I Am Cyprus E-Book

Annetta Benzar

• Herausgeber: Armida Publications
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Seitenzahl: 320

Beschreibung

“You are not Cypriot.” But I tell them I am. Cyprus is all I have ever known.

What is a Cypriot? Too often the story told of Cyprus makes the island nation seem dully monocultural, or bicultural at best.

Yet the life stories Annetta Benzar has collected and retold here celebrate a country that is full of diversity, and in which there is a tale from a different part of the world around every corner. In these pages you will read stories of blood, stories of borders and border-crossings, stories of brides, of fathers, footballers, fear and fate, told by an eclectic cast connected to countries as separate as the United States, the Philippines, the Congo or the Crimea.

As they reflect on the sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes inspiring and sometimes funny experience of living in Cyprus, Annetta Benzar, herself a Cypriot citizen of Belarussian origin, weaves the stories together to form a portrait of a dynamic and fascinating country.

Leseprobe

I AM CYPRUS

25 Stories of the migrant and refugee experience in Cyprus

Annetta Benzar

Table of Contents

Copyright page

Introduction

Blood

I am DEVRIM

I am ALEC

I am NILÜFER

Borders

I am BENITO

I am YANN

I am MARCEL

Marriage

I am LARISSA

I am ZUZANA

I am BIRYAR

I am BELLA

Dad

I am BORA

I am CALEB

I am LUSINE

Cat & Mouse

I am AUDREY

I am MATEO

I am JULIEN

Fear

I am RASHAD

I am ALBAN

I am AMELIE & I am LANI

Education

The ROMANOVICHES

I am OBI

I am THEA

Team Spirit

I am NIGEL

I am HAMEES

I am EKA

What is a Cypriot?

Acknowledgements

I am ANNETTA BENZAR

Copyright page

Copyright © 2020 by Annetta Benzar

All rights reserved. Published by Armida Publications Ltd.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Armida Publications Ltd, P.O.Box 27717, 2432 Engomi, Nicosia, Cyprus or email: [email protected]

Armida Publications is a member of the Independent Publishers Guild (UK), and a member of the Independent Book Publishers Association (USA)

www.armidabooks.com | Great Literature. One Book At A Time.

Summary:

“You are not Cypriot.” But I tell them I am. Cyprus is all I have ever known.

What is a Cypriot? Too often the story told of Cyprus makes the island nation seem dully monocultural, or bicultural at best. Yet the life stories Annetta Benzar has collected and retold here celebrate a country that is full of diversity, and in which there is a tale from a different part of the world around every corner. In these pages you will read stories of blood, stories of borders and border-crossings, stories of brides, of fathers, footballers, fear and fate, told by an eclectic cast connected to countries as separate as the United States, the Philippines, the Congo or the Crimea.

As they reflect on the sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes inspiring and sometimes funny experience of living in Cyprus, Annetta Benzar, herself a Cypriot citizen of Belarussian origin, weaves the stories together to form a portrait of a dynamic and fascinating country.

[ 1. SOCIAL SCIENCE / Emigration & Immigration, 2. SOCIAL SCIENCE / Discrimination, 3. SOCIAL SCIENCE / Human Geography, 4. SOCIAL SCIENCE / Refugees, 5. SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, 6. BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Survival ]

Cover Photographs from Unsplash

Disclaimer:

The views and opinions expressed in this book are those of the individuals featured and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Author or the Publisher.

1st edition: November 2020

ISBN-13 (Epub): 978-9925-573-23-3

Introduction

I grew up in Cyprus. Some of the most vivid memories from those early years, besides being dragged (in full tantrum mode) to the beach every day from May to October, revolve around a ‘door’. My grandmother, as so many others in our neighbourhood, preferred to leave our front door wide open. This was not a habit she had practiced back in Belarus. There, our doors had two sets of locks that each bragged about their own sets of clicking and grinding sounds, a one two three and a one, two. Closed. I knew that sound. But I never paid it as much attention or thought as when we moved across land and sea to a house where grandmother thought it inappropriate to lock. I used to think it was because she always wanted to be the first to see and know what was going on outside (possibly one of her grandchildren getting up to mischief) or so she could be prepared for this unfamiliar outside world walking into her own. My grandmother, or babushka as I call her, is the kind who doesn’t enjoy surprises. Nor did she ever expect anything out of the ordinary to occur in that sleepy part of the island we used to call home. I don’t remember ever seeing my grandparents lock up our first house in Cyprus even on the rare occasion when the whole family left the premises. The only keys I recall ever seeing them carry were for the car. Why should we lock the doors? They would say. It’s such a pain to go through the whole process of opening it up again. We are in Cyprus now. Everyone was welcome, in their eyes, and there was never any point in trying to keep anyone out. In those days, we used to have many visitors arriving for a cup of tea and draniki, to stay for lunch or for the whole summer break. There was always someone coming in and out of that open door and, however much my mother complained about the dust or dirt flying in from the fields surrounding our house, my grandmother was adamant in keeping that door open. Sun or rain. Sometimes even at night.

