Two weeks into my dairy farm stint, and I've become immune to scraping shit.

On my last morning in Istanbul, my host drove me to the metro station, and I rode the packed train to the main bus station. I had instructions from the farm to go to a certain agency, buy my ticket, and once on the bus ask the driver to drop me off at a gas station before their last stop. This I did with little difficulty, and once at the gas station a Turkish volunteer, Serdar, picked me up to take me to the farm.

Before I go any further, I’d like to address one of my favorite parts of Turkish culture: tea. After I bought my ticket at the bus station, the man at the counter suggested I go upstairs for a cup of caj (pronounced like chai). Cai is prevalent everywhere in Istanbul: people drink caj at the sidewalk cafes, boys deliver trays of caj to the men manning their booths at the bazaar or the farmers market, and a man hawks caj to ferry passengers as they cross the Bosphorus Bay. There’s really only one type of tea served: strong, black, and usually doctored with several spoons of sugar stirred in (not my favorite).

Caj being served on the ferry

During my time in Istanbul, I drank a lot of caj. It was served to me by Selcuk’s mother along with squares of baklava, or at dinner time; when I went out with friends and new acquaintances we usually stopped for a glass or two somewhere. I was addicted, so of course I headed upstairs to grab a glass before jumping on the bus. While on the bus, the attendant passed out paper cups and tea bags, then came around with hot water for us to enjoy the tea. Once I arrived at the gas station, an employee pointed me towards the “cafe”, which consisted of a few tables and chairs, and two men watching a football (soccer) match. As I lugged my backpack inside, the older man got up and fixed me a hot cup of caj. It was blustery and rainy that day, so caj was the perfect thing to sip while I waited to be picked up.

Two weeks ago I started volunteering at Gündönümü Farm, situated about 90km west of Istanbul. I found the farm through Workaway, and was attracted to the experience it offered: daily work on a dairy farm, a house shared with other volunteers, home-cooked meals every night. The workload ask was a little higher than average: eight hours a day, six days a week with one off day. Workaway guidelines typically ask for 5 hours a day, and I’ve worked anywhere from 3 to 6 hour days. I knew this would be a new challenge, but it has been manageable.

There are four shifts on the farm: the early morning shift, the morning and afternoon shifts, and the evening shifts. Volunteers are expected to work both midday shifts, and either start at 5:30am or finish at 6:30-7:30pm. The tasks are variable depending on the time of day. There’s always milking to be done in the early morning and at night. Volunteers help feed the calves, comb the cows, help with bottling milk, but easily the most memorable volunteer task is “scraping,” aka clearing the barns of all the cow manure. Of course, we’re not that polite when it comes to actually doing the work. “Ready to scrape some shit?” The system is simple: scrape all the shit out of the beds, and then scrape it down to the pit at the end of the barn. We’ve got it down to a science; pouring water on the manure to make it easier to move, and when it gets to the right consistency we become quite vigorous towards its removal. 

This task is best done with multiple people, so that you may engage in discussions over cultural differences, talk about past travel experiences, or ponder questions such as, “what is the meaning of life?”

Judith and me, in the midst of our favorite activity

Fortunately, I’ve been blessed to work with a small group of volunteers from Argentina, the USA, South Korea, Denmark, Turkey, and briefly the Phillipines. We’re all traveling for some reason or another, all very energetic, and perhaps slightly crazy people. Someone joked the other day that we may be inhaling too much nitrogren, as we’ve become increasingly silly over the past week or so, especially by making up games or scenarios while working- we’re in a shit scraping competition, someone’s working on this farm because they’re hiding from the press, etc. etc. It’s amazing what one can come up with when left to their own devices of entertainment. Overall, though, it’s been wonderful to have a makeshift family during this volunteer stint.

There are also actual workers on the farm, and only one speaks a little English. Usually conversations consist of basic English and Turkish words, a lot of pointing, a lot of making fun of each other. They’re all very nice, and a good group of people to work with. Sometimes I’ve been able to help mix the feed (it’s amazing how many ingredients go into a milking cow’s meal!) or help with other tasks, like chopping wood:

While the work hours are long, there are plenty of tea breaks during the day. In the workers’ kitchen, there’s a constant pot of tea boiling. The Turkish have an interesting system for tea- they brew it very strong, but there’s always hot water to pour into it, so the tea pots are made for this purpose. Lunch is catered in, so at 1pm we gather around the table to eat rice, soup, veggies and meat, bowls of spicy homemade pickled peppers, and drink homemade ayran (a salty yogurt drink) made by one of the women who works in bottling milk.

Caj break during milking

At night, food is either made by one of the women or cooked by the volunteers, or we go to Aysun’s house for dinner- Aysun is the owner of the farm, and she and her husband split their time between the farm and Istanbul. It’s always interesting to visit her house and talk about goings-on at the farm, as well as enjoy the delicious food she makes. On Christmas, she invited us over and served turkey- although I’m still a vegetarian, it was comforting to see that giant bird on the table! We also had pumpkin pie, traditional rice pudding made by Laust, the Danish volunteer, and coffee. Yum.

Someone goes shopping for the volunteers every Thursday at the nearest bazaar and grocery store, so we always have fresh fruit and vegetables. On top of that, there’s a practically endless supply of butter, cheese, and yogurt, not to mention milk brought in a bucket from that morning’s milking and transferred to glass bottles in the fridge. I’ve been able to cook some, and last weekend I made kimchi after a conversation with Jo, the Korean volunteer. It’s been nice to have such a large kitchen with the supplies you can’t take with you on the road- oils, spices, etc. I make a lot of French toast with Judith, the Argentinian volunteer/my roommate, and one day she made crepes for the workers. I’m planning to break out my dad’s pancake recipe sometime soon.

In other news, the weather was really nice (about mid fifties and sunny) so I started running again, which I hadn’t done since I left France in August. It was really nice, and I was doing a couple of miles a day, but on Wednesday a cold front rolled in, and I expect it to be cold and rainy the next few days, so we’ll see where my motivation takes me! I’ve remembered how much I enjoy running, and I think I’m going to try running during my time in Romania- after stocking up on warmer workout clothing, of course. I’ll do that after I arrive in the country next month.

Finally, happy new year! I can’t believe the year has come to a close. The past six months have gone by so quickly, and I’m so thankful to have such loving and supportive family and friends during this time. A few days ago, Judith asked us what two words we would use to describe 2015. “Laughter and movement”, “travel and mine”, and other similar responses came up. I decided on “love and adventure,” as this last year was filled to the brim with both. I can’t wait to see what next year has in store.