Friday, July 31/2020

Definitely hot. According to Accuweather, which is sometimes not as accu as one might wish, 42 this afternoon. Have no independent means of checking it, as we accidentally left our little travel thermometer behind when we moved. Try standing on the balcony. Wall of heat. But is it a more solid wall of heat than when the temperature is 34? We go out in early morning or evening but often it’s quite nice on the balcony for morning coffee. 

Meanwhile unenviable records being set in Baghdad; 51.7 on Wednesday. The electrical system unable to keep up due to longstanding problems - such as war - in maintaining the infrastructure. So power cuts affect air conditioning, for those who have it. Even fans unable to function. The simple truth is that there will inevitably be deaths of those most vulnerable.

Very very quiet today. Few cars, and certainly no signs of animal sacrifice. Traditionally would have been goat, sheep, cow or camel.  Assuming camel mostly limited to desert, and probably shadeless locations. Suspect urban dwellers here quite pleased to settle for acquiring a professionally butchered animal from an air conditioned shop. Although Monastir, in Tunisia, where we last experienced this feast, with the gutters running blood and under its Arabic name of Eid al-Adha, would have had at least as large a population as Famagusta but much poorer. A whole animal, or at least a large portion, not only fits with the theme of Abraham’s sacrifice but provides enough meat for the three way sharing with family, friends and the poor.

Thursday, July 30/2020

Sunflower seeds join the regular market fare

Sundown is the beginning of the most important Muslim feast of the year, Kurban Bayram, the holiday celebrating Abraham’s willingness to obey God even to the point of sacrificing his son. Traditional observance includes the killing of an animal and sharing the meat with family, friends and the poor. The slaughter can be a hazardous undertaking, as this report from Turkey last year recounts:

This is the holiday known in Arabic as Eid al-Adha in Arabic, and we were in Tunisia in 2008 when it was celebrated. On that occasion we had seen what looked like - and indeed turned out to be - blood in the gutters and noted the previous day a very reluctant sheep being led by a rope. No such indications here, though it’s early. Tomorrow would be the more likely day.

Expect market to be very busy, and it is, although probably no busier than usual. Cherries still at their peak, citrus virtually gone and no cherry tomatoes in sight. Plenty of other fruit and veg though, and - first time this year - sunflower seeds, still in situ.

 

Wednesday, July 29/2020

Short trip to the supermarket next door. Have never seen a customer there without a mask, though I did once see a man remove his mask to cough into his hand! Have no idea what he was thinking, although probably it was long habit mindlessly asserting itself and thought didn’t enter into it. 

J examines the bill when we get home. As in most countries, tax is included in the price marked on the product or the shelf. Fewer surprises at the till, although I understand why the Canadian Consumers Association prefers separating price and tax in the mind of the consumer - it’s harder to get away with stealth rises in tax or forget about unstealthy ones. Bills here do tell you what the rate of tax on each item is, though, and it’s interesting. Twenty percent on the whisky and ten percent on the ice cream. Everything else including the (salted) peanuts is 5%. Not all food items, either, as there is a package of paper towels included. 

For interest sake compare the whisky with same in Ontario, where the cost is a little more than two and a half times as much per cl. Presume that Turkey gets no better a deal than Canada when importing Scotch whisky, so the difference will be tax rates.

Tuesday, July 28/2020

Morning commentary from the Health Minister, sort of appropriately named Ali Pilli. Contact tracing has been done re the man who absconded from the quarantine hotel when his COVID-19 test was declared positive. Turkey has been notified and he is unlikely to get away with it. Of course he may be happier about doing jail time there than here. I wouldn’t be. Also, in the future hotels are to be held jointly responsible with those quarantined for anyone leaving illegally. Sounds a bit harsh. Assume that fire regs would prevent locking people in their rooms. Armed guards at the doors? Locked windows to prevent tying sheets together and descending from upper floors? They already have security cameras but they’re a bit after the fact.

In the evening word from TRNC Prime Minister Tatar is that since July 1 there have been 15,000 passenger arrivals here, all of them tested, and under 30 positive cases. So not perfect, but does seem that so far they have things pretty well under control.

