We live our lives forever taking leave - Rilke

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Sunday, 2 April 2017

Thursday, March 30/2017



Last day in Famagusta. We leave before breakfast to go over to the school and talk to the teacher we met on Monday. He has free periods early in the morning, and J's dental appointment isn't until noon today, so we arrive at the school about 8:30. Couldn't be more welcome. Turkish coffee and lots of talk. He's a socialist, but more than that an idealist, with an enthusiasm more typical of twenty (once upon a time, anyway) than sixty. Both widely and deeply read, emotional but not naive. Really, quite compelling. Before we go he plays us a song his father composed. It's on YouTube and it's very easy to believe it was highly popular, because it's lovely, even though we don't understand Turkish. Actually, Usul translates for us, and the words too are moving. And then he presents us with a book - stories and poems of his own and his fathers. Inscribed. All this before breakfast! 

And of course our little walled city is a small world. Turns out our poet philosopher friends taught the daughter of Femi, our dentist, some twenty years ago.