Published on 17 April 2007 at 04:49 pm
Filed in Expat Life In Nicosia Cyprus
On Sunday a certain British friend of mine required our presence at lunch with her maybe-one-day-to-be Cypriot in-laws as she determined our combined Turkish language skills would be better pooled at such an occasion! So off we went to Yayla with her and her man.
The day was touched by the warmth and kindness of her man’s family, the heady scent of orange blossom, incoming grapefruit, an eight legged sheep, a three legged chicken, the patron saint of tax evaders and an incredible deserted beach – not to mention more puppies, wax babies and a secret grove of a thousand year old olive trees…that’s lots of trees which are 1 thousand year’s old, not one thousand trees which are 1 year old…
Her man wanted us all to meet his angel nanny who lives alone in Yayla which is a tiny village near Guzelyurt; at eighty she still manages an impressive fruit and vegetable garden that I’d be proud to be able to cope with and her fortitude is obvious when you consider she brought up her four children alone after the death of her husband very early on in their marriage.
To feed and clothe her family nanny baked the village bread and made the village helim and bartered and traded for all she needed and as a result she is highly respected within the entire community. Of course we knew that there was no way we’d be allowed to visit and not eat…especially on a Sunday which is family day here in North Cyprus…so we skipped breakfast and armed with a strange assortment of gifts for the family off we went like the elephant and the bad baby, rumpeta rumpeta all down the road.
On the way we saw a squashed snake, a flat cat and a dead hedgehog…then, driving through Guzelyurt her man kindly informed himself (that’s my man) that in the museum we’d just passed there was an eight legged sheep – it seems my Brit (read ENGLISH) friend had explained we were from Wales and had kindly gone in depth into the whole Welsh joke thing to her man and he asked us whether it would require four pairs of wellies to get to grips with such a beast.
This set the mature tone for the whole day because my mate’s from Kent and of course, has dreams of one day owning her own caravan…
Arriving in Yayla we realized that this was a very serious occasion…the entire village was lined up to meet us and so as we kissed and ‘merhaba’d’ our way down the lines of ladies and gents we were quickly trying to assimilate who was who, who was family, which were likely gift recipients and how on earth we were going to remember everyone’s name…
Luckily nanny rescued us and we escaped into the cool confines of her hallway and out into her stunning and ripe back garden packed with every kind of fruit tree, vegetable and herb plant imaginable. We met the immediate family and I can confirm…my mate’s man is a thoroughly nice bloke, a decent find and worth hanging on to because his family are just so welcoming, humble and funny!
Lunch appeared and was gladly consumed and then the neighbours took us off to meet their duck which lives in a cage with a pigeon and a parakeet and before we knew it, it was time to visit the orchards. Yayla is one of the main citrus growing communities in North Cyprus, it’s well irrigated, it’s lush and everyone is seemingly involved in the business if only by keeping a few trees going in their back garden. Nanny’s sister had an orchard behind her house and as we were walking towards it I kept thinking, someone in this party is wearing over the top perfume…that’s seriously strong…way too heady, wrong, not subtle at all. And then I realized! It wasn’t perfume it was the orange blossom – it was so strong and concentrated a scent that it was comical and the trees weren’t even in full bloom. I can only imagine how intoxicating the smell is there in season…
As my man and her man were the tallest by a magnitude of feet compared to our elderly companions they were charged the task of getting down them there pesky grapefruit that were hiding at the top of the trees…before long with the older folks having retreated to watch from a safe distance they were having competitions to see who could hit me and my mate the most times on our heads and despite our vociferous protestation, still the grapefruit were incoming.
Finally we escaped and then we said our goodbyes and came away with a boot full of oranges, lemons, grapefruit, greengages and borek (seriously tasty)…and off to the beach we went.
