seems strange to me that it should be so hard for a Turkish citizen to gain entry to the UK when it was so easy for me. When talking to the Kesire another topic came up. ‘How did we get here?’ It's something that surprisingly rarely comes up in the village. I suppose because the truth is a real downer for most people. As a volunteer I would prefer to go through my day and not mention the crisis I'm currently working to solve. I suppose this is the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ philosophy that has annoyed me in recent times. I prefer not to think about all the abhorrent things that are happening in the world as I know I can't solve them so it's not worth ruining my mood over. Generally volunteering has been a really happy, enjoyable experience (at least for me). I suppose another reason this topic rarely arises is because, to us there isn't much to say. ‘The situation is terrible, I want to change things, help people and I wish everyone in the world did too’. Well I guess that's that then. Final thoughts: I've not heard from Tomi Lahren in a while however here are my final thoughts. When I was out for drinks with Cuba and Teresa, Cuba said that he was going to give up with his country of origin, instead of trying to effect any change he will simply state his views and have done with the process. Like any idealist, political student I told him that this was the easy route out and that if he ever wanted to make a difference he must play the game and take on opposing views rather than simply running from them. He simply told me that he was glad i still thought that way but he was too old bother anymore. Will I grow more like Cuba and more cynical with age? Will I lose faith in what I already believe to be a flawed political system?

[thepensiverambler]

Bevvies with the boys

We’d agreed earlier on in the week that we’d all take a half day and go to the beach together. Having been fortunate enough to visit a few beaches around the world i have decided that I'm not much of a beach person. I like to go for a swim then lie and read for a couple of hours but that is about it. I don't particularly enjoy full days on the beach roasting my skin with the hope it may go brown. I don't particularly enjoy the chance I may have missed a difficult spot on my back, or have missed an area on my hip because the position of my shorts has changed meaning I'll get burned. So why did you go if you don't like the beach? In a word, Barbecue. I LOVE BBQs. When it was suggested we could have one on the beach my name was the first on the list, I even volunteered my cooking skills for the occasion (something I'd actively avoided until that moment). It's hard to put your finger on why BBQS are so perfect, it's a combination of going back to a caveman like style of cooking, adding a beautiful smokey flavour to the meat and the atmosphere created by the fire that combine to make the perfect meal experience. We arrived at the beach built our bbq from stones and got started. The idea of cooking over glowing embers most spark some ingrained primal instinct in men because within 5 minutes of the word bbq being mentioned every single one of us was around the bbq suggesting how best to get it hot, the necessary height for our grill to sit and the the order of things. Supposedly at the helm of the operation I made some big calls such as taking out a few stones to allow more oxygen to enter. Whilst I and Matteas work away on the bbq we had several onlookers. A couple remaining men offering the occasional tit - bit of advice and a couple of women arrived seemingly in awe of our prowess at fire maintenance. Once we’d served a beautiful meal of some of the best cooked chicken I have ever had in my life we settled down and played a few games. After establishing myself as the God of uno we watched the sunset, got back on the minibus and left. After a bumpy journey back in the bus we got back to the village, showered and headed to the cafe. We found a bar and had a couple of drinks. Turkey is an amusing place to go for drinks because whilst there may be 4 bars on one square there's a high level of cooperation between them all. For example last night 8 of us arrived at the bar and ordered our drinks. The waiter went back inside, picked up 8 glasses and walked across the street into the opposite bar and returned with 8 full glasses. Later on once the bar opposite had closed we were told draught was off and we would have to have bottles. This isn't the first time this sort of cooperation has taken place, once we were getting food and the waiter didn't speak any English. This meant that the waiter from next door had to come across and serve us for our time there. Everyone’s eyes were starting to droop so it was decided we should leave. Cuba asked me if I'd like to go for some raki. A couple of drinks in and raki sounded like a great idea. Teresa, Cuba and I searched for a place that would start to serve us at half 1 in the morning. Eventually we found a little restaurant that was still open and sat and had a few glasses of the stuff. Raki is a Turkish spirit that tastes of aniseed, mixed half and half with water and it makes a beautiful drink. It's absolutely deadly though, incredibly easy to drink and incredibly strong. Cuba and Teresa are old friends from Chios and seasoned volunteers. We chatted about many things including Chios, politics and gossip around the village. After a couple of glasses it was quite late so we left and tried to get into the cafe to sleep. Of course it was locked, so we caught a taxi back to the village. Split between the 3 of this cost me a little over a pound. There was no chance I was walking the half hour back so I was incredibly grateful the others wanted to take the taxi too. We sat and chatted a little more and eventually I decided I would call it a night. I went into the bathroom and for unknown reasons took my toothbrush and toothpaste, I sat on some cushions we have under an olive tree to look out over Cesme. The next thing I knew I was incredibly warm and sweating immensely. The sun was blinding. It was 9 o’clock.