Monday, July 27/2020

Well, high drama in our small country. Dependent on a translation from a Turkish source here but the outlines are clear. A man, presumably newly arrived in TRNC was sent to quarantine to await his PCR test results. He should have had a negative test shortly before coming to the country. Quarantine will have been in one of the designated hotels, with a signed undertaking to stay in his room until officially permitted to leave. No armed guards, obviously. Allowing for a few translation glitches the story I have is as follows:

Online responses mostly angry, and with justification. Complaints that given the length of time between his leaving the hotel and the ship sailing the police should have got him. Mention of a helicopter circling over Kyrenia. The “ship” will be the regular ferry that goes from Kyrenia to Turkey and back. We’ve been on it, or its predecessor, although that’s nearly twenty years ago now. And the escapee has a Turkish name. Probably a Turkish citizen.

At the same time there is a certain farcical quality to the whole thing, some but not all of which comes from the lapses in the translation. “his room was searched but [he] was not seen inside”.
Visions of the man standing behind the door sucking in his gut. Then the report of the security camera showing the culprit, suitcase in hand, running out the back door and heading for the port. Reprehensible, dangerous, and somewhat keystone kops.

And finally there is some reassurance in the immediate response of police, health ministry, even helicopter involvement. Some reasonable faith in contact - and convict - tracing.

.

Sunday, July 26/2020

Pizza restaurant round the corner from the supermarket next door. Really more of a takeaway place although there are a couple of tables in the nondescript room and you could eat there if you had nowhere else to go. Actually you can enter and exit the supermarket through the pizza place and it’s handy to be able to order the pizza first and then pick up what you need from the store while it’s in the oven. Get a bottle of shiraz, having made the happy discovery that there are in fact more of the nice one we bought the first day, just not in the same place.

Just about to open the front door to our apartment building when we see the couple who own Minder, the excellent restaurant with traditional Cypriot cooking, locking up. The restaurant is on the ground  floor of our building but has a separate entrance. J tells him that we’re sorry it isn’t open - we go every year. The man is quite serious. They can’t. It’s not safe. They’re over seventy and can’t afford to take the risk. We agree. We too are over seventy and risks are not worth it. He brightens a little though when J says we’ll be there next year and I add Inshallah [literally God willing, and technically Arabic, but widely used in Turkish for things one hopes will happen].

Saturday, July 25/2020

The unreliable I. Listen in the night to a podcast discussing the utter unreliability of memory even when people are most certain of its accuracy. As they recount, all one has to do is google Brian Williams to be reminded of the newscaster’s classic invention of a “memory” of a wartime event that he did not in fact experience. And, even more surprisingly, the deeply held beliefs of many people regarding what they were doing when they first heard the news on 9/11 are demonstrably wrong.

A false memory of my own is of the same order. As a child I met a man whose father had been killed (as I remember him telling it) by suffragettes who mistook him for Lloyd George. But decades later, when I realised that this must be a googlable event, it became clear that he must only have been injured, albeit by murderously inclined women. Obviously the man would not have described this as being killed. Rewritten in my memory.

And a tiny example today. The sign outside the supermarket asking patrons not to remove carts is not written in English only, amusing as that might be. Less amusingly my Anglo eyes immediately rejected the Turkish writing I did not understand and took in only the English instructions, which I remembered almost immediately after as being the only ones there. “Yes, I remember it well”.

Friday, July 24/2020

Coffee on the balcony in the early morning before it gets hot. Overlooking the city. Bit of breeze and surprisingly quiet other than on market day, though there is the occasional ambulance siren as we are on the route to the hospital. Market take down and clean up well into the night but nothing left of the debris by morning as a “zamboni” circles the parking lot getting the last bit of earth where the potted plants and seedlings were yesterday.

