EARLHAM COLLEGE  2011 MAY TERM
TURKEY COPPER TOUR
LED BY NATHEN JONES AND AMY BRYANT
25 May 2011 WEDNESDAY,
Day 14 KAVAKLIDERE - KUSADASI

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Meli and Nathen went to the village square before ever one else waiting for the students to congregate by the bus. We certainly were very curious to see how they enjoyed their home stay.

Everybody, the students and the families, seemed very happy. We planned to talk about the evening, the experience on the bus

The mayor wanted to give  us a short tour of their new mosque. It was beautiful. The family who had this mosque built was a family who used to live in this village. He then found a job in Izmir. when he got very rich he returned to his village and built a high school, a mosque and a soccer field.

After the mosque we, were invited to the office of the mayor. We sensed that there will be a little official ceremony. The mayor, Nuray Bey, apologized for not having a bigger room . We and some of the hosts from last night squeezed in the room. As usual, candy and cologne was passed around. then came the ceremony of the flag.  Nathan introduced the maor the flag of Earlham and we were given the flag of the village with the Turkish flag on one side and the picture of the village on the other. Finally we all came down stairs and had a group picture taken in front of Ataturk's statue.


On the bus, every one told their stories with their families. It sounded like the students were able to over come the language barrier beautifully. One family had a relative in another city who knew how to speak English. They had a 2 hour conversation on the face-book. This relative had translated for the family the whole evening.


We drove through a pine forest, saw many more marble quarries and an open air coal quarry. Finally we stopped at a beautiful lake, Bafa Lake. the wild flowers and the birds were beautiful. We had a big lunch and continued to the beach. The sun was not so bright and there was a nice little breeze - a perfect temperature to go swimming. Some made sure they had enough sun screen, some were happy to dip their feet in the water. Others dip in the cool waters of the Aegean quickly. Martin and Jacob played checkers .
Meli's sister who was living on the beach had invited us to her home. Rubab and her American husband were delighted to have us.
Meli and Rubab fixed us tea and sandwiches. We had a nice conversation with Danny about how it was for an American to be living in Turkey.

       


 

 Melitour Home Page   Earlham 2011 Journal  
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