Farming in Kinalitas

Before arriving at our second organic farm, we were a little nervous about what to expect since the location is the farthest east we've been so far--where there are fewer tourists and less developed conditions. When we tried to contact the farmer, Nuri Celik, to confirm that we were coming, it turned out that he doesn't speak a word of English, and I couldn't understand any of his Turkish over the phone. So we called the woman from the TaTuTa (organic farm program) we'd signed up with in Istanbul, she spoke with Nuri and she said to call him when we arrived at the Kelkit town bus station and he'd pick us up.

Getting to Kelkit was no picnic: from Cappadocia, we took an unpleasant overnight bus (at one point in the middle of the night they were either refueling or fixing something, and had the gas tank area open inside the bus with fumes pouring out) that dumped us by the side of the road near the bus station in Erzincan at 5am, an hour earlier than we were scheduled to arrive. At the Erzincan bus station, we were able to communicate in German to buy our ticket (amazingly, when contrasted with our 5 word knowledge of Turkish, German sounds crystal clear). After a beautiful ride through brown mountains, yellow fields and clear blue skies, we arrived in Kelkit around 7am and called Nuri, and then waited about an hour and a half that felt much longer until he finally arrived. We'd planned on being taken out to the farm, having breakfast and getting to work, but instead Nuri deposited us in the care of a man we later learned to be his father's brother, who sat with us while we ate breakfast of soup and bread in a restaurant, and then took us on a short walking 'tour' of Kelkit (population 19,000 but with a smaller feel) before we settled into a table in an alley outside a teahouse for our first of many cups of tea. Nuri's uncle, like almost everyone else we interacted with in Kelkit/Kinalitas, spoke no English--we managed to communicate when necessary and a couple other times, but mostly sat until Nuri appeared again around noon. We went to a restaurant for lunch, then Nuri, who is the 'muhtar' (mayor) of the village of Kinalitas, brought us along while he picked up some papers, including a stop at a pharmacy where a woman who spoke limited English asked us if we thought America is imperialist, but when we said yes she didn't talk to us any more.

In early afternoon, we piled into a big van to the village of Kinalitas, which turned out to be driven by a weathered looking man we'd met at the teahouse who told us that he was a truck driver (possibly with the military) during the Iran-Iraq war in the 80s, and showed us his passport with dozens of entry stamps into Iraq in that time period. The village of Kinalitas is located on a hillside about a 15 minute drive outside of Kelkit, with a population of maybe a couple hundred. We met Nuri's family: his wife Emine, daughters Derya, age 26 (her husband died 3 years ago from illness and she is back in her parents' house, with a terribly palpable sadness); Hattiti, age 24 (she lives with her husband, they're expecting their first child in October); Seljuk, age 21 (he helps out with the farm work and, like all Turkish men, completed his mandatory 15 month military service); Yasmine, age 19 (she's marrying soon a friend of Seljuk's and moving to a village outside of Izmir, across the country on the Aegean coast), Habibe, age 12 (she could speak a few words and phrases of English); and Sahmi age 1 and a half (Sahmi was always entertaining. It was a good thing that, as far as we know, there were no loaded guns in the house as we saw Sahmi playing with a lighter, a hatchet and piece of firewood, and several large knives).

Habibe, whose head is not yet covered, took us on a walking tour of the village where we balanced on an irrigation wall, jumped over streams and ended up picking cucumbers and beans from their garden. In what became a pattern, the rest of the day was pretty much spent sitting around, first inside and then outside on cushions on the ground. We established some communication with Habibe through drawing pictures and pointing to phrases in our guidebook and her English notebook from school. Our first meal with the family that night felt incredibly awkward, as Nuri, Seljuk, Rachel and I were served first and all of the family women sat there in silence, waiting until we were finished to eat. This was a time where it felt very clearly like women are considered inferior, and it was uncomfortable for us. In what also became a nightly routine, after dinner we watched tv. In addition to the American music videos, highlights of Turkish tv include Turkish folk music videos (all shot the same way, and in the same mountain location), a soap opera of Turkish village life (I was trying to think of an American equivalent--maybe 'Dukes of Hazard?'), and a kickboxing tournament taking place in Turkey where the undefeated New Zealander Chris Johnson would do his signature King Kong chest pounding after every victory.

Day 2 started with us having breakfast, riding into Kelkit on the van, and then being taken by taxi to a large farm, where we waited in the office with someone who spoke only a few words of English. After an awkward wait, an employee of the farm our age who spoke English arrived and gave us a tour. The farm, Dogan Organic, is a huge organic project founded recently by a Turkish media mogul (he owns 90% of the media outlets in turkey; however Rupert Murdoch just bought his first Turkish tv station so the competition may be heating up) whose father owned a farm outside Kelkit. Dogan Organic is a very large operation: they currently have 1,000 cattle, 350 of which they are currently milking. Our guide Gunus told us that the farm had been awarded the best organic project in Europe. They have plans to expand even further, to ship and process their own milk as well as build modern milking parlors in the surrounding villages for the villagers to use. The farm is connected to a large agriculture university in Kelkit, and seems to have as its mission not just organic but also education and community development.

After the tour we went back to Kelkit and ate ice cream with Gunus until Seljuk picked us up. As we had been struggling immensely with figuring out whether there was actually any work we could do on the farm, or whether they expected us to stay as paying guests (the other option of TaTuTa), Gunus translated, and Seljuk assured him that we would be working. After lunch, we rode in the tractor, blasting Turkish pop and dancing in the limited space, with Seljuk and Habibe to dig a few potatoes and pick a little corn, and then drove back to the house and sat around outside, eventually eating some corn and playing a little 'volleyball' before going in for dinner. As we had already known with the amount of bread consumed, Turkey seems like the exact opposite of the Atkins diet, but the food we ate with the family was super starch-based. A typical meal might be rice or bulgar, followed by chickpeas or pasta, of course with bread, and sometimes with boiled potatoes beforehand as a snack (there was also some meat, vegetables, etc. but these were secondary). It was amazing how it felt different for us with the family after just a short amount of time: instead of being silent, the women at least participated in conversation at other meals, and a few times even ate with us. The division was still something that felt strange to us, but less so with time. Also, at the second two evening meals, Rachel stayed afterwards with the women while I went to watch tv with the men, and so she was able to 'talk' with them more.

Day 3 was market day in Kelkit. After briefly walking throught the market with Seljuk we were able to buy some presents for the family and then went to tea at several places, one including a cafe owned by a British man who teaches English at the university; they called him and we talked a little with him on the phone while drinking tea in his cafe. Back on the farm, we went back on the tractor with Seljuk and Habibe for a 'swimming' picnic next to a nearby river, where we didn't actually swim but played soccer, walked around and had a dance party from the tractor tape player to Ismail YK, the hit Turkish pop star of the moment. We then rode on the tractor to a nearby canyon, where we walked around.

On the morning of Day 4 we set off towards Kars: Habibe was very sad to see us go, asking us to stay just one more day, and Emine had tears in her eyes as we left. Although very challenging, it was a great experience for us to stay with them, and for them to open their home and their lives to us in such a warm manner. We hope that someday we'll be able to reciprocate with Habibe in the U.S., but for the time being that seems like a pretty distant dream.