Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
Our dear friend Orestis Agisilaou is a `role model` for everyone… On Facebook, you can see on different days where he is and with whom…
He is with friends, his friends from Kyrenia or Boghazi or Limassol or Larnaca or Karpaz… You can see him in the houses of his friends with a big smile inviting us and making us sit and think how he manages to keep that strong bond going with so many people in this broken island…
He has the secret of life: Friendship is more important than anything else on this island – it is our friendship that counts not enmity…
Yesterday I saw his photos on Facebook again – this time he was in the Kyrenia Boghazi and he was posing at the wedding of his friends… He had become a witness – "the best man" - at the ceremony. Those who were getting married were Turkish Cypriots and the witnesses were two Greek Cypriots, one of them, Orestis. I asked him to write down his feelings and send it to me and he did… Orestis says:
"For us - the peace lovers - this period that we pass maybe is the most sad and pessimistic one since many years. Our politicians once again showed that they are short of the circumstances and they didn't manage to bring a positive result to Cypriot people, the thing which could bring again the smile to them after so many decades. Once again Cypriot people went until the fountain but they didn't success to drink water... But Cypriots are always a step further from our politicians. Even without solution thousands of people have managed to make peace first of all with themselves and after with the other community. Many strong friendships pull down a part of the wall of the shame every day. For many people the real peace, love and trust is more important than the percentage of the federal states of Cyprus...
Another part of the wall of the shame pulled down today, 30th of November 2016. Two Greek Cypriots, my beloved friend Chrystalla and me, became best men at our best friends Sevinch and Mustafa's wedding. The wedding took place in the Boghaz village in Kyrenia together with some relatives and friends of the couple. This fact could be normal in another country but in Cyprus - if it is not unique- it's something very unusual. That's why we were two times excited and happy. Now we have the opportunity to become with our best friends something like relatives, without their language and their religion being problem. Many people - especially from the Greek Cypriot community - could characterize us as "unexisting best men" because this wedding took place in an unrecognized state, with unrecognized authorities etc. Whatever people say, the only thing that it's not unrecognized is our pure feelings. I hope that we managed to send the message that real peace will come only if you let her to come. If some people have managed to do that, means that everyone can do it...
To sum up, I would like to wish to my best friends Sevinch and Mustafa health, happiness and to achieve every goal that they have. I hope and wish many other people to follow our example, as people's relations is the strongest tool to destroy the wall that divides our souls for decades..."
I too congratulate both Sevinch and Mustafa, as well as Orestis and Chrystalla for showing the way to our leaders: Our communities have always been more progressive and much more forward than our leaderships in Cyprus…
Another good friend, Leyla Kiralp whose first husband had been killed by EOKA B and whose remains were found in Gerasa in a mass grave called me last week telling me she was planning a memorial at the Melandra House near Salamis in Famagusta… She wanted to do a memorial lunch for Michalis Kirlitchas, for Kutlu Adali, for Rezvan Usta, for Jus Payada for Dr. Mehmet Salih and for Monica Vassiliou…
These were friends of Leyla and all of them died of cancer except Kutlu Adali who had been murdered in front of his house...
I knew all – they had all been good friends and they had all been struggling for peace in Cyprus… But who was Monica Vassiliou? I had never heard of her… I asked Leyla to write down her feelings about Monica and her friendship with her and she did…
Here is what Leyla Kiralp wrote:
"My dear friend Monica Vassiliou,
I felt your absence today and I wished you were with me… I wanted to take my hand between your soft and warm hands and say to me "Leyla, no giving up!" You were a strong woman Monica!
We first got to know one another with the opening of the checkpoints in 2003. We were invited to RIK 2 TV channel on the occasion of the International Women's Day, the 8th of March.
