Reflections...Waiting for the Future...

When the borders opened in the North back in 2003, I was curious like many to go and have a look. I remember the queues of cars waiting to be "checked-in" as such. Occupied Cyprus was altogether unknown to me in reality. It was always a mythical place from the stories I had heard in my childhood by my grandparents, uncles and aunts and parents of course. It was a land faraway, a land of the past, a past better than the present where people were younger, happier and healthier, where there were only celebrations, great friendships and a better, more genuine life. In none of the stories did I get a sense of bitterness and conflict, only of nostalgia, nostalgia which was accompanied by a deep and mournful sigh at the end of each story for something that was dearly missed.

On a hot day in May my grandparents, parents and I packed ourselves in the car on a journey that would change us. Morphou was our first destination. I'll never forget my mother's grief-stricken tears when she saw her house, lying alone and abandoned, although there were people living in it at the time. My mother's tears were tears which someone sheds when meeting a long lost friend after many years. The house represented her childhood, the hours spent in the garden, the good times and the laughter. One could only imagine it. The jasmine had gone, the white concrete pillars of the front porch had disappeared only left with harsh metal poles to keep it standing. 

Inside only little improvements had been made.The young couple who occupied the house at the time were quite poor, the husband living on pittance by working in one of many casinos which had mushroomed up from nowhere in Kyrenia and the wife sold clothes. I remember they had a young son. They welcomed us nevertheless into the house and offered us refreshment. We sat and had a chat but my grandparents couldn't bear to stay long, the sight of their old home was too painful.

My most memorable experience of that day remains the visit to my mother's old primary school. Parking outside to eat our sandwiches, we were approached by a group of school children attending their afternoon lessons. They came running up to us, enthusiastically introducing themselves. They suddenly took my mother's hand and led her to her old playground. That moment  I witnessed my mother's beaming face of surprise as she was led by the children and transported to the childhood innocence of her school years. I keep a photograph of that moment, me surrounded by those young smiling faces, faces bright and intelligent, willing to learn and to embrace the future. I was reluctant to leave them.

We left Morphou and headed off to see Kyrenia, the only developed part of occupied Cyprus. We sat at the harbour watching the crowded yachts bobbing up and down and the lazy waiters trying to communicate in English. We all sat there in deep thought. The day had brought anticipation, shock and then a sort of relief in finally seeing the reality of it all. Those young smiling faces had been the only pleasure. The future, that flitting grey future.

A lot has happened since that day, nine years have passed and those young faces staring back at me now in the photograph have reached young adulthood. What has become of them I wonder? What shape have their young minds taken? They are the new generation of Turkish -Cypriots now, just like the new generation of Greek- Cypriots prodding along, fighting to be heard trying to survive. Cyprus lives like everyone else in an era of economic unrest and unemployment, of political upheaval where nothing is certain, of i-phones and Facebook and mediocre politicians with their bombast pleads and demands. Yet one thing remains, cut up and knotted up and put into little neat agendas, but still glaringly obvious: The Cyprus Problem.

It seems it will be a legacy left to be solved by this younger generation and what a heavy burden of a legacy that will be. I still have an inkling of hope however, like many among me and as they say, hope is always the last thing to die.