Önce Pete’e. Yıldızları okumayı öğrettiği için. Daniel’e, Geerd’e Wendy’ye, Faye’e, ilk bot eğitimimi veren Serkan ve Özgür’e vs. vs. Akşam, tüm mürettebatın isimlerini yazdım defterime, ölümsüz bir anıda parmakları olduğundan isimlerini unutmamak için yazdım tek tek.

Korumak için çabalayıp durduğun orkinoslarla yan yana gelmek ne güzel; bir iki mil ötende tuzağa düştüğünü bildiğin halde hiçbir şey yapamamaksa ne acı. Ne zor, meslektaşım demekle onur duyduğum Banu’nun yürüttüğü bu kampanya. Sen bir şey yapsan ceza yiyeceksin, Akdeniz’de bilmem hangi memleketin sahil güvenliği alıp seni götürecek. Ama katledenler değil. Hiçbir çaren yok onları kurtarmak için. Hem şimdi kurtarsan aylarca binlerce gemi avlanıyor zaten.

Kim bir şey yapabilir, o zaman? Devlet’in kapılarını aşındırmaya devam edeceksin. Tarım Bakanlığı’na gidip “Bakın, mavi yüzgeçli orkinosların bir süre avlanmaması balıkçılığın da geleceği için önemli. Lütfen, ICCAT’e giderken yasaklanması talebiyle gidin, diyeceksin.” Onlar “Kotalarımız artırılsın” diye gidecekler. Kısacası daha çok avlanma hakkımız olsun, diye. Karar verilecek yer diyerek ICCAT’e gideceksin, köşe başlarında endüstrinin beyaz yakalıları iş bağlıyor olacaklar.

Tek bir çaren var. Yine dönmek, yine baştan başlamak, yine konunun önemini anlatmak, yine kapıları aşındırmak. Ta ki, anlaşılana kadar. Ta ki, karar vericilerden birileri çıkıp “deniz rezervleri” fikrini benimseyene kadar, ta ki konu medyanın gündemine girene kadar…Ta ki, “Türk” orkinos endüstrisinin önünde çaktırmadan yürüyüp kendine çevreci diyenlerin, konudan edinebilecek hiçbir fırsatçılık şansı kalmayana kadar. Bu da ancak farkındalığı olan insanların sayısı yadırganmayacak noktada olursa olur.

Şimdi, pekala, “Orkinoslara gelene kadar ne sorunlarımız var, önce onlar çözülsün” diyenler çıkabilir. Ama tüm sorunlarımız da aynı “akıl yürütmenin” sonucu değil mi? Hem, bizim “dilsiz olanı dillendirmekten ve bu gezegenin ekolojik bütünlüğünü korumaktan” daha önemli sorunlarımız bitmeden orkinoslar ebediyen dünyayı terk ederse n’olacak? Ya bundan dolayı, Akdeniz’deki denizel yaşam bir şekilde alt üst olur, hem kıyı balıkçısı hem de orkinos balıkçısı ekmeğinden olup, Türkiye’deki işsizler sürüsüne yenileri de eklenirse..”

“Ya olmazsa”sı yok bunun.. Bilim insanları, çok az zaman kaldı, diyor.

Ankara’dan dönerken yine yolculuktan keyif almaya çalıştım. Ama yol, o kadar sanayileşmiş ki, denizin altını da karanın üstüne yaptıklarımıza benzetmemeyi umdum. Kirlenmiş ve çoraklaşmış topraklarımız kadar balıksız, plastik torba renginde, kirlenmiş ya da petrole bulanmış ve iklim değişikliğinden payını alan denizler de ürkütüyor beni.

Ve, bu korkunun milliyeti yok. Orkinosların da….

4th day at the camp. The building of the ship goes on at the last speed. The roof is completed, celebration done. Today the outer layer has started to be placed.

In the morning web id farewell to Kaitlin. She goes back to Istanbul to continue her world tour. She tells us about it; how one day all of a sudden she decided to leave everything behind with an irresistable instinct and hit the road to Tailand, India and now Turkey. Her best-friend buys a book called “Work Your Way Around The World” by Susan Griffith. They find out that they can travel around the world workng in organic farms. In that book they are introduced with the organisation called WWOOF-Willing Workers On Organic Farms, next thing they are in Tailand. The landlord of the farm in Tailand is gone to Bankog. So, they find an orphanage there where they work as volunteers and later on moving forward to an orphanage in India. When they arrive in Turkey, they find out that the farm here looks for long term workers. So they just start travelling. This is how I get the chance to met her. She got very excited to hear about the Ararat Project. About the project, she points out that this is the first time that she works in a project whose sole purpose is to raise awareness and get attention. She adds that she is very content to participate in the project because of its significance and purpose. She speaks about her home countary USA related to the project. She believes that her goverment should spend more money on the sustainable energy and no money on the war. She says that in the USA, only a handful of cities have effective public transportation. She thinks that the actual global warming is caused by the industry but the transprtation is also significant. Because it is something that the avarage people can change. She adds that she prefered to get to Iğdır in 43 hours by train rather than flying for 2 hours, and enjoyed it very much for she got to see a major part of Turkey in this way, encouraging people to fly as less as they can. We send off Kaitlin in the morning. After Turkey, she is heading to Greece and Italy to work in the organic farms. Bon Voyage Kaitlin!

