MEDITERRANEAN MEANDERINGS
7TH FEBRUARY 2010

It has been a beautiful week here – much warmer outside than in. Yesterday was so lovely that people were actually jettisoning their jumpers. However, it was terribly easy to spot the tourists as they had resorted to shorts and T-shirts and it definitely wasn’t that hot. The sun is so warming, but there is still a chill wind and today we have gone back into another cold spell (although I am well aware how relative this is to the UK). It is freezing inside the flat and my halogen heater decided to blow up a few days ago. I managed to get out to buy another one yesterday, as it is cheaper to buy a new one than to run the heating through the air conditioning. It is no wonder that the prices go up so much for holiday lettings in the summer – the majority of the money will be just to cover the air conditioning bill! I am sitting here writing this with a huge sweatshirt on, my hot pillows stuffed inside it and the halogen heater aimed at my back, so hopefully by the time I finish I will have begun to warm up – otherwise I will just have to go out and get some warmth.

It was full moon last weekend, and I always love this time as it shines right through the window at the front of the apartment and then in through the side window as it moves around. What I really love though is watching it as it starts to wane. In the UK the crescent moon is always to the side, but here it is to the top or bottom. A very minor thing, but one that reminds me that I do actually live on the other side of Europe now.

I have re-read my blogs and I realise that I have been very unfair to the Cypriots. The trouble is I come from a very arrogant British point of view. The British have spent the last 200 years (at least) being at the forefront of progress with the Industrial Revolution and it is only by seeing what a mess we have made of the world that we can move our jaundiced eyes onto doing something about it. In stark contrast Cyprus has only really been in the ‘modern world’ for the last 20 years. Up until that time, outside of the cities, the main mode of transport was still by donkey, and there are a few Donkey Sanctuaries where the last of these valiant beasts are in retirement. Nearly the entire Republic has been built in this time and to the Cypriots this is all ‘new’. It is no wonder after leading such a harsh life that they are making the most of the modern conveniences. They are also still very much a country at war – if not overtly then certainly in their own hearts and minds. The atrocities of 1974 are still very vivid in the memories of many of them – especially here in Famagusta (Ammochosta to the Greek Cypriots, Magusa to the Turkish Cypriots) and the evidence is in front of them every day to keep it fresh.

They have a lot to put up with from the British. Not only did we colonise them for many years, but they still have to put up with our military presence here – and now a huge Ex-pat presence who all think (including, I am ashamed to say, myself) that we know best. To cap it all the archives were published from 1974 this week and they show that James Callaghan knew two days before the Turkish Invasion that it was to happen and did not warn them. Even with my policy of peace and love I think that is hard to understand.

This is very poignant here. I live abutting the UN buffer zone and you often see UN Military Police pootling about. From the beach at the bottom of my road you can see along the bay into the Ghost Town of Famagusta. This is very eerie – especially on bright sunny days when the beaches should be teeming with people. In August 1974 Turkish planes opened fire on the inhabitants of Famagusta and they had to flee for their lives, while the tanks rolled in all around them. It is now part of Northern Cyprus, but the Turkish government has surrounded it with barbed wire and it has not been entered for 36 years. This was one of the largest cities in Cyprus (admittedly only about the size of Hove) and the hotels and houses still have their tables laid and their doors wide open. There are department stores still carrying all the stock that was so fashionable in the mid 70s and there is talk of a car dealership that still has its full complement of 1974 models waiting on the forecourt. The people of the Ammochosta area have had to rebuild their lives from nothing – they were never able to return to their homes to recover their worldly goods and yet they are still kind to us. Could we all say we would behave as generously – we can only hope that we never have to find out.

I am still not sure of the history behind the invasion, as it is quite difficult to get unbiased information here, which is very understandable, so I am not sure who has the most claim, but – given my issues with territory belonging to ‘nations’ anyway - I am not sure why the Cypriots, whoever they are and with whatever religious background they have, cannot have Cyprus for themselves without having to consider any outside Authority. Such a beautiful country should not have to harbour so much hate and bitterness.

While I am ranting about Nations interfering where they do not belong I am just going to briefly say: medals for MPs who go into war zones, are they having a giraffe! If they are prepared to send other people to places where they have no right to be to kill and get killed they should all be on the front line anyway! OK that’s over with for now, I just had to get it off my chest.

