Brown Blood In Cervical Mucus

Continuation and end of our adventures Turkish: from the Lycian way to the Euphrates

After our two weeks of WWOOFing we joined Fethiye resort located on the Lycian way, and thus taken the path of guesthouses and tourist resorts. It was a shock, especially at this time of year (mid-November) the quotas of tourists are mainly composed of European pensioners, it gave us a shot of old! So we quickly escaped for a few days in the valley of butterflies, one of the few corners of the southern Turkish coast, which are preserved: the buildings are banned, so there is no real hotels but camps wooden bungalows on stilts which give an atmosphere neo-hippie to the coast. So we took the opportunity to walk the trails and enjoy some sea bathing in coves accessible only by foot.

Subsequently, we had planned to travel to Cappadocia, but were stung by our sightseeing in Fethiye we decided to go 1200 km farther east to Turkey in Sanliurfa, the city where Abraham was born. Close to Syria and Iraq are our first steps in Mesopotamia: the faces have changed, the dress also, the region is populated by Kurds, Arabs and Turks, and almost no tourists! It's time to start speaking Arabic and enjoy local hospitality. We chain encounters around glasses of tea in the souk we cover a Kurdish family with gifts: grenadine syrup, chili, kebab ... The only Muslim population is very religious and almost all women are veiled. But time passes quickly and we are already starting to Halfeti, city half submerged by the waters of the Euphrates River because of dams built in the last 10 years. Here, tourists are a rare and Ayden, a young Turkish thought, is there to welcome them in his apartment with terrace overlooking the calm waters of the mythical river. We stay there two days and take the opportunity to make a boat trip in search of villages submerged. And then we turn around and ravalons new 800km in reverse to reach Antalya where we take a plane to Beirut on December 1.

Below, the story in pictures.

What Are Good Household Lubes To Masterbate

Two generations of Turkish peasants

Simge, Princess of Yaziköy

No need makeup to illuminate sunburnt face and eyes hazel Simge when it crosses his nonchalant approach to the olive groves. From the first glance, one is charmed, intimidated by the personality of this young peasant unfathomable 26 years at the natural class. Her eyes get lost in the distance, far beyond that piece of land on behalf of Yaziköy singing.


Located in driving the pick up from the farm, Simge is the first woman in his family to lead the team of collectors across the steep paths that lead to olive trees. "Pick up", "come here", "lunch time" is also the only English speaking among the Turks, so she is the boss, which organizes each day, and nobody would dare challenge him this gentle authority. Shy and reserved, his face suddenly lights up with a furtive smile when you come talk to him.

Simge studied accounting 3 years ago in the city of Mugla, and the one who has the task of counting, counting trees remains to be done, counting the days' work volunteers and staff, counting the pounds of olives harvested and the pounds of oil expected ... At the end of the day, while everyone rest of the team has already gone to rest, Simge will table the day of harvest the olive factory the neighboring village, and provides men with filthy weighing of precious olive oil which is renowned throughout the Peninsula. Slender young woman, tired of the toil of the day, manly face giants in overalls oily, she stands up and his word is respected. How many of them have dreamed of one day overturn the heart of Simge the pretty village girl next door? In the field it sometimes isolated, detached air, and smokes a cigarette, unbeknownst to her mother Noura, or starts a Turkish folk song in the shade of a tree. What dream Simge, Princess of Yaziköy when she smokes her cigarette?

Simge's life seems to be keyed to the rhythm of nature, seasons, flowering and harvesting. At what future can dream it, apart from these olive groves, the main resource of the peninsula?

One night, she chose to sleep in her marriage and move to the nearby village with her fiancé Afghan, to whom she is promised for next summer. We discover a whole new woman. Bartering his old sneakers and jogging to work against a skinny jeans and ballet flats, unwinding her scarf and dropping her brown hair, she wraps herself in her favorite perfume, anoint his eyes and took me to his room to give me makeup . Like every girl in the whole world she is preparing to go out and join her fiance, with lots of brown and a flirtation with impatience. On the dance floor, the girl has blossomed overwhelming joy. Afghanistan has promised him another life, Palamut Bükü, a small seaside town surrounded by olive fields forever, but in a huge brand new apartment with terrace and sea view After marriage she will leave the fields, olives, earth under the nails and oil stains for a more comfortable life. Is this what Simge think when she smokes her cigarette?

