From Exomedochi to Angastina to Mora…

From Exomedochi to Angastina to Mora…

 

Sevgul Uludag

 

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

 

Tel: 00 357 99 966518

00 90 542 853 8436

 

It was one of my Turkish Cypriot readers who had shown me this area and later on, on the 6^th of July 2010, that is three years ago, I had gone with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee to show them the area and tell them the story.

The uncle of my reader – who was no longer alive – had seen a burial site in this area, just outside Angastina (Turkish Cypriots call it Aslankeuy nowadays) – a military village since 1974. My reader's uncle, who was passing from this area had told him that he had seen 12-14 Greek Cypriot `missing` who had been killed and had remained there for a long time…

On the 30^th of June 2010, I had written in YENIDUZEN newspaper the story that my reader had told me – we had just visited the area with him, alone him and me - since he wanted to remain anonymous. The following week I would go to the same area with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee to show them the possible burial sites that this reader had shown to me.

With my reader who wanted to remain anonymous, first we had gone to Exomedochi (now called Duzova) and there, he had shown me a possible burial site – right after the war in 1974, a group of Turkish Cypriot soldiers were given the task to collect all those killed during the war in Exomedochi to bury them… The Turkish Cypriot soldiers – at least some of them – were from Kuru Manastir village (now called Chukurova) and they had collected and buried the `missing` Greek Cypriots killed in this village. It was a place my reader told me, in the yard of a new mosque being built there, just next to the road… My reader was in panic because a mosque was being built there so he wanted to show me the possible burial site, before it would perhaps be destroyed during the construction of the new mosque for the village. According to my reader, the `missing persons` were buried next to a house – this had been an empty plot but now a mosque was being built in this plot, not close to the possible burial site but still my reader was worried since it might be in the same plot he had said. He wanted further investigation on this and I would show this place, the following week to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee.

Then with my reader we had left Exomedochi and drove to Angastina… From Angastina there used to be a dirt track going to Marathovouno (now called Ulukishla) and close to this dirt track there were some carob trees… The dirt track now is inside the military zone but where the carob trees were was not a military area…

Somewhere in this area, my reader had told me, were buried 12 or 14 `missing` Greek Cypriots. They were piled up here but were not buried for a long time, therefore people from the area had seen them. My reader's uncle – who is no longer alive – had told him that one of the `missing` Greek Cypriots had his leg or his arm in a cast. His uncle had told him that these might have been the `missing` Greek Cypriots from Angastina… `Greek Cypriots from Angastina had very good relationships with Turkish Cypriots and the one in the cast was definitely from Angastina… My uncle remembered seeing him before…`

And these carob trees were called `The carob trees of Ulukishla (Marathovouno)` by Turkish Cypriots from the area…

Some weeks ago, excavations begin under the carob trees but without result. Then one of the Turkish Cypriot investigators, Hikmet Selchuklu, finds a witness who had seen this group of 12-14 `missing` Greek Cypriots in the area that my reader showed us. The witness comes forward to point out where exactly he had seen them. He has exactly the same story that my reader had told me: That this was a group of 12-14 `missing` Greek Cypriots, they had remained where they had been killed for a long time and later buried…

50 meters from where my reader has shown us, the archaeologists start finding the remains of some `missing` persons… When I sit down to write this article they had found scattered remains of three `missing` persons and we hope that they will find all 12 or 14 `missing` from Angastina…

Definitely they are buried in this area and I am grateful to my reader who has shown this place to us for the first time three years ago and grateful to the witness who came forward to point out the exact location of the burial site…

My reader on that same day in June 2010 had also shown me another possible burial site close to Mora… While driving from Famagusta to Nicosia, we would make a turn towards left on a dirt track at the junction of Kuru Manastir-Petra tou Digeni and Kalivakya… This road actually goes to Mora and joins with another dirt track coming from Angastina.