[thepensiverambler]

Lost love in Cesme

Like many writers of my generation I am plagued by the fact that sex sells. It's well known that fantastic literature has taken a back seat to more smutty, poorly written works in recent times such as ‘50 Shades of Grey’. I try to produce interesting, enlightening posts about my experience as a volunteer and epic stories of amusing situations I've found myself in. Regardless of what I write, there’s only one question I'm asked, “Has anything happened with that Turkish girl you met on a bench”. I don’t blame the reader for taking an interest in this and i’m certainly not surprised that in an era of ‘Love Island’ characters having more influence than Theresa May this was where the interest would lie. As this is the topic of nigh on all reader/writer interaction I feel compelled to address the matter in full. I'm not going to lie you, gorgeous Eylul has crossed my mind a couple of times in the weeks since we met. As you may recall Eylul gave me her number and we parted ways under the promise that I would text her once I had bought a Turkish sim. After this I went to Torbali on distribution for a few days and then returned to the village for another few days. Whilst in Torbali I decided I couldn't be bothered to get a Turkish sim and would just text Eylul on my British number. Unfortunately the message wouldn't deliver. It was a heartbreaking moment for me and I'm sure Eylul was pretty put out by the whole affair too. After a week without wifi it dawned on me that I would have to include the country code in her number. I tried texting her again. Success! A week after I had first tried to text the girl of my dreams I had got a message through to her. Now all there was left to do was wait, and wait I did and am continuing to do because unfortunately Eylul hasn't yet replied to me. Perhaps I played it too cool waiting a week to text her. Perhaps I came on too strong in my text asking if she wanted to go for a drink. Perhaps I've not sent the text to the wrong number. Perhaps she's lost her phone or is waiting for a time she is coming back to Cesme to text me. It doesn't really matter which one of these situations is the truth as I fear my chance of romance with Eylul has now passed. Dry your eyes though as there is one fact about Eylul that I may have neglected to inform you of. Her age. 27. It's not such a big number it's only 8 years on me, and I'm very old for my age. People often mistake me for 25 and Eylul was a young looking 27. I guess that, once again, it doesn't matter either way.

[thepensiverambler]

Lost love in Cesme

Like many writers of my generation I am plagued by the fact that sex sells. It's well known that fantastic literature has taken a back seat to more smutty, poorly written works in recent times such as ‘50 Shades of Grey’. I try to produce interesting, enlightening posts about my experience as a volunteer and epic stories of amusing situations I've found myself in. Regardless of what I write, there’s only one question I'm asked, “Has anything happened with that Turkish girl you met on a bench”. I don’t blame the reader for taking an interest in this and i’m certainly not surprised that in an era of ‘Love Island’ characters having more influence than Theresa May this was where the interest would lie. As this is the topic of nigh on all reader/writer interaction I feel compelled to address the matter in full. I'm not going to lie you, gorgeous Eylul has crossed my mind a couple of times in the weeks since we met. As you may recall Eylul gave me her number and we parted ways under the promise that I would text her once I had bought a Turkish sim. After this I went to Torbali on distribution for a few days and then returned to the village for another few days. Whilst in Torbali I decided I couldn't be bothered to get a Turkish sim and would just text Eylul on my British number. Unfortunately the message wouldn't deliver. It was a heartbreaking moment for me and I'm sure Eylul was pretty put out by the whole affair too. After a week without wifi it dawned on me that I would have to include the country code in her number. I tried texting her again. Success! A week after I had first tried to text the girl of my dreams I had got a message through to her. Now all there was left to do was wait, and wait I did and am continuing to do because unfortunately Eylul hasn't yet replied to me. Perhaps I played it too cool waiting a week to text her. Perhaps I came on too strong in my text asking if she wanted to go for a drink. Perhaps I've not sent the text to the wrong number. Perhaps she's lost her phone or is waiting for a time she is coming back to Cesme to text me. It doesn't really matter which one of these situations is the truth as I fear my chance of romance with Eylul has now passed. Dry your eyes though as there is one fact about Eylul that I may have neglected to inform you of. Her age. 27. It's not such a big number it's only 8 years on me, and I'm very old for my age. People often mistake me for 25 and Eylul was a young looking 27. I guess that, once again, it doesn't matter either way.

