Cyprus-Forum.com

[cypezokyli]

i dont know if that should go into general chat, but i guess it is part of what we beleive about each other.

i would like to ask you to share any kind of biccomunal stories that you your parents or grandparents had (especially these ones)
tho old especcialy are really beatifull.

they could be good or bad.
but please if you choose a bad one dont write about the death of 100 people . write about the one person you know.

cant wait...

[cypezokyli]

so... i ll start

one of grandparents comes from morphou area. there were some tc villages nearby so there was contact. he strongly believes that they made us fight and that they use to live just fine.
anyway real stories.

he had a piece of land with vegetables (what the hell are koutsia in english ). after he collected what could be eaten or sold a tc who had animals asked him if he could feed them there. my grandfather told him...
-ofcource
-what should i pay you?
-nothing re, its ok.
- i dont want them for free (harami)
anyway the tc promised some halloumi and anari.

after sometime they met and tc asked if my grandfather took the the halloumia. he told him
-no
- but i gave them to the agronomo to give them to you
- well i didnt get anything. perhaps i should go and ask him.
- please dont. because if you do, he is not going to allow me to come in your regions anymore. but stay here for a while
so he went back and brought him some halloumi and anari. this time in person and not through some policeman .

[cypezokyli]

it seems also that stealing was a common practise in cyprus.
i guess people stole because they were poor and not bc they were bad.

my granpa was working for a factory who was buying oranges and he was responsible for the counting. he asked a old tc woman to teach him how to count in turkish bc turkish cypriot women were constantly counting wrong in greek . so he learned to count their way.

even though the attempts for stealing never stopped. he even caught a gc priest trying to write down more oranges that he was actually giving

and thats not to say that he was a saint himself. his village was alloud to have water only once every two weeks. the rest was divided between a gc and a tc village. when the tcs used enough water they led the extra one flow. so once he went to his field in the middle of the night in the hope that he would find some (giorki) water.
on the place there was a tc boy who was there as a guard. to keep the water in the right direction. as he sais, the poor kid was lying and sleeping in a bush. so i sneeked found the door that lead the water to the tc fields and removed it. after some plants were watered the water run out. obviously the tc found out. he thought: shit i didnt manage to finish.
so as he sais: i heard them shouting at the small kid. it was not enough that i was stealing their water i went there to ask them whats the problem
and that was in 1967

but as he sais, it was better to steal from the tc than from the other gc village because there was no way to avoid the court

[cypezokyli]

something else that he experienced twice

the first in 1971. after a discuccion with a tc woman who was warking for him, she told him:
do you think that you are going to own this fiels also next year?

in 1973 in the fields of someone else, he saw tc women fighting in between them, on how they would divide the land after they would take it.
ofcource back in 1973they were laughing at them.

i found it creepy

[cypezokyli]

ok last one.
this time in lemesos.

from the other grandfather now.
it was either 1958 or 1960.
he agreed with a tc , that the tc would sell him his land.
two weeks later he went to sign the contracts. the local mayor told him that the tc has changed his mind. after meeting with him it seemed that it was his wife who didnot allow him to do it.
we are not allowed to sell anything to a greek. if we do they will kill us.

[Sotos]

My grandparents were talking about Turkish Cypriots just like they talked about all other Cypriots. They could say a story and some of the names in this story would be Turkish ones. I guess their stories were coming from an era before the problems started

[Melis]

i always notice that actually. When ever my grandmother (originally from Dali) tells a story she uses Greek and Turkish names without blinking.

Also, last year when we were in Cyprus, we went over to the South to were my grandmother grew up; she recognized one of the women in the garden shop; they grew up together. It was so weird! They were crying, cuddling, and shouting things in Greek which i really didnt understand.

[Dhavlos]

My late grandfather used to trade with one of the local TC villages.

He would go at the weekend, and sell them oranges etc..., and in turn, they would come down to his village(dhavlos) and sell them stuff....he said he made loads of friends, and learnt some turkish, like counting etc...

This was even before cyprus was 'independant', like in the 30s.

he also told us this story once, where he was going down to famagusta, i think whn he was in his early 20s, do learn to be a barber or something with some family, and on the way down, they were attacked or something(i think it may have been a british checkpoint of some sort), and there was a huge explosion on the road infront of a massive tree ....luckly he was ok.
Seemed like a really cool story to tell(although it could have been just to entertain us as kids...he tended to make up stories when we were kids lol)

[cypezokyli]

this one happened in the early 50s in a village in paphos.

in the village there were only few tc families and their children visited as a result the greek school.

the church decided and forced the teachers to take out of the class the tc children during the classes of greek history and religion.
some tc parents did not like that and insisted that their children should participate in all classes. it doesnt matter if its greek historythey said.

the whole theme went to the bishop of paphos. (the highest priest in that area)
they told him, we have some tc kids that they would like to get baptised.
his anser was:
then tha vromiso ego tes kolymvithres mou.

i will not allow them to make our religion dirty.(or sth quite similar)
.....................
no comment

[Kifeas]

this one happened in the early 50s in a village in paphos.

in the village there were only few tc families and their children visited as a result the greek school.

the church decided and forced the teachers to take out of the class the tc children during the classes of greek history and religion.
some tc parents did not like that and insisted that their children should participate in all classes. it doesnt matter if its greek historythey said.

the whole theme went to the bishop of paphos. (the highest priest in that area)
they told him, we have some tc kids that they would like to get baptised.
his anser was:
then tha vromiso ego tes kolymvithres mou.

i will not allow them to make our religion dirty.(or sth quite similar)
.....................
no comment

You see Viewpoint!
Even the GC bishops (commonly denominated as "billy-goats") were against the assimilation and disappearance of your community from Cyprus and they refrained from christening TC children.