Here, there is a little church and the villagers call it `Kilisecik` (`The little church`). The little church has been destroyed. My reader tells me that one of his close relatives had seen two or three `missing persons` killed in this little church. One of them had the uniform of an officer.

When I make some investigations in the area my readers tell me that the little church were demolished – maybe the `missing persons` whom my reader's relative had seen can be under the rubble? Or were they buried here?

As I publish the story of our visit to this demolished `Little Church`, one of my readers calls me to tell me that, some years ago, as they were trying to put water pipes next to the little church, they had found some human remains… He says:

`I have read your article in today's YENIDUZEN newspaper (30.6.2013) about `The Little Church` and you wrote that 2-3 dead bodies were seen there. This is definitely true since when we were trying to lay pipes for water in that area, I was using the bulldozer I had come across some human remains. This was where `The Little Church` was. This looked like a burial site on the surface. So I had stopped digging and we had shifted the laying of the water pipes a little bit further.

If the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee would excavate the rubble around `The Little Church`, probably they might find the remains of these three persons… Their remains are somewhere there…`

Again, this information had come three years ago and on the same day, that is the 6^th of July 2010, I had shown this area to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee… We had gone to `The Little Church` to discover that it had become the home to goufi snakes – we could see their nests and the skins they had shed…

Now that the teams are digging the area, I hope that they would go in this area as well to check what is around `The Little Church` and to see if they can find the remains of the three other `missing` persons that my reader's relative had seen inside `The Little Church` and another reader had found the bones while digging for water pipes…

I thank all my readers for sharing very valuable information they have with us – with their help, we will continue to investigate to find remains of more `missing persons`, in order to bring some answers and some closure to the relatives of `missing persons` who have been suffering too long in this conflict called `The Cyprus Problem`…

I also would like to thank the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee for starting excavations in these areas…

 

12.10.2013

 

Photo: Exhumations continue in Angastina...

 

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 27^th of October 2013, Sunday.

From Cyprus to Mexico, how our hearts unite…

From Cyprus to Mexico, how our hearts unite…

 

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357  99 966518

00 90 542 853 8436

Cordelia Rizzo from Mexico writes about Cyprus and the `missing persons` and our poetry… In a recent article called `Poems about loss` she draws parallel lines between the losses of Mexico and Cyprus… She takes our poetry and uses it to show how our stories of pain are quite similar with Mexico…

We had connected with her through a friend and I had sent her my book `Oysters with the missing pearls` and last year, we had exhibited the scarves embroidered by the relatives of `missing` persons from Mexico with whom she is working with – we had the exhibition of scarves on the Green Line in Nicosia, at the Cyprus Community Media Centre – every Sunday relatives of `missing persons` from Mexico gather in different towns to embroider the stories of their `missing` on scarves and then they exhibit these scarves. Currently the exhibition of scarves with the stories of `missing persons` is in Barcelona… I invited Cordelia Rizzo to come to Cyprus and stay in my house, to take her around, to look at what we have been doing in Cyprus as an investigative journalist and as civil society and for her to tell us her stories of what sort of activities they have been doing in Mexico about `missing persons`. Although the reasons for people becoming `missing` might differ, the essence is the same since for whatever reason whoever is `missing`, the colour of the pain of relatives is exactly the same… From Cyprus to Mexico we unite our hearts and we try to learn from each other…

In her article entitled `Poems about loss` Cordelia Rizzo from Mexico writes:

 

`These two poems by Fikret Demiragh, a Turkish Cypriot, are included in Sevgul Uludag's compilation of chronicles on the Civil War in Cyprus, Oysters with the missing pearls. Her book groups stories of the aftermath of forced disappearances from both the Greek and Turkish sides of the island during the 70's. Sevgul's meticulous and heartfelt storytelling gives the reader a look at the absurdity of the 'ethnic' conflict.

