Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
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Irrespective of the `agenda` of the island, we continue to move, to show, to investigate, to dig, to try to find out and make sense, to follow the smallest clues, to connect, to reconcile, to bring out the truth, to try to bring some closure to relatives of `missing`, to try to talk some sense to those who breed `fear` and `hatred`, to try to encourage friendship and good relations, to build peace with a human face and a human heart…
Irrespective of the `agenda` of the island, irrespective of the winds and the rains and the heat and the `political manoeuvres`, we continue to roam the island as always, we continue to look and search, to speak and try to understand, to try to make space for `others` to express their needs, concerns, fears and hopes… `Fear` expresses itself as `arrogance` so we need to go deep, deep under the roots to see how those `fears` had been created in the first place…
The `agenda` is like the wind, sweeping people this way or that… The `agenda` created every single day sweeps crowds to think this way or that… Irrespective of this `agenda`, we work, not talk… We work and the work is like digging a hole with a needle but it does not matter since what's important is what goes in our hearts: `Keep your heart clean` was all I heard from my mother, day and night, in and out, year after year… `Keep your heart clean…`
Our island becomes a colourful place with all the flowers blossoming, the sun getting hotter and hotter but every afternoon some sort of breeze coming from elsewhere to remind us that things can change very quickly… We are just travellers on this earth, one day we are here, next day we are not… More and more we hear of people dying of heart attack, of cancer, of amnesia at a young age… Our lifestyle developed in recent years is not sustainable… More and more our geography changes, our demography changes, our environment changes and with all of these, the behaviour of people changes… We no longer recognize the greed and the attempts to jump to a `higher class`, the `posh` lifestyles, the changing relationships… We no longer recognize our neighbours, our friends that we had known in the past and with whom we fell into different tracks… What is it that people want and can't get enough of? Is it money, more and more money? Is it power? More
and more power? Is it status at all costs?
In each meal we can only eat one plateful of food, not two… At the end we cannot bring the `riches` we would acquire during our lifetime to another place… At the end we just go six feet under – irrespective of where we come from so why hurt others, why not live a life sincerely, with honesty, why think of ourselves only and not of the others? Why this greed and pretence?
`Richness is like manure (kubri)` one friend writes, `the more it's spread, the more benefits it gives…`
We sit in a simple restaurant that cooks home food and my friend explains to me what sort of scandals are going on among the `ruling elites` of the Greek Cypriots… He talks of millions of Euros given by a company to some political leaders… We have had similar scandals that people got used to concerning money and greed… The worst disease according to one of my friends is the `learned helplessness` of our communities… Perhaps that's the reason why the winds can blow and sweep things this or that way very quickly… Nothing solid, everything written on the sand and with the waves, everything swept away…
We sit by the sea in Famagusta Boghazi as a multicultural group of friends: Two Turkish Cypriots, one Greek Cypriot, one Armenian Cypriot, Nouritsa Nadjarian… We put one of my jumpers on her, thick and cosy so she would not feel cold with the breeze coming from the sea… The sun is behind her so she would not feel hot… Our heart trembles when we look at her: She is 86 years old, a treasure of wisdom and love for us… She makes us laugh with her jokes and she warms our hearts…
`What has happened in the past has happened, we can't do anything about it` she says… `We don't know what lays in store for us in the future… The only thing we have is today… We should live knowing that all we have is today…`
She looks at the waves and says `Just like our lives… Waves coming and going…`
She has flowers given to her by our friends on our way here – we stopped at Kurumanastir, a village in Mesaoria close to Ebicho (Abohor). He too getting disappointed with people turned to nature and created a wonderful garden full of flowers and birds and turkeys and ducks, we took Nouritsa to look at this garden because she too knows the value of living with nature, within nature… Our friend gives her many flowers, one to put on her dress, a red rose to hold in her hand, a handful of fresh mint so she can smell and refresh herself… We go to Lefkoniko to another friend's house full of flowers… Here too, they cut flowers for her to take back home… She likes the colourful flower pots so we go searching for these pots so she can take back home and give them as gifts… Life is simple if you share it with love, life is simple if you are honest and respect nature and its ways… Nature is gentle, not violent… Nature is elegant offering us its
smells and its beauty without asking for anything in return…
This hard working, strong and at the same time very gentle woman had a tough life but never lost her love…
`Still` she says, `ours is the best country to live… Despite everything, Cyprus offers us such beauty…`
She brings out the innocence and the beauty in each and every one of us because she has a clean heart… When you meet people with a clean heart, they bring out your innocence and your honesty and your own beauty… They bring out the humanity hidden under layers of stereotypes and prejudices… They bring out the natural kindness that humans used to have once upon a time and lost over the years… They bring out the essence of our soul, the human soul, unspoilt, untarnished…
We sit by the sea and listen to the waves, cherishing our friendship… Friendship too needs love and care and sharing… Friendship makes us all more human, brings us more down to earth, cleanses our hearts and souls because we are able to share things that hurt us and things that make us happy…
The eternal waves on the shores of Famagusta Boghazi come and go with an endless cycle… We are only travellers on this earth, one day we are here and next day we are not… `Keep your heart clean` my mother told me day and night, in and out, year after year… Perhaps that's the most important thing she taught me in life and perhaps that's why our heart trembles when we look at Nouritsa: She too has kept her heart clean and we can all read that like a book on this spring day by the sea, listening to the waves and the breeze coming from the sea…
3.5.2014
Photo: Nouritsa Nadjarian on the shores of Famagusta Boghazi...
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 1st of June 2014 Sunday.
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