In her own way, babyshka was trying to become what she believed was a ‘Cypriot’. During her time on the island, she was never able to grasp the local language other than the basics (‘geia sou,’ ‘gala,’ ‘psomi’1). Instead, she held onto a different form of communication. My babyshka talked hospitality. She opened her doors because that is what she had read defined the island in the brochure she was given before the whole family uprooted their lives in Minsk, Belarus, and emigrated to this tiny island in the middle of the Mediterranean. She believed the way to her neighbours’ hearts was in adopting their habits and their character. Her talk was her act …the less words she felt she needed… and the more she acted the less words she was able to grasp year in and year out.

In many ways, that was our experience of the island. Our neighbours’ doors remained open and a glimpse of their life inside was always visible if you were to walk by. As if you were part of the going-ons inside their home. But as the years went by, I began to feel uneasy about the doors …I felt the outsideness. The vulnerability the threat of an open door signified. Was my neighbour watching as I walked by? Were they waiting for me to walk up the steps to the porch, my foot cross the door sill and, at that very moment, be hit back with the door, closing, A click. A rattling sound. Without a word of warning. Almost a threat. Watching us walk by. Sometimes I wondered whether the doors remained open just so our hosts can push us back out. Quickly. Without a word of warning.

Cyprus’ history can be described as an unintentional open door. In its 10,000 years of recorded history, it has been occupied and colonised for longer than it has been a sovereign independent state. The Achaeans, the Phoenicians, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Persians, the Romans, the English, the Lusignans, the Venetians, the Ottomans. Even today, it remains an island divided between Greek-Cypriots in the South and Turkish-Cypriots in the North as a consequence of the 1974 invasion. The island’s mixed history is reflected in its buildings, many of them exposed to the public eye. From its Neolithic archaeological sites and the Venetian Walls surrounding the Old City of Nicosia, to the Islamic Mosques and the Roman monasteries.

The island has become a witness to a fluidity of migration of people offering their own history to the island. Though they were once uncertain, the wave-like motion with which they arrived has transformed into a soil in which they strive to grow their roots. So we as current residents, fellow island sharers, experience a different Cypriot geography. Yet, how different is the Cypriot landscape today compared to that of twenty, thirty years ago. Limassol with its towering luxury apartment buildings that are plastered with ‘продается’ banners taking up more space than the road signs. The numerous Asian stores where locals go to buy their rice noodles and tofu, their spices and rice. That one street in the old town of Nicosia that has at least seven barber shops, all with Arabic signs and on another that Armenian quick stop that is always crowded on a Friday or Saturday night with people waiting for some shawarma before drinks. The active mosques. Kofinou Camp. The Red Lanterns for Chinese New Year hanging by the neighbours’ front doors. The annual Russian-Cyprus Festival, SeptemberFest, the Phillipine Cook-Offs, the Sri Lankan dancers at the annual Spring Festival, belly dancers, the school children gliding between Greek and Russian, Greek and English, Greek and Filipino, Greek and German, Swedish, Hebrew, Romanian, Spanish, Bulgarian, Arabic, Persian, French...

‘Well, he doesn’t look very Cypriot!’

This was the comment circulating both online and offline when Marios Georgiou competed as part of the Cypriot Gymnastics Team at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Despite articles stating the fact that the gymnast had a Greek-Cypriot father, it was not until he had won the medals for the island, did the comments move away from a debate over his origins and, therefore, the legitimacy of his belonging to the Cypriot Team (his features reflect his Filipino heritage) to pride for the national flag being displayed abroad. This comment is reminiscent of those made in the early 90s about the job openings for ‘cabaret dancers’ (I place this in quotation marks because, in most cases, the job description implied though did not state outright duties that were more than just dancing).

