clay figurine of a votary holding a quadruped, Cypro-Archaic period (750-475 BC), Galinoporni

2.4.22 On the road to Galinoporni, against the light.

One of my favourite routes in Cyprus, fertile hills that reach the southern sea of Karpasia, a purely Turkish Cypriot area, the first time I sat in the village coffee shop, the first thing the locals said to me was ‘we are not displaced, we inhabit our land’. Everyone speaks the Greek Cypriot dialect and they say, if you don’t speak the language, you don’t get to know your other half. They also say, we in Cyprus we are very intermingled. Anyone who says I’m only this, only that, is lying. This area has for the moment been completely spared from development. Sonically, as well as visually, it is a feast to pass through. Buzzing, bees, rustling, the handmade metal bells of the sheep and goats. I lay for a while on the ground, among the wild gladiolus and daisies, enjoying the serene beauty of the place and the sounds of nature, before I made this watercolour.