Epistle from Cyprus X - 30th January 2007

Otto’s Rolls-Royce

I have mentioned Otto’s coffee shop on several occasions earlier. The tradition of the coffee shop has been described as far back as the 9th century as the “meeting places of a circle of pleasure seekers and idlers” and I suppose that about sums it up.
Although it is called a coffee shop it also serves soft drinks, beer, wine and other the local fire water. The primary attraction for the ex-pats that patronize the premises is the fact that the beer is cheaper than any where else we have found on the island. However the main function for the locals is as a meeting place after they have been to church on Sunday morning or to while away the late afternoons and to sit, chat and play backgammon. They drink Cypriot Coffee and a type of hot almond cordial drink. Otto prepares these hot drinks on what he describes as his ‘Rolls-Royce’. This is a basic gas heated ring with a metal plate containing sand and mounted by a chrome water cistern. As I mentioned in a previous epistle a Cypriot coffee cup about the size of a thimble and served with a glass of cold water. The coffee is prepared using a long handled dipper and slowly brewed in the sand on the metal plate.

Otto's Rolls-Royce in action preparing sausages. Mmmm sausages...

As with tea making in exotic locations of China, Japan and England the coffee making is an art and it has many traditions and superstitions associated with it. The coffee must be served with a creamy foam on top of it. This is especially true when it is served to a friend. If the coffee boils and the foam disappears it may portend the end of a long friendship. Best stick to bottles of beer I say you are pretty safe with that and it is so much easier to prepare.
Otto’s Rolls-Royce is quite utilitarian. It is used to bake potatoes, cook mushrooms, prepare kebabs, light cigarettes and heat the place. One of the few things it does not do is drive. He calls it his Rolls-Royce because its predecessor was old-fashioned!

Out on the town – alone.

Recently I had another opportunity to visit Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus. The Greek name for Nicosia is Lefkosia however the uppercase Greek letter L is Λ and there appears to have been a corruption or anglicization of the name.
Since 1974 Nicosia has been a divided capital. Like post-war Berlin it is divided by a wall. Here it separates the Turkish Cypriots in the north from the Greek Cypriots in the south. To the north of the city in the Turkish controlled area are the central Pendadaktylos mountains. Pendadaktylos means five fingers which describes the supposed shape of the mountains.

On the nearest slope the Turkish Cypriots have cut a giant flag which can be seen from the southern part of Nicosia. The flag acts as a red rag and permanent reminder to Greek Cypriots in the south of the division. There are check points and border guards and a United Nations buffer zone between the two parties. The buffer zone is dilapidated and bullet scarred. North and South eye each other through windows and watch towers. On this occasion a drunk was entertaining the Greek Cypriot guards with his antics while those across the divide were taking their job much more seriously.

Here is the border wall complete with guards, viewing point and drunk.

However I was not here to monitor the border guards or resolve Cyprus issue. I was alone in the big city. I now remember why I usually go with H. She acts as regulator and reality check.
On my own I am transfixed by the bright lights. I become transformed into Homer in the Land of Chocolate. I am a butterfly in a rose garden, a town dog let loose in the forest. I wander from one shop window to another attracted by the next piece of glitter and eye-candy.
There is a sweater I need a couple of those. Look a Zippo lighter that would be fun. Oh a digital voice recorder I don’t have one of those. How about a Cartman doll that would raise my Cool Quotient (CQ) quite a bit? Wait a minute what about that sheepskin jacket. I have promised myself one for years. Look a digital voice recorder… oops I have been to this shop window once already. Surely I must be meant to have one. Hang on there is a pair of skis. Wouldn’t that be something to buy skis in Cyprus and even more CQ. There are some Wayne Rooney football boots for me and a Scaletrix race track for the boys.
Wait a minute…A Zippo lighter? I don’t smoke. Scaletrix for the boys? The youngest boy is 20 years old (though no doubt they would both fight over it anyway) and the chances of skiing in Cyprus are at best remote. A Cartman doll? What was I thinking of? A digital voice recorder? Good grief that could only be used to provide evidence against me and I would be locked away.

Eventually exhaustion takes over and the retail fever passes. I photograph some stray cats by the city library and settle for minestrone soup and a tuna salad in a side café near the wall that divides the city. At least my daughter will like the pictures of the cats.

For D. A stray kitten outside the Nicosia library.

