Jump to Field Work: My first day in Turkey

I arrived in Bogazkent, Turkey last night at about 11pm, having traveled about 25 hours from Boulder, CO. I slept late, until my collaborator (Hakan Karaardic) woke me up to go to a barbecue. He jokingly told me it was in my honor, but actually, it was for a program that tries to introduce children from an Antalya orphanage to nature. This afternoon about 60 kids, aged 7-12 inundated a small park along a riverbank in Bogazkent. I spent my time talking to one woman who had studied a year in England about the program and eating bread, grilled meat, a mixture of tomatoes and cucumbers that seems to accompany every Turkish meal, and drinking "Le-cola", all of which had been donated for the event. Occasionally a kid would come up, ask me in Turkish if he could wear my sunglasses, and then run off when one of the adults would chastise him for bothering me. As I looked around at all the adults chatting while the kids were running around like an animated barrel of monkeys, I decided I was bored with the adults (who I couldn't really relate to in any language). So I went down to the river and started skipping rocks with a couple of the kids. Soon I found myself swarmed by at least a dozen. They were each simultaneously vying for my attention--saying "Hello, hello, hello", and when I looked, one would say "my name is--'Shukra'." Or sometimes one would just say "Mitt", and throw a big rock in the water when I turned. One kid thought it was hilarious to play the "My Name Is" game and tell me a different name each time--sometimes saying "My name is..." and then a meaningless phrase like "Big Show" that I assumed he had heard on TV. When I would repeat what he had said, he would laugh and run away, leaving another in his place to show me a rock or ask me to throw a weighted fishing line for him. Since I had their attention, I thought I'd try to teach them a few English words--showing the difference between a  "Big" rock and a "perfect" "small, flat" skipping stone and counting the skips for them in English. I often find it easier to communicate with kids because they have no reservations about trying what little English they know. They won't learn to be embarrassed about this until middle school. Ah...middle school...

In any case, after the kids went back to Antalya, a friend of Hakan's invited us over to have tea at her house. "Us" refers to Hakan, myself, four other people involved in various bird projects that are staying at our apartment, and two others that tagged along from the picnic. It was nice to relax, have a Turkish coffee and tea. I was also surprised to see that our hostess served Turkish delight. You might say I was delighted. Actually, I was surprised, but pleasantly so. After that, I did some unpacking and worked on some data sheets while Hakan and the others did some evening banding at the bird ringing station. Tomorrow Hakan and I will start out bright and early mapping out sites and checking on the nesting status of our birds. I don't know yet whether there are eggs, but we will probably begin banding on Monday morning if not tomorrow night. More on that later.

Cheers,
Matt