A little neighbourly love and kindness...

I've often heard my mother recount stories of her childhood in Morphou, of the great feasts and parties my grandmother cooked for, of late nights sitting on the porch making necklaces from jasmine petals, of spending the night outside on the veranda sleeping on comfy matresses and fearing no danger, only hearing the snores of the neighbour next door. Neighbours. They are always included in the stories, personalities which were part of family life and acts of kindness like baking a cake and visiting Kyria Chrysoulla down the road and in return she offers you sweets and coffee.

 I used to spend the summer of my own childhood in Limassol at my grandmother's house in Linopetra, a neighbourhood which had solely been built to house the refugees of 1974 and I spent my days there visiting the neighbours  and made many friends.We would sit and talk over a lemonade and I even witnessed a chicken been slaughtered once, ready to be plucked and cooked for dinner. The neighbours sat until the early hours and talked and laughed under the stars, chairs from one house mingling with chairs from another.

Twenty years on neighbourly kindness still abides in that little quarter in Linopetra, but over the years I can't help feeling that the same kindness has disappeared. People have closed in on themselves, through their own changing circumstances because this modern rat race and all that it entails has pushed them under. Whenever I visit my grandmother now, something has been lost of the old friendly neighbourhood. People are still polite but reserved and often with a sad resigned look.

In the suburb of Limassol where I live now this impersonal and reserved stance exists quite a lot. I hardly know who lives around me. It's a shame that the old feeling of neighbourly affection has ceased to exist. I have a hope however that we will return to the old values out of necessity. People need people. Without eachother there is nothing. Without a simple smile of recognition and a friendly hello there can't be
progress.