Much of what is experienced by the relatives of victims in Mexico resembles what the protagonists of this tiny state share with the journalist, and is expressed in the poems. Mexico's war has been represented as the result of an offensive launched to counter the 'insurmountable' battling amongst drug cartels or the excesses of transnational capitalism, but it shares much more with the Cypriots' conflict than those who are the most responsible for the offensive have cared to admit.

Young men, mostly of low-income backgrounds, are dying without having the opportunity to try to live a decent lifestyle within the rules of the formal economy. Lives are cut too short.

Poverty in Mexico has been historically linked with ethnicity. What had been the stimulus for the 1910 Revolution, the fair distribution of wealth -at that time land- is far from being a reality. Guerrero and Michoacán, two of the states which have been devastated the most by the war are home to ancient indigenous cultures. These are communities whose peoples have managed to organize and have taken the task of arming themselves to defend their territories from organized crime and government abuse. Their capacity to do this is also culturally embedded. In the case of places like Cheran in Michoacn, it is closely related to upholding a cultural identity and a source of income: safeguarding the trees.

Hence the lack of opportunities and risk to join drug trade organizations, or be harassed by organized crime, seems to increase if one belongs or identifies with an indigenous group. Racism in Mexico is still a force that hinders economic and social growth. Needless to say, it is an issue that is in the backdrop of the current conflict and a tetchy subject, as it involves a cultural aspect which would imply that society is also responsible.

Fikret Demiragh is a Turkish-Cypriot poet who experienced the war as a soldier and bears testimony to its injustices and arbitrariness. His poems signify the sort of suffering that relatives of the missing undergo. Uludag tells the story of Demiragh in virtue of the value of his testimony, as most of the other stories speak about the direct relatives of the missing. His poetry is also sung, and he is praised for writing for all the Cypriots regardless of their ancestry. `

 

Tragedy of roots and soil

When a root is pulled out it feels remorse,

so does the soil separated from the root,

and a tragedy of flesh and bones emerges

 

however shaken, something will remain in the root

from the soil it has been pulled out,

and in the soil, capillaries will remain from the root.

 

This, because they're not wholy separablefrom the flesh they've left in each other.

The incurable cavity the root has left in the soil,

is the wound the parting son has left in the mother,

and what remains of the soil in the root, is a souvenir

to the one parting.

The root rots far away, while the soil keeps bleeding.

The wounds do bleed of the deserted and the pulled out;

in the son, something does remain of the place pulled out,

from the son, something does remain in the heart of the

mother.

 

Fikret Demiragh

 

Nicosia, 27/7/1983

 

Let's go to sow the wheat of peace

 

You old woman in black! Where are you heading to

with your sad face, like something from the Bible;

where are you going to,

as if you are in a congregation singing hymns?

 

Are you going to cry after your dead ones?

Here is also a mourning Turkish mother;

she is going to wrap a green cover

around the tomb of an unknown saint!

 

We have to go to plough our little land

with your son Nicos,

before we sow the wheat of peace in our homeland!

 

What we need are songs full of the experience of life.

 

Fikret Demiragh

Nicosia 4/9/1987

 

http://nuestraaparenterendicion.com/

 

29.9.2013

 

Photo: Every  Sunday Mexicans gather in different town squares to embroider the stories of their missing persons on scarves...

 

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 20^th of October 2013 Sunday.

All that remains…

All that remains…

 

Sevgul Uludag

 

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

 

Tel: 00 357 99 966518

00 90 542 853 8436

 

Perhaps it was the smell of apricot jam cooking in big pots; perhaps it was the bright oranges or the smell of delicate flowers… Perhaps it was the salty breeze constantly coming from the bathroom window where I would stand or go to sit on the balcony where the rails were painted a light green… Perhaps it was the goldfish, looking up from the pond when I leaned down… Perhaps it was all of it, the cookies my auntie would bake with crushed almonds melting in your mouth, the long walks on the sand, the colour of cream, the smell of coconut suntan oil and the colours on the beach… It was the dream place for me, Varosha… My auntie Fattush would be busy in the kitchen, making jams of all kinds, making preserves, cooking the best food – the women from our family would be perfectionists with food – they would want to do everything by themselves and everything had to be perfect… They knew the secrets of how to prepare food not just to eat but really to enjoy…

