jusqu'ici tout va bien!

that was the motto for most of the times when unexpected things occurred. however, the whole month cannot be defined like this. it always went well. everything went smooth "against all odds".

today we sent burcu to kabul. she will keep the disko updated from there. good luck and take care burcu!

the rest of the team, me, pinar and sema, will leave tonight. game is almost over and it was so much fun!

maybe gokhan will keep the disko live from F6 or any new location that he will need to find. Good luck gokhan.

Islamabad is rainy today. although i thought it is gonna take only half an hour, it is still raining since the morning. it is an interesting city, with an unpredictable wheather. but thanks for accomodating us so nicely! :)

and people who visited the site aproximately some 600 times. thank you! it was my biggest pleasure to check every morning the number of visitors and especially the variety of countries. now that we are at the end of this game, i would love to read your comments.

allah hafiz

ne guzel

Bunu dun gece “yuen klab”tan ciktiktan sonraki ev ayininden sonra yaptim.
Tesekkur ederim hepinize.lovy..

p.s çakmağımı kaybettim yine... püfff....

paella by yigit

today i got the Afghan visa. Thanks to Khurram :) After we posted the post cards to England, USA and Turkey, we went for shopping in F/7 for stinky shrimps and more stinky calamari to cook spanish style paella. Then we head to Koshar Market to get some fresh vegetables. It is really hard to find parsley in here, you could just find in Koshar Market. our colleagues especially Gokhan don't like coriander unluckily cos almost all curry dishes has coriander. (kind of Islamabad's Nisantasi) Yigit cooked, Pinar assist him. Anna visited us for dinner. Well, we had short gossip session all together. Here is the picture from end of paella supper.

We almost come to the end of the Pakistan visit. All of us bit tired cos of intensive tempo and training marathon but still smiley.

shadow-show

Last week we (Yigit, G-force, Burcu and Sema) were in Gari Dupata for health, safety and security training meanwhile Nevil and Sarah were working on comic strip project in Muzafferabad. Nights were so long and hot. Mr. Refiq was cooking delicious dishes every evening. Our only fun was eating dinner together, having some booze and watching movie.
That night we watched movie called "Into the wild". Amazing movie...Yigit the wolf and Sarah the rabbit played with shadow. here is some pics..

diday all night long.. all night long..

It is all fine on Ataturk Avenue...

The team has come together after a week. The security training is completed in Gari Dupatta at Aksemseddin school built by istanbul municipality (you seriously cant escape from that, no?). Days and nights were long and into the wild.
The return was "fast and furious". the rejoined team ran to UN Club, crashed to the turkish night. I met some kernels which was very pleasent. really! :P
saturday came with hangover and some shopping at jinnah super. barbur was kind enough to invite us to farewell party of tugba. then again i had the chance to talk some more kernels. isnt that great!! they are all lovely people with minor differences!
well, sunday, you know, veeery lazy one. but pinar conviced us to go for horse riding. this was even more tiring. now we are all prepared for a calm movie night...
cheers to all mates who shared with us, their glasses, bottles and whatever they had...
(yes there will be photos here very soon!)

Interview with Jalilur Rahman (Master Trainer)

here we go...

recorded by Yigit

edited by Pinar

Interview with Jalilur Rahman.mp3

It is always sunny in Islamabad!

Crew left for security training in Kashmir. Loek has given start to new episode. Sarfraz, Fayyaz, Amjad and Khuram are enjoying vegetable samosa and milk tea party at downstairs. After having tasted samosa, I came to the room to read new benchmarks of HAP Standard (Humanitarian Accountability Partnership) I though I was alone, then I realized that a tiny gecko has been watching couple of expired (dead) flies swimming in my mountain dew, anyways.. Accountability is the means by which power is used responsibly. Are you accountable???

NRSP-CBDRM-COs-DMCs-LSOs-ETC-ETC

It is the world of NGOs in Kashmir. You can see all kinds of NGO or UN agency signboards and EU flags around. So when it is all about NGOs, then it is full of acronyms. Names of organisations, projects, components of the projects are all composed of some letters...

We visited the project which is carried out by National Rural Support Program (NRSP). The project is called Community Based Disaster Risk Management (CBDRM). Mr. Jalilur Rahman, master trainer at the project, explains the project. You can also check the photos from the community meetings that we had the chance to participate.

Click here for interview with Mr. Jalilur Rahman. (will be online soon)
Click here for photos from meetings.

some of Gokhan's photos from Kashmir

We've been to many places, met a lot of people and seen incredible landscapes.
The mountains are high. The roads are like a maze. They are long and can be tiring. But it is worth when you reach another village in the middle of the mountain...
Even the most hostile looking faces smiles back to you if you smile.
So here are some of these landscapes and places we've been to.
Click here for photos of Gokhan.

I will add some project photos and comments later today...

sounds of Kashmir

Do you remember the frogs? Here they are.
In stereo where available!
Click here (2.5MB)

Pastoral Kamyon
Photo by Gokhan Erkutlu

exclusive from the wedding!

