Last day!

When I'm writing that, I'm already in Estonia, sitting in my room and thinking the last post, what should I write. 

3rd of Feb: perfectly normal day. It was my last time to clean the flat, so I was doing it very happily :). Our friends arrived afternoon (to say goodbye), when I was sleeping, but after when I woke up they were still there. I wasn't very willing to join them, becuse everytime when I came near them, I started crying. I guess I finally understood that it's my last day. 

Around 7pm we joined with the youth parliament people, who had their last coffee in one cafe (I don't remember the name anymore :( ). Luckily they left pretty soon, so I had last quality time with our  coordinator, his friends and Ago. When I was in that cafe I hold my tears back, but even the music was so sad, that I wanted to cry. Usually, I'm quite cheerful .. smiling all the time (or laughing) but in that day I was just so sad that I even didn't speak almost at all. 

In the night, I was packing my things and when I finally managed, it was almost 4.30am. I'm never sleeping before my flights, so we were just sitting together last time, listening some music and just talking. It was perfect time! 

4th of Feb: It was 6:10am when I left my home. My 2 luggage  were very heavy, but as it was 5 months ago, then I didn't had to carry it (at least not from 4th floor to 1st floor) :D. Last huggs and we're already in the car, going to the airport. At the airport  I found out that my one luggage was 6kg overweight and the hand luggage was 3kg overweight. Ofc, it was a big deal at Istanbul's airport, but I somehow managed to carry everything back!!

31.01 - 03.02 National Youth Parliament meeting

As you can read from the title, then we had one very big meeting in Diyarbakir. Actually it started on 1st of Feb, when we also went to listen that. Ofc I didn't understand it very well, but Emine translated the main things for me and Ago. So it was still good.

On 2nd of Feb, we went to see the Kurdish Hamlet, what  was so different of all the other theatre plays what I've seen. I was  very surprised! The play was good, but it was very long one too.

- one day I'll put here the pictures too. I'm still waiting them. ;)

7 days sounds better than 1 week!

This week is the last working week for us. My time here will be over soon. Last 7 days are left and hopefully we spend it well! :) 

Last week we didn't had anything new - we were searching partners for our projects and we're learning Turkish again + we even had couple of English lessons.

Also, I met with 2 couchsurfers who are currently living in Diyarbakir. It was a well-spent time with them and I'm feeling a bit sad that I didn't met them in the beginning of my EVS. They are a lovely couple, who have travelled a lot and surprisingly are speaking English well. They are taking Tango courses together and on Thursday I had a chance to see one of their lesson. In fact, I didn't even know that there are Tango courses in Diyarbakir. 

Diyarbakir is still nice and warm - they have a good winter here. I guess if I'm back in Tallinn I'll miss that 'no-snow-and-very-warm' weather (although, now I would like to see snow for couple of days :)).

2 weeks left .. last things to do!

The electricity, water and internet came back on the same day when I posted this 'karma' strory. Oh, that was just perfect when we finally turned on our heaters and it was warm again. It felt like miracle has come true! 

Although the electricity went away for 2 times that day, it still felt amazing! We had our lovely warm home back :). 

Yesterday we had guests. When usually the hosts should invite people, then in Turkey the things are a bit different - Ago just got a message in FB that 'we are coming to you' .. so you can imagine how surprised and confused we were .. ofc, it was totally okey, because it is always good to have guests. Their 'I'll be here in 1h' turned out to be 'I'm here and I'm ringing the doorbell right now'. At least it was good, because usually they are all late. So, there we were, sitting in our huge living room with Recep, Bercem, Nesibe, Ruken, Merve and Muhhamed; eating the most sweetest cake ever and playing OK.
It was a lovely day. 

Today we started with our Turkish lesson again, as friday we skipped it. Nicely spent 2 hours and after that we visited Yasmine's school where she is a English teacher. We had a lovely lesson, full of questions about pork meat, life traditions and university exams. :) 

42h and still counting!

How to survive when you don't have electricity? 42h and counting more ...

It has to be 'karma'!! :D So ironic that with loss of electricity, gas ran out too. :D The only day when we really thought here that it's time to boil water.

 I approve! :D

Stay positive! Under of several blanckets ..

One week gone again!

For this week I have totally forgotten my blog, as you can see. Time has just flied as we have only 2,5 weeks left here. Ofc we have started writing projects again  (more actively) and the priority no. 1 is to find partners at the moment. We just published several calls for partners today. 

That's what we have done for the whole week + several Turkish lessons and English lessons as well. Actually, we changed our schedule a bit - starting from next week we have 3 English lessons and 5 Turkish lessons... so it's a bit less than this week we had. :) 

Today we went to see the children's play in Diyarbakir's Culture and Art Centre.. it was very good, but as soon as we started going inside with Ago and we saw other children, they came and started speaking with us. Before that they had a cloun there who made them activities.. when we came, everybody were around us :D. It looked so funny. Also, in the play they all invited us to sit next to them. 

