A couple of blocks away, just round the corner from our little supermarket, they’ve put up a small building. Rectangular. Concrete. Maybe two rooms. Looks more office than house. Think it’s office space for the local mukhtar, who has been operating out of the auto repair place where his ‘real’ job is located.
The term is originally Arabic, meaning ‘chosen’ but roughly synonymous with village chief. Some of the functions of a municipal counsellor and some of a notary public, both with kindly paternalistic overtones. Mukhtars do exist within the official structure, registering births and deaths and confirming identity. The term, and role, entered Cyprus in the Ottoman period (Cyprus under Ottoman control from 1571 to 1878) which explains the existence of mukhtars in both North and South.
The new building went up quite quickly and is being followed by work on what appears to be a parking bay - an excavation a few cars wide surrounded by a stone wall. In aid of which a couple of large piles of stones have been delivered. We noted this but thought the stones seemed a bit big for wall building. And today, as I pass, the sole labourer is working on wall construction. He’s not only fitting the rocks in but tarring them in place. Don’t know if tar is actually the adhesive but it’s definitely black and not cement coloured. And he’s using a pick to break the rocks into smaller pieces. A lonely job and one that leads one to wonder if it’s as well paid as it ought to be or whether it’s the hard labour part of a prison sentence. No overseer in sight though.
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