Week 8 Summer is over and so is my Internship

Three Days left...

I have an app on my Iphone which is more like a countdown to special events, this week is showing me i still have 3 days left until i am out of this city and i am done with my Internship at the Erasmus office! On the paper i have contract until 30th of September but i spoke with my coordinator and due to the fact that an important holiday feast is coming up starting with Friday and is up to 9 days of not going to work and just sit home and celebrate. This feast came in handy this year as i am taking advantage and i am running the hell out of here, sorry for my vocabulary but i cannot be more excited of leaving. If you have read my posts before you may know i am not a fan of Elazig and it was not by choice to came here and do an internship at the Erasmus office. But with 3 more days left i am starting to celebrate...

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The Qurban feast

Qurban or the sacrifice feast is a public holiday in all Muslim countries and as it's name it means sacrificing animals ( cows or lambs mostly ) and sharing a part of it with the poor people and also your relatives and neighbors. Usually as i document myself this feast is lasting 3 days but i don't know how in Turkey is up to 9 days free from work.

Yesterday i went to the city center of Elazig and i already saw a lot of meat being prepared for this holiday and the supermarkets are full with candy’s which is very common for this holiday. As they don't celebrate Christmas is more like this type of holiday as will be for us, candy's, chocolates and meat ( which is not pork ). Feast all day and drink all night ( tea not alcohol of course ).

I am looking forward to Friday when i will pack my bags and go to my second home here in Turkey which is Trabzon the city at the Black Sea. I hope i will never return to Elazig in this lifetime ( but never say never right) as i remanence the past 7 months spent here all i can remember is the 40 plus degrees with no sign of rain in more that 4 months, the terrible suffering of the mosquitoes when i was trying to sleep, the worst view of the ''Afghanistan naked hills '' and the awful sights.

It is by far the worst city i have been to in Turkey with 0 tourism or tourists. Of all the time spent here there were just 2 option of how you should spend your time, either go to the center or go to the only shopping mall. The center somehow is so crowded that you may get more stressed out that actually enjoy the time. And is nothing to offer in words of good shops or activities to do, many shawarma restaurants and tea places or backlava sports, with only one Burger King and Koton ( Turkish clothing brand ). And the shopping mall well, a small 2 floors nothing to do or buy from there. Maybe just one good shop which is Gratis ( make up and cosmetic shop ).

Yeah this is Elazig the city where nothing is happening, the city in where i have spent up to 7 months working in an Erasmus office. But now i am so happy to go from here, to go in Trabzon and start my after Erasmus life.

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Summer is over

As September started and summer is over ( not officially) but there is this feeling of closing one chapter, this summer has passed so quick i couldn't even feel it literally, i spend all the summer months in office doing pro bono work if i can say it like this. Okay i did learn a lot of things but i am ready to move on and leave my Erasmus life behind, i will return to Trabzon then to Romania and hopefully back to Turkey soon. One of the Erasmus students here, Gabriel, is going tomorrow home and Petru at the end of this month. The ones left here are going and new students will come, this is the life, time is passing so fast and life is moving on in a second.

If there is something i appreciate during my time in Elazig are not the people or the places but the work i made and learn from it. Actually i was happy when i could help students with their mobilities or Erasmus documentation. There is a movie i saw recently, it's called ''The Colony '' with Emma Watson, and is a true story about a colony in South America which was keeping people kind of hostage for over 40 years until a girl escape from there and everything became public. I kind of feel like that, Friday will be the day when i am '' escaping from the colony '' as i call the campus of Firat University.

But i am so excited to be Saturday morning in Trabzon and walk the streets of my favorite city and happily continue writing my posts from my rental apartment there.Is the only city i feel alive and happy since i am in Turkey. Even if i will not stay there forever i am embracing the change.

I still remember when i came here to start my internship, around 10 of March and all the drama i went throw with the other girls and the coordinator as well. I don't think i am loved here or at least liked and i sincerely don't even care to tell you the truth, people here in the Erasmus office they don't like me because i am always speaking my mind and the words coming out from my mouth scare them and they know it, when i spoke about a potential attack in Elazig in April they blame me, almost buried me alive to say so, reported me to my home university and this cost me the 20% of the Erasmus grant left, but as months passed that several attacks happened in Turkey and one huge suicide bomb 500 meters from my Office. I proved everybody wrong and they know it but they still acting like nothing happen. The truth is that Erasmus is not an option anymore in this region and slowly for Turkey as well, with so much terrorism this year God knows who will come here again! But if you plan to come to Turkey in the nearest future please reconsider, as i am telling you from an Erasmus student here for over one year.

But not to end in a negative note as i preparing to go i am grateful for this experience just because my boyfriend was here with me throw all the good and bad. If he didn't stayed with me here i would have quit this internship long time ago guys, and that's a fact! So peace out Elazig, hope to see you never !

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