JAWORSKI TRAVELS
Another observation was that people learn languages better when the vocabulary provided gives them the words they most want. Which is no doubt why such a high proportion of my very limited Polish vocabulary consists of food words. And the first few Turkish words I recognise are disproportionately food related. As usual the term for whole wheat nearly the first.
Now a new one - adet. (Predictive text just done its best to rewrite that as adept). Means “piece” and is used in the produce section of a grocery store where the English would say each. Or the Greeks would use mono, as in one. If the word adet is missing then the price is per kilo and goes without saying. For some items - say a cauliflower - the price per kilo may be pretty well the same as the price for one. For an avocado not. So it matters.
Walking home from the supermarket struck as always with the grandeur of the mountains. The slope from the village to the sea is gradual over about a kilometre but the village rises steeply for a few blocks behind us and then gives way to near vertical rock face to the peaks.
Do notice that the birds seem to have been enjoying easier access through the orange peel though!
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| Sign on the door at the Wild Duck |
Today’s walk takes us west, down to the main road. It’s a sunny day with a bit of a breeze so we decide to check out a pharmacy that people have spoken highly of. All pharmacies here, as in the South, are small. That’s in part because they don’t really carry most of the items that fill the drug store shelves in Canada. No lipstick, magazines, last minute kiddie birthday gifts. Mostly medicines, prescription and otherwise. Many medications that would require a prescription in Canada don’t here. Others are verboten regardless of prescription. Pharmacies also have things like medicated skin creams - nothing sexy. A pharmacy - eczane - is where I went to buy hydrogen peroxide. Can see the reasons that foreigners like this one. For one thing the pharmacist is quick on the uptake - and she speaks excellent English.
Almost next door is the Wild Duck restaurant. That also apparently appeals to foreigners. And to us, in a way. Not particularly interested in the menu, which seems to run mainly to English comfort food, none of it underpriced. But the setting is a pleasure. A large fenced park with a duck pond, children’s play equipment and plenty of outside tables - choose sun or shade. We pick a cool, shady spot and split a beer. Our walk is about two kilometres each way with this the midpoint.
Stop in at Bestmar on the way back and buy a couple of artichokes and some sundried olives.
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| Courtesy of Gündem Kıbrıs |
In the days leading up to and following the first anniversary of the earthquake in which the North Cypriot volleyball teams were killed a number of their family members have posted online or published in the newspapers what are less in memoriam notices than an open wound. As the lines from Les Misérables have it:
There's a grief that can't be spoken
There's a pain goes on and on
Except that the grief is spoken. With a poetic eloquence that survives all attempts of electronic translation to kill it. Gündem Kıbrıs has posted the following as
Heartbreaking post from a grieving mother...
"We used to make jokes, dance, and you would spread laughter to every particle of that house, what about in this hall? Now there is a silent wail here! Don't worry, only me and Burak brother hear it! We play different roles so that our brothers don't hear, where we should be most sincere! We would turn off the lights and say "let's choose a Dream movie". First you started with scary movies, I’d say “I’m scared”. You be like "mom, what are you afraid of? " of trouble. My real mother ... What am I afraid of honestly? I should be afraid of the creatures called humans on earth! I thought my heart couldn't handle the scenes in the movie. But look I'm starring in the greatest horror movie. I'm not afraid of anything anymore, like YOU!”
Less moving, perhaps, but still poetic are tributes and expressions of admiration or sympathy that appear on the Facebook pages of Turkish Cypriot friends of ours. Emotional, poetic, expressive in a way that leaves an Anglo-Saxon marooned in unfamiliar territory. They must think of us as pathetically literal minded, task oriented and unresponsive - and kindly make allowances.
And I’m three quarters Celt married to a hundred percent East European!
Happily, no rain in the afternoon, so we walk down to the Blue Song for a drink and a chat with a few of the foreign residents. An interesting, friendly, and amusing group.
