W szkole // At school – day 4

The hotel in Balikesir Anafata Otel is wonderful, close to the town center and very fancy. We are spoiled at breakfast with a wonderful array. After filling myself with olives and cheese Yusuf meets us and drives us to the Balikesir Valiligi Fatma Emin Kutvar Anadoul Lisesi school.

We make our way to an impressive office where we meet the principal, she greets us with open arms and a smile though we see she is extremely busy with the day to day. A cup of tea over conversation about world travel and the differences in our countries before we make our way to observe three lessons. First we join Yusuf in his English class as we share a Q and A lesson between ourselves and the students, in English of course. A short break before we make our way to the physics lab. I’m impressed by the installations at the desks for various currents and meters for testing and practicals. The lesson was on the subject of magnetism and electricity but save from that I couldn’t guess more from the musical Turkish language used. Our final lesson was ICT where the class was learning about looping functions in code. I was surprised to see them using exactly the same resources and methods as we had in Poland, though of course in Turkish. The teacher is lovely and we exchange emails for future collaboration. 

After lessons Yusuf shows us the canteen, offers us tea before we eat school lunch; chickpeas in sauce, salad, chicken soup and bread. It was just right for the sunny weather, even though we had expected rain today. 

Now sated we make our way to the local food bazaar. The noise, smells and sights wake up the foodie within and I can’t help but buy a few bits of fruit, olives and some nuts, though there was so much more from honeycombes to fresh tahini.

The excitement winds down as we take in the sites of Balikesir from above at a viewing point atop a hill. It’s simply stunning.

We hunt down some delicious kofta in a local cafe before making our way back to the hotel to watch the Poland Mexico world cup match. What a day!

Jack Słoczyński