Familiar with three lots of non Turkish Cypriot immigrants in the North; Turkishs settlers from the mainland as well as families of Tturkish military officers stationed here, international students, and British and other European (increasingly Russian) expats. But read of another large group, although the stats are a bit dated, coming from the 2006 census:

“This is an extremely diverse group that includes documented and undocumented workers employed in agricultural, construction and manufacturing sectors, as well as in hotels, catering and casinos. Fieldwork carried out for my previous report within the walled city of Nicosia and some other areas indicates that the majority of these workers hail from the Hatay district of Turkey, near the Syrian border, and from southeastern Turkey.106 Many among these do not have Turkish but Kurdish (Kırmança) or Arabic as their mother tongue. Most are Sunni Muslims (quite a few are Shafi), although a significant number are also Alawites. They offer a cheap source of labour, constituting almost 35-40% of the TRNC’s labour force.“

Group is disproportionately male and not long term, workers who leave at the end of their contracts and are replaced by new lots.

Thursday, July 23/2020

Market day. Over in the morning to pick up a few things. Small aubergines three Turkish lira a kilo ($0.60 CAD, £0.34, €0.38). I put five in a bag and ask the price and the man holds up one finger and then makes a sign that I take to be a half. Hand him two one lira coins. He smiles patiently aa one might to a small child, comes round to my side of the counter, puts one more small aubergine in my bag, and hands me back one of my two coins.

Stop in again at the market close to seven PM on our way back from the mobile telephone shop. Expecting it to be less busy late in the day but not a bit of it. Those who work during the day are filling the stadium sized market building. Really crowded and while the sides are all open airflow I’m not comfortable despite our masks and say to J that all we really wanted was a melon and we can get one from one of the little trucks outside. As we leave a man tries to sell us some of his plums. There’s no one else around his stall, which is fine but we’re a bit slow to buy. They’re not quite ripe and there are better buys. He’s anxious for us to taste. We are not about to, of course. So he carefully polishes one plum at length on his shirt tails and offers it to me. I decline, obviously, but - forced into some show of reciprocal politeness - buy a kilo of plums. They will ripen.

Outside to the melon trucks, and head for one that has mostly honeydews. How many do we want? Three the man suggests. No, one. Think we’ve succeeded and ask how much. Five lira. Fine. Pay and discover there are two melons in the bag. For five lira ($0.98 CAD, £0.57, €0.63) it’s hard to argue. Can see why he wasn’t eager to cut the sale in half. But will we be able to finish them? 

Wednesday, July 22/2020

Copyright Harold Gray, of course. Don’t know the date.

Have acquired two sleeveless dresses made in India at the weekly market in the interests of a adapting to local summer temperatures. Dresses are blue and very similar, although not absolutely identical.  Reminds me of the old Little Orphan Annie comic in the weekend newspaper supplements of my childhood. Readers inquired whether Annie only owned one dress as she always appeared in the same one. In response a later frame showed in the background a clothesline with multiple identical red dresses.

Tuesday, July 21/2020

J needs a repair done to a broken dental partial plate - no, not new. So we head over to see Fehmi, after some debate over whether leaving early matters heatwise. Probably about five degree difference between earlyish morning and noon but more importantly the early morning shadows are longer. Skin less likely to burn and far more shady spots to walk. Fehmi at the surgery but no patients yet, so his new tech trainee brings coffee and we have a long chat. Memories of the 1974 conflict leading to more general history and a little politics. Fehmi with some fascinating additions, along the lines of you won’t find this in the history books but one of my patients was a retired general and he told me....

As we talk, the technician from the lab comes in and leaves with J’s plate. Then a couple arrive for dental treatment. Fehmi suggests we come back after lunch, so we head back to our usual spot, Fa Kebab. When we return, the plate is back repaired. Walk home distinctly hotter, and as predicted long shadows no longer in evidence.

Lift had been inoperative down to maintenance when we left but six flights down not bad. When we return, though, maintenance complete. Consisted of setting up entry solely by electronic code accessed by mobile phone. Memory of Hassan saying this would happen after the 20th. Do not count stairs to 6th floor, but competitive with the 86 steps in Sofia a year ago where no lift even theoretically available. 