Turkish is not an Indo-European language. Meaning English has less in common with Turkish than it does with French or German or Spanish. Less than it does with Welsh or Punjabi. Thus few Turkish words seem obvious to an English speaker the way Germanic or Romance language words might. Except of course for the odd borrowed term. When, twenty-three years ago, we first came to North Cyprus we took a bus across the south of Türkiye to Taşucu to catch the ferry. The driver wanted to know where in Taşucu we wanted to alight. We said we wanted to take the ferry. Ah, feribot! And much discussion amongst the passengers on the best stop for us.
One of the most disconcerting aspects of the Turkish language is the lack of gender specific pronouns. There is no difference in Turkish between he and she. Not really a problem in itself. The difficulty comes in translating from the Turkish. Like the Chinese students I taught many years ago, Turkish people sometimes choose the wrong English pronoun with confusing or even startling results. These days a computer program may have done the choosing with little concern for effect.
Hence a news item in Gündem Kıbrıs that reads “He pushed his mother down with whom he was arguing, causing his nose to break!” [exclamation mark theirs]
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| Screenshot of radar at 03:00 Wednesday |
Not sure whether Valentine’s Day trumps Ash Wednesday. Though did know someone who trained as a nurse in the forties under some pretty strict nuns who informed her that Lent notwithstanding one never fasts on St Patrick’s Day. In any case, we don’t normally observe Ash Wednesday as a day of fast or abstinence and really only celebrate Valentine’s Day in a kind of opportunistic fashion. Which leaves us deciding to go out for a late lunch.
Altınbaşak is a small family restaurant about a kilometre from us. Mostly uphill, but then that does translate to downhill on the way home. Very friendly though we don’t have much language in common. J would really like to have lamb but it’s “finished”, so he settles for a chicken doner kebab. I’m always a little cynical - in a nice way - about the use of “finished”, thinking it a soft way of saying that there isn’t any and possibly never will be. A bit like the Polish menu. Small restaurants in Poland do have menus but they’re likely to include everything they might ever be lucky enough to have in the kitchen. If you want to order you might as well start by inquiring politely what they recommend.
Although I have been wrong about the “finished” response. When we were living in Gazimağusa in 2020 we sometimes ate, after the lockdown was lifted, at one of the outside tables at a restaurant around the corner. Şeftali sausages were on the menu and each time we ate there I would try ordering them and the waiter would say “finished”. Which I regarded as polite fiction, thinking they must be too difficult to obtain. Until one day he said yes. And maybe Altınbaşak does have lamb if you get there early enough - say brunch time. And to be fair it is three o’clock in a country where the main meal is traditionally at midday, leaving us alone if you don’t count the three cats. Cats ever hopeful, and not at all deterred by my having accidentally stepped on one of them.
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| Courtesy of Martin Shovel via X |
The dead cat strategy was invented by the Tories’ election guru Lynton Crosby, but it was explained most clearly by one beneficiary of his dark arts, the then Telegraph columnist Boris Johnson, in one of his typical rants against the EU. The advice from Johnson’s “Australian friend” was that if you’re losing an argument and people are focussing on a reality that is damaging to you, your best bet was to throw “a dead cat on the table,” everyone will shout “‘jeez, mate, there’s a dead cat on the table!’; In other words they will be talking about the dead cat, the thing you want them to talk about, and they will not be talking about the issue that has been causing you so much grief.”
Unfortunately, there is an actual dead cat next to our communal rubbish bin. Next door neighbour and I regard it sadly. Not a great deal of language in common but I do know the word for municipality. Will they take it? Of course, she says. How soon may be another matter. And probably best pursued by someone more fluent in Turkish.
And, in the crime department, a man has been arrested and charged with both theft and impersonating a police officer. He apparently went to a bureau de change in Nicosia, announced that he was a policeman, and asked for £1000 in exchange for Turkish lira. Then left with the thousand pounds without providing the lira. The police tracked him and it turns out that he had an astonishing 224 previous convictions. None of them must have been major or he’d still be doing time. May also explain why he compounded the offense by announcing untruthfully and quite unnecessarily that he was a police officer as well as why he didn’t ask for a larger sum than £1000 while he was at it. He’s simply addicted to crime.
