Cyprus-Forum.com

[humanist]

Deniz

I am from Anglisidhes. Born in 1946. That does not make me the youngest on the forum, but one that has memories of the times you wish to know.

Our village was a mixed village. We had Pano and Kato Anglisides. The Turkish Cypriots lived in Kato Anglisides. Even though the numbers of TCs living in our village was small, my grandfather was the Moukhtar of the village (kato Angl) . Pano ANglisides always had a GC moukhtar.
I grew up with Greek and Turkish speaking kids. We communicated very well without even realising whether we spoke in Greek or Turkish. It was something that puzzles me to this day. Two years ago I found a few of these GreekCypriots boys (now owners of an empire) and they assured me they knew no Turkish. Therefore I draw the conclusion that I knew some Greek. Mind you I remember very little now.
The relationships between the two communities was very cordial. We attended each others weddings, greeted each other at easter or bayrams (moslem festivals). Travelled all over the island to attend Panayiris/ Kataklysmos too.

There was no electricty in the village then - that came after 1963.

The games we played were pirilli/marbles, lingri and on rainy days it was andres. When older it was tavli/backgammon and draughts.
Springtime we would take our lime sticks (with my GC neighbors) and tried our luck with pulya/ambelopoullia/blackcaps. We would treck down to one of the part time rivulets where the little souls would perch for a drop of water. Thats where we would set the limesticks. We had built an igloo shaped hide so as to observe that evenings dinner.I still have not forgiven myself for this terrible method of hunting.

Other free times were spent on roaming the hills and valleys picking wild asparagus and wild mushrooms.

Approaching the years 1956/57/58 there was signs that polarisation was taking place. Boys going to towns attending various Gymnasia, the American Academy/Larnaca refused to acknowledge our greetings. This however did not affect the adults attitude.

Till the day the TCs left the village, the friendships were very strong even to this day.

There were intermarriages between TCs and GCs. A large number of our villagers are the children and grandchildren of mixed marriages.

This is the Cyprus I long for and this is the Cyprus that should be.

Racists out of Cyprus

[Oracle]

I too remember the rituals with the slaughtered pigs, the village weddings, also the monthly markets with people selling honey roast nuts and sosouko etc, ... and especially the karakiosis in our village kafeneio (now a supermarket) ... all the kids huddled to the front, sitting on the floor, staring up at the outstretched sheet.

But, my first memory (and I realise this is later than the period requested, it's in the 60's) was of being dragged to the jeweller in Polis, at the tender age of 3 years old to have my ears pierced.

I don't think the "Mohammedans" did this to their daughters. It seemed to be a GC thing to have girls' ears pierced at age 3. I remember another distinguishing feature of "Mohammedans" was the amount of jewellery (bracelets and necklaces) they wore, yet often they were barefoot.

Although the midwife who delivered me was "Mohammedan", due to the bombings by the Brits cutting off road access to the local hospital, we didn't really mix socially.

Was interesting to see from one of the Pathe news videos GR! posted, that the Brits regarded the Cypriots as the GCs and the rest (girls dressed in white) were referred to as "Mohammedans".

Another reminder to whom the Island really belongs ....

[Nikitas]

Since some of our memories turn to food, well they do say taste and smell are the most intimate senses, let's think back to fasting and Easter.

Remember the fasting days before Easter? Back in the 50s there was strong peer pressure to fast. After the first few days there were the inevitable questions between us kids "is chocolate permitted? Does luntza count as meat, it is smoked after all". We were looking for any excuse to evade the prohibition.

Nothing can match Easter in Famagusta. In the 50s half the town was a viable orange and lemon orchard. The air was full of the smell of orange blossoms. No matter where in town you were you were within reach of an orange grove and its perfume. This is an experience that I am sure Miltiades must remember. He lived in Famagusta for some years before going to the UK.

Spring must have been the time for silk worms. For some reason silkworm breeding was part of the school curriculum and we had to take the worms home and keep them till they made a cocoon. I was lucky, just across the street from our house, on Alexandrou street, there was a mulberry tree that I raided for leaves, the only thing silkworms will eat. For three years running I managed to deliver healthy cocoons. The girls did something with them but I cannot remember what exactly.