A double face. “Come,” they would say, “come be part of the new island.” But only if you stay within your own doors. Not for Cypriot girls.

Part of the Cypriot community the doors were open for a short while. As long as they performed, they could remain in the house. Not as part of the family but as a constant outsider, someone who would never be accepted as part of the Cypriot community. The door was and is always ready for the ‘foreigner’ to return ‘back to where you came from’.

Memory has become a battlefield. We no longer fight with swords but stories. The stories we choose to hear and believe, lead us to fundamentally align with the narrative’s ideology. Slowly, the stories form a history that is repeated, generation after generation, and a nationalism that is bred into its citizens. This is true of Cyprus. The unjust treatment of asylum seekers, refugees and migrant workers is constantly being exposed by local media and by groups who work closely with these communities. Yet, these stories are soon lost, forgotten, burned to the ground and buried in the soil. Left in suitcases at the bottom of a lake. There is rarely a memorial for them. It is as if they had never shared the island, never left an imprint on its greater narrative. This inhumane treatment of the ‘outsider’, however, is also true of the larger European family of nations, especially in the wake of the ‘refugee crisis’. The stories we choose to hear and repeat will determine the development of the European narrative. Most importantly, in the face of current hostility towards refugees from the Middle East and Africa, these stories will define the future of the European Union as it passes through its own mid-life crisis. Who are Europeans, ask Nevena Nancheva and Timofey Agarin in A European Crisis: Perspectives on Refugees, Solidarity and Europe, and with whom do they hold solidarity? The interstate freedom of movement under the Schengen agreement that was once a proud cornerstone of the EU is now being characterised as its curse in political discourse. The safeguarding of human rights and high standard of protection for refugees and asylum seekers is no longer a priority. Indeed, states are not even willing to undertake their basic responsibilities under the Dublin treaties. Instead, the European Union is slowly closing its borders. We can even say, its doors.

The purpose of this collection is to shed light on how many stories from ‘outsiders’ have helped build the political and social makeup of the island and how the island has in turn treated them. The ‘alien’, the ‘foreigner’, the ‘enemy’, the ‘immigrant’, the ‘migrant’, the ‘refugee’. The beautician, the driver, the business partner, the student. The neighbour, the daughter-in-law. The child. The one who knocked on the door. The former ‘guest’ who has now built a home. Their stories are changing the landscape of the island and it is time their contribution is acknowledged. Their solidarity and their belonging, their Cypriotness and their Cyprus. It is all one. History.

NOTES

The following stories were collected between 2017 and 2018. Any identifying information (such as names, age etc.) have been altered to protect the privacy of the individuals. Most of the stories were written in collaboration with their protagonists and are all truthful according to their memory. The stories have not been fact-checked and the opinions remain those of the storytellers themselves.

Blood

I am DEVRIM

Today I have two languages that barely add up to one.BREAK DOWN

‘I’ll tell you an anecdote.’

April. We are sitting outside a kafeneio on rickety chairs, at times rocking back to discern faces in the passing crowd. Devrim sits opposite me, greeting person after person with genuine warmth, name by name, almost a crowd. He is small, slightly hunched with a mix of soft abruptness in the way he lets every word walk or cascade over his tongue and out of his lips. At first, his voice had taken me by surprise. Low, a rising murmur, never whipped into speed, a hum of endurance. There was something in the way he would pause as if to contemplate over the consequences his words may or may not have, as though by giving them up freely he would lose or gain a piece of himself or maybe a piece that was not yet him, but could be.

We sat maneuvering through generic topics for a while that trailed into discussions on the theoretical scholarship of Bhabha, Anderson and Spivak, reminiscing over past lectures, over first readings, over their conclusions. Then, slowly, naturally, we drifted into the more personal.

DIVISION

He tells me he is divided, or at least inhabits multiple hyphens. Turkish-Cypriot. British-Cypriot. British-Turkish-Cypriot? I search for these hyphens on his arms, as if they could be branded into his skin, part of its pigmentation. He is a child of Turkish-Cypriots parents, and I can’t help but compare him to the Greek-Cypriots playing tavli on the nearby table. How stark is this dividing line through Nicosia, how sharp does it enter the genes of the people on either side, who live within and without its borders? I come up with very little. Even Devrim’s hand gestures accenting his words, appear to match theirs, playing a game of mirrors. What divides this Turkish-Cypriot from his Greek-Cypriot counterpart? He laughs at my question. For one, Devrim points out, he doesn’t speak Greek but Turkish, or Turkish-Cypriot. But other than that, he shrugs and relates an anecdote from his primary school days in the North.