[thepensiverambler]

Little by little

26th I woke as usual, sweat on my brow to find another still day. Today was hot. Really hot. In my opinion it was no hotter than any other day only we didn't have a nice cooling breeze. I tried to get into the kitchen to make myself some breakfast on their was a great big lock in the way. After searching long and hard for a key (little over a minute) I resigned myself to wait for the others to wake and come and find the key. Once they did come and we were finally all sat at breakfast chatter began to wander towards the daily plan. I had had aspirations of starting to flatten the ground on which to dig the volunteer house and to dig it's foundations. It became clear to me that no one was keen on doing any strenuous physical activity. I helped Cuba with the minor chore of cutting away to filler he'd used on the walls in the kitchen. I decided I would go and help Hanna to rake field. We needed to get rid of all dry grass and other plants in order to transform it into a nice area for workshops. We decided to burn the grass in a metal drum as we were Coldingham the grass. The burning was talking too long so we tried burning the grass in clumps on the ground. We took precautions to contain the fire such as digging a small trench to around the fire, wetting the ground around it and we watched it closely armed with watering cans. The fire escaped after a while and crawled 2 or 3 metres aways before we spotted it and jumped into action with our emergency water. At the end of the field was a patch of ground I hadn't noticed before on which nothing grew. Perfect for our fire. I told the others that was the place for us. I was called a genius and we set to work, for about 5 minutes. Ali shouted at us all saying that we were all going to the beach. Now at this point I know a lot of you may consider me grumpy but I really didn't want to go to the beach. I'd had a day off the previous day, and I had a task in hand that was different to mixing concrete. I had’nt come to Turkey to simply go to the beach when it was a little warmer than was comfortable. After a little rebellion I and 3 others remained at the village to work whilst the others left to the beach. I was alone in the field. A vast expance to clear with just a bucket and a rake. I set to work. I worked nonstop for 4 hours. Well I took water breaks of course. And one for a coffee. And a few dates. And maybe a slice of water melon and a fig. After my tireless work I had got to about halfway through the field, there was now a large mound of hay at one end of the field but all I could see was the work still at hand. The four of us took lunch (pasta and a salad). As we finishing our post lunch coffees the minibus of beach goers returned. To get out of the way I went back to my field to get on with the job. I had the aim of finishing it by the end of the day and I knew that if stopped too long I wouldn't be able do it alone. Bit between my teeth I worked without regard for the sweat dripping of my nose and occasionally into my mouth. No regard for my t-shirt stuck to me with a large T written across my chest in slightly darker maroon than the original. Hoping all the while my morning crew would return and lighten to the load yet team never did. I had to employ the help of another volunteer, Eros. We worked for an hour together until at last my herculean task was complete. I had a haystack down one end of the field large enough to feed the entirety of the Grand national horses for a year. It was huge. Easily 6 feet in height, 10 feet long and another 6 feet in width. Now for the fun part or the day. The fire. After a few safety precautions we torched the lot, played a little ‘cricket’ as it burned. Cricket consisted of being tossed a ball and trying to pull the ball (stone) so that it might rain down on the others that were still building the kitchen. The bat was a slat from a pallet, not quite the fine piece of willow to which I'm used but a bat nonetheless. The shot need to travel around 60 metres but even my best times shots were falling 10 metres short. I had to go to the cafe to get wifi to find out when I would be going to University. Yes I should probably have known this before I came out and started to plan travelling Turkey but I didn't. I got on the pink bike and enjoyed a nice cycle into town. I spent a little time sorting my life out until I met a couple of the new volunteers. One was a 19 year old Norwegian girl that I’d chatted a little at the village earlier in the day. We sat and chatted for a while, to put it nicely she talked too much, to put it less nicely the girl had verbal diahorrea. I don't mean to be too rude because I thought she was a sweet girl but good lord she enjoyed talking about herself. I enjoy meeting new people because you never know what they'll be like but there's only so much I want to talk about exams and university. I would have assumed that being the same age we'd have had a similar experience over the past year of everyday conversations about university and future. I'm