Hilvan homestay South Eastern Anatolia

We were recommended a homestay in a small Kurdish village by some fellow kiwi travellers. The village, Yuvacali is based on the outskirts of Hilvan, a small town in South Eastern Anatolia. Life is still very traditional here and most families are very poor living on less than 1 dollar a day. Everything is made from scratch and the family we stayed with were self suffıcient living off their own produce. The mother of the family, Pero was incredibly hard working as most of the manual labour is 'womens work.' This included milking the sheep, making cheese and yoghurt, making the bread each day, cooking all the meals and sewing all of the household cushions bedding etc.

The first day we arrived we had a delicious lunch with the family including fried vegetables (potatoes green peppers etc.) with naan (a flat bread that all the women make here). İt was delicious although they kept insisting that we eat more as they were adamant we needed to put on weight! We realised we definitely weren't going to go hungry here. After lunch we went out for a walk with Halil, the father of the family. He took us to the local Nomads where we stayed for some 'chai' (tea). It was so interesting having an insight into the nomads unique way of life. They were so hospitable to us even though they spoke no English and our Kurdish was pretty poor!

Later in the day we witnessed the milking of the family's sheep. This is something that only the women do so Christina had a go but found it much harder than it looked! Pero was super efficient and had all sheep milked within a few minutes. That evening we dined on chicken over a bed of rice made in chicken stock. The family had killed a chicken especially for us as this is very expensive and they would rarely eat meat at home. We think this is likely to have been the most organic and free range chicken we have ever eaten!

The following morning Christina was instructed to be up early and ready for action by 7am as that is when the bread gets made. As this is again strictly womens work, Will was allowed a morning of leisure. The flat bread is rolled out paper thin and was then cooked on a dome shaped pan over an open fire made by burning hay. Pero was very efficient and you could tell that she had many years experience with this. Christina gave this a go as well but Pero soon took over as we would have been waiting a long time for breakfast going at Christina's speed! The breakfast that followed was spectacular including naan, yoghurt and a feta type cheese (both made from the sheeps milk), honey, cucumber and tomato and a delicious home made chilli paste and of course the ubiquitous chai (tea). We were well set up for the day after this meal and went for another walk wıth Halil after breakfast to some ancient ruins. As with most places ın Turkey, the village is surrounded by ancient ruins most of which have not yet been excavated. We had a look around for artifacts and came across several pieces of pottery etc. which we thought Te Papa may be very interested in! Very bizarre. We left the family just before lunch and got on a minibus heading for Urfa an hour away. All in all a unique experience and fascinating personal insight into how local people live.