Alison Tanik of Nomad Tours

Alison Tanik of Nomad Tours

We recently spoke with Alison Tanik of Nomad Tours Turkey, an unusual travel organization which arranges home stays and tours for tourists looking for something a bit more off the beaten path and definitely “exotic.”

Nomad is run for the benefit of villagers in the rural south east village of  Yuvacali, near Hilvan (Map), which is approximately 55 km from Şanliurfa (Urfa) and about 120 km from Diyarbakir. We interviewed Alison about how and why she started this organisation. Our communication has been long distance.

Alison is married to Ömer Tanik and they have two children, one named India for the country she never visited, and one named Lulu (simply because it is OK in English, Turkish, Kurdish, and Arabic). India is 2 ½ years old and Lulu is 3 months old.

We believe hers is an unusual story and one that should be heard. If you agree, please
contact Nomad Tours and contribute generously to their amazing project.

From here you can jump to some questions we asked Alison about her fantastic story.

Her story, as she tells it, follows…

I was born and raised in England, in the Midlands. I came from a very traditional working class family. My father – and generations of his family – had been coal miners.

I went to school locally with other children from the same background. Very few people made it to university and very few people travelled or left the area. Most of my school friends still live in the same village and have married other people from the same school.

After I finished my local schooling I studied literature at my university. My first job was as a graduate high-flyer for a bank. I was promised a great career with guaranteed promotions, wonderful benefits and a super salary! Coming from a working class background, it seemed impossible to turn it down.

Within a year, I had realised my mistake, left the job and started to travel. I set out for India; I never made it and have yet to visit India!

During my travels I took any job I could find as I travelled in order to be able to stay on the road. I leaned towards tourism in the summer and teaching in the winter, simply because there was always work available. I tried working in restaurants and bars, but I couldn’t carry a tray without spilling stuff if my life depended upon it.

Maghreb countries in North Africa

My travels took me through Europe and then to North Africa. Tunisia fascinated me, and I stayed a long time. I liked Tunisia because it had the exoticism of the Middle East and yet had a tourism infrastructure which made it doable for a young girl on her own. Some countries were – and still are – difficult to visit for lone female travellers in the region. Also, Tunisia has a unique culture in the Middle East with a very Tunisian flavour to everything, while at the same time it feels part of a larger Maghreb (North African) community, so that even though it is quite a small country, one never feels limited there. You can just hop on a dolmuş to neighbouring countries. I stayed there long enough to make some very good friends, learn how to speak and read Arabic, and smarten up my schoolgirl French.

In 1988 I decided to leave Tunisia; as there happened to be flights for Turkey that day, I went to Istanbul. I still thought I was on my way to India!

Thinking Turkey would be exotic, I got what I wanted, and exotic it was. People didn’t travel on holiday to Istanbul in those days as much as they do now. It was a different world and I ended up spending 15 years in Istanbul!

Istanbul in the late 1980’s offered very little in the way of tourism work. So, I concentrated on teaching and gathered a following among Istanbul’s elite. I became a super posh, and expensive, teacher to the rich and the offspring of the rich. I had a driver, a maid, a personal trainer, a personal shopper at Vakko and Beymen, and visited the hairdressers’ twice a day! My house was in Beylerbeyi and I had a super Bosphorous view. I also had a holiday home in Patara during this period, and would spend three months a year there. I eventually also had holiday homes in Ayvalık, and Turunç.

Then, I met Ömer, my husband. He was a chef in Istanbul. I just saw him in the street… That was it, I was smitten… We married within a year in Şanliurfa (while still living in Istanbul), and then set about changing our lives.

Yuvacali village boy in şalvar trousers

Ömer comes from a family of landowners in Yuvacali. He is one of 20 siblings, the oldest being in his early 60s and the youngest being 11. He was raised in a very traditional way, and that continues today. He wanted to return to his village in order “to do good.” We had such an amazing life in Istanbul, but seeing how people lived in poverty in Şanliurfa, especially in the surrounding villages, we both felt we would like to change our lives in order to be able to help change things there.

My husband left his job in Istanbul and set about building us a modern house in the village. I found another job besides teaching that I would be able to continue in Urfa. We had a couple of years when everything was all upside down, living between Urfa and Istanbul. Then we moved, and as the removal truck pulled away with our furniture from the house in Beylerbeyi, we went to the airport and got on a plane. We arrived two days before the furniture and I suddenly realised I was a long way from anywhere. The cultural differences between the east of Turkey and the Western world are so vast as not to be negotiable. I shifted my cultural position entirely in order to make things work. I do not, for example, leave the house unaccompanied and am covered.

