Duden Falls and Shaving Cream Adventures

Antalya is the most beautiful place, largely because of its water features. The first and most obvious: the Mediterranean. Cok Guzel! Very Beautiful! We pass along the coast each morning that we walk to the kresh, and swim in it fairly frequently. This last time, we noticed that the water felt different, a little thicker. When I finally put my goggles on and looked down, I realized it was because there were hundreds of little jellyfish everywhere! I couldn't swim without running into several of them, which was both neat and kind of strange. Not my favorite.

The next amazing water feature are the fountains. There are gorgeous fountains all over Antalya! It feels like on every corner there is a little park with a couple of benches and some sort of fountain. Verna says they were all installed over the past couple years as part of Antalya's effort to be more beautiful. Last but not least, a ways outside of Antalya proper is a park named after Duden Falls. Alli and I had heard a lot about it, but we only just made it out there last weekend. It was GORGEOUS! The falls pour down into a big basin, and into a river that runs all the way into town and out to the sea. We got there right before sunset, so the light was beautiful. Lots of fall colors in the trees, which always makes my soul happy. The most amazing part is that there are caves carved out of the rock that go behind the water fall! This is what the back of a water fall looks like!

I realized that I write a lot about the weekend trips that we take, and places that we see, and it may sound like that's all we are doing here. Obviously its not - we spend full days with kids in various places, but most of that is very routine and not as exciting or notable as our more touristy adventures. But - this week we started something new at the center, which will hopefully be really good. Each week Alli and I will have an hour in each of the two classrooms that we work in to do something of our choosing. This last week we started with shaving cream on the desks, something I learned and enjoyed doing in Spanish class in middle school. Turns out playing with shaving cream is fun for any age! The kids loved it! We started with the 14 year old group, and at first they were a little doubtful, but quickly began to enjoy it. The idea behind the shaving cream is that the students get to practice writing and drawing in another medium, and use their bodies to learn in a different way. The classrooms here that we have seen spend the vast majority of the day working on some sort of handwriting task. It is not the way that I would set up a school, and especially not the way I would set up a classroom for students with shorter-than-average attentions spans, but it is the educational system here. So far it has been a struggle for me to find ways to introduce ideas and activities and pass on what I learned in teacher training in the states, without completely overthrowing their whole system. In the end, it will be the Turkish teachers who continue teaching these students, and if what I suggest isn't something they want to continue with, then my efforts will be completely futile. So - I hope that these hours each week can be a time where I can do activities that I think will be helpful and fun for the students, while also giving the teachers some examples of what they can do. Although its not so educational (unless you count practicing following group directions, which is totally valid!), this week we will make turkeys out of cookies and candy corn in honor of Thanksgiving!