My mother would cook roast beef on a very slow heat together with carrots and celery and onions and tomatoes – the smell would fill the kitchen, go out the door and would fill up the whole street! Cats would come and go to check and wait with hope that perhaps they would get a piece! After three hours, she would take out the roast beef from the cooker and use the stock to make pilav rice. As the rice would boil in the stock, the smell would become unbearable, making me wait impatiently for it to cook… I would come and go, come and go and ask when it will be ready and my mother would laugh and joke with me:

`You want me to go under the pot? It won't cook quicker! Don't worry, it will be ready soon…`

Then she would cover the rice with a thick towel and let it rest for 5-10 minutes… Then we would eat, with yogurt as always… The roast beef would be so delicate, it would almost melt in your mouth and the carrots and the celery would be so tasty…

My mother would make date preserves and their smell too would be unbearable – I wouldn't care much about citrus preserves but dates? Are you crazy? Who can refuse to eat date preserves?

First of all the owner of the garden, Yuksel Hanim would telephone her that soon they would cut the dates. Yuksel Hanim is the daughter of `Biyikli` (`The One with the Moustache`) who had a big garden in Chaghlayan – he had been the first to come and settle here perhaps back in the 1930s, to grow vegetables and sell and everyone on Sundays my mother would tell me would go to the `Garden of Biyikli` to watch the mules taking out water from the well and to buy vegetables from there… They had very tall date trees in the garden and we would always go to buy dates or eggs or vegetables from this garden, close to our house.

Having agreed with the daughter of `Biyikli`,  my mother would go to choose the best dates with her hand to make preserves… These would be long, purple coloured dates and while watching TV she would peel them, take out the stones, throw them in a pot filled with water and lemon – she would blanche the almonds in order to fill the dates with them. She would cook the date preserve and the smell and the taste would be amazing… She would fill jars and keep them at the back of our old Prestige refrigerator… Ready to be offered to the guests.

She would always have things to offer to the guests – walnut preserves, cookies she would bake herself, biscuits for the afternoon tea, coffee, lemonade made from our tangerines mixed with oranges and lemons. She would collect the tangerines, wash them, squeeze them and then mix the juice with sugar. One cup juice, one cup sugar, that would be the measurement and I would have to stir, stir for hours, my arm getting tired, for the sugar to melt in the juice and become `lemonade`, something we would drink all summer, adding water over the thick syrup, refreshing ourselves, dipping biscuits in it to eat, cooling off from the scorching heat…

The older I grow, the more I realize I am just like my mother… The behaviour, the way I move in the kitchen, the things I do and I don't do… Things I like and things I don't like… The only thing that remains are these memories… If she had been alive, a few days ago she would have been 96, almost a century old… But she died eight years ago and I still find it hard to believe that she is not here… When someone is alive, we do not think of death, perhaps it's the last thing we would think about… We live and believe that everything would be the same but no! Life happens and death happens and we remain left behind filled with memories – memories of happy times, of sad times, of childhood, of youth, of our mothers, our fathers, our aunties, our uncles, the food we tasted as children, the places we went, the beaches where we swam, the smell of the sea, the caress of the breeze, the warmth of the sun, the sound of the rain… All of it is there, in our memory, never to leave us even if people around us die and leave us alone on this earth, waiting for our own turn to go…

I visited my auntie Fattush from Varosha last year – she now lives in Famagusta… I had not realized how my mother and she looked so much like each other, it was a shock for me – she looked so much like my mother, her hair, the way she moved, the way she sat, the way she spoke. The resemblance was so striking, I held my breath and started crying, thinking of my mother… Of course, they had been sisters, what else did I expect? I could never visit auntie Fattush again because it would be too painful… While my mother was alive, they had been close to each other, my mother going to stay with her for a few days in Famagusta…

