Can’t say I remember the bleach blonde Brit’s name at the rental counter at Larnaca International Airport but she was incredibly upbeat and helpful. She laid out all the options for Mikey and I. She explained the insurance and the gas deposit. She had a tongue ring.
“Can we drive to the North and how does that work?” I said, deftly combining two questions into one.
“You would need to purchase car insurance at the border as our insurance does not provide coverage there.” She could have been holding pom-poms. “We don’t recommend driving there. I’ve heard stories of drivers getting into accidents and not being able to leave the North until they’ve paid the whole amount.”
"I see. So, you’ve been there?"
"No,” she said with an easy smile. “I haven’t."
“Really?” I was unable to hide my astonishment at all. “How long have you been living here?”
“About two years now.”
“Really?! And you haven’t been once?”
“No.”
Laughing politely, I looked at my brother Welled and then back at her. “You haven’t even been curious?”
“I just haven’t had the time.”
And there you have it. Again and again, the cliché, that everyone in the world is open, well-traveled and culturally curious, except for Americans, is exposed for the delusional crap that it is. Rental Counter Girl lives on an island divided by an EU government to the south and a foreign occupying force in the north. Until only recently, 2003 in fact, northern and southern Cypriots couldn’t cross the “Green Line” at all. Separating the two sides is a thick UN administered buffer zone keeping everything neat and cheerful. Plus, the island has two sovereign UK military bases where if you were to step foot on them you would geopolitically be in Britain. I would think garden slugs would find such a situation interesting. It also stands to wonder what the hell Rental Counter Girl does with her time anyway?
I was so disgusted that I turned my attention to another rental counter. Actually, it was just to save about 5 euros a day on the rental. Still, I couldn’t get what she said out of my head.
To get on her case some more, Cyprus is merely 100 km high by 240 km wide, less than half the size of Connecticut. The distance from the EuropCar rental counter she stood behind chewing her gum and the Northern Turkish Cypriot border is about 40km. I’ve driven to restaurants farther away than that. Plus, Rental Counter Girl is a British citizen with an EU passport and could go anywhere she likes.
Regardless, I had to gather myself and focus on the task at hand. One of the remnants of Cyprus being under British control from about 1878 to 1960 is driving on the left (read: wrong) side of the road. Since it’s hard to break most habits, I figured Welled and I would need to muster all of our mental energies to keep us from falling back on making right-hand turns into the close lane or panicking when an oncoming car headed toward us on the right (read: wrong) side of the car.
The first couple of hours were challenging. Welled and I needed to declare our moves out loud as a sort of audio check and balance.
“Welled, am I in the right lane?”
“No.”
“I mean the correct lane?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to make a left now. I’m going into the nearby lane, right?”
“No, left.”
“I mean, correct?”
“Yes.”
Our homage to Abbot and Costello notwithstanding, we eventually got the hang of it.
The Republic of Cyprus has clean, modern highways that ring the southern two-thirds of the island. They took us from the unexciting British tourist haven of Larnaca to Limassol, a more interesting town with trendy shopping and ancient fortifications.
Those same roads eventually led to Paphos, a seaside city itself no stranger to the British pound. While there we ate fantastic mezze — a collection of small plates of food, heavy on the veggies, served in waves for hours to groups of diners — and got a little buzzy on the restaurant’s delicious homemade wine.
Our waiter, James, was a young, handsome guy who made Welled and I feel incredibly welcome. His father was the owner and the genius behind our amazing three-hour dinner. After most of the customers had left, James sat down with us and let me pick his brain about food, folks and Cyprus.
“So have you been to the North?” I asked, confident that, considering his youth, he probably goes there all the time.
“No.”
“Really?” Strike two. “Why not?”
“I cannot go there.” His face became slightly more serious. “True, things are getting much better, especially among younger people, but if I go across the border they will stamp my passport. I cannot have that stamp in my passport. Then, I would be accepting the occupation. Do you understand?”
To an extent, I did. The southern two-thirds of the island of Cyprus is officially recognized as The Republic of Cyprus, an EU member. The northern third of the country, The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), is currently occupied by Turkish troops since they invaded in 1974, ostensibly to protect the smaller Turkish Cypriot minority from Greek Cypriot terrorism. Arguably, Turkey’s incursion was legal, more arguably it wasn’t. The rest of the world took the latter opinion. In fact, Turkey happens to be the only country in the world that recognizes the TRNC as legitimate. Naturally, the Greek Cypriots aren’t thrilled by the idea of a chunk of the island occupied by foreign troops.
“I myself am not racist,” James continued, “but I have friends in the army who hear things like ‘The only good Turk is a dead Turk.’” Sounds familiar. “But, the Turks say that any land where Turkish blood has spilled is considered Turkey.” So neither of them will be meeting for tea and toast anytime soon.
“But wouldn’t you want to just cross over and see what it’s like? Aren’t you just a little curious?” I said, practically pleading for him to see my point of view.
“Yes, I am. One day, when things get better.”
Things are getting better. Since 2003 when the TRNC surprisingly opened the border, Cypriots of any stripe have been able to cross the few entry points with ease. Both sides actually talk to and cooperate with each other more. Even the blown-up photographs posted on either side of the line, detailing the abductions of members of either community, have been left to fade and deteriorate.
None of this erases the fact that the island has been in a continued state of turmoil for decades. The first UN peacekeepers arrived as far back as 1964. The conflict in Cyprus between Greek Cypriot nationalists and their Turkish Cypriot counterparts was a civil war in every sense but the island’s strategic importance during the Cold War also made it a pawn of Greece, Turkey, the UK and the US.
I do not know what it’s like to have a part of my country under occupation. Unless of course you count having a Starbucks on every corner. James is too young to remember the CIA-supported Greek military dictatorship’s coup attempt of the island nor the Turkish invasion. Once a line is drawn across any community, however, animosity and mistrust of the other side will reverberate across generations. At least for a little while.
James, though, is the future. The more we talked to him, the more we were impressed by how smart and articulate he was. His views on the situation were pretty balanced, a far cry from the reactionary attitudes of the generation before him. That’s good. But what would be even better is if he crossed that line.
"I would think garden slugs would find such a situation interesting." You crack me up! I really like the mix of seriousness and levity here.
Lizzie
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