Uşak University is being built from the ground up, literally. The building which houses the foreign language office had no railings on some staircases on Monday, and on Tuesday a man wearing a sleeveless jumpsuit was sawing metal tubes to make the railings with no protective equipment whatsoever, sending sparks flying across the hallway towards unperturbed students and teachers. The chemistry labs have sinks and gas feeds laying on the ground in boxes waiting to be installed. One of the two access roads from Izmir Road to the campus is still gravel, and is almost unnavigable. It's incredible. The guest house, however, where we stayed for the first five nights, is complete, not to mention utterly beautiful inside. My pictures don't do it justice so you'll have to take my word on that.
Campus construction.
Uşak as a town is almost equal parts rubble and new construction (inşaat), with the currently used and maintained buildings of course in the majority. According to our department head, 30 years ago (otuz yıl önce), Uşak was a "village" of about 30,000, but there has been rapid development in the past 20 years. I have no concept of how old the buildings are or what alleyways are interesting. As it is, I can just manage to find my way back to my apartment from the grocery stores on Izmir street and/or "Compulsory Street" (Ismet Pasha Caddesi).
The lands around Uşak, in addition to being home to packs of wild dogs, are dry rolling hills. Today on the bus ride to campus we saw a herd of sheep on the side of one of the hills. It is very scenic (as one of the men who met us on Saturday said, "If you like The Nature, you will like living Uşak"), but I really miss being anchored (pun intended) by some kind of large body of water.
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