Ömer is now involved in Nomad Tours and we also have a contracting business for water drills. People in the area get their water, which is found at about 100m, from wells. We own the drills that do the digging and employ Kurdish water diviners and diggers from Syria. (They apparently have more skill at digging for water than Turkish Kurds).

Once settled in, we set about trying to do some good. We first of all collaborated with Treehouse Children’s Boutique in Istanbul on a poncho project. The women in the village crocheted ponchos, and Treehouse sold them. To be honest, it was a great idea, but it didn’t change lives.

I then set about trying to get a pre-school started in Yuvacali Village. I raised the necessary money and was about to hand it all over to CYDD Çağdaş Yaşamı Destekleme Derneği (Association For The Support Of Contemporary Living) to sort out and finalise, and the word came back from the education ministry in Ankara that government policy at the time determined that a school was not needed.  So, no pre-school. And then I was stuck… I had completely changed my life, and had nothing to show for it. I could think of no way forward.

Origin of Nomad Tours

A nomad woman and her baby, Yuvacali Village

Then the idea of tourism struck me. Everyone – and I mean everyone – said it wouldn’t work. Why would anyone want to come out to tiny Yuvacali to sleep on the roof and use a squat loo in the garden?

I started the project in 2009 under the name of Nomad Tours. We are surrounded everywhere by real, genuine nomads and we organise visits to Nomadic camps. They are not Yörük, the Turkish (and Kurdish) word for them is Göçebe.

Nomads set up camp in Yuvacali and the surrounding areas and migrate every spring and autumn along the main road from Şanliurfa to Diyarbakir. The men wear earrings and have long hair; the women have tattoos. The people of Yuvacali were nomadic until eight generations ago, when they began a settled lifestyle in the village.

Nomad guests enjoying a guided archaeological walk through 6,000 years of history.

We organise home stays with families in Yuvacali and the benefits go directly to the householder. The idea was that visitors would come, improve the situation of the villagers financially, and also donate to ongoing projects, if they wanted to. We organise tours, with yet again the benefits going to local households who have purchased suitable vehicles with the revenues. I coordinate everything on a voluntary basis.

The whole tourism project is run along responsible lines: no encroaching onto local culture (guests have a set of cultural guidelines to follow, including the wearing of ankle length skirts by all women visitors); the use of a paper free home office (we print only when necessary); small vehicles for the tours; only local people are employed; organic, local produce is served at meals; everything is sourced in the village (for example beds and bedding are all home made); and the use of dung fuelsis encouraged.

Nufi, widowed mother of 10, planting a tree gifted by Nomad guests

At the same time as all this is going on, guests are invited to donate to any one of our ongoing projects: 5TL buys a tree (we plant hundreds every year); second hand books are left behind by guests and sold on to other travellers (the proceeds buy books for the school); guests are asked to bring toothbrushes and toothpaste with them (we currently supply all school-age children in four villages with toothbrushes and toothpaste).

Duygu, age 5, attends the pre-school. Nomad camp in background

Finally, there is the school…

In 2009, Yuvacali got its pre-school. Government policy had changed and many villages in the south east saw the benefit of a pre-school for the first time. When Yuvacali’s pre-school initially opened its doors, there were many happy students, but no toys, no books and no equipment. The government had provided tables and chairs and a teacher. Full stop. Nomad set about asking for donations from guests and now it has a fully and excellently equipped pre-school. Musical instruments came from France; a classical music collection and CD Player came from New Zealand; art equipment came from Australia; books came from Istanbul; and the Australian travel company Intrepid donated everything else, from floor cushions to tea sets and toy cars. Children at Yuvacali pre-school have art lessons while listening to Mozart and Bach. This summer a new pre-school with larger rooms is being built. The new building is partly funded by Nomad’s guests.

Abraham Path Project

We very recently became involved in the Abraham Path project. People from a wide variety of backgrounds, cultures, and faiths walk in the footsteps of Abraham in an attempt to foster understanding and resolve conflict. We have just come on the scene and should be involved in the development of the Path in Şanliurfa soon. I believe that if we can make a success of it, we will really make a difference. There are famous people involved, for example, Jerry White, who is a Nobel Peace Prize Winner. Let’s hope we can make it work. If we can, the development of tourism in southeast Turkey will move in leaps and bounds. I have great hopes for it!