Bédouane, lives across the fields

Her body looks like a trunk of olive: Close dry and gnarled. Bédouane is nonetheless a man of surprising strength can carry sacks of olives weighing 50 kg, while it must not weigh more than 60, all muscle. From the top of her little feet 70, he has this glazed look kindly supported by a generous smile his big mustache. Her olive skin and wrinkled, tanned by the sun of the peninsula, bears the scars of that indelible smile.

At 48, he hits the olive groves and almond trees since his childhood and knows all the secrets. Of modest means, he has only a fortnight with olive trees. Bédouane can not read. He is married to a woman of 39 who gave her two son now aged 12 and 17. Human experience is to him that the audience is the slightest doubt on the tree to be harvested or the methodology. We also regret not having taken advantage of his knowledge because of the language barrier: his English has resulted in "Hello" that he uses to greet the camera. In the work, man full of energy when it hits the olive branches with a long pole. His movements are dry and precise trigger of fat Olive rains we are unable to compete with his dexterity. If he never refuses a short break to enjoy a cigarette, he does not hesitate to shake you as you quicken up the pace. He left with a time his noble task of olive hitter to give you a demonstration of effectiveness: a minute ago, he picked all the olives from the perimeter as you are about to meet quietly in a quarter of an hour . The man is a tease: he pretends to yell very seriously Turkish knowing that you understand nothing, and suddenly he went into a loud laugh. He cries, shaking his head, trying to understand and gives up. Malicious, when the work begins to weigh on him, he quietly sent you a few olives in the back, where you tickle her neck with his long pole.

Bédouane is a bon vivant who loves to laugh and booze, enjoy the moment. The day after the marriage around 11:00 in the fields, he tells us he is hungry. In fact, he did not eat this morning because the day before he had drunk too much and his stomach was still numb.

And because our communication can be oral, then it will fit! It climbs trees and smack you once amused glances and looks your laugh is something easy to share. It does not take up, runs, jumps, shakes you, nothing stops it. He fights with Gabriel, the giant Swiss do not scare him. It takes me in his arms and we walk arm in arm. Fascinated by my hat, he snatched me with his long pole and tries to reveal the small diameter of his skull.

His generosity is that of the nature that surrounds it throws stones on the apple to drop the last remaining almonds on the branches. He gets excited, vigorously and fill my pockets with all these kernels. We go down together way back when, suddenly I see him change direction, jump into the bushes and climb a wild olive tree which he cut a dozen branches. We alpague and we just bring him back to help his booty he brings in a bundle on his back and hold. Loaded like a mule, her body completely concealed by the branches, he still finds the strength to sprint. Impossible to follow, the man is too fast for my youth exhausted by too many years the ass on a chair.

Volleyball Women In Cameltoe

Western Volunteers Stupid! The horrors WWOOFing Turkey

An Idyll for volunteer Western

The WWOOFing (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) is a movement launched by Columbia in 1971 offering the opportunity for volunteers to volunteer on farms practicing organic farming in exchange shelter, cover and sharing a green lifestyle, as summarized very well the slogan: "living, learning, sharing organic lifestyles" (Live, learn and share a green lifestyle). Since 2000, Wwoof is a global network of national organizations whose mission is to bring together Volunteers and ecological farms (website accessible here). In Turkey, this mission is devoted to the association in charge of the project Bugday Tatütas containing the main principles in its charter Wwoof (website accessible here). One can read such as "home farms [...] want to expand knowledge and implementation of organic production in their communities include families who live and work [...] with an ecological conscience "and wish to convey. For us who wanted to discover what this activity typically Mediterranean olive harvest, which godsend to be able to do so by contributing to a proposed ecological farm and sharing the daily life of a Turkish family!

We then disembark in the small town of Datca where we find Ali, owner of the farm Knidia located at the tip of the peninsula which separates the Mediterranean Sea to the Aegean Sea. The place is paradise: the farm is surrounded by nature only 20 minutes walk from the sea and 45 minutes from the nearest village. Located within walking distance from the ancient site of Cnidos, all this natural area is protected: it is forbidden to build new homes and connect the existing national network of water and electricity. Farm Knidia is electrically powered by solar panels and a few small wind turbine, the water is piped from a small natural spring by an ingenious system of pipes. Everything is done to attract the voluntary loving Western ecology of the small wooden bridge to the western style toilet.

