My Village
17 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment
in Cyprus Tags: drawing, Mesogi
As anyone who follows me on Twitter will be aware, I live halfway up a hillside in Cyprus. The village I live in is called Mesogi and I am extremely fond of it; we live above an incredibly nice family and have a balcony which overlooks the village square.
This means we are able to witness almost every spat, squabble, fight and bout of yelling which might occur – and these occur very reguarly. There is one such argument depicted in the above image*.
Arguing and shouting comes much more freely to Cypriots than the English and they are incredibly good natured about it. During the incident shown in this drawing, one participant carried on a friendly conversation with my husband whilst he was being berated from the flat above.
I haven’t yet plucked up the courage to yell loudly at my family or friends, but I tested it out whilst on the phone to Cytanet and it is satisfying. Shouting loudly is something I’ve heard reported from several Mediterranean countries (a friend in Italy informed me that Italians love to shout and that flinging plates at people can happen very quickly) and I quite enjoy it myself; I don’t think I’ve seen many Cypriots disguising their true feelings and it’s rather nice to know where you are with your neighbours.
Especially when your Greek is limited to the names of your favourite fruits….
*on the left hand side, my landlord is screaming at our neighbour and she is yelling back at him. He then stomped off up the street and yelled at the mayor; using words that caused his 14 year old daughter to cover her ears and run back down the street in mock horror. The discussion still goes on to this day and in some way involves teenagers being noisy on mopeds, very late at night; although I’m not completely sure how this fits in.
