We are very happy to announce that the very first Geocaching CITO event was held in Turkey this weekend.
Geocaching was not very popular in Turkey, at least that was until we came along!
“Who are we?” you might ask…We are a small group of people in Istanbul, who love this game and wanted to make it more popular in Turkey. When I first heard about geocaching, it was 2007, and I was in Canada with my wife. When I returned to Istanbul I couldn't find any local cachers who I could talk with about geocaching :) Now it is nothing like back then!
Now we have a Facebook Group called “Geocaching Turkiye” and we meet at least once a month. Our monthly meetings help us to stay more active in geocaching. We introduce geocaching to newcomers. We hide new caches for new cachers and look forward to finding the caches that they hide. At the same time, I write a blog (omactivities) where I have the chance to explain geocaching, and hope to reach even more people. Unfortunally, www.geocaching.com doesn’t have a Turkish language option. We are planning to translate the website into Turkish within the next couple of months. The admins at www.geocaching.com will assist us with this.
Last week we held our first CITO event and as a geocaching lover, I am extremely proud to have participated in the event.
Everyone who took part in the event was very happy. We all liked the idea of CITO and many of our new comers learned a lot about geocaching.
We all worked very hard to make this event possible. Before the event I was thinking that there might not be too many people attending the event, but after a lot of hard work and the help of social media (blogging, twitter, and facebook) our message spread. Twenty-one new friends from all over the city, between the ages of 4 and 60, joined the event, helping us pick up enough garbage to fill more than 23 industrial sized garbage bags!
Some of us had no experience in geocaching, while others have found more than a thousand caches. Those who are just beginning to geocache had a chance to ask questions and, we hope, are now more interested in geocaching than before! We are looking forward to finding new geocaches that our new friends hide in our wonderful city!
What did we do in the CITO event?
We met at the event coordinates. Before starting, I gave a brief speech, discussing the basics of geocaching, and the reasons behind the CITO event.
We talked about
· what we would do (picking up garbage in the forest)
· for how long we would work on collecting garbage
· and then what we would do after we finished cleaning up the forest
We began at about 10:30 am and re-gathered at the starting point at about 12:00. It was a very hot day and we all sweat a lot but no one complained. Our group was organized perfectly. Many people brought supplies without being asked. We had cold bottled water, a first aid kid, industrial sized garbage bags, and plastic gloves.
- Everyone knew where the first aid kit was in the forest, so it was easily accessible if anyone needed it.
- Everyone was outfitted with plastic gloves to protect our hands.
- Everyone entered the forest with their own garbage bag, and filled it to the brim. Some people went and got second bags to also fill up.
We took lots of pictures while in the forest, and then again at the meeting point. We were surprised with some of the garbage that we found. Among the bottles, and plastic bags, we also found three cow skulls, one cat and one dog skull, and many random animal bones. The children (big and small) among us were fascinated with the finds, and many of us wanted to take some of them home with us. As we say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
We had fun trying to get everyone to smile at the right moment in a group picture. And then, finally, when we had hauled all the garbage bags to nearby dumpsters, we all jumped in our cars and on our motorcycles, and headed to the Shackelford family’s house for some much needed drinks and food, as we were all very hungry and thirsty after the heat.
Special thanks to bulcacher (Danley Shackelford) and his family, for being inspired to create this event, and then for hosting all of us at their home afterwards.
We plan to do many more CITO events. There are too many hiding places that are filled with people’s garbage, they need to be cleaned up. If you know of a place that would be beautiful, if it weren’t for the garbage, let us know, so we can plan a CITO event there soon!
Here are some of the pictures from the 1st CITO event in Istanbul, held on August 24th, 2013:
HAPPY CACHING!
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