Workforce cheap and clash of civilizations
However, from our first meeting with Ali at the Yacht Club Datca, we began to doubt his sincerity: he had more pace a businessman connected as a gentleman farmer. But we were not victims of our own prejudices about the poor Turkish peasants? This feeling will soon be confirmed when we discovered that nobody lives in this ghostly farm, and other volunteers have never even met Ali, known as de facto "Ali The Ghost." We are far from sharing the daily life of a family of Turkish farmers who have decided to engage in organic farming: the evening volunteers are left alone on the farm and taste the meals during the day by Noura, simply used to Ali. We are not there to contribute to a project development environmental benefit of local people but we were picking olives to pay Ray Ban Ali who understood very well the whole point of using the cheap labor of volunteers naive. Choosing this role, we quickly dubbed us the "Stupid western volunteers".

A Stupid Western volunteer

experience loses its meaning and finally we pose a real problem of consciousness. We work eight hours a day with farmers from the nearby village used by the farm. The first day we are 13 fields, 8 volunteers and 5 staff, but day after day the quota of local employees is reduced by half. We learn that Fatima and Aisha did not return to work because the boss has decided that there were enough volunteers ... Quickly accumulate questions: are we not taking us despite the work of local employees? What is the shortfall for them and they have another source of income? The farm would it not profitable without the work of volunteers? We glean some information by questioning the employees and especially Annette, Voluntary stambouliotte the first time, who knows well the firm and acted as interpreter. But employees quickly receive our discomfort and, as a victim of Stockholm syndrome, eager to defend the boss, a "good man"! They change speech by saying that Fatima and Aisha left because they had other work to be done elsewhere, that anyway they are not poor, they have their own trees, and that is a work for Ali extra single. There is established a kind of misunderstanding: while volunteers naively take the interests of employees, they have the feeling of being tried and lost in justifications. They say they are happy that volunteers are more numerous each year because it benefits the development of the farm and that next year there will be more work for them. Employees will even inform our reservations Ali and the latter we address a sermon via telephone Anette: "If you're not happy you're free to go," no kidding! The situation starts to become confrontational, especially as volunteers have not been briefed on the rules of the farm, including the fact that they must also clean the toilets.

Finally, we tried to estimate the savings in using volunteering: a harvest of 20 days with 7 volunteers whose productivity is viewed 2 times lower than that of a local worker, the economy is about TL 3000 (1500 Euros), which is far from negligible in terms of the average wage in Turkey ($ 430, Source: http://www.invest.gov.tr ). The network seems surprising Wwoof that some states have been "problematic considering Wwoof as a clandestine organization of migrant workers" (Website of Wwoof). But after this experience, we find even more astonishing that the Wwoof does not put on guard against the potential risk posed by such a manipulation in terms of destabilization of local labor markets especially in less developed regions where agriculture is the main employer.

In search of eco-farm
But such reticence could be overcome economic if we had the feeling of participating in a real draft environmental preservation and development of organic farming. However, we find that everyone grows and harvests olives in the same way on the peninsula and we're not even sure there is no use of chemical fertilizers. In reality, the constraints posed by the standards of environmental protection are presented as a true owner's will to live ecologically. So while the website says the huts that house the volunteers have been built to enable them to live closer to nature, it is actually because it is forbidden to build new homes, and in November the stormy nights can be quite ... Wet! So we joke about the concept of eco-farm: we are taking eco-showers (showers green) since we are forced to use a heater that works on a wood fire, employees use of eco-sticks (green perch ) in fact simple wooden poles to hit the trees, the pick-up is necessarily an eco-car, even if it runs on gasoline, not to mention the eco-bin where all our waste plastics are burned even ... We learn, however, that Ali was sent a troop of volunteers to clean the beach, that's green! But it's a stab in the water: in November she was again flooded with plastic and other empty beer cans lack of awareness or, more prosaically, litter. There are many traditional media waiting in a corner of the farm and sold widely website, but Ali is much too busy with his various affairs to rotate the volunteers and explain the production process of olive oil . The olives are pressed, like all of the peninsula, in the press of a neighboring village.

Above all we are frustrated by the lack of answers to our questions because the only one who would be able to enlighten us on the operation of the farm, the different varieties of olives, the production process, is eternally absent. One Sunday, one of her friends comes to visit us while we hang out with 4 legs to pick up those damn olives, she learns that he is doing the boat with her husband.

But what am I doing here!
Finally, we are faced with our own mistakes, what are we doing here if this is so at odds with our values? We should logically go, but we are, why? Is it because in reality we were looking for just the board and lodging free, and we hide this behind mobile dishonorable great humanist principles? There may be a bit of that, but there is also work experience in the fields that we wanted to live, the acrid smell of olives on our stained clothing, sharing the effort allowed us to forge bonds of friendship fabulous. We certainly do not have any before the production of olive oil, but we come away less ignorant and naive as we arrived, formed a small family and, in time, we are sad to leave. Finally Ali in all this is not a bad guy but rather a malignant type that took advantage of an opportunity. It must still recognize her talent to have created this affair 8 years ago when he was left in ruins on the ground and everyone was crazy. This project has succeeded, it became a very lucrative business that is no longer to look from afar and no longer requires, as in the early days to call for volunteers!

