Preface

Why Adana?

Adana has always had a different meaning for me. My father used to tell me real-life stories from his life in Adana since my childhood. This difficult life story had a great impact on me. In 1948, when he was only 15 years old, he went to Adana with a friend to work without permission from his family. At that time, the country was in a very bad state and people were living in poverty. They were living in Aşağıboran village of Pınarbaşı district of Kayseri. My father used to tell stories like this, families sometimes had difficulty finding food. Since there were no engines and agricultural tools like today, production was very limited, and this condemned people to poverty. People would try to plow the fields with oxen and primitive tools called ploughs until the morning. When we think about it, even if a person working with oxen worked for months, he could not plow the field that an engine could plow in a day. In fact, the old people used to say that wheat and flour were very valuable because they were so scarce. My father used to say that he had never seen any money even though he was twelve years old. A vendor who sold with a donkey came to the village.

He said, I will give you money in exchange for the dry weed on the roof, and gave him the smallest coin of that time. We had never seen any money until then, he says.

The Malatya Road passes near our village. One day, while my brother and I were shepherding sheep near that road, we heard a groan, he says.

My father tells: I was ten years old at the time, my brother was fifteen, and we walked towards this sound hesitantly. The man was from Darende and set out to go to Adana on foot; But when he ran out of food, he collapsed there from hunger.

He asked for some bread from our people for God's sake. When he gave him a piece of bread and water, the man came to his senses, thanked him and set off on his way. At that time, all the old people tell that poverty prevailed all over the country. People would go to the fertile Çukurova, that is, Adana, and look for work. My father and his friend, about his age, took the train from Kayseri to Adana and went to Adana. They don't know that place; They don't know anyone and have very little money.

They went to an inn; In a place like a large hall, fifteen to twenty people were lying on mats on the floor. There wasn't even a blanket to cover them at night.

They found work for cheap wages by collecting thorns and bushes to be used in a lime kiln. My father's friend couldn't stand it long.

A sixteen-year-old boy cried and said that he was going to his hometown.

My father said, I will either die here or escape from this poverty, you go!

Personally, he is a very brave and stubborn person. His friend returned to Kayseri, and my father continued to work there. Later, she started working in forestry and she experienced such difficulties that she says that new generations live more comfortably with each passing day.

My father was working in the forest with three of his friends. One of them is a slightly older man named Saim and a young man and the boss. In winter, the boss went to Adana to withdraw money from the forestry enterprise.

They were carrying logs with three oxen, and the boss had a dog. The boss went to withdraw money and did not return for a long time. One winter day, the oxen ran out of food. They took the oxen to a nearby village to get hay, but the villagers did not want it because there was very little hay in the village.

They only had to stay for a few days, then take the animals and go to a place where there was hay. Since it was the end of winter, the snow started to melt, and floods occurred. They had to cross a big raging riverbed. My father's friends nicknamed him

Chechen son because his grandfathers were of Caucasian origin.

The old man named Saim said, Come on, Chechen son, Chechens are brave. Get on one of the oxen and cross the river. Since they had to cross the river and had no other choice, my father said, I would rather die than live like this. So, he rode on the back of one of the oxen and was able to cross the river the whole way.

He told his other two friends to come, and they were very scared and had to cross the river, risking their own death and being dragged across the river. There was only one dog left across the river and it was barking.

The man named Saim said, Come on, Chechen son, take the dog too! What a pity, he said. My father said, I was born once, I can't risk dying a second time. The dog had to stay there. People are stronger when they face the difficulties of life and make very difficult decisions when necessary.

They went down there and there was no one except a few houses. There was a telephone wire going to a stone building. They had to break the door and get in.

Since they are old phones, they have automatic dialing areas. Opposite us is an Adana Forest Management officer. When he explains the situation, he says that it is the plateau, Başpınar region. He advises them to go to the Karsantı township, which is closest to them. From there they go to Karsantı, with various difficulties. My father is now 92 years old, but his memory is very strong.

At the time he lived, the first years of the Republic, the country was out of war, poverty and hunger were at an extreme level.

Now, although people live so comfortably, they are not grateful. A person who is not grateful cannot be happy.

But there should be social justice and income distribution according to the country's income. The interesting thing is that people who live very comfortably are more unhappy. My father's tough struggle with life and his memories are so many that I am thinking of writing about him specifically after this book. Over the years, my father became an expert in forestry work and took cutting jobs from the forestry enterprise after learning this job thoroughly. He started to employ workers for him. Over time, he took his brothers and acquaintances from