Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436
Days and weeks fly by with calls from readers known and unknown to me, new information flowing in, information kept hidden in their hearts and minds for so many years…
One reader has just tried to acquire some land outside Kyrenia and was warned by some villagers that there might be a burial site where he was trying to buy… He wants to show me this place…
Another reader calls telling me of a possible burial site in Gerolakkos… His mother-in-law, while chatting started talking about this place he says… His mother-in-law, a refugee from the southern part of our island had come to the northern part of our island after the war and `population exchange` in 1974. She had been settled in a house at the edge of the football field, he describes to me… Perhaps the football field did not exist then but was built afterwards or perhaps it was there… I need to check on that. When they moved to this house in Gerolakkos, the house was on columns and nothing underneath… At the back garden, there had been a place that looked like it had been dug recently… A hole opened up and then covered… That had been the impression of his mother-in-law…
`The place has changed` he explains to me… `Now that house is not what it looked like back in 1974… And my mother-in-law does not live there any longer… I can take her to Gerolakkos and we can show you this place that had created suspicion in her mind… And you can check whether this is actually a possible burial site…`
I thank him and tell him I will call him when I arrange with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee to visit together…
Another reader calls to tell me that people had been talking about Aghirdagh…
`They saw a piece of news in the newspaper saying that five had been found in Aghirdagh…`
`Yes, I know, I saw that – it was not accurate this piece of news – I think it was from Fileleftheros newspaper – the place was Boghaz, not Aghirdagh… It was the `gamini` where the remains of five `missing` Greek Cypriots had been found… Somehow the Greek Cypriot newspaper wrote instead of Kyrenia Boghazi, Aghirdagh…The information about this `gamini` had come from a map that one of my readers had drawn…`
But maybe if Fileleftheros did not confuse the burial site, there would not be talk about Aghirdagh in the coffee shops of Aghirdagh! And we would not be able to find out another possible burial site there…
`Remember the place I had shown you in Komurdju (a place next to Aghirdagh) where remains of five `missing` Greek Cypriots were found?` he asks…
`Yes… I remember…`
`Well, when this piece of news supposedly about Aghirdagh came out, some people from Aghirdagh remembered Komurdju and told me of another area that you need to check… Please come whenever you want and I will show you this new possible burial site…`
`You know, the `gaminis` in Komurdju that you had told me about, I heard that the owner did not allow the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee to dig in these `gaminis`… Let's hope that he will give his permission to dig in the future…`
`You should check all the `gaminis` in the area of Boghaz, Aghirdagh and Komurdju` my reader tells me… `There are a lot of people buried in the `gaminis`…`
`I know… I hope we can do that… I will call and visit you… Thanks so much…`
Another reader comes to my house to visit and he tells me another story about Kyrenia Boghaz.
`In 1974, did you know that they had buried some `missing` Greek Cypriots to the right side of the military cemetery?` he asks me.
`Actually we had gone to a close by coffee shop and a witness came to talk to me and to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee. He had been serving there in the 80s I think and one night after heavy rains, he had fallen into a big hole with some remains… He described and showed us the area to the right of the military cemetery…`
`Yes maybe this could be the edge… I heard from someone who served there for many years that above the burial site they had built a helicopter pad that is not actually used…`
`Thanks… We will investigate…`
Days go by like this, readers calling, readers helping, readers wanting to share things that have been kept locked up for decades…
In Kormakitis at the `Yorgo Kasap Restaurant`, another reader finds me, someone I don't know…
`I had been meaning to call you but since you are here` he says, `I want to tell you a story about the 50s… It's about the killing of someone whom the Greek Cypriots thought that the Turkish Cypriots had killed. It happened in Karabuba Street in the walled city. Actually it was some Greek Cypriots who had killed that Greek Cypriot… I want to tell you about the witness to this…`
`Please give me your number so I can call you and we can arrange to meet` I tell him.
In Kormakitis, the owner of the restaurant Christina, a wonderful Maronite Cypriot who is also a butcher takes me by the arm and says, `Come and I will show you something…`
She makes the best yogurt, the best talari cheese and the best anari in Cyprus… She had explained to me that she uses wood to cook the old way, that's why there's a smoky smell to anari and yogurt when you eat – nothing is `industrialized` here but home cooked with lots of love and care… Kormakitis itself had been thriving as the leader of the whole area – it always had rain, had good soil, good products and people from surrounding villages used to come here to trade… After 1974, Kormakitis had become a sort of a `hostage`, gradually dying, losing its population but those who remained did everything to survive on their own land and not to leave… After the EU membership of Cyprus, Kormakitis became a better place to live – in the past the Turkish Cypriot authorities did not even allow a single telephone in the village but now people are coming back, renovating their houses in this very pretty and unique village…
Christina is one of those who had remained and survived in Kormakitis… She takes a long iron, used for the fireplace and with it, points to a photo hanging on the wall and explains to me:
`See that? That was my mother… She was pregnant and she had brain cancer and she was taken to Greece for treatment. She died there… The baby also died… She was buried in Greece… We searched for her grave, could not find it… I was merely a 13 year old girl back then, when my mother died at the age of 35… I had two younger brothers, one 11 and one 8… I had an elder brother, 15… We were four kids… Now 49 years later, we found out that her bones were removed and buried elsewhere and we got some soil from the place she had been buried… Three weeks ago we had a ceremony to bury that soil in a grave… For 49 years, I did not say `mother` but when I was burying her, I cried and cried and said `mother` maybe a thousand times… I swear to you, I was thinking of you and what you are doing and how you are trying to give back the remains of the `missing persons` to their relatives… I was thinking of the good things you are doing… May God
give you strength to carry on…`
She has made yoghurt for me and some anari (cheese) and we sit down with my friend Christina Pavlou Solomi Patsia and her husband and my husband and my son to eat the tender meat cut and prepared and cooked in the traditional Cypriot oven by the owner of the restaurant Christina… The restaurant is packed and her daughter Maria is serving the customers with a big smile… Christina too, has a smile for everyone… Whoever comes here, goes away happy and always with a smile… They have very good food but it is not that, that makes people happy… It is the humanity and warmth of Christina and her daughter Maria that makes this place boom with happiness… The crowd is always multicultural: Turkish Cypriots, Greek Cypriots, Maronites, Turks from Turkey, Greeks from Greece, tourists from all over the place come to eat in this restaurant and to look at the only `thriving` village of the Maronites, that is Kormakitis…
We show Christina's husband Vassos the area and explain to him the story of the Maronites – the story of Agia Marina, Asomatos, Kormakitis… We take him to Livera to show him the makeshift `lighthouse` - we stand at the Cape Kormakitis and take photos by the `lighthouse` where there is graffiti saying `The End`… And then we go to Agia Irini to show him the beach – there is a strong wind and the sea is rough… The sea is a dark blue with white froth from the waves – they come and go and the wind whispering eternally to us, stories from these shores… We pass through Kondemenos and tell him the stories from there… Vassos had never been in this area so we show him so he can take back the greenery, the flowers, the rough sea and the tender and heart-breaking stories of Maronites in his heart back to Limassol… We end the week on this note, sharing our country, our beauty and our tragedy…
16.3.2014
Photo: Christina from Kormakitis...
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 13th of April, 2014 Sunday.攀
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