Gazipasa is hot and humid, with a piercing sun. That much is made immediately clear your first trek outside of the Dig House. There is no discrepancy between the weather described to me by others before my arrival and the way that the weather is.
There is a considerable difference in the scale of Gazipasa and my conception of it when I was just reading about it. A district of 50,000 people to me seems like it wouldn’t be much more than a rural spread with a slightly concentrated hub somewhere central. This is even how some of the Turkish people I have met describe Gazipasa. I do not know why, but living here now it feels like a much bigger city than reported. I think it must be more concentrated, It seems to me there is a total lack of a suburb, instead there are apartments spread around the outskirts of the city. Even then, the bulk of this main street we are on seems to be made of commercial buildings rather than residential. There is hotel after hotel, and all types of services and markets for foreign travelers. I sometimes wonder where all the people live.
And how can the prices be so low? The value of all commodities in turkey seems to be anywhere between half to three quarters reduced from their price in the states. Wages are similarly low, so the low price points are likely a necessity of the market. Why then is the exchange between USD and Lira so uneven? this is something that makes no sense to me economically, though I admit that I am super ignorant about how international purchasing power works.
We worked all of last week. The digging is hard and occasionally it is difficult to appreciate the progress you are making into the earth. My body has also had some serious trouble adapting to the conditions of either the work or the climate. I hope that they have been mostly resolved, but we will see as the week continues. I am curious to see what happens with our unit, but I think the biggest reward I will get out of this experience is the Mediterranean. I don’t think that could ever be topped.