But who wants to volunteer ?
And then there is this socio-cultural question: Is it possible to WWOOFing respecting the principles of this movement in Turkey? Indeed, one can easily think that the Turks have the crazy idea of embarking on such projects are relatively Westernized and educated people for having known of the existence of this movement. They speak English and certainly belong to a social class, they are landowners, community leaders and non-poor families have non-English speakers who truly need a volunteer to help grow their business. During this experiment, the responsible Project Tatütas we proposed another farm, because it suggested that 4 hours per day, requiring 40 TL per person (the price of a double room): one had simply pay to work. It should be emphasized here the role of the organization of Turkey which also leads Woofing their own thing without really ensuring that the principles of its Charter are respected in the field. So we had to pay 120 TL (60 Euros) registration fee to simply get in touch from the farm that we could easily find on the Internet only if we were a little smarter! However, it would be wrong to conclude that an incompatibility cultural and surely there are farms in Western Europe that also shamelessly exploit this bonanza. Similarly it is possible to contribute to Turkey to a true original project by sharing the daily life of a Turkish family as a volunteer, our Swiss friends have experienced in Kas few days after leaving Knidia. Finally, it was still great fun Turks we met later to learn that we had worked eight hours a day for free!

(Video humorous)

Positive Ovulation Tests For Over A Week

"Zeitin toplamak", a day in the shade of olive

The first light link: light, wind noise in the reeds and the birds gently awaken us. It is 7 o'clock in the morning and we emerge from our huts open to the winds. The air is fresh in November on Datca peninsula, but temperatures rarely drop below 15 ° C overnight. After a few minutes in a half-sleep, we root out of our bed, sweeping the back of the net hands still wet. Out of our blankets, we hasten to put our clothes flavored olive oil. Fat, the first contact with the skin is not the most pleasant but it is a salutary protection against the cool morning. Just time to spray water on your face with cold water and we will join other volunteers for breakfast. We walk along the rows of vines along the path that leads to the kitchen, accompanied Bunjunc and Pasha, cats and dogs who romp around the farm between our legs, excited to meet us. On the kitchen table, a delicious Turkish breakfast awaits us: olive oil, olives, honey and homemade bread, cheese, tomatoes, tea ... The composition varies depending inward, some mornings, lack of fresh bread, we must settle for "Bread Rock", the bread dry and hard that recalls the famous Swedish rusks. Logan

the American is already spouting incoherent mixing stories, obsessions of the moment and theories drawn from survival guides. We beg to remain silent. Capua it is not up yet and already Sarah embarks on the breakfast dishes. Hassan, who decided to quit smoking his cigar lighter morning contemplating the mountains dotted with olive and almond trees, Silvana bailey, Annette has not slept and hid his ring behind his thick black glasses while the sun, it still has not crested. A nice little family waiting for sleepy day's work ... 8:00 still no one, we could sleep 30 more minutes!

Finally, the cough of an engine sounds in the valley, is the pick-up family Yaziköy slowly descending steep road leading to the farm. He stops at the gate and Noura's mother, descends with an armful of food she will cook them: Tonight at dinner we chickpeas. Simge's daughter, is tired and yawning driving. Bédouane Ali and Fatma, aunt, welcomed us with a warm Mehrabi, our conversations are limited but we are always happy to greet us. The team of volunteers in climbs muddy pickup: women inside, men outside in the back, sitting on bags of olive juice which pierces the canvas pants. Capua and Logan have a competition of "extreme farming" consists in running behind the truck and try to ride during operation, to the dismay of Bédouane and Ali who are afraid of ending up with a Western dismembered on the back.


We arrive at field and the volunteers begin to count the eight hours that are left to toil. The sun is there now, and begins to hit hard. Everyone takes his plastic basket, descends the terraced olive grove, and is a tree. Bédouane and Ali from the top of their long years of experience skillfully wield the stick. Apart from some outlandish West has never seen women take these poles! It is an art: we must strike the tree with a blow dry and precise to make the olives fall as rain, without breaking its fragile branches. Our task, simple novice, will be limited to picking olives hand, on the branches or the ground, especially by avoiding to take initiatives which would disrupt the rhythm of ancestral gestures. Obedient and implemented, we discover the thousand and one ways to pick olives, "zeitin toplamak" as we say in Turkish.