Click for Gokhan's photos from the surreal wedding ceremony!

sustainable horror

I guess i m bit overloaded because of safety and security issues. I’ve met with loads of people who is dealing with security issues, one of them was quite famous. lol. I don’t have word to describe those people who is dealing with security. It was quite strange to see the different humanitarian approaches at the same time, some of them with blast wall some of them have no even single security. (çeşit çeşit)

And i believe that your brain has to be work differently to reach “conspiracy theories”. C.T’s so funny meanwhile so bullshit! I had enough from “war on terror”. If you like to see when and how it started that "terror" issue, please check: UN resolution and voting on terrorism in December 1987.

I guess i read a lot! I couldn't digest, i ll never digest...Last night i had a nightmare about the buildings that people torture to other people..screams and shouts and cry... i woke up, i was sweating. “Hey Inquisitor , Inquisitor! Release me from this shackles.”
DO YOU have “best case scenario” for the world?


Fine tune for the Safety and Security is: “Bodysnatchers” from Radiohead.
“has the light gone out for you?
because the light's gone out for me
it is the 21st century
it can follow you like a dog
it brought me to my knees” falan filan...

long way to garhi dupatta

After driving for five hours and crossing the border for Kashmir (a.k.a. Azad Jammu & Kashmir) we arrived to Muzaffarabad. The team is consisted of Loek, Pinar, Gokhan, Yigit and Haci Seyfullah. After a short meeting in Muzaffarabad, we took the way to Garhi Dupatta along the Jhelum river.

It is an amazing place. Now we are at the field office, frogs shouting outside, Gokhan and Pinar preparing the pointfull HSS survey-kind of thingy.
Tomorrow we need to be on the road again to visit some community trainings where we will need to trek for a couple of hours...

PS: Pinar is desperate for tequila shot glasses among frogs and spider Osman!!

music from the sunday morning

We had a lot going on in here. Party on saturday night with musicians from Peshawar, lazy sunday in Islamabad with market and Serena. It will all be online soon.

Here is some original recording from sunday morning.
(Click here please - 3MB)

"disconnection" from last sunday 13-07-2008

Everyone left to Serena for brunch this morning; I was alone in basement floor, listening super laud music and enjoying being alone. Then I realize that I m disconnected. Once I disconnected then I establish new connection, it is global communication.

It seemed to me, everything in relation with my connection is utterly lost, I saw everything in a rush, a whirlwind.

(cassette tape: daniel striped tiger - defense mechanism)

- meeting minutes - toplantı notları

drawings from meeting...

that's the way (by kuu)

today i tried to take a rainy day picture but the monsoon has gone. sun was shining..

"smoke on the water" is fine tune for Islamabad.

Muhtar of Dubai

We had the chance to talk to Muhtar on our way to the hotel from the airport. He told us about life in Dubai and life in general.
All the muhtars of the world unite!

(Click here to listen - 1.5 MB)

it's not all about training! :)

Some photos from post-training sessions at home and a short visit to Rawal Pindi yesterday.
We are all preparing for the party on saturday!
(Click here for photos)

We all live in the...

yellow submarine!
Photos from the SAGA training in Islamabad... (click here for photos)

photos from dubai

here are some photos from the short dubai stopover (Click here for photos).

our house, in the middle of our street...

yeah, the house is on ataturk avenue! somethings never leave you alone, eh? :)
a long and numerical day in front of computers with joel.
mangos were the relief of the day. then a short walk at f6 market.
got the balls now! :D

and cant stop singing...
Our house, in the middle of our street
Our house it has a crowd
There's always something happening
And it's usually quite loud

safe and sound...

arrived to islamabad airport, with full of bags!
warmly welcomed at home! :)
jus qu'ici tout va bien, but the bags from istanbul are missing... hopefully tomorrow.
the day will begin with "finances". loong day awaiting the vagabonders.

Have a seat please

Arrived to dubai, safe and sound. Tiring Marhaba service arranged a hotel and transportation. A few hours of sleep in town and wandering between shopping malls, which is the only activity in town.

It is hot! very hot! taxis are serving a noble cause and therefore serving only people they believe that are noble! In any case, first thing to do is to "have a seat".

airport, shopping, losing and finding the mule and finally sips from cold beer at irish village. now seriously on our way to islamabad.

Jusqu'ici tout va bien.
Mais l'important ce n'est pas la chute, c'est l'aterisage.

let the games begin!

- oh we are sorry that we overbooked the flight to karachi. thus we can only offer two places.

There she was just a-walkin' down the street -

Burcu and Kerem joined forces with Loek and Sema at the gate. Me and Pinar are the lucky ones to take the flight to Dubai at around midnight and reach Islamabad the day after...

Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do -

So this post is from istanbul airport, "pointlessly" waiting for the flight to Dubai, while initially we were going to Karachi...

Snappin' her fingers and shufflin' her feet, singin' -

Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do -

Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do -

Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do -

pakoloaj by Pinar

Pinar's first trial with audacity!
I'm not really sure! :)

before departure / sounds from the office

these are unedited sounds from the office (in turkish).

burcu
pinar
yigit
nev

Work in Progress

Pinar is working on NoC's.
I've got the passports from Omar.
Gonna get insurance today, and I'm gonna be pinned there in Şifa.
the tune: return the princess to her king!

Almost ready!

Passports, visas, tickets, schedules, NoC's... all ready!
Burju is working on cultural orientation.
It seems like we are going!!