One of these families is Mustafa’s family. I have a conversation with him about the climate change. He says that this year the winter has been rough, the snow melted away late, the grass appeared late, thus, the animals couldn’t graze well. Mustafa’s family burn dried dung to get warm in the winter.

We arrive back to the camp. We have both water, electricity and even still have some time! Maybe soon the climate will reach at a point where the snow will never melt in Mt.Ararat. Then, the winter will be even tougher for Mustafa’s family, or maybe there will not be enough snow and the locals won’t have any water.

As we still have some time left to save the planet, I leave you alone with Rainer’s poem of yesterday’s richtfest:

Richtspruch

Hey Noah we are here!
These phrases are dedicated to you.

Merhaba, dear friends, dear guests
Who came for the “Richtfeste”

The roof is finished, the picture is clear:
We build an arc again, for a flood to come

Oh Noah, she does not swim as it stands here
And she is also much smaller
No matter how you turn her around
But already now with her massage she goes to each part
Of the world day by day
To stop the climate change

“Act Now!” is the message
For the sake of the plant, the animal and the mankind all around

We’ll keep on building untill the last plank is attached
Always trusting our common strength

Hey Noah! Through you, we see a sign for peace now

Yet, this ship shall be blessed
Even if it is just on the rocks

Cheers!

Reiner Brumshagen

We have two new guests on dinner: Michael from Germany, in his early 20’s yet a professional shipbuilder. Manuel is our professional photographer from Istanbul and he is here with us to witness and to document all the process with his camera.

After the dinner, all team had a meeting with journalists. We talked how to organize the work. At a very important point of the meeting Oguzhan has came with a big cake with many candles on and all team started to sing the birthday song for me! It was a huge surprise for me because I completely forgotten it. I turned red because of surprise and tried to understand how did they can well organized it within all the work we have! I thank them all and we ate my great birthday cake together with fun. When we said goodbye everyone was thinking the same thing; tomorrow will be hard.

Today’s programme is based on working about the camp. Today tents will start to set up. The camp will be ready by tomorrow before we set off. Big day is tomorrow. He has to get on road early and prepare the horses and load all the equipments. And I have to find a sleeping bag for myself.

Gozde the writer of this text is living on this planet earth for 8 years. She has been Greenpeace volunteer and also she has tried to studied on the envorimental engineering bu she could not finished it. She worked on many different Greenpeace projects, especially interested in the toxic campaigns. Right now she is been working as carpenter and problem solver on Noah’s Arc Project at Agri Mountain.

The day after that, all work has started at 7:00 a.m in the morning and countinued until 6:00 p.m. We are working for 10 hours to make the structure of the ship. The ship has 10 m – 4 m measures. This ship which we are planning to put 2500 metres of the moutain, has designed to be symbol for us to show the climate change reality and also to be a guide for climbers who will explore the Ararat in te future. The process of the building the ship, which begins at half hour away from Iran border line Dogubeyazit, is includes the work of trying to find the right timber, the correct communication between the German crew and the local public, solving the problems about the area, finding the right people to be work in the transportation of the timbers right up to the mountain, explaining the project to the local people and also the building the ship itself! We have bigger problem about the communication we do not have internet connection the the area and the phones are only working in the certain places of the place.

Our plan is to make the building’s one part at the land and taking up the rest pieces and ourselves up to the mountain and continue the work there. Horses for the transportation seems ready. We are trying to find 40 horses from the area until Sunday. Our documentary team has arrived to Dogubeyazit to witness all these works. They started the shooting yesterday. Another team is working on the base camp which we will build on the mountain. We are 8 people who coordinates the whole work in here. This work is so hard but also very exciting. It feels so great to our souls to get up early in the morning to send our regard to the great Mount Ararat by building his ship as a group of mortals. Every evening we drink our teas and got in beds in peace.

I started the day by trying to understand a land lord from Agri and having a phone call with a member of parliment form Agri. Oguzhan has gone to Igdir to check out our timbers and he is still there. German crew is working on the building. Our coordinator Gerwald is trying to solve how to load the horses for transportation. Day is still goes on and I will keep writing to you. This is it fir the day!

The first “great flood” is said to be a heavenly act.. The one threating us now, is defiantly a human made flood.

We are building a second Ark as a warning sign and sign of hope. Our aim is to remind the world leaders and public that there's not much time left to mitigate a climate disaster with devastating consequences for all.

You can follow our work daily through this Weblog as we build Noah’s Arc replica on Mount Ararat.