The beautiful, deserted village Marona...

The beautiful, deserted village Marona...   Sevgul Uludag   caramel_cy@yahoo.com   Tel: 00 357 99 966518 00 90 542 853 8436   We go in Paphos to the deserted Turkish Cypriot village called Marona… We pass through Fasoula, Mammonia and Ayyorgis to get there… The road leading to this small but pretty village is submerged with water in various places – the area is has so much water that the streams will almost flow through the roads and dirt tracks! Now it is time for the almond trees to be in full blossom in Paphos – white and pink flowers of the almond trees simply take your breath away! Around Marona the almond trees are in full blossom – I learn that the almonds from the white flowers are the ones we can eat, the pink blossom means that these are bitter almonds… We climb up the hill through a bad road, a dirt track… Here you can only hear the wind, feel the proximity of the clouds and there is complete silence and isolation… The birds are singing but the village has been completely abandoned long time ago… The stone houses that the Turkish Cypriots of Marona village left back in 1974 are in miserable condition – they are destroyed and the stones are thrown everywhere… Grass has covered all the roads going through the village – stones that once formed the walls of the houses have been thrown around and are hidden among the grass… There is moss on them so it's quite slippery – that's why we tread carefully, checking where we are stepping on… The area is muddy since there is an abundance of water here… Streams are flowing around, the clouds gather above our heads, the sun peeks a little bit and then disappears – few drops of rain fall – the whole area is so silent… The view from up the hill is breathtaking: We stand next to an antique water fountain built by the British back in 1959 and look down – the valley below is covered with the pink and white almond blossom, the yellow flowers of lapsana, the green grass and the destroyed stone houses. My hands and my ears freeze – up on this hill, the temperature seems lower… The walls of stone houses have been destroyed, their windows and doors taken out, leaving huge gaps where the winds from Paphos can go through… Each stone was picked up with love and care while building these houses, each had a family with a history, each house had laughter and tears, births and deaths... All wiped out completely now, except in the memory of the stones... In each and every one of these houses life used to breathe, children were born and people died in them, women and children would carry water from the fountain, they would cook, they would graze their animals in the fields, take care of their vineyards, collect their carobs, olives and almonds… They would come back home, have something to eat and then sleep. The story of the whole village is engraved on the stones scattered among the grass, on the road going through the village that's no longer visible. Here people were born and people died… Children would grow up and would go to the one room school of the village. The village school, a one room building, stands next to the mosque… Once upon a time here, children learned to read and write, to sing, to count, to paint... The school stands without doors or windows, open to the winds coming from Paphos... Winds that have the memory of laughter of children, the soft voice of the teacher helping them to learn in this beautiful mountain village called Marona... The clouds watch this abandoned, destroyed village with curiosity and from time to time, they would send rains to wash the stones like teardrops coming from the sky… Birds go in and out of empty houses and a pig with its baby are the only animals we see in an empty house turned into a makeshift stable… They are trying to survive on this hill, in this empty house, in this deserted village, completely alone… There isn't even a single human being – back in 1974, people left this village and could never come back. No one embraced this village after that and the village was left without love and care, without people, completely alone… There had been an oil mill in the village but that has been dismantled and taken away long time ago just like the stolen furniture, doors and windows of the stone houses of the village… Marona, the beautiful, deserted village... The earth remembers... The wind remembers... Clouds gather to whisper the lost stories from this deserted Turkish Cypriot village in Paphos... The lonely mosque stands still on top of the hill next to the houses destroyed and left to decay in Marona... Nature covers the paths and roads inside the village - you can't walk straight, everywhere, hidden in the grass are stones from these houses in Marona... Fig trees grow out of houses, grass covers the road passing through the village, the stones hidden in the grass are covered with moss... Left to decay since 1974, this beautiful, quiet, deserted village of Turkish Cypriots in Paphos called Marona is like a symbol of the tragedy in Cyprus... It's like an open wound from the war and it touches my heart. It's as though it is destroyed and left to decay in order to tell us the stories of refugees, of people having to leave their villages, of houses being looted and the loneliness of those houses without life. No one loved this village anymore – the inhabitants, the Turkish Cypriots of Marona had been settled in other villages in another part of the same country – because they were swept away to other parts of this land, they could never return to take care of their village and it stands now, like a monument of shame, telling us what war has brought to this country… The lack of love and lack of care in this country called Cyprus… The lack of sensitivity… The lack of respect to the historical culture of the whole island… 50 years ago, there used to live 3-4 families of Greek Cypriots here. When the inter-communal fighting began at the end of 1963 and as Kuchuk Kaymakli (Omorphita) came under the attack of some Greek Cypriots, the village teacher who came from this area, started speaking harshly against these Greek Cypriots of Marona. He would say harsh things and break their hearts, frighten them and these Greek Cypriot families would gather up their belongings and leave the village… Afterwards, the Turkish Cypriots of Marona would criticize the teacher from Kuchuk Kaymakli because of his behaviour towards the Greek Cypriots… `You shouldn't have spoken like that… What did you want from them? We have good relations with Greek Cypriots here and we want to stay on good terms with them…` they would say to the teacher. The teacher, on the other hand, not knowing the fate of his family from Kuchuk Kaymakli had taken his anger and worries and fears out of the Greek Cypriots of Marona… An old Turkish Cypriot of Marona, who tells me the story says, `If that teacher did not break the hearts and frighten the Greek Cypriots of our village, they would probably stay until 1974 in the village because we used to have good relations, they used to speak Turkish fluently…` Greek Cypriots of Marona would send their children to school at Archimandrita, a nearby village. But when it would rain, the Greek Cypriot children would not be able to walk some kilometres to reach the school in the neighbouring village… `So they would come to the Turkish Cypriot school on those days` the old man would tell me. The `fasariya` of 1963 would bring other changes to the village: Turkish Cypriots from the mixed village of Archimandrita would be frightened because of the situation and one day would leave their village and come to live in Marona… `We opened the houses of the Greek Cypriots who left Marona and settled them there, some opened their stables and stores, some their houses and these refugees stayed with us until 1974` the old man says. 11-12 year old kids who were in their last year in the elementary school could never continue their secondary education say in Paphos since the roads were not safe for them to travel and there was little opportunity for safe transport – so they would lose their choice for a better future… In 1974, the Turkish Cypriots of Marona would be settled in the northern part of the island in Agios Amvrosios (Aygurush – Esentepe) together with Turkish Cypriots of Agios Nikolaos, some would be settled in Masari (Shahinler) and some others in Morphou… Now there is no longer a village called Marona… Those who grew up in this village who remember the valleys and hills, who remember the White Abyss and the Black Abyss, who remember the fountains, trees, birds and stones of Marona, when they leave this earth, there will be no memory of the word `Marona` in the minds of anyone… Their children born elsewhere, they would never know the stories of this village, neither the White Bayrams or Black Bayrams or the Mullasadik families, the three main families of this village… 50 years from now, no one will remember anything about Marona and the wind will take away all the memories, even its name will disappear from the collective memory of this village… Once upon a time, long ago, perhaps this was one of the 60 villages in Cyprus where Maronites lived – later on Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots lived there and now not even a soul except two pigs… Marona breaks my heart – I shall never be able to pass from this area without feeling sad… I collect almond flowers from Paphos and take them home… I put them in the old vase where I had put the laledes (tulips) from Masari… The almond flowers will whisper to me the story of Marona, will remind me of its astonishing beauty, a teardrop will roll down my cheek and Marona will be a pain in my heart that I shan't be able to forget…   17.2.2013   Photo: View from Marona...   (*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 17th of March 2013, Sunday.