‘One day my brother came home and asked what the Greek-Cypriots looked like.

And my mum was like, “What do you mean?”

“What do they look like?”

Because what he was taught at school was that they were monsters and my mum had to explain no no they are human beings and unfortunately that was the image most people had of the other. I remember one day when I started to cross to the South, when the boundaries opened, I was asked like, “What do you live in?” and I was like, “What kind of question is that?” They said, “We live in houses. What about you?” I was like, “What do you think other people live in, caves?” Because, unfortunately, their education system has instilled the idea that we are barbaric.’

The creatures of the other side are no longer mysteries to him, ever since the border opened in 2003. He not only crossed and observed but has made the decision to live on the ‘other’ side of the Ledra crossing, among the villains of his school history books. From his room on the Southern part of the Old City, you can almost see the mosques nestled behind the police-controlled checkpoint. His mother was born in the South, he tells me. And her mother before her. He is Turkish-Cypriot, but he is not bound to the North, he will not be. This is where he belongs, he insists, this part is home.

LABYRINTH

Within these Venetian walls lies the Old City. Here you will find the perspiration of enthusiastic tourists, the heavy brows of straining migrant workers and the light dampness of street musicians scrambling along the labyrinth of streets under the blaze of the sun. The Old City leads you to lose you, down side streets crossed with graffitied Holy Mary’s gaping at passerbys, bell tolls ringing from St Sophia’s minaret in protest against the voices from the local market, road signals pointing in every direction, south, north, ‘Stop’, ‘No Entry’. Stone houses mingle like the men in the coffeeshops with their balconies reaching out to hold hands, or to press an ear against their neighbor’s wall. All the better to hear the ‘kirioi’ and ‘kiries’, the men and women, across the narrow streets, collecting gossip like years. Now their mouths are being covered with posters. Like silence. Like the awaited.

‘Break Down the Wall!’ the prints demand. Open the last divided city in Europe.

GAMES

Age: 0-2 Cyprus (North)

Age: 2-7 UK

Age: 7-13 Cyprus (North)

Age: 13-18 UK

Age: 18+ Cyprus/UK/Cyprus/UK/Cyprus/UK/Cyprus

Upon having emigrated (for the second time) to the UK, Devrim’s parents insisted their two sons switch over to using English exclusively. At 13, other than the little he had picked up at public school back in Cyprus, Devrim’s supply of English was little at best. It is no surprise, therefore, that that particular decision of his parents had not been favourably welcomed. No Turkish at home had meant much more than not speaking Turkish, it had meant TV with no Turkish channels, no dubs, no subtitles, no books, original or translated into Turkish, not even complaining against house chores in the familair ‘Kıbrıs Türkçesi’ dialect. Everything was in English. A new border had entered their home.

It is for the best, Devrim’s parents had said or thought, it is not a punishment.

Think of it like a game, they had said. And they made it so. A game of mathematics, a game of economics, a game of winning and losing. A game of real life.

‘Whoever uses a Turkish word while they are speaking, they have to put a penny into their jar. When it is full, you will get a book in English. So that is what started us in the short period. But she (my mother) realised she was not going to be able to beat us. After a while, my brother started to speak only in English and he forgot the Turkish language altogether. My parents were also caught out speaking Turkish. Whenever they would speak together in Turkish, my brother would say, “Ok you said this. That is 20 words, you owe 20p in the jar.”’

That is how Devrim learnt English. Or thereabouts. He is humble about his language or languages. The moves here and there, summers spent on the Mediterranean island, term time back in the cool of London, a Giorgos here and a George there, all took a toll, or so he says.

‘Today,’ he jokes, ‘I have two languages that barely add up to one.’

His thoughts, he tells me, are also mixed. A touch of Kibris, a curse in English, an affectionate sentiment, a retort, an apology. Within his body, the elements of language kiss, folding themselves into hugs, grasping at each other’s arms. When turning to his friend, another fellow Turkish-Cypriot, to ask for clarification of an event, he flows from Kibris to English without missing a beat.

At his transition, the eyes from the nearby table glance up from their dice game. Their eyes watch him, curious (maybe), thinking (maybe), ears attempting to follow, what did he say? Turning back to me, Devrim transitions back to English. They who had been watching him also turn back. Their game continues.