What Monica would tell would take me by surprise…
On the 15th of July 1974, during the coup of the Greek Junta she had been dragged on the floor by EOKA B and as a result she would be wounded and decapacitated from her hip bone… When she was talking about the 20th of July and 14th of August, she would be saying "We Cypriots did not deserve all this… We Cypriots must struggle all together. There is no South or North Cyprus. There is only one Cyprus. Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots are not enemies of each other, the enemy is the one who made us kill each other…"
Her voice, her words of determination is still alive in my ears…
Then I had the turn to talk on the TV programme. I too would talk about what I had been through. I talked how my first husband had been taken from our house by EOKA B to a prisoners of war camp, how he had been taken from there and killed, how he went "missing". How I had to leave my house and my village… While I was telling these, she would jump like an arrow and came next to me and would hold my hand…
At the end of the programme she would take me to the Ledra Palace checkpoint with her car. We would exchange telephone numbers. A week later she would come to our house in Famagusta. When she saw my son Shevki and my husband Mustafa she would say "You are my friends…" We would go to visit her father's house in Famagusta that day. But she only wanted to see the house from the car she was in… From that day on we would become good friends calling each other and getting together often… She had come to us together with Victoria. She was calling Victoria "my spiritual daughter". Since Victoria's childhood had been spent in Vasiliko, she remembered my grandfather and grandmother and my aunts quite well.
Even though she had pains on her hip, Monica would come leaning on her walking stick to the launch of my first book "The Wet and White Handkerchief that We Share".
We would go to the wedding of the daughter of Victoria and there Monica would introduce us to those attending the wedding as "Here are my Turkish Cypriot friends…"
We would go to her house after the wedding and on the walls there were paintings of the Turkish Cypriot artist Umit Inatchi…
My dear friend Monica, you had cancer on those days but you were keeping it as a secret from us. You were always strong. You were always full of hope… You were always beautiful.
You had come to see the Melandra House while it was being constructed. And you would bring the first gifts to us. A cigarette case, a copper teapot, two copper candlesticks… "The candlesticks are a memory from my father" you had said.
You did not know proper Turkish; nor could I speak proper Greek. Despite this, we could communicate very well…
Your disease had progressed but you were still very strong. Even when you said "I have cancer", you were strong. My blood had frozen at such drastic news but you were acting as though you just had the flu.
As I was on the way to Tymbou getting ready to go to London on the 8th of April 2011, Monica's partner Achilleas would call me… I knew something terrible had happened to Monica. He said, "We lost Monica"… He told me when and where the funeral would be. My husband would drop me off at Tymbou and would go to the funeral himself…
On the plane to London I would be thinking only about you my friend. I was so sad that I could not attend your funeral, I was so sad that I had lost you.
As soon as I was in London I called Mustafa and asked about the funeral… Mustafa's answer was, "Monica was as beautiful as ever…"
My friend, it has been five years since you are not here… How many times we were hopeful that there would be a solution… How many times we shouted slogans for peace. You, despite your aching hip and despite cancer that took you away from us would always hit your foot hardly on the floor and insistently and with stubbornness "There must be a solution, there must be peace" you would say…
While we were waiting for peace and a solution, we again were disappointed the other day.
Again, they could not find a solution to the Cyprus problem that has become gangrene… How can they find a solution to a problem that has become gangrene dear Monica? But I can still hear, you are saying "There must be a solution, there must be peace…" With insistence and stubbornness.
I had such a big moral depression that I went immediately to my village Mari. I went around in empty streets and as the night fell, I had nothing else to do but come back home.
A few days later we began the day with the news of that terrible accident on the Pentadaktylos where young kids died… We all felt so burned inside. I know that if you were alive, immediately you would call us and say "What can I do? If there is a need, I can donate blood…" And if necessary, you would come leaning on your walking stick. Now I am talking to you and conversing with you my dear friend. I am sure you are hearing me. I miss you Monica… I have prepared the "cold tea" that you liked most. I am sipping my tea and talking to you… I promise you. I will always be strong like you in face of negative things. And I would hit the floor with my feet strongly and would shout "There must be a solution, there must be peace!"
1.12.2016
Photo: Leyla, Monika and Victoria...
(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 8th of January 2017, Sunday.
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