I borrowed Scruffy this week to go for a nice long walk in the gorgeous sunshine (despite the political musings of my last few paragraphs I do still love it here, honest!). It is always good to walk with a dog, as people don’t look at you as though you are completely mental for not being on wheels of some sort. We went to our favourite spot at Agia Triada beach and then walked home through the back streets of Kapparis past the ‘Ian Rush Football Academy’ that I don’t think has ever seen Ian Rush. As we turned up the empty roads towards this venerable establishment Scruffy went mental. There was a chicken happily (until it saw Scruffy) ambling up the middle of the street. This is quite a posh area of Kapparis (obviously why I don’t live there) and is more or less completely empty at the moment until the wealthy come to enjoy one of their many homes in the summer. Anyway I kept Scruffy off the chicken and I last saw it scurrying in the opposite direction, so I hope it got home safely.

It was the Annual General Meeting of the charity I have been volunteering for this week. Despite my protests (sorry had to stop and feed the birds who were gathering on my balcony and reheat my pillows) I was coerced into attending. It was in a stunning area of Paralimni which I had never been to before so that was a bonus. Unfortunately I had been listening to a comic play on the radio the night before called ‘Charity Ends at Home’ which was about how ambitious and ruthless the people who are involved in charity work can be and, needless to say, they all ended up trying to sabotage the rival charities’ good works. So I was a bit uneasy when I went in. All I can say is that although art exaggerates reality the ideas have to come from somewhere.

Something I have been trying to do this week is to look at my horizons. I was reading a Paulo Coelho book the other day and in it he talks about how we all spend so much time looking at our feet that we never look up and expand our horizons. This really rang a bell with me because I am constantly looking at my feet to ensure that I don’t trip up. So I have been consciously walking this week – similar in a way I suppose to a walking meditation. He was right (as he so often is) the world is a lovelier place when you look where you are going. When on the wasteground I did still look at my feet fairly often as I couldn’t bear the thought of treading on any of those fabulous huge black beetles that scurry out in front of you constantly, and there are metal rods sticking up every so often which I really didn’t want to trip over; but there is also lots of beauty to look at on the ground if you are paying attention. There are some delightful flowers and I noticed poppies that I didn’t know grew in Cyprus. When I was heading westwards I looked towards the hills behind Pernera and onwards to Protaras (although you can’t see the towns themselves). I appreciated the dusty terracotta beauty of the earth, with the windmills standing at random points across the farmlands. Heading north towards Paralimni I focused on the amazing Byzantine architecture of the local churches. They are so brightly coloured and are rounded rather than angled. I wonder if the architecture of an area reflects its weather? The grey Gothic churches in the UK, with their sharp points seem to reflect the harshness of the climate, while the bright curved churches here seem to represent the sun. (These are different from the beautiful white rounded churches that tend to be built right on the coast and which, to me at least, appear to be redolent of waves.) To the south there is the beauty of the Mediterranean. This week the sun and the wind combined to make the water both turquoise and choppy, which was just amazing. I tried to stretch my imagination across the horizon to Lebanon, which I have been told is only a short distance away, but I couldn’t quite get there. However, the biggest joy is when I am heading eastwards. The fingerboard of the Cypriot guitar stretches out as far as you can see. The hills embrace the bay and change colour depending on the time of day. You can see the towns nestling at the feet of the hills and the trees wending their way up the slopes. It is truly a gasp out loud moment in which you really appreciate the sheer beauty of the planet on which we live. I had to get a taxi back from the Supermarket yesterday as I couldn’t carry the heater and the driver was one who had driven me around in my first few days to get out to the telephone company. He asked me whether I regretted moving out here. I held up my hand as we turned into Dangerous Bend and together for a split second we looked at the sun glinting on the sea and the purple of the hills across the bay and we both just smiled and sighed. George, the driver, is a Cypriot who has lived here all his life and he was saying that he never tired of the view and that he really couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. It is this amazing joy, appreciation and love of their island that I think is part of the reason that it hurts so much not to be able to visit the land they grew up in, whilst having to look at it, in all its glory, every day.

So my precious people I hope that you too will find something in your environment to appreciate this week. I hope that your horizons expand and that you find yourself amidst a miracle as I have.