This past January I went on a school trip to Turkey as a member of Kids Against Plastic Pollution (KAPP). It was my first time traveling without my parents.

KAPP program

KAPP stands for Kids Against Plastic Pollution. This year, there are 4 countries in Europe participating in KAPP: Romania, Norway, Croatia, and Turkey. To join KAPP, I had to write an essay about my qualifications and why I care about the plastic problem. If it was well written and the leaders of the school group thought it was good, I would get called into an interview. I was the last to be interviewed because of scheduling conflicts, so I got called in on the weekend. I was glad that I was last, because it meant that I got the answer back only 30 mins after my interview. And the answer was yes! I opened up my phone to check my emails. and low and behold, the answer! To celebrate, we went to TGI Fridays for Beyond burgers!

Before the trip to Turkey, we prepared for months on presentations and videos which we would later show to the kids who gathered in Turkey. The first presentation was just about Bergen, where it is and other stuff like that. The second presentation talked about challenges that we did relating plastic and how our city deals with plastic.

For instance, we went plogging, which is a mix of jogging and picking up plastic. We gathered a lot of plastic, which was sad, but at least there was less plastic in nature. We also did a challenge relating to excessive plastic at grocery stores. We bought normal groceries, them removed all the unnecessary plastic and returned it back to the store. Then we took photos of the plastic and challenged others to do it on Instagram. Other kids from other countries did stuff like going a week without plastic, or saving up plastic bottles and returning them for money to give to a homeless shelter and stuff like that.

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We also were very lucky in Norway. This company called Oceans Bergen took us on a boat trip to drive an underwater remote control submarine with a camera. We used it to dive underneath Bryggen, which is a Unesco heritage site in the middle of Bergen. We found tons of trash! Giant piles of bottles and cans, plastic tires and ropes, and even two metal chairs that had been thrown into the harbor. One of them was standing up right! It was horrifying to see all of the stuff underneath the water. Above the water is one of the prettiest places in Norway, but below is not so pretty. We recorded with the camera and used some of the footage in our presentation. 

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After months of planning and preparation, the time finally came! We were off to Turkey for the big week!

Kapp in Turkey

We traveled to Turkey on January 12th and arrived late at night. We passed through Oslo and Istanbul and arrived in Antalya, a touristy part of Turkey. We then took a bus to the smaller town of Manavgat, where we spent most of our week long visit.

In Turkey, we did some things to help the environment and spent most days meeting with other students and sharing information about what the Bergen group has been up to and teaching them about where we live and what our country does to manage plastic pollution. We did some pretty fun things too. Here is a countdown of the top 7 things I enjoyed in Turkey:

7. Waterfalls and Water Treatment

Our hosts took us on a few field trips to see the local highlights. We got to see some awesome waterfalls. We visited the in Manavgat waterfall and the Düden waterfall in Antalya, which flows straight into the Mediterranean sea. It felt like we were on vacation. We also got to try goat ice cream there for the first time.

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We were lucky enough to go and tour a water treatment plant. I thought we would be visiting the plant that cleans the water so people could drink it, but it turns out that they deal with the water after it has been used (by toilets). We learned that they filter 3 tons of plastic out f the water every day, and that they are just one of 5 other water treatment plants in Manavgat. This was an eye opener in a way, because you never really think about where all of the waste goes after you throw it away, but in reality, nothing goes away. It just goes into the environment.

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The head Turkish teacher surprised us with a special boat trip! After touring through a little village with shops we went down to the docks, and there was this beautiful wooden boat. We sailed over top of half of the old roman village (I’ll describe later), because it had sunk down in to the water. In the summer you can actually take a diving tour and look at all of the statues. The boat had speakers on the second deck and the captain played the Titanic music (Celine Dion) and people took photos standing up front. I had never been to the Mediterranean, so it was a very special memory. The sunset was heavenly.

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6. The bazaars

The bazaars in Turkey were mazes that went all around the city. I could live there my entire life and not see every shop. It winded down alleys and main streets, libraries under bridges, and selling everything you could imagine, from popcorn to jewellery. Even birds sometimes. They have giant tea stores, and they are better than the English at making tea. They are especially famous because of there apple tea, which I read about before I went, and had to take some back. I bought a hat called a Fez. I was on a mission to find special Turkish souvenir called a Nazar Boncugu or evil eye. It is made out of white and blue glass and defends you against bad spirits. On my last day in Turkey, me and my new Turkish friends spent the whole day looking for one and we eventually found a shop that sold it. We also bought some Turkish delights and some popcorn, which we are still using up back at home. It cost 2 lira for 1 kg of popcorn! It was sooo cheap!

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5. Meeting new people, including governor of Manavgat!

One of the greatest parts of my trip was the fact that I got to meet a lot of new people from all over Europe and Asia! We had lots of fun, exploring shops and cracking jokes. The Turkish people were very polite and quite funny. Unfortunately, because this meeting was based in english, the people who did not speak english were at a disadvantage, and I felt like they were left out a little bit. I learned a lot about what other countries are doing to manage plastic pollution. Norway, it turns out is quite advanced and it made me proud to represent it.

