Balat neighbourhood, Istanbul

As usual, I am stuck in Istanbul longer than expected (its nearly 4 weeks now), but at least this time Istanbul’s kids get their share as well.

Children counting down the time to their bounce time

I found a Sufi community, who take care of over 460 families in one of Istanbul’s not so fancy neighbourhoods, Balat. So we went there with the castle and set it up in a central square, and all kids around were invited. The message spread quickly, and around ~80 children have been gathered during the whole day. Fortunately, my Sufi friends had the ability to deal with kids, and so the children waited in line well-behaved, always counting down the last ten seconds of the ongoing session.

Some little anecdotes:

  • I am slowly getting ready for the insane traffic in India: I took a wrong turn in the narrow streets of Balat, had to turn without Servo, honking Turkish drivers all around me, but I stayed relatively calm (and only shouted fuck off once)
  • an elderly woman turned up around 3pm and told us, what a bad idea this all was and what the heck we were thinking. Her kids had not come home for lunch on time because they were distracted!
  • just to embarrass me, the kids were told to chant “Thomas, Thomas” when we were about to leave. And they were so ecstatic about it, that they were running around my bus when I drove home, hitting my car rhythmically and shouting even louder

Intense day, but it was a lot of fun, and I guess the children had some too :)

Thanks to the whole Derviş Baba team, keep up your enthusiasm!!

Father Ivan’s orphanage

Planning the events in Bulgaria with Martha and Liubo

I am blessed to know people like Martha and Liubo in Sofia, Bulgaria. Even before I had arrived there, they had already contacted a bunch of children organisations who might be interested in some bouncy action. This is the story of the visit at their first contact, Father Ivan’s orphanage.

Father Ivan started to build an orphanage on his own with nothing but 100 Leva (~50 €). Today, he is one of the most respected people in Bulgaria, even Bulgarian of the year 2004, but he still lives with his orphans and takes care of the children and families in need.

The summer residence of the orphanage is behind the Balkan mountains, in a village called Yakimovo, some 180 kilometers from Sofia. That was all the information I got, so I just went to that village and looked for a long-bearded old priest. It was even easier than expected (really EVERYBODY knows him there).

Father Ivan / Otec Ivan

Father Ivan / Otec Ivan

I was a bit afraid that nobody would understand me and I had to organise everything with hands and feet. But luckily, there was Teodor who knew almost native English, and who offered to translate the whole time. Father Ivan then was a really chilled guy, who invited me for lunch and afterwards we went to the town center all together.

After some troubles with the cable, we finally set the castle up, and the kids screamed from joy as they jumped on it. Not for long though, as the 37° Celsius had quite heated up the plastic and the kids just sat in the ~30 centimeter wide shadow at the right wall. (Firstly I thought the kids were real wimps, but I tried to jump on the castle’s sunny part and left with burnt feet soon after).

Fortunately, the pitiless afternoon sun went down in the late afternoon, and the kids could not get enough from the castle then. Some gipsy children came by, who had caught fish for selling them at the market, and took a well-deserved break from their work and had a blast.

We packed the castle into the car again, and I was invited to Teodor’s house to take a shower (quite needed after living in the car for the last days). Afterwards, we all had dinner with Father Ivan and then I was offered to spend the night in a bed in the orphanage’s kitchen.

Gratefully, I ignored the strange smell in the kitchen and blamed it on the animals in the garden. On the next morning, everybody was laughing at me, as someone had forgotten a pot with milk on the oven, and it had burned totally. But in order to respect my privacy, nobody dared to come in and remove it, though they checked through the window if I would still breathe :)

So yeah, I enjoyed this trip to northern Bulgaria very much, and I think everybody else had fun as well. And in the end, Father Ivan promised to pray for my travels, my safety and that nobody would ever burn milk in my sleeping room.

Zapp-Zerapp!

Some tipps for sleeping in your car at a highway gas station:

  • Locking your car overnight? You dont need to if you are the adventurous type of traveller.
  • Keeping your passport and important documents with you all them time? Why bother with that, when you can just put them in your bag on the driver seat.
  • Hearing strange noises at night, which sound like your car door is opening? Just turn around and sleep on.

After following my travel tipps, I found myself robbed the next morning. My passport(s) were gone, my Carnet de Passage (you need that document to bring a car into Iran/Pakistan/India) and basically all my other documents.

The guys from the gas station’s snack bar called the police for me and I bought a sandwich. While I was waiting for the cops, the waiter came out laughing “It’s not your day today!” and handed me my credit card which I had left at the counter.

The policemen’s reactions

The police arrived, and they were just shaking their heads when I told them I had not locked the car doors because DAMN IT who steals something from a car when I am IN THE CAR?!?
They were still shaking their heads.

After they wrote their report, they sent me to the German embassy to get a new passport. (more…)

On the road again

Many presumed me dead, but now the castle is travelling again! Above is an impression from yesterday in beautiful Croatian summer weather.

And to you, religious hardliners, I’ve heard you! Take a look at the right towers, nobody should be offended anymore!