And what gets hunted? Wood pigeon, wild pigeon and woodcock. Sounds normal. Also crow and magpie. Our friends, though admittedly we haven’t made friends with the local crows. True, crows frequently not beloved of farmers, though they don’t seem particularly interested in the orchards around here. Can understand regarding them as a nuisance. But - there are instructions online for cooking crow. Not Turkish instructions. American? Quite enough to make me vegetarian.
And also song thrush. The fact that they’re songbirds is sad in itself. They are also hunted in the South of Cyprus as well as in Spain and France. In the South it’s legal to hunt them but not to trap them. Illegal but not unusual. They are frequently trapped by using sticky surfaces - which of course traps any other birds that land there too. The payoff is that they are regarded as a delicacy and secretly served at restaurants to select clientele. The hunters and restaurateurs charged if caught. Have no idea what the law is here in the North - other than that hunting them is legal.
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| Snail more or less actual size |
Had been expecting to buy peanuts from the man who sells dried fruit and nuts. He’s been there every other week but today his stall is empty. Hope this is a one off. We’d miss him. He also has the best garlic we’ve bought in years.
Do buy honey from a woman who is usually there. She’s quiet and nice and two non-local men have been messing her about (non local as in neither Turkish Cypriot nor foreigners regularly staying in the area). They’re loud and look like they’re trying to scam her - I should get the last one free, I’m paying in sterling - as the jars get shuffled about. She tells him that she needs to sell at full price as she has no one supporting her. Hope that he didn’t manage to cheat her. I mutter ‘wide boy’ as we leave.
Snail shell still on the stone wall as we return so take it with us. It’s small but the design is surprisingly intricate, well beyond what camouflage would have required.
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| Courtesy of Gundemkibris.com |
We have reached the point of preferring it to electric though. It is much more responsive, though seems slightly less willing to keep a pot on a very slow simmer. Also very handy in the event of a power cut, though somewhat surprisingly we haven’t experienced one this year - knock on wood.
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| Courtesy of Cyprus Mail |
Funerals were held yesterday at the Rizokarpasa cemetery for four of the six people whose deteriorating bodies have been found on the shores of North Cyprus since early January. The funeral was attended by the village imam as well as two of the local police and some municipal employees. A number of private citizens also came to pay their respects.
Examination of such clothing as remained on the six established that it was of Syrian origin and the assumption is that the bodies belonged to would be refugees making the crossing in small boats, possibly in poor weather. None have been identified and the most recently retrieved was in such poor condition that it was not possible at first report to tell whether the victim was male or female. The shortest distance between Syria and the Karpaz peninsula where four of the people were found is only about a hundred kilometres. The other two washed up less predictably on the north shore a little to the east of Girne.
A reminder of the desperation so many face. And Pope Francis saying that the Mediterranean should not become a graveyard of dignity.
‘The Foreign Office has issued an update to political demonstrations risks. It said: "Demonstrations may occur with little or no warning in cities. Events in the Middle East have led to heightened tensions and demonstrations are likely. Avoid any protests, political gatherings, or marches and leave the area if one develops. Local transport routes may be disrupted."’
There have been a few protests in the Republic of Cyprus (South) but not large and certainly not violent. Actually more token protests. So this seems like a very strange caution coming from a country which has during the last three months seen huge demonstrations related to events in the Middle East. Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in London marches.
But then J points out that protests, such as they are, in Cyprus have objected specifically to the use of the island’s British sovereign base to launch bombing missions to Yemen and aid to Israel in attacks on Gaza. In this case the objection is quite specifically to British (and American) military activity. Though the chances of protests actually injuring UK tourists - or anyone else - would seem to be approaching nil.
Happened to come across this advice in the Liverpool Echo, though it was undoubtedly printed elsewhere as well as at the FCO website. But was amused to see that the photo included is not from the Republic of Cyprus but a picture of Kyrenia (Girne) harbour in the TRNC (North) - no doubt itself the object of a different set of cautions.
And then there were the junior high school students from North Cyprus. Twenty-four students from Famagusta, volleyball players aged from eleven to fourteen, delighted to be attending a tournament. And accompanied by ten parents, four teachers and a coach. All died when the hotel they were staying in collapsed. It’s a small country. Not everyone personally knew someone who had been killed but everyone had a friend or a relative who did. When we arrived here two days later the whole country was in mourning. And for days now the papers have contained heartbreaking in memoriams testifying to a grief that is still raw.