During our trip, we were lucky enough to be able to meet the governor of Manavgat, where he made a little speech about how glad he was that we could come visit him and how he has heard so much about our group. Afterwards we were able to ask questions, and I asked a couple. The teacher later said they were very good questions, which I was glad to hear. I gave the governor a Norwegian flag pin and I got to take a special photo with him.

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4.  The food!

In Turkey, I stayed with a family who had a kid in the KAPP group. I would sleep and eat with them and then I would meet up with my group at the school. The kid I lived with was named Yusuf, and his moms sister was a professional chef, so I got to try Turkish baklava and banana bread with orange zest in it (which I had never tried before) and other yummy treats. The family also had a garden where they grew their own beans, and they made a delicious salad with vinaigrette. and for the breakfasts, there would be a lot of bread and cheeses with olives and tomatoes on the side.

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One of their favorite fruits is fermented pumpkin, which was kind of slimy and sweet. The also sold a drink worse than possibly conceivable. It was called aryan, and it was yogurt mixed with lots of water and salt, and foamed up. Its was salty and bitter, and unfortunately everyone who was not Turkish did not like it at all.

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They also ate cake almost everyday! They loved their baked goods, such as bread, potato pancakes, cheese pancakes etc. They also never used cows to make milk, so all of their dairy was made from goat milk. The milk was ok, but it started getting weird when they would whip it into cream to put on coffee and hot chocolate. Also ice cream was very stringy and chunky, which was good that we tried it, but I don’t think I will indulge in it ever again.

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The shops sold a lot of lentils and rice in bulk, fresh fruits, and spices, which were very good. I noticed that the orange juice was very sweet and flavourful along with the apples.

Speaking of food, I was told to bring a gift for my fellow turkish student, and did so, but a couple things happened. we brought some candy that was like a taffy, called moam, and we forgot that muslim people can not eat gelatin! I also got some chocolate for him and his parents, but it turned out everyone who lived in that household hates chocolate, so all my gifts were quite pointless. Hopefully it’s the thought that counts!

3. Roman temples!

Another thing we got to do in Turkey was go and tour some Roman temples. We took a bus ride there and spent the whole day looking around and taking photos. There were lots and dogs and cats looking around for food, and as the sun was starting its decent. We learned that the ancient city we had visited was a place where people who were muslim, christians and jews lived in harmony and peace. Also we learned that a quarter of the city was under water, and during the summer you could scuba diva and tour it (see my note above).

2. Cleaning up the beach!

While we were in Turkey we organized a beach clean up, and tried to get people to come. We made posters for a little protest, then marched down to the beach. There were 30 of us and it took one hour to clean the beach. We were sponsored by a group for their reusable bags, which we used to pick up the plastic. In total, we gathered 8 giant black trash bags full of plastic and 4 smaller grocery sized bags. After we gathered all the bags, everyone was shocked, and I think the people from Turkey were a little bit embarrassed about all the trash.

1. The culture

We had a lot of free time to walk around the city, go to cafes, try new foods and other stuff like that. We had a nice cultural experience. One thing we all noticed was that every morning the Imam (equivalent of a priest of the mosque) would climb up in the Minarets (towers that surround the mosque) and would sing in Arabic. We actually found out he was not singing, but was actually saying that we should not be lazy, and needed to head out to the mosque. This would happen 5 times a day, because people needed to pray 5 times a day, and you should at least go to the mosque once a day. We got to take a tour of a mosque and it was interesting. The first floor was for men and the second floor was for women. We learned that people always pray in the direction of Mecca, the muslim capital of the world, located in Saudi Arabia. 99% of Turkey is muslim, and I had never been to a country like that before.

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The neighborhoods were a bit weird, because sometimes the road was torn apart with rubble and dirty, and sometimes they were really nicely done with tall buildings. There was a lot of diversity, and it was kind of confusing when we were jet-lagged and tired, trying to scope out the city. LOL.

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As I mentioned earlier, I got to live with a Turkish family, which was a very great experience. The boy I stayed with was Yusuf. He had a Mom and a Dad, 2 little brothers and a grandmother who lived with them (see the picture below). They lived in an apartment about 8 minutes from the school, which was much closer than anyone else in my group. They were very nice and caring. They made be feel at home.

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Overall, this experience was one of the funnest I have ever had. I got to go to a country all by myself without parents and I got to visit a new country that is 99% muslim. I got to make new friends and tour around trying new foods and coffees and drinks. I got learn a little bit of Turkish as well! Making new friends is actually a really great benefit of this experience. I have gained friends from all over the world, and become closer with my travel group from Norway.

And of course, I couldn’t return home without bringing my parents some Turkish Delight!

Stay tuned for my next blog from quarantine in Norway!

Thë íñtèrńâtīöñåł mõōšė!!