Cyprus 1977
Old Carob tree and the view north to the Agammas
At the significant age of 21, I was a young man full of ideals and aspirations coloured by the heady optimism of the late 70's Australia - the hippy period. Even politicians were growing their hair long and taking off their clothes to swim in the waters of a new age.
I had dropped out of Uni where I had been studying Landscape Architecture for 2 and half years. I had dreams of becoming an artist. My parents offered me a trip to Cyprus and Europe in the hope that it would straighten me out and I would come to my senses...
Unlike the previous trip to Cyprus as a young boy, this time I was on my own. I arrived in Cyprus only a few years after the 1974 invasion by Turkey. The island was split in two by a UN fortified Green Line which kept the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Occupied north apart. On the way to the village from the airport I was driven past fields of tented communities filled with the dispossessed. My grandfather Theodosis and my Uncle Nikos had arrived to pick me up and transport me into the arms of a waiting family. They quickly filled me in on the politics of the time and I heard the sense of angst and betrayal that had now become a Cypriot way of thinking.
Strangely, even though it is now over 3 decades since that time, I have a memory of being in the back seat of the car next to my Grandfather. I look at the fields of tents and then look down to my hand. Grandad's hand is resting on top of it while we talk. His hand is the hand of a man who has litterally toiled the earth all his life. His main mode of transport has been the donkey. The hand is like a gnarled piece of wood, fibrous and strong, deeply textured, rough. I look at him now, his face looking forward. I realize that age has not robbed him of a noble, beautifully proportioned face. I see the weeping of his one glass eye, lost the night he opened a bottle of bad wine 11 years previously. That was the night he had heard that his eldest daughter, my mother, was returning to see him from Australia for the first time, so he opened a bottle of wine he had been saving to toast her returning.
I had dropped out of Uni where I had been studying Landscape Architecture for 2 and half years. I had dreams of becoming an artist. My parents offered me a trip to Cyprus and Europe in the hope that it would straighten me out and I would come to my senses...
Unlike the previous trip to Cyprus as a young boy, this time I was on my own. I arrived in Cyprus only a few years after the 1974 invasion by Turkey. The island was split in two by a UN fortified Green Line which kept the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Occupied north apart. On the way to the village from the airport I was driven past fields of tented communities filled with the dispossessed. My grandfather Theodosis and my Uncle Nikos had arrived to pick me up and transport me into the arms of a waiting family. They quickly filled me in on the politics of the time and I heard the sense of angst and betrayal that had now become a Cypriot way of thinking.
Strangely, even though it is now over 3 decades since that time, I have a memory of being in the back seat of the car next to my Grandfather. I look at the fields of tents and then look down to my hand. Grandad's hand is resting on top of it while we talk. His hand is the hand of a man who has litterally toiled the earth all his life. His main mode of transport has been the donkey. The hand is like a gnarled piece of wood, fibrous and strong, deeply textured, rough. I look at him now, his face looking forward. I realize that age has not robbed him of a noble, beautifully proportioned face. I see the weeping of his one glass eye, lost the night he opened a bottle of bad wine 11 years previously. That was the night he had heard that his eldest daughter, my mother, was returning to see him from Australia for the first time, so he opened a bottle of wine he had been saving to toast her returning.
Theodosi and Chrissi Georgiou
I lived for a time with my hard working Grandparents, Theodosi and Chrissi. The village of Neon Chorion is on top of a spur of mountains in the north west tip of Cyprus. Luckily it was far from the trauma of the invasion, but of course not untouched by it's emotional fallout. You can see them here in this photo ready to embark on their regular early morning donkey ride to one of their out lying fields. They grew wheat, carob, olive and watermelons from what I remember. This morning we were on the way to one of the fields.
It was late Autumn and the field needed to be ploughed and seeded with wheat for the next season harvest. We hoofed it out of the village heading down the mountain. The donkeys knew the way with very little prodding. The road down the mountain had no side barriers and the drop in places plunged away into some deep gullies. The donkeys hoofs beat a metallic scrape as we descended, I watched them landing within inches of the road's cliff edges. I was the only one concerned. My grandmother, with her head shaded from the growing heat by her well tied scarf, bobbed on her donkey, sitting side saddle like all of us. She turned and laughed at me looking a little wide eyed. Oh yeah, we were trailed by a small number of our evil eyed, floppy eared goats who nibbled on random shrubs as we made our way. They followed behind their alpha male goat who was in turn, harnessed and tied by a long rope to my donkey.
The field in the low lands between the mountain and the Mediterranean, had large old carob trees. To my amazement, my grandfather Theodosi harnessed up two of the donkeys and proceeded to till the dry rocky earth using an ancient looking timber plough. He explained to me earlier that he could have paid for a tractor but they destroyed the Carob tree roots below, anyway he'd always done it this way.
It was late Autumn and the field needed to be ploughed and seeded with wheat for the next season harvest. We hoofed it out of the village heading down the mountain. The donkeys knew the way with very little prodding. The road down the mountain had no side barriers and the drop in places plunged away into some deep gullies. The donkeys hoofs beat a metallic scrape as we descended, I watched them landing within inches of the road's cliff edges. I was the only one concerned. My grandmother, with her head shaded from the growing heat by her well tied scarf, bobbed on her donkey, sitting side saddle like all of us. She turned and laughed at me looking a little wide eyed. Oh yeah, we were trailed by a small number of our evil eyed, floppy eared goats who nibbled on random shrubs as we made our way. They followed behind their alpha male goat who was in turn, harnessed and tied by a long rope to my donkey.
The field in the low lands between the mountain and the Mediterranean, had large old carob trees. To my amazement, my grandfather Theodosi harnessed up two of the donkeys and proceeded to till the dry rocky earth using an ancient looking timber plough. He explained to me earlier that he could have paid for a tractor but they destroyed the Carob tree roots below, anyway he'd always done it this way.
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We sat under one of the carobs that day for lunch. I marvelled as my yiayia (grandma) unwrapped some vegetables, haloumi cheese and olives. Using an extremely sharp knife she held various salad vegies in one hand and sliced small bits of each, letting the pieces plop into a bowl and then douced it all in her deep green olive oil. The earthy deep tang of the oil, the natural real flavour of the vegetables, the warm comfort of the goat's cheese and the timeless taste of her own baked bread have stayed with me as benchmarks to all flavours ever since. My grandmother baked dozens of round, shallow domed bread loaves every few weeks or so. They never ever seemed to go stale or dry out. If you wanted a slice, she'd use her super sharp knife and remove a wedge of it while holding the loaf against her breast. It was a natural timeless food way beyond what we know now as bread. Eating it connected you with her and the generations of life before her. It was like an unbroken memory past to you in the simplest and most profound way.
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