Everything has changed now – Varosha is there like a thorn in our skin, `Biyikli's Garden` has been demolished and new apartment blocks have been built there… My mother is gone – the only thing that remains is the things she taught me: How to love the earth, how to love people, how to love the trees and the flowers, how to look at the sky every evening searching for the stars, how to cook for my loved ones wonderful meals – she even wrote a cook book for me that I keep, to help me to learn… All that remains are the memories we have of our times together, a whole life we shared with times of happiness and times of sadness…

We should hug our mothers while they are alive – once they are gone, we become real orphans on this earth…

 

19.9.2013

 

Photo: With my mother on the beach at Varosha...

 

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 13^th of October, 2013, Sunday.

 

A `miracle` in Neachorio Kythrea…

A `miracle` in Neachorio Kythrea…

 

Sevgul Uludag

 

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

 

Tel: 00 357 99 966518

00 90 542 853 8436

 

A `miracle` happens and while the bulldozer is digging for the basis of the construction of a new house, the scoop hits the mass grave hidden there… The bulldozer operator stops immediately, the one having the construction must have a humanitarian heart that he orders the construction to stop and informs the police and the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee immediately. As a result of the `miracle` in the construction site in Neachorio Kythrea (Minarelikeuy) the remains of eight `missing persons` are found.

The excavation team of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee immediately goes there to start exhuming the remains of the eight `missing` persons from the construction site.

This really is a `miracle` - we had come here exactly three years ago together with relatives of some of the `missing` persons from this area. We had shown the area to the officials of the Missing Persons' Committee and had told them the stories around this place. In a house here five persons had been killed and their bodies had remained in the yard of the house for three months, covered with some soil. We had gone with a witness who had seen this – later one the exhumation team would dig around here but had only found a few remains. The mass grave found now as a result of a `miracle` is not farther than perhaps 40-50 meters from where we had gone. If the construction of a new house hadn't been started here, perhaps this mass grave would never have been found or would have been found only as a result of a coincidence. That's why such a `miracle` would be welcome by the relatives of `missing` persons buried here.

We had come to this area on the 3^rd of December, 2010 together with relatives of `missing persons` from Neachorio Kythrea. My dear friend Maria Georgiadou from Kythrea and Fedra from Neachorio Kythrea had helped to gather the relatives so we could visit and they could show us what they knew about various burial sites. We had visited the exhumation site where the remains of seven in one mass grave and two in another had been exhumed and had laid flowers there. Maria had brought white chrysanthemums and Fedra too, had flowers… It was Fedra's father in law who had been `missing` from the area where we laid flowers – a smiling, hardworking, typical Cypriot woman, Fedra was full of love and care and she would pick up the phone and call Angeliki and the others in order to help to show possible burial sites… Fedra had called me after reading one of my articles in POLITIS about the mass grave that one of my readers had shown and the seven and the two, a total of nine `missing` had been found. From my description, she had thought one of them might be her father in law. We had visited her house with Maria Georgiadou who would translate for me what Fedra was saying since she could not speak English. So while talking that day in November 2010, there came out more information about other possible burial sites and that's when we started organizing the group of relatives to come with us to show what they knew. That's how we had gone to Neachorio Kythrea on the 3^rd of December 2010.

On our way to the village Angeliki, a nice old lady from the village had told me what happened. In a house five persons had been killed. They had been in a house and the father of Angeliki, Stelios Papoutsos, together with George Stekkas had gone out of the house as they heard some soldiers had come and called them to come out. They were shot and killed as they got out of the house. The soldiers wanted to `search` the house and old Grigoris and his old wife Chrisanti had been taken out of the house and shot dead on the veranda. Maritsa Efthihis, an old woman who could not get out of the house was shot and killed where she was. Then they had wrapped her in a blanket and took her out. She had been the mother of Eleni who had come with us to the village.