Yuvacali Demographics:

Yuvacali’s data is difficult to hear. Infant mortality is 20%, income is less than a dollar a day, literacy is 50%, and only 50% of the population speak Turkish. 80% of the villagers intermarry with first degree relatives; this results in dwarfism, children born with physical and mental disabilities, and low IQs. Women give birth to children until they reach their menopause. The result of this is a high incidence of Downs Syndrome births.

Nomad hopes ever so slowly to help to change these statistics. Income is steadily increasing as is school attendance – due in large part to the pre-school. Families who work with Nomad in tourism are not on a dollar a day anymore, and sons are being groomed for university: a doctor here, a lawyer there. This was unthinkable a few years ago.

I love the east… it is my endless search for the exotic. Instead of a Bosphorous view, I have a view of Nemrut from my kitchen, there is no maid, and no driver. A gym? Forget it. A hairdresser? I am covered (wear a headscarf) now, so the need for that one went, and probably a good job too!

Today we have around 200 visitors a month from over 20 different countries. While the culture of Yuvacali has remained intact, the benefits from interaction with the outside world are countless. Not only is education coming to the fore, but just the simple daily contact between an illiterate Kurdish subsistence farmer and the well-educated, well-intentioned people who make up the core of our visitors has a drip effect which benefits us all.

We asked Alison some questions regarding her life in Yuvacali.

Nomad Camp Area, Yuvacali Village

Q: What did your family had to say about your move to Turkey?
A: My mum was so happy that she knew where to find me! I had been travelling for a while. Getting an address and a phone number was a novelty.

Q: What did your friends from your home in the UK have to say about your move to Turkey and especially the eastern region?
A: People often cannot easily understand why I live in Yuvacali, but this is not only the attitude of people in the west but also in Turkey, even people in Şanliurfa city centre cannot believe I live in a village. In spite of this frequent lack of understanding I have encountered no problems regarding political, ethnic, or racial differences from any citizens of Turkey.

Q: You said that “Everyone – and I mean everyone – said it wouldn’t work. Why would anyone want to come out to tiny Yuvacali to sleep on the roof and use a squat loo in the garden?” OK, now tell us why people DO want to experience this rough travel style?
A: It works because it is genuine. It is an experience equal to, say, staying in an African village, sleeping in Wadi Rum with the Bedouin, or helping out at an organic farm in Ireland. People treasure the experience that we are able to give them.

Q: Could you share different examples of the types of people who visit and why?
A: The types of people and why they visit are: 20% for professional reasons (anthropologists, archaeologists, sociologists, photographers, etc); 40% are backpackers or walking types with a similar profile to Kate Clow’s Lycian Way customers; and 40% are extremely wealthy visitors who treat this as an ‘experience’ (which it is).

There have been some interesting professionals with interesting reasons for visiting us, including: making a living record of disappearing nomadic lifestyles (such as a father and daughter team who were making a private documentary travelling the world recording nomads, and who used us as a base and our tour services to visit Nomads); sociologists from Sweden studying marriage and the family; Harvard University funded researchers studying cooking over open fires in Jamaica, Turkey, and India; and a group of theology Professors exploring the mother figure in Mesopotamian religions.

Home stay host, Pero, making gözleme

Q: Are there any hazards or hygiene concerns about the use of dung fuels?
(Ed. Note: Link-Designing a Clean-Burning, High-Efficiency, Dung-Burning Stove)
A: Dung is burnt in traditional stoves for heating in the winter, and used outside on an open hearth for cooking throughout the year. Some of our visitors included a team from the Gambia who were doing medical research into infant mortality as a result of cooking with dung fires. Their results found that infant mortality in the Gambia could be attributed to mothers tying their babies on their backs while cooking over a dung fire. No such practice exists in Yuvacali, and our high infant mortality rates are for other reasons.

Cultural Guidelines

Q: Your Cultural Guidelines seem clear yet incomplete. Do you give tourists a more thorough briefing before they start?
A: When a booking is made, guests are asked to agree to our cultural rules, told about skirts and shorts, and given suggestions about nightwear. The rest is left to happen naturally. And it does… Visitors find themselves behaving in certain acceptable ways. There is a world of difference from the way that people visiting our project behave, and say people visiting Marmaris behave.

Q: Have you ever had cultural misunderstandings which left the tourist in an uncomfortable situation?
A: Thankfully, we have had no misunderstandings. We take our cultural position very seriously, and people visiting us must follow the guidelines we lay down.

