A quiet life on an Anatolian island

The name of the beautiful little island, which you can reach by small boat, is Mada. The residents of Mada live together in harmony. They make their bread in a collective way, enough for one month. Mada residents also stock enough food for the year in the autumn, as reaching the island by boat in the winter and spring months can be difficult. And now they are pushing for a bridge so that they can reach the mainland more easily.

There are actually 32 big and small islands located on Lake Beyşehir, which is right next to Konya and Isparta. Mada, which is on the Isparta side of the lake, is the largest of these 32 islands, and the only one that has people living on it. The fact is, even though lots of people don't even know about this island, Mada has 200 full-time residents, divided into 35 households. It is officially known, for management purposes, as the Kumlucu neighborhood, connected to the village of Gedikli in the Şarki Karaağaç district of Isparta. After boarding a small boat waiting on the shores of the lake in Gedikli, it takes just a short ride to get you to Mada.

On this island, every family has at least one boat. The island is covered in small and larger agricultural plots; families here farm, as well as fish, to get by. The island itself has an area of 8,220 hectares. Everything imaginable is grown here: tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, eggplants, cherries, sour cherries, almonds, apples and so on.

The island of Mada was originally inhabited by immigrants from Kazakhstan, though they later sold their homes and fields to Yörüks (nomadic Turks who traditionally live in the Toros Mountains). Ever since then, the people of Mada have been made up of Yörük families who transitioned from a nomadic life to a life living in fixed homes. The Yörüks are very tied to their traditions, especially when it comes to weddings and funerals. Mada Yörük families celebrate weddings for three days straight, and when a member of the community dies, the support is strong for those left behind. Neighbors make food for the loved ones of the deceased and help serve visitors who come to pay their respects.

There is a group of women who work together on the island to make bread and börek. Some knead the dough, while others bake and oversee the processes. Families get one month's worth of bread in this collective effort. We witness one of these collective cooking efforts and are offered some cheese and spinach gözleme by 67-year-old Sıddıka Torus. Apparently Sıddıka came to this island as a young bride of 17. When we ask this now elderly woman how many children she has, she responds by asking us "Alive or in the ground?" As it turns out, Sıddıka, who now has four daughters and one son, lost the same number of children to various illnesses.

Nets are repaired

As we tour the island, we notice some families hard at work, fixing fishing nets. Old nets are cut and replaced by new ones these days although fishing is actually banned on Lake Beyşehir. Musa Torus, who is working with his wife to repair a net, notes that fishing has been one of the most important sources of income for years here. Torus says that a drought three years ago caused the waters of the lake to go down. He adds: "For two years, the waters of the lake rose. This year there was very good rain. We are waiting for the ban on fishing to end. We hope the old fruitful nature of this lake will return." Of course, the fact that Mada can really only be reached by small wooden boats also causes some problems here. In winter months when the lake can be covered in ice, transportation here stops. When this happens, the residents of the island are basically stuck here. As Mada residents describe it, one of the biggest problems is getting people to the hospital when they are sick or giving birth. Children have died and people have been left disabled due to difficulties reaching the hospital in time; thus, residents are pushing for a 900-meter bridge connecting their home to the mainland.

It is some of these difficult conditions that prompt island residents to stock food for the entire year, starting in the month of October. As for electricity and telephones, these are brought by cable under the lake (protected by pipes) to the island. When we see a tractor on the island, we are surprised and ask how it got there. Island resident Hasan Torus (71) tells us the tractors are loaded onto large boats that are then tugged across by smaller motorized boats, and thus brought out to Mada. Here is how Torus describes an event from one winter on the island: "One winter, the lake was iced over. There was a funeral in the village, but no one available to wash the dead person. We put the body in the coffin, and pulled it by rope over the ice to the shores of the village of Gedikli. We were very afraid that the ice might break at any moment."

Mustafa Yılmaz (49) moved to the nearby mainland village of Sarıkaya a decade ago so that his children could go to school; but still, he has not broken away from life in Mada. Yılmaz still comes to Mada every summer to plant crops, and then grows fruits and vegetables all through the summer months. In the fall, he harvests his crops and returns home. He notes that his children, who went to school, are now a doctor and a veterinarian.

There is a legend told over and over by Mada residents as to how this island came about. According to the legend, the Selçuk Sultan Alaeddin Keykubat lost a son in the waters of Lake Beyşehir when living at the Kubadabad Palace. The sultan then issued an edict ordering that no one else was to die in these waters, and so asked all of his subjects to bring some ashes and wool to the shores of the lake. This ash and wool was then used to plug the natural water canals that stretch from the base of the lake all the way to the Aegean Sea. This same legend says that this is how the ash island near the village of Tolca came about, and that when the waters of the lake rose after the canal had been plugged, they surrounded Mada, turning it into an island.