MODERN VAMPIRE

‘I am thalassemic by nature, meaning ever since from the age of 2 or 3 I have had to go to the hospital and take 2 or 3 units of blood.’

The taking, the giving, the pricking of the needle and the flow of the foreigner into his veins. His body no more partakes than becomes the space in which relations begin and end, or mingle. Devrim laughs, calling himself a vampire,

‘A modern vampire, because I have donors for my blood hunger. I go to a clinic and they feed us there. I make jokes about it as well, because it is a lifelong condition.’

Each donor is anonymous; he has never met those who are within him. But he feels them, as they enter and take temporary siege along his veins. Pumping him with their own administration and systems, greed and hunger. n. As a counter-attack he is forced to prick himself, ‘12 hours-24 hours- sometimes even 36 hours’ against the coloniser’s excess of metal, of iron.

There is a shyness about him as he reflexively rubs the arm that had, only a few minutes before, been hit with Deferoxamine. It is clear he hadn’t intended to mention his condition but, in attempting to express his attachment to the South, he couldn’t ignore the health motives. Since childhood, he has been a patient at The Thalassaemia Centre in Nicosia, and living close by on the South side, is vital for maintaining his wellbeing. ‘I am an outsider wherever I go,’ he murmurs, in that idiosyncratic way he has, that presumes words do not matter until they do. Humour that borders between laughter and tight lips. Like a joke taken out of context.

‘So maybe the whole idea with the health situation helps because ever since I’ve known myself I can see that with blood it’s something we can only get from donations from other people. When you look at blood, it’s the same kind of blood. There is no blue blood, or black blood, or white blood. It’s just one kind of blood.’

There is a breeze from the North that makes me slightly shiver. Shiver as I nod with him. Us both shivering and nodding at it all, at this joke that is as serious as they come.

REVOLUTION

‘I’ll tell you an anecdote.

There was a period that I was doing some stencils. I did them mostly in the North. But I also did the same stencils in the South close to the borders with soldiers, instead of holding guns and bazookas, they were holding pink dildos. HUGE PINK DILDOS!’

A pause, a smirk and a sly chuckle.

‘And I did this around the Old City. Both in the North and South. And when I was doing it in the South two friends of mine said, “Ok we have something as well, let’s get together,” and we formed this group to just go out and just color things.’

He would later send me photos of his work, apologetic for the quality of both the photo and the print itself, being a prototype, an idea just taking shape. The pink is rude, robbing attention from the dark outlines of the military men. It manifests in crudeness and violence, in absurdity, in a humor that sends me into long blasts of laughter.

‘At one point when we were doing the stencil in the South, three guys approached us and asked us about what we were doing.

“Oh, just stencil, this and that, you know.”

And they got really, really upset with the stencil of the soldier holding a pink dildo. Then they started to ask us where we are from, so my friend said,

“Well I am from here, I am half English and half Greek Cypriot, my friend is Turkish-Cypriot (pointing at me) and my other friend is Greek-Cypriot as well.”

The response kind of shocked us all because it was like he started to shout.

“You are not Cypriot. Because you’re a bastard (pointing at my Greek-Cypriot friend), you are half English and half Cypriot, therefore you are not true blood. And he is Turkish-Cypriot (pointing at me) so he is not Cypriot at all and she (they turned to our last friend) is only a woman.”’

Pause. Why does he stop there? There is a revolution within him, bubbling. An attack of art, an art unapologetic but an art that doesn’t take scraps, that throws those scraps back. That full stop almost seems stagnant, just a joke. I want it to be so much more.

‘What is a Cypriot?’ I ask him. There it is again, his smile. And an ending. With the curve of his mouth widening to show his teeth.

‘Bastards,’ he declares, and he raises the word to include all of us sitting there in the café, mingling around the Old City, painting the whole island in its pink glow, and his laugh echoes around us all.

I am ALEC

This is my life and all I can tell you is this story.

Unity entails breakage. You can only make whole what was once unwhole, unite what was once merely units scattered like dust, fractions that were reaching and hoping to become that one thing: united. In archaeology, it is the breakages, the cracks, the points of departure where narratives begin. And unity can only hold its own stories if it had experienced seeing its own disassembled selves, lying on the floor, surrounded by darkness, and thinking, can I ever pick myself up from here?

‘This is my life and all I can tell you is this story.’