Simge, the "Princess of Yaziköy", is the only one to have some English, she gives us the guidelines we gives us the rare breaks and distributes food to the beginning of meals. We groan when she tells us to pick up olives on the floor, our preferred technique is as good volunteers lazy, directly to pick olives on branches: no need to bend, no back pain or leg and fun to head down into the foliage and to climb trees. Sometimes we just pick the olives freshly fallen, sometimes only thin and dry olives and earthy, at other times, all the olives, indiscriminately and we do understand the reasons for these choices. We do know that these different olive oils can get different quality: for the fresh food and dry for soap production.

Farmers pick the olives at a furious pace: using their dexterity with both hands, without fear of claws from thistles, are they still rest on their two feet, crouched or stretched legs and bent back toward the ground. For their part, volunteers are desperately seeking the most comfortable position and end up sitting on the floor regularly to peck the olives one by one, within a limited radius of 50 cm around their hindquarters. Earlier today the productivity of a farmer must be worth that of two volunteers in the late afternoon that at least three volunteers. Fatma is the eldest of the team, she is 60 years old but the wrinkles of his skin weathered and fingers all swollen and horny by the fieldwork make him appear more. Despite her age, she picked up at an incredible rate under the very eyes of volunteers barely thirty. His little hands do not leave any escape olive on their way, and his body is so flexible that its belly is almost glued to his knees. No pain seems to disrupt: bursting with energy, laughs, sings and dances around the tree she was born. Fatma is a ray of sunshine, an ode to old age.

But the task of collectors is also especially complementary to that of the big hitters poles. They hit and we pick up. To facilitate our work, hitters can lay a plastic tarp at the foot of the tree, "yasgueul" before you start hitting the branches. Suffice it then to fold the sheet and separate the olive branches and leaves. But again, we find that this technique is not systematic and we despair of understanding the reasons for random use. Regularly volunteers implore hitters to use the yasgueul, which gives rise curious to altercations approximate mixing Turkish and cries of despair. But one day the volunteers were able to introduce a sensible use of yasgueul at the cost of incredible efforts of anticipating the work of hitters in the yasgueul have under the tree just before they attack it.

Once the olives collected yasgueul, it is necessary to extract all the small branches broken by the blows to the branches is the most pleasant time. Sitting around the pile of olives, the harvest is stirred into emerging industries. The smell is strong, Oil slides along the fingers plunging enthusiastically into the heap of jewels sparkling in the sunlight. Once this first manual sorting operated, the olives are separated from the outer leaves through a gate they slide down inclined to fail in a bag, while the leaves fall through. This last exercise of the day accompanied by cries of good humor and excitement of the work resonating in the fading light of evening.



is charged The sacks in the truck leaving for the press every other day on average with a cargo of about 600 kilos of olives. While volunteers have joined the firm and the other peasants their home is Simge that deals with the weighing of the bags to the press, the "olive factory" as it is called. Sacks of olives may weigh up to 50 pounds are lifted and emptied by men with big arms and clothes speckled with fat olive. The olives are first placed in a container and transported by conveyor belt to be washed with high pressure. Then, they are literally crushed by two huge stone wheels turning with a crash. What emerges is a greasy mud brown color. This sludge is filled in a kind of braided bags that are stacked on each other to be crushed by the press of a black liquid which flows, mixing water and oil. Finally, at the last stage, while men sip their tea, a centrifuge separates water and oil, and his cock comes a trickle of pure gold.

There is barely one hour of light before the night when the volunteers return to the farm at about 5 am, he must hurry to start the fire to heat water from the shower before we see anything there. Dinner is served before 7 o'clock and 9 o'clock there remain many people around the table, an hour later everyone is lying, is meant to grind away a ferocious beast: Hassan fell asleep and snoring loudly. Suddenly a cry rang through the night: "Mother fucking cat!", Rejecting the company's Logan night Bunjuck who does not like the cold lonely nights.

The two weeks spent on the farm to the rhythm of the sun, we have given a true lifestyle, we could also glimpse the difficulty of work in fields and measure the value of each product Nature. Olives, yet we see throughout the rest of our trip around the Mediterranean, but now we enjoy them in a totally different way. It's funny, even long after the harvest, the sight of a few olives on the ground awakens in us an irresistible urge to look for the picking!

For audio slideshow below, remember to put the sound!

The photos are also available on our gallery here .