1st month in Sfera

Before I came, I remembered only 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 high schooI for me. I knew that there historically are a lot of similarities between Macedonian and Turkish culture. However, After 1 month spend here, I realized that what we share with Macedonian people is beyond my imagination.

My project here is called “Road to Europe” which includes several activities emphasising cultural similarities between Macedonian and Turkish culture. Within the scope of my project, I have been organizing Turkish classes for 3 groups in a week. For my classes, I am sometimes preparing some music and lyrics activities to be able to make my classes more entertaining. I am teaching them how to introduce themselves and then ask them to introduce 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 existing in Macedonian and Turkish mutually to be able to make the Turkish easier to learn.

I sincerely must say that the things I fell in love are the food and the people of Macedonia. I am really a big fan of Macedonian cusine 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 while I sadly realized that most of the picnic places in Pelister mountain are full of garbage. In order to preserve the pollution of natural places, we organized a cleaning action with the participation of Bitolski people and Sfera volunteers. We collected the garbage left by people coming to this places and put a table written `Do not throw garbage, preserve the nature`.