Before I came, I only remembered some Turkish songs about Manastır (Bitola) from my childhood that my grandmother was listening to on the TV. It was just the city where Kemal Ataturk studied in high school. I knew that historically there are a lot of similarities between Macedonian and Turkish culture. However, after one month spent here, I realized that what we share with the Macedonian people is beyond my imagination.

My project here is called “Road to Europe,” which includes several activities emphasizing cultural similarities between North Macedonian and Turkish cultures. Within the scope of my project, I have been organizing Turkish classes for three groups once a week. For my classes, I sometimes prepare some music and lyrics activities to be able to make them more entertaining. I am teaching them how to introduce themselves and then asking them to introduce themselves to each other. By doing so, I am trying to create a connection between people by using the Turkish language. Furthermore, I am trying to use the words that exist in both Macedonian and Turkish to make Turkish easier to learn.

I sincerely must say that the things I fell in love with are the food and the people of North Macedonia. I am really a big fan of Macedonian cuisine because the ingredients are so natural and fresh. This is also the best place for outdoor sports. There are lots of beautiful roads and parks for hiking in Bitola. I admire the beauty of Baba Mountain, but I sadly realized that most of the picnic places in Pelister are full of garbage. In order to preserve the pollution of natural places, we organized a cleaning action with the participation of people from Bitola and SFERA volunteers. We collected the garbage left by people coming to these places and put a table with the words “Do not throw garbage, preserve nature.”