Q: Visitor requirements include “the wearing of ankle length skirts by all women visitors” Can they wear long pants? Do they have to wear a head scarf?
A: Women must wear an ankle length skirt. If they don’t have one, we can lend them one. Trousers for women are not acceptable in Kurdish culture (in which they are used as underwear by women). Women are not encouraged to cover their hair at all, and no guests so far have covered their hair. We ask that shoulders and breasts be covered, and that nightwear is conservative (sleeping is communal). Men cannot wear shorts.

Haremlik and Selamlik

Inside the houses haremlik and selamlik are common. (Ed. Note: “Selamlik is also a portion of the household reserved for the guests (from the root word Selam or “greeting”). Similar to Andronitis (Courtyard of Men), whereby in Ancient Greece, guests would be welcomed by the males of the household. Harem is the portion for the family.” 

Q: If village women do not go out unattended and are covered and there is a separation between men and women in the household,  how do male and female visitors get around during a home stay?
A: Female visitors to our project are expected to wear long skirts, they are, however, free to wander around the village unaccompanied and go wherever they wish. Local women would not do this, but it is perfectly acceptable for women who don’t belong to the tribe to do so. This is not an exception for foreigners, it is a general rule: women and men from the Sinka tribe are expected to behave in a certain way; people who do not belong to the tribe may behave as they please.
Kurds are still very heavily tribal. The Turkish is ‘asiret'(tribe or clan). I belong to the Sinka Asiret. The Sinka can be found in Hilvan, Urfa, Mardin, and Kiziltepe. The Head of the tribe is in Kiziltepe. Tribes often return MPs to parliament, and are part of the Turkish parliamentary system.

BUT, inside the houses involved in the home stays, rules have to be flexible. So, foreign guests sitting at dinner would be expected to separate around the table according to gender, but other than that they may move freely within the house. Sinka women who are involved in home stays have started to cross boundaries themselves out of necessity, and their houses are certainly not run on haremlik/selamlik lines when foreign visitors are present. So, change happens, as you can see. It happens without any direct interference, and without questions of right and wrong or advancement and backwardness. It happens pragmatically.

Yuvacali girls off to high school for the first time. The girls have to board in the town of Hilvan, and will come home once a fortnight.

Q: You write “sons are being groomed for university.” What about daughters? Are these sons in medical or law school now?
A: The only reason that sons are being groomed for university and not daughters is because we will have to wait a few years for girls to have worked their way through the education system in order for them to go to university. Previously, very few girls went to school. We have several boys from Yuvacali at Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi (ODTU) in Ankara, and one or two at lesser universities throughout Turkey. Their parents are illiterate. (ODTU, or Middle East Technical University in English)

Q: You said that “only 50% of the population speak Turkish.” Is the dominant language Kurdish? Is the 50% who are literate also those who speak Turkish?
A: Yes, the dominant language is Kurdish. The 50% who are literate are also the 50% who speak Turkish. In this village the Kurdish language has only recently come in written form, so no one can read and write Kurdish and there is no newspaper nor are there books in Kurdish.
(Ed. Note: from Turkish School Offers Kurdish Language “While some linguists use the term Kurdish to apply to the language of the Kurds, the Kurdish language is actually made up of many distinct dialects. Many Kurds themselves don’t use the word at all, referring to their language by the specific name of the dialect…The writing system of the Kurdish language depends on the location of the writer.”)

Home stay host, Pero, making cheese

Culture Clash or Not?

Q: You say on the one hand that changes are happening because of the pre-school and on the other that the cultural divide is so great. How do you see this modernism vs old culture working? Does it clash?
A: Changes are happening because of the pre-school in that more children are going to school, and that means more children of both sexes. Things are also changing because of the income available to people as a result of the home stay scheme (e.g. sons going to university). HOWEVER, the culture as a whole remains unchanged at this present time. Women and men still sit separately; houses have haremlik and selamlik quarters; women do not go out unaccompanied. At the moment, things don’t clash. We will have to wait until the kids who are now going to pre-school get older, and then we will see.

