One Week Cyprus

I’ve been here one week today, 2-09-2011.  So some verbal snapshots of the first seven days, as seen by one who has never before been in a place so different, without friends or family to support me.  If my self-centered cultural perspective shows through, so be it.  This trip is for that very purpose—to expand that narrow vision that has grown from only living in one culture my entire life.

Amazing how overwhelming the newness is here—overwhelming and disorienting.

Sounds.  The regular call to prayer from the Turkish sector, broadcast with scratchy amplification, five times a day.  Children laughing and shouting---that sounds familiar, at least. The workmen on the street, jackhammers exploding at 7:30 six days a week (thank you, God, for Sunday, in more ways than one.) The sounds of the market on Saturday and Wednesday, sellers hawking their goods in a language that has nothing familiar for me.   Wild cats prowling the street, looking for food in the garbage, yowling in the hunt. I’ve called to them, “Kitty, Kitty,” hoping to pet one, but they look at me as if I am speaking a foreign language (go figure!) and turn eyes that look more feral than the felines reigning as kings and queens in the home of the USA. Dogs seem to enjoy a more elevated, pampered pet status than cats, though I’m still not sure they are allowed to share people’s homes.  (My Cypriot friend thinks that Americans are somewhat barbarian to allow animals to have free reign in their homes.)  The sound of honking cars and gunning engines as people zoom through narrow streets, virtually ignoring all pedestrians.  Walk at your own risk.  Cars park on the sidewalks, some of which are only about 18 inches wide, at times almost blocking roads.

And always the cacophony of language.  Greek itself is so foreign to my ears.  But there is also a wide variety of Asian languages, some African languages, and English spoken with accents ranging from Cypriot to British to American to all the Europeans here who speak English as their common language.   Sometimes the languages are music. Sometimes they are a headache of sensory overload.

1200 AD Church near my hostel



Street in Old Walled City, Nicosia,
with car parked on "sidewalk"



Sights.  Nicosia is not a very pretty city, at least not in the winter.  The Old Walled City is filled with winding narrow streets, no trees, no grass, few flowers, except for the brave homemaker with a green thumb who puts her (or his?) handiwork on display on the narrow sidewalks.  Many of the buildings are very old and in varying degrees of disrepair.  Of course, the age is part of the charm.  What feels like a layer of yellow dust covers much of everything, but it may just be the color of the stones that form the buildings. Cream City brick, Nicosia style.   An orthodox church from 1200 AD sits about 300 meters from my hostel.  The same dusty yellow stone outside, glittering art, ornate carvings, and solemn icons inside.  While some buildings have been (or are being) restored and look quite nice, there are crumbling structures interspersed throughout. As I walk along the “Green Line,”—the edge of the buffer zone separating Greek southern Nicosia/Cyprus from Turkish northern Cyprus (named after the crayon mark drawn by a British officer on the map in the 1960s, I can see even more deterioration, very likely buildings that were bombed in the 1974 conflict. Looking to the North, it is obvious that poverty holds harsh sway in the lives of the citizens of the Turkish Republic of Cyprus, recognized by no country but Turkey.

Crumbling building and graffiti in Old Walled City



Restaurant directly across from crumbling building in Old Walled City



Looking to the Turkish occupied area in the north, about 10 meters from my hostel,
no photographs allowed close up.

As I move to the more “urban” section of the Old City, betting shops and nightclubs and many  immigrants, also in poverty surround me.  In the City Centre, however, is Laiki Getonia, a pedestrian shopping area running the north and south, filled with restaurants (from Armenian/Syrian/Greek/Cypriot to one enclave where McDonalds/Starbucks/Cinnabon cluster together, in a sort of expatriot solidarity) and shops and stores of all sorts.  This area is filled with people, Cypriots and immigrants and tourists, like me.  Happy to see Starbucks, especially with the WIFI connection and a cup of familiar coffee, still eager to taste the foods and experiences of a different world.

All this is in walled Old Nicosia.  Beyond the wall with its 11 bastions and three gates, Paphos, Famagusta, Kyrenia, all named for the cities the roads led to how many centuries ago, lies the urban area of Nicosia, with all the typical feel of an urban center, including too many cars and careless drivers, and cars parked any which way, blocking sidewalks, some almost blocking intersections.  As the tourist guidebook said, with apparent accuracy, no self-respecting Cypriot would be caught dead riding the few city busses or walking.  Cars are all types, though none compare to the size of American cars. Further out, still, is the suburban area of Nicosia with attractive homes, many appearing to be townhouses or apartment buildings rather than free standing homes on the typical big lots of American suburbs.  Large coffee shops and a Cypriot-style Walmart called “Alpha and Omega” are in these areas, an IKEA and Mall of Cyprus even further out.

Front door of my hostel, 11 Axiotheos Street

My impression is that the suburban areas, and perhaps the rest of newer Nicosia are not too different from other cities in Europe, maybe even the United States. But the areas of the Old City, including the 11 Axiotheos Street where my hostel is located, are very different.

But more than anything I am filled with images of people.  Maria, the woman who runs the snack shop/quick store near my hostel and who studied marriage and family counseling in Boston and leaves her shop in the hands of others to do counseling from 2:00 on; she was very guarded at first, but as we talked and I told her that my husband was also a counselor, she gave me her name and phone number in case I need anything.  Ida, the Philippino woman who works as the housekeeper in the hostel; we talk and drink coffee and tea during her breaks. Yunni, the young woman from Spain who teaches Spanish at the university.  Sarah, a young German woman teaching German there. Woody, an American man from Sheybogan, WI, who just graduated from the U of Minnesota and is spending a year here studying architectural restoration; he stayed up all night to watch the Packers win the Super Bowl and greeted me with high fives the next day.  All of them are very friendly and willing to talk and offer help in my adjustment.  I am extremely grateful to be living here with them.  I would be very lonely without their companionship at odd moments in the kitchen. Sarah and Yunni and I have already gone to a documentary and the four of us are going to go to dinner one night soon. Friday night, there is live jazz at a small bar just down from my hostel;  perhaps one of them will want to go with me to that. Doukas, the Greek philosophy professor who I seem to run into on all my excursions into the city.  Martin, the German professor whose family was visiting when I first came and whose wife and teen-age daughter were delightfully warm and friendly.  He has graciously offered to give me rides to the university occasionally.  Another Maria who makes Cypriot ceramics in the Old City and gave me her card and said to come by and have coffee with her someday. The older gentleman who invited me to go into the 1200 AD church near my hostel.  The gentleman at the Alpha and Omega grocery store who laughed when I apologized for going in front of him to buy olives and said, “You are new to Cyprus?”

And the electrical engineer, Andreas, who rescued me my second day in Cyprus.  I was exhausted with about six hours sleep in two nights, it was raining, my knee was killing me, and I was lost, trying to find my office at the Open University. I had no phone, no internet, and I had couldn’t find the paper where the address was written down.  I stopped in a bank to ask for help and I must have appeared so pathetic that the guard, a much older man, was very kind, and the man with him, Andreas, put me in his car, drove me to the office (thank God he knew the place I was talking about!) and gave me his name and phone number, saying to call if I needed any more help.  Are all Cypriots so gracious?  Probably not, but I have met hospitality and kindness that is has been a life saver for me! Kindness and a welcoming attitude, a helping hand, are like gold to the visitor to a new culture.  I won’t forget this lesson.