A trip to the mountains

One Sunday I decided to take a trip to the mountains. I had a quick glimpse at the map and looked at the place where the roads ran out and the rough tracks began. That was as far as my little car would get if I was lucky. I headed up along the small back roads that H. does not like to drive. These are very rough and narrow even by Cypriot standards and often have steep drops on one side or the other. As I headed up the scenery became greener and greener and the air cooler and clearer.

I have remarked on this before but it is amazing how green Cyprus is in the winter. I am sure a visitor from northern Europe would think it brown and drab but when it is compared to the same place in the summer months the transformation is wonderful.
I drive through one small village (Choulou) with it's abandoned mosque and an old lady stands in a doorway chatting to her neighbour while a lamb struggles under her arm. That reminds me of one of something that I miss from England. With mint sauce.

The mosque at Choulou

I head further up and pass a shepherd sitting alone on a hillside. He or she is completely wrapped in a head scarf and the goats run freely across the hill and in front of the car. This is the 21st century and you can still find a job as a lonely goatherd if you look hard enough.

Goats wandering in the road.

Once again there are deserted villages here. They appear to have been empty since the island became divided in 1974. I visit one of the monasteries again. I have been to this one before but I still enjoy coming here. They are so peaceful and quiet. Well quiet that is except for the sound of gunfire that echoes around the mountains. This is Sunday remember and the hunters are out and about.

Ayios Fotios one of the deserted villages

As I drive from one village to another I go up and down the mountains and my ears are popping with the change in pressure. Even in these remote locations with the villages well spaced you can still find a determined cat that has managed to enter the third state. There is so little traffic here I wonder just how it did it.
OK now I am at the end of the road. I enter a small village called Galataria and I see an old lady in the road winding wool into a ball. I haven’t seen this since I was a child. I now have sufficient Greek so I can ask her if it is OK to take her photograph. She looks at me like I am the village idiot from the next town but politely agrees. Did I never see anyone wind wool before?

'Thea' winding wool from her knees into a ball.

Fortunately she does not continue the conversation because I have used up all my stock phrases.
I can look out from this village to the Troodos mountains and the forest across the valley. There are no more villages here just an occasional isolated farm and here the road becomes a track.

Civilization is down there somewhere across those hills.

Time to head back to civilization? Well time for dinner certainly.

Enough for now and 2 points for the other Homer Simpson reference.

Epistle from Cyprus IX - 9th January 2007

Ah the new year. Just time for a short epistle. A time for resolutions and new starts. Time to make a clean breast of things. Confession is good for the soul and all that so let me get on with it.

The following confession may come as something of a surprise to some reading this after all I have said in previous notes. Some will gloat and rub their hands and say he is only getting what he deserves after all that bragging. And that may be true.

Cyprus is cold in the winter. Very cold. Let me clarify. Yes it is still warm. Today for example it was 18C (64F) but as soon as the sun goes down it gets cold. Then to make matters worse Cypriot houses are not designed for the cold. They are meant to be lived in when it is 35C. They are large and airy with high ceilings exactly the opposite of what is required in the winter.

During the afternoons I sit and bask in the sunshine safe inside full length windows. Yet all the time I am waiting for the moment when the sun goes down and the house becomes cold enough to preserve meat.

Heaven knows I have tried to warm up the place. I have two gas fires, numerous electric heaters, even the air conditioning turned up to 26C and all is completely useless.

The house has an open fireplace so I ‘obtained’ a large supply of wood and logs thinking to sit by a cosy log fire. All I succeeded in doing was smoking myself out and ended smelling like a Manx kipper. Despite the cold I was forced to open all the windows and it still took 3 days to get rid of the smell of burning.

A man with a lampshade on his head watching TV and trying to keep warm.

There it is out in the open. You can enjoy the schardenfreude and I will enjoy the catharsis.

What a lovely word: ‘catharsis’. And now I will use it as often as possible as I now know the Greek origin which is Καθαρός (katharos) meaning clean or pure.

It has become apparent during my halting efforts to learn Greek that there are very few Greek words in English. Those that did slip through tend to be restricted to medical and scientific text books. Anthropology, gynaecology, paediatrics, gerontology, dendrochronology are but a few. Definitely not the sort of words that come up in regular conversation. Even when I do recognize the word the pronunciation is usually quite different. If only I had been told at school that a dodecahedron was actually a thothekahethron it would all make so much more sense.

Enough for now.

Happy New Year

Χρόνια Πολλά (Chronia Polla)