sick of it. I don't care what uni you're going to. I don't care what you're studying. I don't care if you're nervous, excited or unsure about the experience. I really don't care if you're looking forward to freshers or not, it doesn't matter either way we both know you're going to turn up at freshers, get too drunk one time and think you're now a ‘hardcore student’. Regardless of this it's the common ground we found and, wishing we were both into football I covered the usual topics as though ticking them from my checklist. After some dinner we had delivered I got a lift home and went to bed. 27th I was picking up stones in the field when Beret came to me and asked if I wanted to come to the police station to distribute to a group picked up trying to cross to Chios that morning. Yes. Of course I did. We got in the car and drove to the shop picking 48 bottles of water and countless loaves of bread. We then drove to the cafe and picked up toys for the children and tinned beans. 200 metres down the road was the police station which was right on the sea front between 2 fancy bars. I nearly walked straight past it but the others turned in and we walked up the narrow steps into a courtyard. I was expecting to find 15 or so refugees sat in a hostile, white synthetic room with water coolers and cork boards. This was not the case, 30 or so refugees sat in the courtyard struggle to find shade from the midday heat. We went round handing out bread, water and toys for the children. The groups ranged from large families of women and children to couples to lone men. I didn't find out where they were from which would have such an impact on their future. It seems strange to think how these people could be treated so differently to me due to their place of birth. How they could be treated so differently to each other depending on whether they were Syrian or Iraqi. During my visit we were fortunate to be supervised by a nice police officer. He was friendly, opening a tin of beans for us and even fetching another loaf of bread when we ran out. We are lucky in Cesme that the police station is quite nice to give us a call when they've made arrests so that we can come and offer some relief. We're lucky in Cesme, to have quite a cooperative police station which will call us when they've made arrests. Sometimes they'll feed them, sometimes they won't. The police argue they don't have enough money to spend on food for refugees. Some policemen aren't as nice as the one we were supervised by today. Every volunteer who has spent a significant amount of time in a camp has witnessed violence from police officers. The worst thing as a volunteer is in these sorts of situations there's nothing you can do. If you interfere you jeopardise the relationship with charity and police which endangers the welfare of far more future refugees than the one receiving the beating. The situation reminds me of that of Rwanda when the UN force was sent in during the mass genocide with a mandate that wouldn't allow them to interfere with violence. Cases were reported where UN officers had to stand by whilst they watched the slaughter of men,women and children. The effects of the genocide has given both murderers and UN officials PTSD. I'm sure this crisis will do the same. I'm fortunate not to have witnessed much violence in my brief time volunteering. It's seems silly that in the total 4 or 5 days I've spent in the presence of both refugees and law enforcement that I should feel fortunate not to have witnessed grave violence. Cesme police station treats it's detainees well to a point. They often leave it a few hours until they call us, leaving refugees to grow more and more uncomfortable and hungry in the midday sun. I see no point in treating refugees poorly in detention. Some argue that it's to act as a deterrent, to teach them a lesson. These people are willing to risk their lives to get to Greece a few hours of discomfort is not going to do well as a deterrent. The proof of this is easy to find, today I heard of a man that had attempted the crossing 8 times unsuccessfully. So why not treat these poor people as human beings and not animals to be punished for attempting to improve their lives. 28th The news came that last night a boat had sunk attempting to make the crossing. 7 dead, 10 alive. It shook me a little as I'd been to a departing beach just days before, met with refugees that had attempted the crossing just yesterday. It made me think and question whether I doing all I could at this moment in time. Surely it's more important to save lives than to improve them. But what life can you lead without the possibility of betterment? Just crossing your fingers and hoping that you'll be able to save enough money over the summer to feed yourself for the winter. I was told in Calais that whatever we do will never be enough and it's true. You can be working 20 hours a day 7 days a week and you won't think that it's enough. All we can hope to do is improve lives little by little to a point where they can start to improve them on their own.