They had taken the villagers to the church close to the house and they had stayed in the church for the night. Next day when they came out of the church, they had seen that the bodies of these five Greek Cypriots were in the yard of the house and they would remain where they are for almost three months. Then, they would be covered with soil.

That day we had explored the area, going to the spot where the remains of the five `missing` had stayed for three months. An exhumation had been done in this area some time ago but not in the spot where Angeliki is showing – near a palm tree, the remains of three `missing persons` had been found, two women and a man. The officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee would explore the area that Angeliki is showing…

Before we would leave that day, a Turkish Cypriot would approach us and tell us that the possible burial site had been `emptied` years ago. Still the area would need to be explored…

And finally, after three years from that visit, the `miracle` happens and the remains of eight `missing persons` are found in a mass grave where a house is going to be built. It is quite possible that among the eight are the five persons who had been killed in the house that Angeliki had told us about. But only through DNA we would know for sure who they might be.

There are two other `missing persons` from this area –at the funeral of the Zervos and Kontos families earlier this year to bury the remains of seven `missing` persons found in the mass grave that one of my readers had shown us, I had met Gogoulla from the village – after the funeral we had started talking and she had told me about her grandmother Rodou and her grandfather George who had been `missing` from Neachorio Kythrea. I would meet Gogoulla and we would go to the village so that she could show me her grandfather's house – I would meet her to interview her about her `missing` grandparents – the last time they had been seen alive was the night when everyone had been gathered in the church – very close to the mass grave that has been found by a `miracle` recently… So we would wonder with Gogoulla whether her `missing` grandparents might have been buried there… Again only through DNA we would know for certain…

 

28.9.2013

 

Photo: This is where the `miracle` happened and the bulldozer found the mass grave…

 

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 6^th of October 2013, Sunday.

From Eftagomi to Kridhia…

From Eftagomi to Kridhia…

 

Sevgul Uludag

 

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

 

Tel: 00 357 99 966518

00 90 542 853 8436

 

Daylight would be giving way to dusk, the early evening hours of one summer day… The heat turning to a cooler evening breeze… They would be travelling on a bike, the two friends from Eftagomi (Yedikonuk as it is called by Turkish Cypriots of the village) to Galatia village nearby in Karpaz. As soon as they would get out of the village riding towards Galatia, the one riding the bike would stop.

`I want to show you something` he would say to his friend.

`What is it?`

`Look to your right… See the cavity and the heap of soil there…`

`Yes…`

`That is where three Greek Cypriots are buried… One of them was the mukhtar of the village…`

The young boy, riding behind the bike would look and see the cavity and the heap of soil…

When he would hear about the mukhtar, he would feel very sad… Because his grandfather had been a close friend of the mukhtar and when one day, the mukhtar was speaking to the young boy and had found out who his grandfather was, he would insist on sending him stuff, gifts from Eftagomi to his old friend… The kindness and the hospitality of Cypriots of old days…

The young boy would never forget: Neither the possible burial site shown to him by his friend, nor the kindness of the mukhtar he had come to know briefly, the friend of his grandfather…

Many years later, he would find me on Facebook and would tell me about this place… He had been reading my stories about the `missing persons` and he too would want to contribute with his information in this humanitarian cause.

I would ask him to show this place to me and to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee.

`Many years have passed but let's go and try to find this place` he would say to me…

So one day last August, we would go, me and my reader from Eftagomi, the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, Murat Soysal, Okan Oktay and Xenophon Kallis…

We would drive through Galatia, through the road where the lake is, pass from the village and go towards Eftagomi…

Many of my readers, at different times had told me that just outside Galatia, driving towards Eftagomi, a group of Greek Cypriots had been killed and buried them somewhere around here… Some had shown a `boridja` - there has been excavations in this area where the said `boridja` was with no results. Some readers would say that they had information about the rubbish damp on this road, that people had been executed and buried there…