Preschoolers brushing their teeth

Q: “…we currently supply all school-age children in four villages with toothbrushes and toothpaste.” Is there a dentist anywhere? Has this helped the dental situation of these kids?
A: We are currently working towards bringing in two volunteer dentists from the US who normally do this kind of thing in Africa. If they come, they would only be able to come for a short period. The lack of dental care locally is attributable to economics and tradition (no running water = no teeth brushing). Our dental campaign has had an amazing knock-on effect in the fact that we have had to introduce running water into schools in order for the kids to be able to clean their teeth. This has led to greater levels of hygiene and hand washing in general. It has also meant that some schools even have flushing toilets now as a result of the water we put in for dental care. All of the kids brush their teeth after breaks in school.

Q: Has any of this modernism changed the culture of the village? Better treatment of women for example? How is that received by villagers?
A: To accept that the position of women is now ‘better’ would mean that I first of all accept that the position of women was bad before. While I am not saying that all is hunky-dory regarding the position of women in this society, I have taken the stance not to criticise the culture into which I have become adopted. I see my place in this society as a person who can make things possible without suggesting the right and the wrong of things.
(Ed. Note: Nomad works with the Kamer Vakfi (Foundation) and Kamer Vakfi which works for the empowerment of women.)

So, for example, let’s have an excellently equipped pre-school, but let me not be judgemental on those parents who choose not to send their children there. It starts off at 50% attendance, we make the school as good as we can, we don’t criticise those who don’t go, and within a few weeks attendance rises.

We create an environment in which women can become involved economically in daily life through home stays. At the beginning, only a couple of families will try it, then it becomes a handful, and then everyone wants to do it, and without you knowing it a lot of women are becoming empowered. But it is not my job to tell people what is right and wrong with their lives, it is not my job to change cultures. So, I cannot say that the women are now treated better than before. But I would say that women within our scheme have become financially empowered.

Everyone in the village welcomes the scheme because they see very clearly that all visitors are respectful of their culture. They see that no one is preaching and trying to change an ancient way of life. They see that changes that do happen come from within the village itself, not from outside.

Seasonal Weather Conditions

Nomad tour to Nemrut in February

Q: Considering all weather conditions, when is the “best” season/time of year to visit?
A: Şanliurfa is hot. It is statistically the hottest region in Turkey with temperatures touching the high 40’s and almost 50 consistently throughout the summer months. Not surprisingly, August is our quietest month with April, May, September, and October being our busiest months. We operate year round, so I personally recommend that November and March are good months to visit as the days are generally very warm to hot, with chilly nights and the odd overcast or rainy day possible. The weather during those off-peak months is far better for getting around and about than the sweltering temperatures that we see even in June, for example. Snow is possible but getting rarer. Nights in winter can be very bitterly cold, but days are almost guaranteed to be bright with hours of sunshine even in January. We have the same annual rainfall as the desert regions in Arizona!

For more about this fantastic project please contact:

Alison and Ömer Tanik of Nomad Tours Turkey
Yuvacali Köyü, Hilvan, Şanliurfa
Most people fly into Şanliurfa to get to Nomad Tours
http://www.nomadtoursturkey.com/contact.php
Email: alisontanik (at) nomadtoursturkey.com
Mobile: +90 533 747 18 50
Office: +90 414 553 38 42
Skype: nomad.tours.turkey

Nomad prefers donations of physical items that are needed and that are better and cheaper in the west, such as art equipment or even kids’ toothbrushes. They only accept cash donations on the spot and people who wish to donate from afar are encouraged to send things that are difficult for them to source locally. A worthy cause…

TripAdvisor

See the great reviews for Nomad Tours here: Village Home Stays, Hilvan

Lonely Planet

The Lonely Planet Profile of Nomad Tours:
“Nomad Tours is a responsible travel organization run solely for the benefit of villagers in the rural south east of Turkey. As well as arranging home stays and tours, the company coordinates donations and has recently implemented a dental hygiene programme for all the children in the village of Yuvacali in Şanliurfa. Other recent achievements include equipping a pre-school unit, and providing a wheelchair for a disabled man. The office is a paper-free environment staffed by volunteers.”

Southeast Turkey travel (Lonely Planet)
“Took a one week break by scheduling a trip with Nomad Tours. Excellent. Knowledgeable folks, great service and will respond very quickly (in English) to any reasonable questions. Homestay was excellent. No, we don’t work for them.”

Recap on Recent trip, including SE (Lonely Planet)
“…due to an email mix up, I did not receive an amzing offer from Alison at Nomad Tours (who was also helpful here on Thorn Tree), which would have enabled us to do the homestay in Yuvacali and see Harran as well as Sanliurfa and Gobekli. I will definitely be in touch with her if I go back to SE Turkey!”