If everyone is a boss, who will milk the cows?

Coming from a farming family, I want to write about a subject I have observed very closely. Our village is 1 hour and 20 minutes away from Istanbul. It is a village very close to Çerkezköy, which is an organized industrial zone. Our lands are fertile, and even our farmers over the age of 80 are still out in their fields, still working. We also have young people; they help out, learn farming in the field from a young age, and absorb knowledge that isn't written in books from these elderly, experienced elders.

The villagers where we are from are curious about education. They make a great effort to ensure their children get an education.

But... as it turns out, studying is hard for the children. They get bored in the village, they envy the lives they see on the smartphones in their hands, but walking the path to that life also feels difficult. As a result, most of them drop out of school. Military service time comes, military send-off weddings are held, and in the meantime, they have probably fallen in love with a girl. Getting married early in the countryside is normal. They set off with dreams of getting married as soon as they return from their military service.

As for the girls, they are bored with the village, tired of the work, and because the same lives they see on their smartphones have turned their heads, their biggest dream is to move to a town far from the village, to live in clean apartment flats furnished with brand-new items, and to be saved from sweeping the front door and cleaning the barn like their mothers... who can blame them... dreams are endless...

The parents have already been saving money for years, working and striving with the dream of the day they will marry off their children, and the young people know this. Everyone has made their own plan.

Upon returning from the military, weddings are held, meals are cooked, drums are beaten, and bonfires are lit.

Since it is impossible to say no to the brides, (and the boy is a newlywed, he doesn't want to ruin the peace), migration from the village to the town begins. This is how the young population of villages gradually decreases.

Well, these children didn't study, so what will they do?

Let's ask;

“We’ll get a job at a factory in Çerkezköy, what could go wrong…”

An acquaintance is brought in, a job is arranged at the factory, and while those fertile lands are sitting there, our youth beg and plead to land a job at the factories without caring about the pittance they earn. The factory is comfortable, 9 to 5, and there is a shuttle service. They think, ‘Oh, what a beautiful life!’!!!

Their credit card debts swell, and swell, and swell... they end up at their father's door again; ‘Life is very hard, we can't make ends meet.’ They are right, I have no words against this either, they are young after all... a kind of “art of not thinking.”

The money earned from those field jobs they didn't like continues to feed them in one way or another.

As the villager gets older, they start looking for help for these difficult tasks, and of course, their hearts are broken; they have sons like lions, but they shied away from work, didn't want to be farmers or deal with raising animals, they went from the village to the city.

Well, who will work? There are no young people left in the village, and those who remain can barely keep up with their own work.

Someone is needed to look after the animals.

Who looks after them? AFGHANS…

Someone is needed to work in the field.

Who works? TURKMEN…

The money they receive is many times more than the salary of the children working in that factory... As long as you do not protect your property, your inheritance, your work, and your value... Well, in the absence of a sheep, the goat is called ‘Abdurrahman Çelebi’ (a local idiom meaning settling for less).

Now, when I look at the big picture outside of my own village, I encounter such a scene.

Elderly care, childcare; Uzbeks, Turkmen…

Vineyard and garden work; Afghans, Syrians…

Tea and hazelnut harvesting in the north; Georgians…

Heavy labor, industry, construction, bakeries, etc.; Syrians, Afghans…

We need to stop and think about what we are doing other than complaining about the increasing population while filling the country with asylum seekers.

Wouldn't they ask a person?

“If everyone is a boss, who will milk these cows?”