Now we go on the same road with my reader – he wants us to go to Eftagomi and then return towards Galatia to try to remember where they had stopped. We do that and he gets out of the car – he is very anxious and trying to remember where they might have stopped on that summer evening… He walks up and down and finally points out a spot…

`I cannot say for certain an exact spot but it must have been in this area` he says…

While Kallis explores the area, Murat Soysal asks him questions in order to refresh his memory, to see whether there was any mark that he would remember… The archaeologists digging in the area for the `missing` also arrive and we also show them the possible burial site of some `missing` Greek Cypriots…

`If his remains are found` my reader tells me, `I would very much like to go to his funeral… He was a good friend of my grandfather…`

We take photographs and coordinates… Kallis, exploring the area for difference in the level of the soil and for cavities, calls out to us to point out a spot which is a bit hollow… We walk up the road and down to check with my reader whether he is pointing out the right area…

`No, we did not go that far…` he says going back to the area that he had pointed out and says, `it must be somewhere here…`

Then we drive to the village Kridhia – I want to take the group and offer them a light lunch at `Garavolli`, an authentic restaurant of this area. I call the restaurant on our way to prepare for us fresh boghrulce beans (fresh black-eyed beans) and kabak (courgette)…

Kridhia is a village from my childhood, the village where my aunt Pembe had got married, where I would spend my summer holidays, going on a donkey outside the village with my aunt's family to collect carobs, to eat patticha (karpuz) with hallumi and bread that my aunt's daughter Havva had cooked in the fourno (oven) in the yard of the house. Coming from Nicosia, I would watch in amazement how Havva Abla would prepare the dough, how she would shape them into bread, how she would make peksimet with sugar and sesame, how she would build a fire in the traditional Cypriot oven in the yard and how she would cook them… I would play with Yusuf, a child about my age, in the yard of the mosque, collecting the sticky gums from the almond trees, putting them in a glass jar to melt in order to use as glue later… Yusuf, my childhood friend from Kridhia would be killed in 1974 and I would remember him each time I would visit the village…

In Kridhia of my childhood I would sleep at night in the yard, in a bed under the stars, covered with a traditional quilt since it would be chilly at night… I would look at the stars and fall asleep, only to wake up to the kukurikous of the cocks in the garden… Havva Abla would go to take the eggs from the henhouse and I would follow her, amazed at everything I saw since I only knew of life in a town as a 6-7 years old child… The donkey, the dogs of the house, the cats, the chicken and the rooster, the wheat they would put in a room, the carobs, everything would amaze me… We would visit a neighbour whose daughters would put tobacco leaves on strings and hang them from the floor and I would smell the tobacco leaves and look at them, mesmerized…

Everything would be fresh, home cooked, prepared by my aunt and her daughter… Havva Abla would name one of her children after my father, calling him Niyazi – my aunt Pembe and my father Niyazi had been very close and we would often visit Kridhia or my aunt Pembe would come to Nicosia by bus to stay with us…

We go to this village, to the small restaurant called `Garavolli`, to eat real Cypriot food and my reader is touched when he sees kappari in vinegar…

`This is how my aunt used to make them` he says…

The restaurant also offers baklava made with carob syrup, something I had never had anywhere else before… In Kridhia they produce their own carob syrup, thick and sweet… Alkan Kilitkayali, the owner of the restaurant and his wife bake their own bread twice a week so everything is still home-made in Kridhia…

`I thought I was going to faint when we were looking for the possible burial site` my reader tells me.

`I think you have done something very good` I tell him, `it is such a humanitarian act…Thank you so much for doing this…`

`All these years, I was thinking of this place` he says… `I hope they find him…`

`I hope so too…`

We leave Kridhia, the village of my childhood to go back to Nicosia…

I thank my Turkish Cypriot reader for showing us the possible burial site of some `missing` Greek Cypriots and I thank the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee for coming with us to the possible burial site to investigate…

 

15.9.2013

 

Photo: The road between Eftagomi and Galatia...

 

(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 29^th of September 2013 Sunday.