A couple of hours later Hassan arrives with small Samsung mobile, relevant number and charger. Odd system but assume all will work well.

Monday, July 20/2020

Very quiet public holiday. Apparently there are usually parades and an aerial display but things toned down somewhat this year because of Covid-19, presumably in the interests of discouraging crowds from gathering. Think there was a bit more activity in Nicosia. Our supermarket open and Fehmi’s son’s restaurant announced on Facebook that it was open as well, so probably others too. If internet speeds are any indication most people are staying home and watching the buffering circle turn.

Temperature 38 this afternoon, so grateful for the air conditioning and not inclined to go far. J spots a car driving slowly around the extensive parking lots near the empty municipal market building. Then we notice that the driver is carefully signalling before each turn at the end of a bay and light dawns. An excellent place for learning to drive.

Sunday, July 19/2020

Sunday morning and one more reason to regret the loss of our corner shop. The organic eggs we bought at the weekly market are visibly less fresh than the ones we used to buy from the shop owner’s chicken raising friend. Well, you can see if fruit and veg are fresh but can’t look inside an egg until you crack it. Taste fine though.

Pick up a small pizza from the shop at the corner of the supermarket. Vegetarian sounds pretty well the same in Turkish as English, which presumably means it’s a word the Turkish borrowed. The shiraz we bought yesterday turns out to be quite decent - although, regrettably, it was the last bottle. Oddly, no Turkish wine or vodka, which is a pity because Turkey makes both in inexpensive and quite drinkable brands.

Flat very comfortable and pretty quiet considering the building is full of families. Occasionally hear the very small child who lives across the hall. In the air conditioning it’s easy to forget how hot it is outside. Nice on the balcony in the early morning and after sunset though. Reading some of the posts for the holiday commemorating the Turkish intervention July 20, 1974. Fehmi was in his early twenties then. Ulus not quite seventeen. And Famagusta essentially battleground where people they knew died. And reading a post of Ulus’s brings home a factor which we should have known but had never really considered.  The fighting and the fleeing took place in brutal July heat. The heat that has us waiting until evening to go for a leisurely walk.

Saturday, July 18/2020

Jane on her 80th birthday, February 2019

May have wished for full size supermarket when we only had corner shop, but already missing corner shop. Supermarket so much less personal even if some things a little cheaper. And only some things - 5 litre containers of water twice the price! So we buy the much better priced 15 litre container and J asks if he can take it in the grocery trolley (cart) as our building is only metres away. He doesn’t try to explain this given the language difficulties but must have an honest face as they agree. As we’re leaving the parking lot we pass a sign telling dear customers that they are not to remove carts from the parking lot. Sign, oddly, only in English, which is a definite minority language around here. Are only the English tempted to take the carts home with them or is it only the English who are inclined to follow posted instructions?

In the evening receive an email from Kevin, Bill’s younger son, saying that Jane died yesterday. We knew that she had been ill and in and out of hospital over the last few months, but a week ago Bill had still been hoping that she would be coming home soon. Jane herself always so cheerful that talking to her was a sure way to underestimate any medical problems she might have - one of the most positive and even tempered people I’ve known. Glad that she and Bill were able to visit Sioux Lookout last summer. Who knew it was the last possible summer for a number of reasons?

Friday, July 17/2020

Moving into a long weekend, as July 20 is a public holiday, Peace and Freedom Day. Cheerfully named as what it celebrates is the landing of Turkish troops to protect Turkish Cypriots from Enosis - the Greek Cypriot plan for political union with Greece. Extremely long, though interesting, story. Excellent summary in multi-party, bi-cameral report to UK parliament, should any reader of this blog wish to read it: https://web.itu.edu.tr/~altilar/tobi/Kibris/TheCyprusQuestion.html.

And in further political vein, the following via one of the expats. Have not yet verified the source, but difficult to imagine that extremely formal polite nastiness as anything other than the genuine diplomatic article. Clearly the South’s tourism industry is hurting - as whose isn’t - and there is some pressure on their government to stop business bleeding north over the border. The antipathy does come from deep and unpleasant historic wells. 

