Istanbul meetings (April 2012)

Istanbul

Dear Friends,
Yesterday I slept in the morning, then I went to Eminonu for some sightseeing. So nothing interesting happend, I took some nice photos.:)
Today 8 o'clock in the morning my phone started to ring. Coming from deep sleep my first reaction was: oh god, Tomka will wake up, I have to stop it immediately. So I rejected the call immediately. My second reaction was: it must be Yuksel, he was supposed to arrive to Istanbul early in the morning. So I called back the number, it was Yuksel. He said 3 words: address ankara pamukkale. Even though I was very sleepy, I quickly figured out: he left the address in Ankara and he is waiting in Pamukkale office. And I was right :)
So I went to pick him up, we came home and he went to sleep small. I went to see Selvete from Kosovo who came to visit her relatives in Istanbul. She came with her cousine, we had a coffe then we came home to meet Yuksel. I was really happy to see Selvete.
We had a nice chat with Yuksel, Selvete and Selvete's cousine. We talked about the book launch tour, Selvete's cousine took a book, she will see if she can help anyhow with the tour.
In the afternoon we went to Taksim to find Medya book store. They were supposed to sell our book. As later Yuskel explained me, the owner of the book store became sick, he wants to retreat so they cannot sell our book. We took the pack of book with us. Then we went to Imge bookstore here in Kadikoy the same company than the one selling the book in Ankara. We left the pack of book with them, they will start to sell it!
After we came home we put the bookstores addresses to the website (silonunmesaji.org) with photos.
In the evening Armagan, Eylem and her friend Öczan came to the ceremony. Unfortunately Eylem and Oczan suddenly had to leave, they couldn't participate in the ceremony. We had a nice chat, at the beginning about the difficulties of translations :), later about our experiences with Silo's Message. After Eylem left, Yuksel, Armagan and me made a ceremony. Armagan read it in turkish. Then I read again in english, so Armagan could participate. After the ceremony we countinued exchange about our experiences, thanks to Armagan who translated we could have a good level of conversation.
Then we accompanied Armagan to the bus stop, finally with Yuksel we went to eat.
All in all it was a very nice day with a lot of joy, with a lot of warmth, cosiness in the relations among us.

Big hugs to you,

csef

Ankara meetings (April 2012)


Ankara



 http://www.flickr.com/photos/csefkotamas/sets/72157629538636668/

Dear Friends,
I am safely back to Istanbul.
Yesterday I had a great time in Ankara.
In the morning I went to buy my ticket to Istanbul and to buy things for the pancake party. I met two girls on the street who helped me to find pamukkale office. Then they accompanied me to the market to buy eggs, um, jam etc. Then we met one of their boyfriend and they came up to the flat. I showed them the book and with google translate we could talk small. I invited them to the pancake party.
Then I made many pancakes. I thought I am alone at home but suddenly I heard someone coming up from downstairs. I was surprised and scared. But fortunately it was Yuksel. Early in the morning he went to work and while I was away he came back to sleep some more :)
Then we went to his new office and the bookstore where they sell our book.
Then we went home to wait for out friends. First 3 boys came we didn't know. It turned out that the girls I met in the morning invited them "for a conversation about interesting themes". One of them speeks very well english so we could talk. Later Handan, Gurkan, Zehra, Mustapha and Altug arrived. Altug invited two of his friends, one of them moved from Serbia to Ankara. We ate pancake, we talked about Silo's Message, humanism. There was a really good mood. Later Handan teached us turkish dance, so we were dancing around in the room.
Before the 3 new boys had to leave we made an office and a ceremony of wellbeing. Zehra read both ceremonies in a very very nice way. I felt there was a deep silence during the ceremonies, we were all involved somehow. It was really nice.
Then people started to leave, we changed email address and phone number and facebook contact with the new guys.
Finally Yuksel and Gurkan remained, we cleaned the house, and we went to a bar for a tee before I took the bus to Istanbul.
The sun just started to rise in Kadikoy when I arrived. It was nice.

Now I go to sleep small...
Big hugs to you!
csef