So the pleasure in English translations from Turkish is in no way judgmental. But there is often a delightful quirkiness. As in the story accompanying the photo from Gündem Kıbrıs (Agenda Cyprus) news site. It begins with “A sculpture has been found buried in a mind in Ulukışla” [their translation not mine] and continues with “2 people are arrested”. Leaving aside the arrests - the story does continue but in Turkish and well beyond my ability - or Google Translate’s - to pursue. The arrests are intriguing. Stolen artefacts or worse? But the sculpture buried in a mind is sheer poetry. Presumably a typo but a lovely one. Quite a few sculptures buried in my mind - from Rome, Cairo, Knossos, Xi’an. Beautiful.
Surprised to see a very large section devoted to tea in China Bazaar here. Didn’t examine it very closely as we don’t need tea and were there for other goods (China Bazaar a largish discount store selling inexpensive products from kitchenware to shoe laces to bedding to garden furniture). Did, however, note that there was no coffee - just a lot of tea in what is otherwise not a food store.
So slightly less surprised than we might have been to come across an article listing the highest tea drinking countries in order of number of kilos per person. Top of the list is Türkiye , with 3.16 kilos per person annually, very nearly fifty percent more than second place Ireland. Closely followed by the UK as number three. Fourth is Iran, just ahead of Russia. Poland, to J’s surprise, number 10, with less than a third of Türkiye’s annual consumption per person.
Pass the trees where the crows were gathering last time, and once again a murder. Dozens of crows gathering in the topmost branches, then swirling and landing again.
A bill has been submitted to parliament in the South restricting taxi drivers from the North offering their services in the South. It’s designed to cut out competition from Northern drivers who take customers from Southern airports, most often Larnaca, to destinations in the North - or from the North to Larnaca airport. The transport minister’s phrasing is slightly pompous, and no doubt was in the original Greek as well: “The job of a taxi driver is a clearly defined profession. They have specific licences, and there are limits on who has the right to be a taxi driver in the Republic of Cyprus.”
Fine - there are standards. But that’s not really what this is about. And let’s not get carried away. Not just anyone can do it; you have to be Greek? Hard on the taxi drivers of the North unless there is retaliation, which might happen. Tour bus operators in the South would be quite distressed to find themselves unable to go to popular destinations like Famagusta or Salamis. But hard too on would be passengers in the North. Anyone from either side can find an airport or a major hotel. But coming from the South and not speaking Turkish when looking for an address in a village, possibly at night, is much trickier. We had one driver whom we had prudently hired from the North to pick us up in Larnaca and take us to Famagusta use his own mobile and naturally fluent Turkish to sort things out when the directions we had been given proved inaccurate. A Greek speaking driver on unfamiliar territory would never have found it.
And what about other international borders? Seems not necessarily to create great difficulty. No problem getting a taxi between Windsor and Detroit. Ask the casino players.
Storm over. Interestingly, in the village you can occasionally hear the same sounds you would in northern Ontario after a storm - people starting up their chain saws. Although in Lapta that could just be sawing firewood as we really don’t seem to have experienced a lot of damage requiring road clearing. Some nearby areas did, though. And cleanup continues.
This should have been the first day of a two week school break but instead it started yesterday, sparing kids and their parents the trek through mud and bad roads for a token last day. Oddly, though, the first day back is a Friday. And yes, weekends here are the internationally standard Saturday and Sunday. In some countries this would have constituted sufficient insult to justify a strike.
Down to the supermarket to top up. Next door neighbour driving to Alsancak, the next village, though no longer with any real dividing line other than technically, kindly stops to offer us a lift, but we’re only going a few metres. Had thought the store might be busier after the days of rain but seems much as usual. So warm sourdough olive bread, oranges, coffee, lentils, cheese, vegetables.
Good to be out and to get to admire the different coloured streaks in the Med. Today primarily aqua and indigo but sometimes as many as five colours.
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