No particular panic from our point of view. If accurate it means we exit via Ercan in the North, which has some logistical advantages anyway.

Thursday, July 16/2020

Wake up in our new penthouse. Actually, it’s not - there’s another floor above us, but the view over the city is super. Very busy outside as this is Thursday, market day, and our flat overlooks the market and its extensive parking area. It was already busy last night as people began setting up and it’s humming this morning. Think it actually opens at 6:30. We’re awake not much later than that and they’re clearly busy. The parking lot isn’t full yet but it will be. We remember how far away Bill had to park and how few available parking spots there were when we used to drive up from Pyla. 

We go over after nine. Still early and we now have the luxury of knowing we can make a second trip a little later - no need to juggle the watermelon with the bag of organic eggs. Do start by locating a frying pan. The flat doesn’t have a microwave - and we miss it - but two decent pots doesn’t make up for no frying pan. Then the fruit and veg. Peppers, onions, courgettes, aubergines, mushrooms, tomatoes, cucumbers, plums, bananas, cherries. The colours alone are wonderful. 

Surprisingly we run into the grandmother and one of the other women from our old residence. Lots of smiles, but not enough language in common for conversation. Then meet Filiz and do chat. A fairly high proportion of the Famagustans that we know. 

Most of the produce is pretty inexpensive. The problem is never paying for it but sometimes knowing what to pay. Neither of us very good at catching the amount quoted after the weighing. My usual method is to overpay. Assume it will be a little more than five lira, say, and hand over ten. Makes for quite a lot of heavy change by the end of the day. In most countries it has the additional benefit of  disguising, I hope, the fact that I don’t actually know what I’m being charged. Really scarcely necessary here. Several times over the last few months I’ve overpaid for something by a coin or two and had the extra handed back to me immediately.

And the treat. J has been looking over the fish wagons outside and we choose some Norwegian salmon. Not giveaway prices on this, but beautiful. Proves to be beautiful when J cooks it for dinner too over the gas burner in the new frying pan. 

Wednesday, July 15/2020

Tuesday, July 14/2020

Last day in our home for the last four months and a bit. We’ll miss it. The neighbourhood - and the neighbours - the village feeling, the  compelling ruins, the corner shop, the restaurant round the corner, the watermelon truck. Are looking forward to the new place, though, even knowing it will be for a shorter time. Apart from its being right next to the weekly market, it’s in a different Famagusta. Not the old walled town but the modern city, where most Famagustans actually live. Some 55000+ inhabitants, although published numbers always lag behind the reality.

Can’t remember when it last rained. Weeks (months?) ago, so it’s dry. Cyprus as a whole is at risk of becoming a desert island (not deserted, just desert) down to decreasing rainfall, increasing urbanisation and increasing water consumption. In the North there has been an underwater pipeline from Turkey but it’s now in need of repairs so there are shortages. Not especially here, but people near Kyrenia are reporting having water only three days a week, and some of them say it’s normal at this time of year. Someone posted a photo of the reservoir in the west of the country, which prompted me to look for one I took in December 2017. Only an extremely wide angle lens would encompass the whole reservoir, but the difference is clear.

We have been careful. Used water from hand washed clothes on plants, etc. Aware that we might not notice warnings in the Turkish press. For what it’s worth the man across the road is still washing his car.

Aysel had talked of our going out for a traditional Cypriot meal. She has a friend with a taverna who had said on a Monday or Tuesday he could seat us well away from others. And would presumably be outside - no one here wants to be inside on summer evenings. But she is round, apologetically, to say that she had heard of a restaurant singer who had tested positive and now was afraid to go out. Told her she was quite right not to. Don’t know if the story was right. Actually sounds not. There are now nine cases in the country and think they all came from abroad as the country opened for tourists. No one is supposed to get in without tests before leaving and after arriving. Some with additional quarantine after that. But there are bound to be some glitches. Aysel has had a bone marrow transplant and shouldn’t really be with unmasked people including us - and of course we would be if we were eating. All for the best anyway. We have packing to do and her partner doesn’t speak English so would have been a dull evening for him apart from the food. Nice thought on Aysel’s part though.

