The end of school and a family visit

Sarah and Roger at St Hilarion castle

Summer has well and truly arrived in Cyprus, with the thermometer topping 40 on most days last week.  School finished a few weeks back and the kids are all slowing down for the long summer break.  Over recent weeks we have enjoyed the regular end of school activities with various concerts and presentations. This year-end was a more significant one for Jessie with her graduation from Year 6, and there was a great show and presentation to mark this occasion.

It has also been very special to have a visit from Sarah's brother Roger, his wife Bonnie and their two boys Ben and Bryce from the US.  The cousins reconnected quickly, and spent some great time together enjoying the various sites of Cyprus, including climbing castles, ancient ruins, medieval harbours, swimming at beaches, diving off boats, rocks and cliffs, watersliding and mountain visits. An action packed week was had by all, and many good memories for the cousins together.

Birthdays for both Ben and Bryce

Some jumping off boats. First Angus......

Then Ben....

Then Sam....

And Anna also!

Clear water around the caves at Cape Grecko

Roger, Bonnie, Ben and Bryce at Salamis ruins

OH&S Cyprus style!

A walk around Konnos Bay

It's never easy to get the Piper kids
to pose for a photograph!

Waterfights at home!

A great time together for the cousins

Primary school finished!

World Cup Fever

The picture says it all, Angus and his good mates Clemens (German) and Repe (Finnish, but part Chilean) staying up late to watch the Australia vs Chile match.  With timezone differences the games here have been on each day at 7pm, 10pm, and 1am, so plenty of late nights and much discussion and post match analysis going on each day.

I'm in Lebanon this week, and there is a strong following for either Brazil or Germany here, the latter possibly for less than noble reasons which are better left unsaid.

As for Angus' prediction, it will be a France vs Germany final, and France will come up with the goods. Time will tell! In the meantime sleep deprivation will be the order of the day for many of us.

Flag fever in Beirut

The split realities of Nicosia

Since Christmas the downtown area of the Nicosia is going through a resurgence of sorts. It seems that new cafes and restaurants are opening up each week, along with a plethora of frozen yoghurt shops which are a current craze. Restoration and gentrification is changing the face and character of some areas, and there is a growing sense of economic optimism on the back of the old city's newfound popularity.

However you don't have to walk far from the bustling tourist areas to find a very different reality. As with the whole of Cyprus, Nicosia continues to be a divided capitol and the line of division (known as the green line or buffer zone) runs right through the middle of the old city.  In the old town itself, the UN controlled buffer zone is only 5-10m wide in parts, with Turkish and Greek Cypriot soldiers manning posts on either side.  It has been this way for the last 40 years, and positive progress towards any meaningful resolution of 'the Cyprus problem' seems more distant than ever.  

Arabahmet neighbourhood in the Nicosia old town

Even after three and a half years here, it can still feel surreal at times to walk the bustling streets or sit in one of the many new chic cafes drinking a 'cyprus (not Turkish) coffee' or frappe, whilst just metres away armed soldiers on both sides of the divide keep a watchful eye from their posts along the buffer zone.  We often walk in the old city, and a particular favourite for Ross is to enter the north at the Ledra Palace crossing, and then wander through the rundown streets of 'Arabahmet' (the Arab quarter) and then along the buffer zone to re-enter the south at the main crossing in the centre of town. Especially in summer people live very much outdoors, and as you walk down the narrow streets you can find yourself immediately outside the open entrance to someone's living or dining room as the family sits together drinking tea or playing cards or backgammon.

The clip below is filmed in the old city, and shows something of the 'other reality' of a divided Cyprus.

And the following pictures give some more perspectives from the Arab quarter in the old town.

Football pitch between Arabahmet and the Ledra Palace
crossing point.  Angus has friends who live nearby so
they have enjoyed the occasional game here

Near the Armenian monastery under restoration
in Arabahmet

A view to the 'Pentadaktylos' in the north

Beautiful Ottoman architecture

Just in case you forgot which country controls the north!

Sarah's Two Trips in Two Weeks

As always for us in Cyprus, May is a busy month. In addition to many music and school events, and also Ross' travel, I had the opportunity to take a voluntary work trip plus a small holiday with an old friend.  In keeping with making the most of our final year here, I jumped at both offers.  

