(Picture: We are invited everywhere. We often have to cancel, otherwise we never arrive in Konya. Lukas translates – thanks Deepl-Translater….)
Have you ever made a purchase in the supermarket only to be told at the checkout that someone else wants to pay for your purchase? Can you imagine sleeping on a park bench and then being woken up after midnight by the mayor who will wake you up from the hard park bench (on which I slept very well) to offer you a bed at home? Something like that and other incidents (I said yes, a book is needed) happened to us all the time, if we weren’t out and about in a lonely area and slept outside, even daily.

Most of the time it’s families who take us in, extended families who make their living room available to us for the night, a room in which they otherwise sleep. The sofas can usually be pulled out and they always insisted on making the beds for us, even though we have sleeping bags with us. We often hear the longing to want to come to Germany. To work there and finally have enough money. Our hosts are almost always poor. At least when you look at it on a financial level. They are rich in joy, family unity and generosity. A community worker friend who has a respectable job earns €400 a month. And he suffers. Including that the money is not enough. Everyone complains about it. They survive on food from their own garden. Because food from the supermarket is just as expensive as it is here in Germany. We hear concerns about the children not having opportunities. Not even for the comparatively well-off family of the municipal employee would it be possible for his children to take swimming lessons or something similar. Especially since such an offer is very rare. In addition, we often hear despair about the intentions and machinations of the Turkish government. Fear that religion will become a duty and limit life even more.
In fact, at some point we can no longer enjoy the beautiful mosques as much as we did at first. The more we notice how attempts are being made to force the citizens of the country to wear a headscarf or to go to the mosque, the less we are happy about the number of places of worship that seem obtrusive. Newly built mosques are springing up everywhere, often there are two or three in a tiny village. So there seems to be money for that.

(Picture: We are invited everywhere. We often have to cancel, otherwise we never arrive in Konya. Lukas translates – thanks Deepl-Translater….)
Have you ever made a purchase in the supermarket only to be told at the checkout that someone else wants to pay for your purchase? Can you imagine sleeping on a park bench and then being woken up after midnight by the mayor who will wake you up from the hard park bench (on which I slept very well) to offer you a bed at home? Something like that and other incidents (I said yes, a book is needed) happened to us all the time, if we weren’t out and about in a lonely area and slept outside, even daily.

Most of the time it’s families who take us in, extended families who make their living room available to us for the night, a room in which they otherwise sleep. The sofas can usually be pulled out and they always insisted on making the beds for us, even though we have sleeping bags with us. We often hear the longing to want to come to Germany. To work there and finally have enough money. Our hosts are almost always poor. At least when you look at it on a financial level. They are rich in joy, family unity and generosity. A community worker friend who has a respectable job earns €400 a month. And he suffers. Including that the money is not enough. Everyone complains about it. They survive on food from their own garden. Because food from the supermarket is just as expensive as it is here in Germany. We hear concerns about the children not having opportunities. Not even for the comparatively well-off family of the municipal employee would it be possible for his children to take swimming lessons or something similar. Especially since such an offer is very rare. In addition, we often hear despair about the intentions and machinations of the Turkish government. Fear that religion will become a duty and limit life even more.
In fact, at some point, we can no longer enjoy the beautiful mosques as much as we did at first. The more we notice how attempts are being made to force the citizens of the country to wear a headscarf or to go to the mosque, the less we are happy about the number of places of worship that seem obtrusive. Newly built mosques are springing up everywhere, often there are two or three in a tiny village. So there seems to be money for that.

(Picture: We are invited everywhere. We often have to cancel, otherwise we never arrive in Konya. Lukas translates – thanks Deepl-Translater….)
Have you ever made a purchase in the supermarket only to be told at the checkout that someone else wants to pay for your purchase? Can you imagine sleeping on a park bench and then being woken up after midnight by the mayor who will wake you up from the hard park bench (on which I slept very well) to offer you a bed at home? Something like that and other incidents (I said yes, a book is needed) happened to us all the time, if we weren’t out and about in a lonely area and slept outside, even daily.

Most of the time it’s families who take us in, extended families who make their living room available to us for the night, a room in which they otherwise sleep. The sofas can usually be pulled out and they always insisted on making the beds for us, even though we have sleeping bags with us. We often hear the longing to want to come to Germany. To work there and finally have enough money. Our hosts are almost always poor. At least when you look at it on a financial level. They are rich in joy, family unity and generosity. A community worker friend who has a respectable job earns €400 a month. And he suffers. Including that the money is not enough. Everyone complains about it. They survive on food from their own garden. Because food from the supermarket is just as expensive as it is here in Germany. We hear concerns about the children not having opportunities. Not even for the comparatively well-off family of the municipal employee would it be possible for his children to take swimming lessons or something similar. Especially since such an offer is very rare. In addition, we often hear despair about the intentions and machinations of the Turkish government. Fear that religion will become a duty and limit life even more.
In fact, at some point we can no longer enjoy the beautiful mosques as much as we did at first. The more we notice how attempts are being made to force the citizens of the country to wear a headscarf or to go to the mosque, the less we are happy about the number of places of worship that seem obtrusive. Newly built mosques are springing up everywhere, often there are two or three in a tiny village. So there seems to be money for that.

(Picture: And we were worried that we wouldn’t be able to buy anything to eat during Ramadan…)
I thank. I am deeply grateful to all the people who have taken us into their homes, often without our even having to ask. Thank you to all those who have brought us food, mostly from their own gardens, sometimes freshly made for their own families. I thank you for every interested, open smile that has always given me a feeling of “I am welcome and wanted”. Thank you for the many Cay invitations, even though I don’t really like black tea.

May you all be blessed with life. May your wishes come true and your generosity spread out into the world.

(Picture: We meet a lot of turtles and don’t get tired of watching them.)
By the way: From September, in addition to the online offers, live and 3D courses will again take place in the Lebensgarten. Everything based on Dana! (You pay what it is worth to you, within your means.)

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