There’s an excellent bakery cum restaurant and confectioners in the old city and we have bought an extremely classy looking box of chocolates for the lovely grandmother across the road who has been bringing us baking and flowers. When she comes with our jasmine circlet of the day J gets the box and I press most of my Turkish vocabulary into service. Yarın (tomorrow) and wave goodbye. She points to the sky, simulating airplane flight. So the rest of my vocabulary is employed. Kıbrıs bir hafta (Cyprus one week). Then add Ercan (Nicosia airport), Istanbul, London, Canada. Which may well not be the route, or for that matter rhe time remaining in Cyprus, but she gets the idea.

The grandmother returns later with a small delegation of the people from across, all of whom we imagine are related. The man who owns the dogs speaks quite good English - and indeed, it turns out has an uncle in Kitchener - and so they get the story of how we came to be here. Give them our dentist’s name and two of the women nod. Famagusta is not a tiny city, but the old town is a very small world and Fehmi had said that he had had family connections on this road. And if we thought it was possible to give the last gift when exchanging with the grandmother, we were wrong. She’s brought a Cyprus delicacy: two jars of preserved fruit, one watermelon and one labelled bergamut. The latter presumably the bergamot oranges that Kiki used to give us in Larnaca, the ones I used to make marmalade - delicious but labour intensive using only a penknife. A small and lovely world. We will miss it.

Monday, July 13/2020

Go early in the morning to the cash point, hoping to take advantage of relative cool. And it isn’t too hot, although no breeze. However electronic message on screen saying to try later. Genuinely later, too, as immediate retry nets same result. Bank by now open, so inquire within. Not working? No, maybe half an hour. Could wait in nearby park or have coffee, but possible that maybe half an hour will become an hour and a quarter, so back home. Do pass a little white snail on the Venetian wall, though.

Probably the hottest day, although to be fair 38 on my app may well have been higher than our garden reality. Didn’t run out to check the thermometer. Besides, 100 used to sound so much more impressive. We’re the caught in the middle generation. People who can actually say we’re 250 miles from Winnipeg, so if you drive 100 km/hour you’ll be there by lunch. Or even it’s been over 30 degrees all week. I think it must be 95 today.

Wait until dusk to go back to the cash point. AOK this time. Walk through the old city coming back. Small and not so small groups gathered outside little cafés. Guitars in some groups, and singing. The last call to prayer comes as the last afterglow leaves the sky. We are so going to miss this place.

Reports online from expats being refused consular assistance to cross to the South. The demand from the South was sheer bloody mindedness to begin with. Demanding a test was one thing but the consular assistance was simply obstructionist. However it seems now that those with EU and Commonwealth passports are having their embassies and high commissions tell them that they are not being allowed to give them “permission” to pass. In the case of EU citizens, this is a violation of EU law, so eventually knuckles will be rapped and changes made. Commonwealth somewhat different, but at minimum their high commissions could be expressing unhappiness at the retrograde step. The Republic of Cyprus more than most countries, is eager to cultivate support and good will and to attract tourists. There is no need for countries to act as if holding their citizens hostage and forcing them to leave through what the RoC regards as an illegal port is no inconvenience. 

Having said which, we are not, of course, genuinely hostages nor unable to leave by other means, but the consular stance should be a little less supine.

Sunday, July 12/2020

Scrambled eggs for breakfast. Should have known that buying 30 eggs would mean an immediate move! Although less expensive than when re-roofing with long term shingles resulted in an immediate job offer in another province. Not much downside to leaving the extras behind. 

Looking at the clothes that have to be packed. Not a lot of them - there never are - but disproportionately warmer than we can imagine wearing in the foreseeable future. Although we do remember returning from Vietnam in August 1993 and looking forward to cool lake breezes after endless heat. The plane landed in Toronto and we looked out the window and saw, to our horror, the ground crew wearing parkas. Summer was over.