In mid-May I travelled to Turkey to assist with some staff care work.  The town of Gaziantep is located in the south and is less than an hour from the Syrian border.  Gaziantep serves as a hub to support World Vision's emergency response program in Northern Syria. It's a challenging program because many components are currently managed remotely. In other words, international staff cannot currently enter Syria country due to security and other related restrictions. The program relies on local Syrian staff to actually implement program activities in Syria, with leadership and support provided remotely by the team in Turkey. Remote program management presents a number of challenges, particularly with management of cash and project monitoring, but the team are doing a great job in working around these issues. The overall program includes a range of large scale health, education, water and sanitation projects. 

Since I couldn't photograph the staff....I've put in a pic
 of the market I visited after hours. It was great to
be in a non-touristy town of Turkey.

As with any challenging humanitarian aid project in the midst of war, the effects on the staff can vary from none at all to complex and diverse. World Vision operates a staff care program around the world, taking its promise of "We Value People" seriously. My role was to provide psychological and general staff care support to those who needed to debrief or just talk things out; providing them with the time to reflect on how they may or may not be coping in their given role and in the challenges of operating remotely. Many staff and two and a half days later...I was..lets say...all listened out.  What a privilege though, to understand the work better and to witness people's approach to the day to day uncertainty of working with people in a war zone. It was humbling to hear their contentment simply for 'today', especially the Syrian staff who had left family in Syria to get work in Turkey so they could live.  "We don't know what will happen tomorrow, but for now, for today my family is alive".

Gaziantep

Not long after that, a date in the diary had been set: for two Mums of 4 to get away and have a mini-holiday in the sun.  My very dear friend of over 20yrs (who's counting?) Fiona Prior, flew out from the UK to spend some time with me in Cyprus.  Something spoken of for ages, and for a number of years with babes-in-arms, it seemed only a pipe dream. But, as we said together many times on our first day of meeting up, "we did it!". Heck, it wasn't like we climbed Everest, but for each of us in this season of life - it was something to be celebrated.

It was a great weekend away in Paphos, staying at a hotel, lying by the water, taking morning bike rides, and reading books completely uninterrupted. Of course the latter was only possible when we managed to stop talking....recollecting memories and making new ones all at once. Filling in the years that passed in which we were just too busy to stop and share.  I came away so thankful for old friends. No, correction, thankful for Fiona. Still working on one more sighting before departing the northern hemisphere.:) Love to get the families together somehow!

Aquamere Hotel just out of Paphos on the west coast of Cyprus

Great bike path...

Dinner without kids at Aphrodite Baths!

Showcase (By jessie)

I hope you enjoyed the last blog! The show in which I sang Popular, was the Stage School 's annual showcase. A showcase is where it is all 1 big show but there are several different songs, dances, and monologues from heaps of different musicals. It was SO SO fun and I didn't want it to end. Our next show will be around Christmas time and it will either be Annie or Thriller (the Michael Jackson musical) I personally want it to be Annie because i really don't like Michael Jackson.
In our showcase there were songs, dances and monologues from Haispray, Wicked, Matilda, Is There a life after High school, Les Miserables, Oliver, Sweet Charity, My Fair Lady, Sister Act, dream Girls and Annie!

Here is the program

Listen -  (Dream Girls) -  Melina Kouyalis

Food Glorious Food  (Oliver)  - Whole Cast

Wouldn't it be Loverly (My Fair Lady) - Joanna Papanastasiou and Julia Jenkins

Sunset Boulevard -  ( i have no idea which musical this is form) - Ariadne Andreou

Football Monologue - Jad Sayegh

I Dreamed a Dream (Les Miserables) - Dani Advani

Hairspray Songs (Purr Youth Theatre, Pre Associates)

In the Hairspray Section there was - Good Morning Baltimore (Ariadne Andreou)  and Nicest Kids in Town (Purr Youth  Theatre and Pre Associates)

Never Fully Dressed Without A smile (Annie) - Olivia Jade Michael

We Are What We Are (Tap Dance) - Panayiotis Soteriou and Miss Veronica

Disney Medley - Custard Cubs

Wicked Songs (Melina Kouyalis, Antonia Kasoulidou, Jessie Piper and Hannah Arnott)

In the Wicked section there was - What Is This Feeling (Antonia Kasoulidou and Melina Kouyalis) , Popular (Jessie Piper and Hannah Arnott) and Defying Gravity (Antonia Kasoulidou)

School Speak (Poem/Monologue) - Purr Youth Theatre

Matilda Songs  (Full Cast)
In the Matilda section there was Naughty (Custard Cubs) and Revolting Children (Purr Youth Theatre and Pre Associates)

There's A Kid Inside (Is There a life after high School) - Panayiotis Soteriou

Sister Act Medley  (Sister Act)  - Pre Associates

Rhythm of Life  (Sweet Charity) - Full Cast  (Finale)




Ok so there was the program! There were 3 classes involved in the showcase and they were the Custard Cubs, Purr Youth Theatre and Pre Associates.