Alec’s adventures in Cyprus began in the summer of 2011 as part of an archaeological team excavating historic sites on the island. He had leaped at the offer of leaving the sleepy town in which he had grown up in back in the States.

‘I was like, “Let’s go and explore something different.” So, I got home and I showed where Cyprus was on the map to my mom and her first response was, “Oh that’s awful close to the Middle East.” My response was, “Wow it’s even further away than I thought it was! That’s amazing I can’t wait to go.”’

His job was photographing the finds of the team as they dug into the history of the island. Through his lens, Alec explored the remains of Ancient Cyprus, one photograph at a time. He knew little of Cyprus before his arrival, and his curiosity from behind the lens soon took on new angles. He turned his eye towards a more contemporary scene.

‘I was really interested in finding out how other gay people live. Since this was a place that really interested me from a geographic, archaeological, historical standpoint and this was a topic of interest I was working on at the time, I thought let’s try to meet other people here. So, I downloaded Grindr and started to meet people, started to photograph and take their portraits as well. One of the things that always concerned me in my photographic practices is this power dynamic that happens between the photographer and subject. I go to this place, I take the photos, the primary word of concern for me is the word “take”. I also wanted in some way to change that…I was wondering, how can I give back? How can I equalize that power dynamic? I started asking people, what is your life like here? I really wanted to know. A lot of what I was finding out was a lot of different types of religious, social, familial lives of people here, people staying relatively in the closet. There is so much fear coming out as a gay person here. Cyprus only had its first Gay Pride in 2014. And even then, there was a protest by the Church, an anti-gay protest. Everybody that I had spoken to, who I knew was gay, was very afraid. And so was I. The repercussions and punishments were always at the back of my mind.’

After his second summer spent in Cyprus, Alec received news that would alter the trajectory of his life. He was diagnosed with HIV.

‘The doctor I was working with at the time went and chased through my history of partners and also based on the time the symptoms started to show up, we determined that I had contracted it here in Cyprus. At the time, I was applying to graduate school. All I could think about was, “Oh my god, this is a death sentence. I’m gonna die. This is the end of my life.”’

The wholeness he had come to believe was his life was being ripped into pieces, the glue shadows of a future he didn’t understand. But the fear of remaining unwhole, lying on the ground in the shadows for the rest of his life, caused more fear than picking up the pieces left of himself. The fear pushed him to a re-education, a re-adjusting, a re-imagining a life with HIV.

‘I began educating myself, reading all I could about the diagnosis. With today’s progress in medicine, it was soon clear it was not the death sentence I had written myself under. You take a pill. You are able to suppress the virus loading the body on the technical level to the point where you can’t even transmit it to other people. It doesn’t have an impact on your life expectancy anymore. It’s a chronic condition but it’s become as manageable as high blood pressure. Luckily, I was in New York where it is more socially accepted. You are seen as uneducated if you don’t know about the latest developments.’

Fortunately for him, the crisis of reveling in the cracks was short-lived. It was a journey relearning who he was and what his body was enduring at that point, questions began to arise as to the source of his cracking: the encounter in Cyprus. Did the other guy know? If not, why not? Why wasn’t he getting tested?

‘So, the first time I came back after the diagnosis was in 2013, in the winter. I went back to the place where I had that encounter with that person. I wanted to understand what I felt about that place and person. I was not trying to find him…maybe subconsciously I was. He was not there. But then I also started to meet more people and really started to get a sense of what it’s like to live in this community. What’s it’s like to live with this pressure, the familiar social factors, the legal hindrances? The power of the Church in Cyprus that plays a major role in the freedom of people and their expression of their sexuality? It’s a really small community. There’s a lot of stigma to being gay. Add HIV on top of that, and the outdated misinformation about HIV creates a lot of that suppression. So, I feel like in some ways visibility is the best thing. Those suffering from HIV are afraid to visit the specific clinic that treats HIV because of the possibility of being seen and then people will start talking about them. Gossip is the thing here that is unlike anything I have ever seen. It really works to the disadvantage of everybody. It destroys lives, almost to the point of death. Physical death. There are issues with nurses being up to-date with how they treat people with HIV. I talked with someone recently, someone who visited a doctor here, who had the courage to. And what do they get for their efforts? This was last year now. This person said, “I have HIV”, and the doctor got up and walked out of the room. Can you believe that? In Cyprus, the mindset is still stuck in the late 80s or 90s when was a death sentence. Even in medical circles. I am trying to change this by working with an NGO, educating the public about what it actually means to live with HIV. Not just as a lecture but in living out my words, being a model, in a sense, for the eyes of the public. I hope I have achieved that but in order to fully gain that position, I need to be here.