[Oracle]

Oh yeah Nikita! My older brothers used to keep the silk worms in trays under their beds. I remember the sadness when we would impatiently split a cocoon and the caterpillar would still be gently, sleepily moving around and we knew it would then die.

[Nikitas]

Oracle,

DO you remember what happened after the cocoon stage? What the girls did with the cocoons to make silk thread? I remember the process happened in the cookery classroom which was out of bound for the boys, probably because we were regarded as too uncouth to be allowed in such clean places.

[kafenes]

Oracle,

DO you remember what happened after the cocoon stage? What the girls did with the cocoons to make silk thread? I remember the process happened in the cookery classroom which was out of bound for the boys, probably because we were regarded as too uncouth to be allowed in such clean places.

I beleive the cocoons were then put in boiling water which killed the caterpillars, by which time was almost transformed into butterflies and would soften the cocoons and untagle the silk thread.

[Nikitas]

Boiling water. No wonder they did that in the cooking class.

[denizaksulu]

We also kept the 'silk worms' and fed them with mulberry leaves. The time you 'cooked' them had to be very precisely timed. There would be a color change to the cocoon, it would go slightly darker in color; the 'cooking' had to be done before the larvae 'ate' itself through the cocoon'. Otherwise this would result in very short threads. All the kids would take their boxes to the 'silk-man' in Pano Anglisides - who was a Greek-speaker, he would heck and pick out 'damaged' cocoons and them chuch the poor creatures into the 'couldron' of boiling water. We would watch him for hours while he stirred the 'yellow soup' and with long tongs pick out the massess of silk which was then hung up to dry. This was organised by co-operatives and schools. Some of the silk was kept and the villagers with looms would mix it with wool and make our favorite bed-sheets. In Turkish we would call them 'bürüncük' (i think). Good times they were.

[Jerry]

I don't have any personal memories of Cyprus before the age of sixteen but my father told me a few things about life in Komi Kebir. His older brother was the village carpenter. My dad told me that one of his sources of timber was from Turkey. I asked him how they transported it from Famagusta port to the village, he laughed and said the timber arrived by sea onto the beach in the form of tree trunks that they dragged home. They used to cut the wood up lengthwise with a very long saw, my uncle on the roof of the house and my dad underneath pulling the saw down and getting covered in sawdust. My dad did'nt have very happy experiences with timber, once he was chopping firewood and cut off part of his little toe.

He left Cyprus at the age of 22 for the UK from Famagusta, the last memory he had of his father was seeing him crying as he waved goodbye from the port, he was the fourth son to seek his fortune abroad.

The first time I visited Komi Kebir it had no electricity or running water in the houses, I can still see my grandmother carrying an earthenware pot full of water from the village tap. We used to sit on the veranda at night and watch the beetles fly at the tilley lamps. The worst thing about staying there was having to use the toilet, a slot in a concrete slab over a pit where the beetles lived. Happy days

[denizaksulu]

I don't have any personal memories of Cyprus before the age of sixteen but my father told me a few things about life in Komi Kebir. His older brother was the village carpenter. My dad told me that one of his sources of timber was from Turkey. I asked him how they transported it from Famagusta port to the village, he laughed and said the timber arrived by sea onto the beach in the form of tree trunks that they dragged home. They used to cut the wood up lengthwise with a very long saw, my uncle on the roof of the house and my dad underneath pulling the saw down and getting covered in sawdust. My dad did'nt have very happy experiences with timber, once he was chopping firewood and cut off part of his little toe.

He left Cyprus at the age of 22 for the UK from Famagusta, the last memory he had of his father was seeing him crying as he waved goodbye from the port, he was the fourth son to seek his fortune abroad.

The first time I visited Komi Kebir it had no electricity or running water in the houses, I can still see my grandmother carrying an earthenware pot full of water from the village tap. We used to sit on the veranda at night and watch the beetles fly at the tilley lamps. The worst thing about staying there was having to use the toilet, a slot in a concrete slab over a pit where the beetles lived. Happy days

Did you forget the roaches and centipedes? Or dont you have them in KomiKebir?