Custard Cubs - 8-10 yrs

Purr Youth Theatre - 11+ yrs

Pre Associates  - 16 and over

Below there is a few more videos from the show! I am sorry if this blog was a bit boring to you! (the videos aren't boring!) By Jessie

Some of the finale (Rhythm Of Life)

http://youtu.be/icboL7x70Hk

Some of the Sister Act Medley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt3WFAlss1A

Revolting Children (After the audience clapped, one of us shouted "Now Lets Raise The Roof!!!" and another shouted "5 6 7 8!" Then we did the last bit again! As rehearsed! )

http://youtu.be/ZgAwbWi3VII

Musicals and talent shows

Jessie in a recent performance

Four children, four personalities and four different interests!  In our case it's a little more like two and two, where Jessie and Sam continue to love theatre and music, and Angus and Anna are into anything involving football or physical activity. Jessie and Sam go to a local stage school at different times each week, and have recently enjoyed being in a talent show and other performances.  Jessie in particular is really loving and thriving in it, and has developed some great friends through the stage school.

There was a talent show a few weeks back in the coastal city of Limassol.  Both Jessie and Sam performed well and enjoyed the chance to be on the stage (see clips below). Sam won his section, much to Jessie's chagrin, but they both did a great job and the standard in the older kids groups was very high. Ross was rushing to make it back from meetings in Vienna for the show, and arrived just in time from the airport to see both Jessie and Sam's performances (so the all important principle of justice and precise equity between children was maintained)!

Click here to watch Jessie's performance of 'Popular' from the musical Wicked at a recent show, or if not on a mobile device you should be able to see the clip embedded below:

Click here to see Sam's performance at a talent show in Limassol (apologies the video is sideways, but you get the general idea!):

And click here to see Jessie's performance from the talent show in Limassol. Note the ongoing inspiration from the musical Matilda in the family!

The winners in Sam's section in the talent show

And finally a recent picture of the kids with Menaka, celebrating her birthday.

The silence of Srebrenica

A few weeks ago I was in Bosnia and Hercegovina visiting programs and staff.  Whilst there I had an opportunity to visit Srebrenica in the eastern part of the country.  Srebrenica is of course well known as the notorious sight of the worst massacre since WWII.  This occurred in the middle of 1995 towards the end of the war in Bosnia, when over 8000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica and the surrounding villages were rounded up and killed by the Bosnian Serb army.  This occurred despite the fact that Srebrenica was a designated UN safe haven under the protection of a small Dutch contingent of UN soldiers.  The killings in Srebrenica highlighted the ineptitude and inadequacy of the UN peacekeeping mandate in Bosnia.

Memorial in Srebrenica

To this day exhumation of some mass grave sites continues, and the painstaking process of matching DNA samples of remains found, with that of living relatives is ongoing. The town of Srebrenica and its surrounds are very picturesque, and it can be hard to equate the present day view the tragic events that occurred there less than 20 years ago. This was not some ancient war that occurred in a distant past, this took place just a few months before Sarah and I got married. It is hard to be confronted with the human capacity to carry out acts of evil in our own 'modern' society. 

A new memorial in Srebrenica has been opened in recent years, and its a sobering experience to stand before it and contemplate the events that took place there. Likewise in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, a museum on Srebrenica has opened. The museum provides excellent resources along with many examples of recorded testimony of those who survived Srebrenica.  

The challenge for a country like Bosnia and Hercegovina is that while the war ended some 18 years ago, deep religious and ethnic fractures remain in society, and in many respects the country operates as two separate entities within one, with parallel ministries and government structures at all levels of society. New generations are taught two (or more) vastly different versions of history, and the country is beset with major economic and social challenges. As a Bosnian colleague joked with me the other week: 'When it comes to EU membership there are three groups of countries: those already in Europe, those who are in the queue to join Europe, and thirdly there is Bosnia'.  There is an uncertain future but there is always hope.

A picture in the Srebrenica museum in Sarajevo

Sunset in Sarajevo: a Catholic church, Orthodox
church, synagogue and a mosque in close proximity 

Downtown Sarajevo