I’m trying to find a way to live here on a more permanent basis, so I can continue my work. For the past three years, I’ve been trying to find a way through employment to come here. But one of the major problems is that Cyprus will not allow a person with HIV outside of the EU to reside here on a long-term basis. In order for me to get a long-term residency permit I have to submit medical documentation that says I’m HIV negative, negative Hepatitis, Syphilis and Tuberculosis. I don’t have that proof because I’m HIV Positive. If you come from outside of the EU, you have no choice but to go through the test unless you are a high ranking official of an international company, which I’m not. Or, the other option, is through family reunification. You are exempt from being asked from medical checks if you are being invited to the island as a family member or a spouse.

A friend, who is Cypriot, and who used to be my boyfriend but we are in a different relationship now, offered to marry me for family reunification. I sat on the offer for two and a half years trying to find some other way to do it and there is no other way. We’re not together in that sort of sense anymore. But we have remained incredibly good friends…We’re on the same page of what this means. What the responsibilities are for each of us. What romantically it means, essentially it means nothing, but it’s not really what our relationship is about. He’s one of my closest friends and the way that I see it is it’s two people that are helping each other get what they want in the world. He wants me to be able to come here and do the work I am passionate about. I also want him to be able to go elsewhere and do the work that he wants to do too. The Parliament voted to allow civil unions in December of 2015 and it came into effect in the beginning of 2016. With civil unions, you don’t have to have it published in a newspaper, you don’t have to have a religious ceremony. It’s just you go to the office, sign the documents, they give you a certificate that you are now in a civil union. It is quick and simple and we can stop there but that’s not gonna stop us from having a little party though. It is an exciting new chapter for my life.

Of course, he only recently came out to his mother. He never told her when we were in a relationship, although I think she guessed at it. It was the summer and I was in short shorts…she must have assumed something was going on. And then he told her of his plans for the union and the reasons behind them. I was there. It was not a pleasant conversation.

His mother went, “That person was in my house! He was eating off my plates. You now have AIDS and my family is going to have AIDS!” And it turned into this whole big dramatic thing, which is weird now. I’m afraid to go back to his house now. She thinks I’m going to give them all AIDS (again). There was this bad relationship between mother and son that turned into this good relationship, which has now turned into this bad relationship. I am hoping it will change.

He’s a strong person. He doesn’t let these things stop him from what it is he’s going to do that he knows is right, and he’s not afraid to tell his family exactly how it is. This is why I’m doing it. These are my reasons for doing it and this is why I think it’s right. For me this whole experience, being beside him, through it, it’s been very instructive because it is, in a way, my intimate connection to the way the family unit works in Cyprus. The way it works when somebody is gay. The cultural attitudes. The more traditional attitudes. Easier to see and be immersed in firsthand experience. It’s what I want. I don’t want to be on the sidelines and speculate. I want to assimilate. What is this experience actually like? I’m never going to have that experience to the fullest that anyone who is born here or grew up here does. But I feel like one of the things that has been really important for me is the more I come back, the more I invest, the more that side of it is open to me. There is good and there is bad with it too. I don’t know, I’m reluctant to say that I’ve become accepted but the more that people get used to having me being around… those barriers they start to go down. Which is not something would ever happen. It’s special to me. I try not to take it for granted.

It is funny. Even though I came over here to photograph, to be behind the lens, my time here has forced me to come out from behind the camera and into the spotlight. To become visible. And, I don’t want to say subjects but yes subjects, they are coming out from the scenery and reaching out, they are the ones with the eye, watching me. We are clasping hands between frames, between the limits of the photograph, the landscape and the visual. By sharing our experiences, the gay scene is changing in Cyprus and I am so grateful to be part of that. I feel fulfilled being part of that and this is why I want to become a part of Cyprus.

When I first came to Cyprus and I was photographing these archaeological remains. I had a part of the statue on my coffee stand to photograph and, as I was turning around, I bumped the coffee stand. The whole thing fell apart like into pieces right there. I freaked out like, “Oh my God, I’ve just broken a priceless antiquity. It was an accident but they’re gonna send me to jail. I’m never going to see my family again. Blah blah blah.” I locked myself in the lab for 30 minutes, just crying.