Monday, November 27/2017

Ulus arrives at nine, just after we've finished breakfast. Quite an amazing person in so many ways. He retired from teaching this autumn, and has tears in his eyes as he talks of leaving his students. It's an elementary school and some of the children he had taught for three years - as well as being confidant and advisor. They were an interesting lot - many of them refugees - and Ulus grew very close to them. Post retirement he is as busy as ever, heavily involved in bicommunal cultural and co-operative activities, many of hem peace related. He has recently returned from a major cultural event in Paphos (in the South), where he was born and spent his childhood, before the division of the island. The visit was obviously a very moving one for him in many ways - among other things he visited with people who had known his parents and grandparents, all of whom were educated people with deep ties in both Greek and Turkish communities. In fact he talks of his grandmother fostering the baby son of a close friend, a Greek woman, who had died in childbirth - a man he still thinks of as an uncle. 

Sadly, we have to excuse ourselves, as we have dental appointments with Fehmi, our wonderful dentist, whose daughter was taught by Ulus many years ago. The old walled city here is a small and highly relational world. Fehmi greets us like old friends, spends a great deal of time on my mouth (which involves some rearranging of local appointments - extreme kindness on his part and on theirs). And persuades the lab technician to complete some work for us this week while we're still booked to be here. There is a lovely old world feeling about staying here which is a very unusual accompaniment to dental visits!