Dancing, Traditionally Clad, Turkish Man Candy

Ya, ya I know it has been a while, but I don't have a lot of time at the moment so I'll try to get something out. Berin and I will be leaving soon for a conference in Bursa on GMO's. Really wishing my turkish was more advanced so I could actually understand what will be said, but sadly it is not. 

So, the big event of last weekend was a festival in one of the villages celebrating the Ayaarya culture. It was an amazing experience. There were horse races earlier in the day, great food, and traditional dances and singing at night. We went with Berin's photography group. I'll tell the story through pictures, it'll be quicker and everyone likes pictures.

 Hoş Geldiniz means welcome in Turkish. The native Ayaaryan language can't be spelled with latin letters so instead they use cyrillic but even then it doesn't quite capture the language.

 Flags!

 These were some dancers. The dancing particular culture is unique to the region because it has men and women dancing together. The surrounding cultures have the genders dancing separately. The partners also change often, when one person is tired another person hops in to replace them. It's like tag team dancing. Sometimes girls will use this tag team to teasingly force a guy to continue dancing until he's exhausted.

 This is a form of Manta, they're like dumplings with meat inside. SO GOOD. and the drink is a type of salty yogurt that's very common here.

 Bean pure, spinach thing, and chicken eaten with a corn based bread-thingy (its ok if you guys don't understand my technical terminology, it takes time). Like all turkish food, it was disgustingly delicious.

 Horse races...not much to say about it, there were horses and riders and they went around a track a couple of times and the person who crossed the finish line first won.

 I tried to get some photos of the traditional costumes. The women's costumes were lovely, but the guy's were by far the coolest, like Assassin's Creed badass. I really wanted one but they order them specially :/

 I really wish that they would implement this as normal male attire.

I tried my damnedest to upload a video of the dancing but blogger was having trouble with my file and youtube was going to take 311minutes to upload it...I didn't feel like waiting that long so sadly no videos. 

The dancing was amazing though, the guys jump and spin while the women do small movements and walk softly on their toes as if floating. The singer, Gülcan Altan, was also astoundingly captivating, her voice was so melodic and she had a great presence on stage. This recording doesn't do her any justice 

 Out of everything though, the best part was the dancing, traditionally clad, turkish man candy...or are they called turkish delights? Anyways, man candy is always appreciated ^_^

We're also in the process of making a traditional turkish soup called tarhana. It's typically eaten during winter and it is in powder form. You made a dough, kind of like sour dough, knead and add flour every day for 7 days, not sure what comes after that because we're not there yet, but it eventually becomes a powder.

Kneading

Watching it grow!

Berin and I have also been hard at work building a cat army. Word apparently got out that we feed furry creatures. It all started with Mr. Cheese, then came Mr. Mallow, Little Mama came next. She's a miniscule little cat, probably not even one, and has a litter of kittens (another sad case of teen pregnancy) hence the name 'Little Mama'. Golden eyes is another new comer but he's still very shy. There's another tabby but we haven't named him yet. Our army's greatest skill: synchronized cleaning. I'm not sure yet how this will be useful in my goal of world domination, suggestions are welcomed.
We also get dogs occasionally but they aren't very frequent visitors. They'll be the calvary. I'm also looking into recruiting the hedgehogs. They'll be 'the diggers'.

I was also thinking of something my friend Cathe told me, be weary of what you name things because they often take that name to heart. She once named a horse Tempest and it tried its damnedest to live up to that name. Mr. Cheese has become another example of this. Now that he's gained some weight, with us feeding him, he's turned into the Tom cat of the neighborhood, the Big Cheese if you will. I need to be cautious of this naming thing in the future. 

Other interesting things: One morning we woke up to find muddy hedgehog footprints all over the deck and even on the table. We have yet to figure out how the little guy got onto the table since they can't jump. My theory is that he hopped onto a crate, then the chair, then the table. One of the hedgehogs here is also the size of a small cat, hedgehogzilla, so I'm thinking it was him.

There are also Jakals here (Çakal) running around at night. You know when they are around because they howl their respond to the prayers when they are announced over the land from the mosques. It's bone chilling and exciting when you hear it.

anyways have to go

more stories when i have time