- soon I should get pictures as well. 

NB! Cross your fingers that we could get our electricity back. It has been gone since yesterday at 6 pm, but we are still waiting it back! :) Hope that the miracle happens and it will return!

Visiting Eğil!

Today we went out of Diyarbakır to finally visit Eğil. It's a small village, approximately 40 minutes from Diyarbakır. We went to see the caves and took a walk around there.

Afterwards, we all went to Domino's Pizza place, what should be one of the best places in Turkey and now they have their place in Diyarbakır too. After eating those huge pizzas over there, we went to another place to eat kebab too. Ohmygod, it was really too much, but it was good!!!! Very good. 

It's just amazing that I have here this kind of awesome people! :) 

 When we arrived to Eğil

 These caves .. 

 Sitting all together :)

 Looking around .. (I just tried to figure out how it was possible to climb over there)

 Terviseks! :)

 It was way too slippery :D

 View from the top. We were down there :D

 'Small' pizzas ..

 .. and a 'small' dinner

English, Turkish, English, English ...

Since Lise left, me and Ago have taken over her English lessons. I don't want to be mean, but I don't get it how they still don't speak English .. all the EVSers have taught them and now we are doing that and ... oh it's still hard. We still do it and hope that something changes (as we have 4 lessons per week, so 8h in total)

Our last month just suddenly got very busy. We have lessons almost every day (except Monday when we only have Turkish). The lessons are not long, maximum 2h with one group, but the preparation for that takes a lot more. So even our day starts at 9 am in the association, then before the lessons we are mostly translating words and doing any other useful things.. time just flies :D. 

I quite like this days here, when I have something to do and the time just goes by. 

Also, I started to look my tickets to Estonia today. Some people can be happy now! :D 4 months have already gone and I've so few time left. It always comes to my mind when somebody asks here when we're leaving and do we really want to go back. Luckily we don't have to leave exactly on 1st of Feb, we can stay here max. 1 week more (wohhhoo!!) 

NB! Snow hasn't melted yet! Today was so beautiful. I'm not missing a season anymore!

It's not common to make pictures all the time, but somebody made a picture about this snow -

4 months and 4 days!

Last week was usual, we still had our English lessons and at the weekend we went to see children's rehearsal for their theater project. Children were all dressed up in costumes - they had a dog, rabbit, cat and a donkey. Also, they had one part over there when they all had to sing together.. it was quite good, but ofc it got better when they sang it more. 

They have here a water saving project and they have already made little videos for that. I made them a blog too, but they are writing it. You can see it from HERE (this is their way how to write a blog..)

Another good news is that it was snowing again on Saturday. I never thought that I can be happy because of that, but I was walking around with a big smile all day long :D It was our 2nd time here, but unfortunately it melted the next day. :( 

I guess it's normal here, that snow comes and goes. 

Yesterday, we made some plans for our projects what we want to develop for 1st of Feb. deadline.. in this Association, they have so many good ideas what they all want to make. Just fantastic!! I'm already thinking what I can do in Estonia. 

+ in addition, we started our Turkish lessons again. Lise, who gave us lessons before (until Nov, when she suddenly was travelling a lot and skipped our lessons) went back to Denmark, so we have a new teacher! :D She is studying in University and doesn't speak English perfectly, but she is an amazing teacher. She wrote us everything .. where the endings are coming from and how we have to make the sentences etc. 

The theater group 

Bye-bye 2012, hello 2013!

The end of December came so quickly, that I slightly noticed that. Ofc, we still don't have snow over here, so you can imagine how strange it was for me... I'm feeling like I'm missing one part of the year :D. At least it's good too .. we don't have to dig cars out under the snow and it's still quite warm here (when the sun is shining :)

On 31st of Dec we all went to Association to finish some things, Ago was finishing the video of our YE and I was reading the new programme guide for Youth in Action. After we went all home and greeted the new year with sparkling wine and fragolino. It was a nice little celebration and as our guests left 6 am in the morning, I was sleeping almost the whole day on 1st of January. Actually, we were told that every New Year's Eve there are a lot of people on the streets and that's why some of them are starting to disturb others, so it's better to celebrate it at home. Well, I liked it! :) 

Today we already went to the Association. As we have English lesson tomorrow, I was preparing some tasks for them and I almost translated everything from English to Turkish . Pure joy! :D (actually, it's useful for  me too). I just want to hope that miracle happens and our 'students' will learn English. Me and Ago have only 1 month left (okay, 1 month and 2 days ..) till the end of our project.. our 'students' just have to learn English. 'Hope dies the last', as people say ....

!!!! Unfortunatley, I don't have any pictures of our fantastic New Year's Eve, but instead of that you can watch our video about the YE in Nov'12 - http://vimeo.com/56625972

NB! Happy New Year to you! May it be memorable and full of adventures. (and thank you for all the messages and calls!)