Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436
Today I want to share with you the touching story of a young refugee boy from Paphos, moving from Paphos to Nicosia and then to Kyrenia back in 1975 and finding a sweet orange tree in the yard of the house they settled in Kyrenia. Metin Erduran wrote this story in our newspaper YENIDUZEN's weekly magazine ADRES and I am sharing his story with you… Here's what Metin Erduran wrote:
`It was the year 1975. It was the year after the war. I had just become fifteen years old. Our family was one of those families who were thrown here and there due to the population exchange. All of a sudden we had found ourselves in a very old Armenian house in Trachona area in Nicosia. Ktima, Paphos where I had been born and grew up was so far away. Now we had become `Sheherli` (`from the city`). I was just about to get used to the atmosphere and the people of Nicosia and my new school that my father was giving us news of becoming refugees a second time: We were moving to Kyrenia.
I remember the day we moved to Kyrenia with merely a small truckload of belongings. It was a stifling day left over from the summer. When we reached the house there awaited a very big disappointment. We had left a newly built, modern house but in the house we were moving into had the date 1925 on it. Somehow our luck in the northern part of the island was always for the old… But at least this house was the choice of my father – the Armenian house was chosen for us by the temporary authority of that time. All the members of my family had a feeling of being heartbroken except my father. Because my father always wanted to live in Kyrenia…
The house had a wide garden. We threw ourselves to the garden, as though looking for some solace. There were a few tangerine trees and lemon, five or six pomegranates, an apricot and an orange tree. The orange tree attracted me immediately, perhaps because I love oranges.
It looked a bit desolate but it was clearly a young tree. Its branches were thin but full of yellow oranges. Probably the former owners did not take care of it much…
Immediately I picked an orange and peeled it and ate it quickly. The taste was so good… Apparently this was a sweet orange tree, a taste quite different from the oranges we had been eating. I had never eaten a sweet orange in my whole life. It was like lokoumi! I picked one more and then another one and ate and then another one without realizing that my stomach was becoming davouli! I remember sitting there for a while, under the sweet orange tree. On the earth I had drawn ships, plans and houses… When I got up, I felt better, it was as though my morale had improved. I liked both its taste and its branches, its stalk, its leaves, its earth where its shadow fell… After that day the sweet orange tree became a friend with which I shared my worries. Time for fruit, time for watering, time for trimming and as the time flew by, this orange tree became more valuable for me. Whenever I got some bad news and felt sad, I would come under this sweet orange
tree and cry under it secretly. When I had lost my grandfather I loved so much or when I could not win the entrance exams to the university or when I missed my friends from Paphos, I would always come and sit under this sweet orange tree and look for consolation.
I said `grandfather`, I remember the cosy winter nights… In front of the fireplace I would listen to his stories of the past with big attention… I would learn so much about life from what he told me. Unfortunately he had lost his sight a few years after he crossed over to the northern part. It was not easy to uproot an old tree and try to re-root it elsewhere… He was feeling so sad from being uprooted from the land of his ancestors… When it was time for oranges, he would always ask for sweet oranges and then he would continue his stories. Whether rain or mud, I would take our old style fanari, go out in the garden, collect the oranges, peel them and give them to my grandfather…
I spent almost ten years in Ankara studying… In those times we could only come twice a year, once in February and once in the summer. There was no cell phones or internet in those times. I was writing letters to my family. It was a real pleasure writing letters. Especially receiving a letter from Cyprus. After asking about the family, I would then ask about the garden and our newly bought Lancer car. Because these were the two things I loved most. As soon as I would come for holidays, I would run to the garden to my sweet orange tree. I would climb on it and each time exaggerate, eating so many oranges…
After graduation, I found myself doing my military service for two years. Because I was an officer, I could come often to my house in Kyrenia. Time for pomegranates, time for figs, time for apricots, I could always find something to eat in the garden. But even if it was not the time for oranges, I would still go and look at my sweet orange tree. My father would trim it, take care of it and water it. Each time my shoes would get muddy and I would bring this mud in the house but my mother would never get angry with me… She was happy that her son had come home…
After I finished my military service, it was time to make a living. I would have a big disappointment when I applied to get a job in the civil service and I was turned down – I went to a bank and would ask for credit. We had no money. I needed credit… I got the credit and finally I opened my laboratory with a simple ceremony. My mother had made borek, pilavouna and other delicacies and I had squeezed sweet oranges… Our guests would eat and drink these and I would begin my working life. Later my son Erdoghan was born – we were still staying with my parents… My son was breastfed with his mother's milk and vegetable soup. As his doctor the late Alpay Shah suggested some fruit juice, the address was clear: My dear old sweet orange tree. We would collect a lot of oranges, squeeze and have my son drink it. Then my small son Erdi was born: His menu was also mother's milk, soup and sweet orange juice… Then cousins and neighbours so there was
almost no one who had not drank this sweet orange juice.
I had a big dream since I had started working and that was to build a big and modern laboratory that our community would appreciate. I lived with that dream for many years. After working for 20 years, now was the time to realize that dream. I had the plans drawn up by my talented architect. I had described my dream to him and he had drawn up my dream. But we had a big problem. We were going to build in the garden of our house and we had to cut many of our fruit trees. It was extremely difficult to take that decision. But I had one condition to the constructor: That they would not touch my sweet orange tree, that it would be protected. My father had a similar condition, that they would not touch his date tree… It took years to finish this project and finally as the calendars showed the date 15th of May 2010, our first patients started coming to our new building. We were all very happy, especially me…
I had ordered a wooden sitting area for my visitors… I took care of my sweet orange tree – I must help it to live as long as possible…
It is the year 2014. Again it is autumn… It is the 28th of September, my birthday and I am sitting next to my sweet orange tree. I have whites among my hair now and my tree has grown old… Its body has become think, it has become shorter and there is gum coming out of its body. Still it continues to give me peace and harmony. Every morning before I start work, I drink my coffee under my tree, I go ever the sweet and bitter memories we lived through with it. Although my tree does not talk, see or hear, it is better than many people who have these feelings – my tree is much more understanding, patient and peaceful than most… As I sip my coffee I look at my building and at my tree… One of them was my dream and my future, the other is my memories and my past. I can't give up either of the two and both are my joy of life…`
26.10.2014
Photo: Metin Erduran having his coffee under his sweet orange tree...
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 16th of November 2014, Sunday.
No comments:
Post a Comment