Turkey | ecosoul

NARKOY Turkey

preview

I met Beste Kuscu on a PDC we took together in Mallorca, Spain. Beste talked about her parents farm in Turkey in the course, and described it as a beautiful organic farm and that her parents would like to plan their farm according to permaculture principles and create a space for people to get inspired from the wild nature that is surrounding this 9.5 hectare farm.

When they first asked for my service i was scared and anxious, after all this was my first real big project (and finally after two years of volunteering, a paying one!)

When arriving to the farm, all my political paradigms as an Israeli, evaporated.

I found a magical spot on the universe that would change my life...

Narkoy is a 9.5 hectare family farm, in the black sea region, 3km from the black sea and the tourist village, Kerpe, kocaeli region(izmit). Its a 120m above sea level with sea breeze all through the summer, and a cold ,some time snowy winter.

The staff is around 20 people, sharing the farm chores such as animal care, kitchen staff, farming and hotel services from the little butiqe hotel\confrence center\ educational resort for adults and kids.

The chores are also divided between volunteers from around the world. Depending on the season and availability, there are between 3-12 volunteers on the farm all year round.

Farm leaders Nar and Ahmet Kuscu are a lovely Turkish couple that made their dream a reality through commitment and a good vision.

Using permaculture principles and ethics, step by step, the farm is becoming more and more sustainable, and becoming a living example for Turkish rural farms that struggle to live in the current economy.

Project preview

The main goal of the farm is to sustain the people living there with often guests arriving in, with organic delicious food and accommodation.

The first time i arrived to the farm, we were taking a 1 hectare zone (zone b) that had a 0.3 hectare of inclined surface for a garden, an old house, two big traditional tents for volunteers and commune meals, and a WC shower container.

Beside a few fixed elements that Beste and her parents wanted, i had the opportunity to suggest ecological fetchers that we could do on that given experimental area.

To read more about the farm preview-

Planing process

Having mostly non professional volunteers as help, good and continuance planing was required.

Beste and i where making meetings almost every night about project priorities, farm necessities and personal capabilities of the people we had available for work.

Using our human resource wisely, according to skills and diversity of chores and project, we had talks every Monday morning to summarise the week, and to ask for any feedback they like to share.
Both me and Beste were becoming familiar with the work of volunteers, i have experience with employers or even subordinates, but volunteers is a little different, because they are almost a complete part of the farm, and specific in this farm, hierarchy does not play a roll.

Social aspects

One of the things my mother, (who came to visit the next year i came to Turkey, as so for my brother and my sister with her family) was so impressed about the fact that every lunch at the farm, was with EVERY body from the farm, sitting, chatting, laughing, together, with no sign for a difference between them, if it was a cleaning lady, the Shepperd, reception guy, hotel guest or the farm leaders and owners. Behaving like a real community.

One of the the things that were important to Nar (the mother of the farm) was to integrate villager women in the farm work, creating a healthy place for them to receive an income, some thing that is not obvious in this part of the world.

Receiving volunteers from all over the world, opened a beautiful diverse door for many different cultures, and one of the things we had in mind to promote this advantage, was to have, every Tuesday dinner, a 'culture night'. Every time a different volunteer would cook some traditional home meal from his or hers country. We had typical dishes from America, France, Iran, Israel, Itali, Australia, Korea, Germany and more. Obviously this turned out to be a big tasty success, and later we even changed this event for lunch time, causing the volunteer to 'miss work' but giving a chance also for the Turkish staff to 'taste' a different culture.

This influate the hole equality feeling at the farm. In your first step inside the farm, you realise that you become a part of where you just entered, and it doesn't matter the color of your skin, your eyes, your cloths, or the color of your flag. You are welcome, and you are welcome to participate in the magic.

one of my favorite photos is Jaffar(Iran) and Kurt (USA) washing the dishes together in the summer of 2012 when the news was constantly on about Iran-Israel-USA and the coming "war".

During my time on the farm, i have met beautiful people from all over the world, but i guess the biggest impression was from the Turkish people from the farm, the owners are originally from Istanbul, but the rest of the farm staff is from little villages from the area. Connecting with them, trying to learn their language, their holidays, their food.. Every thing was new and beautiful to me.

What i ment by the 'experience that changed my life' is for all of the above, but mostly for the fact that on my second day in Turkey i was fortunate to meet my girlfriend Gulnur, this defiantly puts the social aspect in first place for me in this project. Gulnur and i are having a long distance relationship. At first i didn't think it is connected to my diploma project, but this relationship is a culture merge for me to experience almost every day.

With the rest of the family i have been considered by them 'the Israeli son' and they are my Turkish family.

Implementation

As soon as the snow melted, we started working. We started slowly preparing the tents for the volunteers, and meeting in the afternoon to decide priorities according to weather, necessity and people coming. As soon as volunteers started coming, we were building a
wooden deck and a market stand for the farms produce. From there, we started splitting forces for different project. We made a spiral garden in the middle of the
garden' and around it 4 key hole gardens making a
mandala pattern. After that, we measured the inclination
of the land with an A frame, and started making little
terraces from Laurel branches we pruned from the
forest. Then we built 12 raised beds for the vegetables garden,
not including the mandala. In all of the raised beds, we used
different recipes for each 'lasagna garden' to try out
different available materials from the farm testing their quality.

After 2.5 months of a continence permablitz, the farm now has a rain water collection system, gray water system, luxury compost toilet, 4 different compost, 15m3 of compost made in a '21 day compost' i have tout to the farm staff, and they are still doing this process today, a beautiful garden with many ecological elements to show students and guests, and more. The albums are on the right side of this page.

On the second time i came to the farm, the project was mainly the mud hut.

1200 BIG adobe bricks (14kg each), this size could have been a mistake, i wanted to use less mortar to dry during building process, as we built it in the 'last minute' before the rain season. the problem was to lift so many bricks, we didn't have enough strong people to move them around while they cure, and from curing area to construction area. Again the social part played a very big part in the mud building, finding new ways to keep up the moral, and still keep up with brick production wasnt easy, but it was great fun.

We had a white board that we wrote our half day, and daily production, and we broke the recored every week, and still we where behind schedule, but happy and motivated.

The last three weeks were the hardest marathon.

We where just about to postpone the building for lack of

space, people, budget and time for my expiring visa, and

some how, with the best group of volunteers i have ever

seen, we worked every day for three weeks many extra

hours to finish the house on time.

A nice Irish-American couple, volunteers, very keen active

learners, kept on with roof, plastering and details after i

left.

I have also been doing permaculture workshops for groups

that are coming to the farm for tours, and as soon as i will

improve my Turkish , i know i could have a permanent job on the farm.