Ironically, the end of my forty-year odyssey leads me back to the Mediterranean waters of Cyprus where it all began. On July 9, 2013, a small, chartered bus pulls into Agios Dometios, the main border crossing from Nicosia into northern Cyprus, a painful reminder that I am a refugee within my own country. Once we are issued temporary visas, we drive into the Turkish-occupied area of Cyprus, and head toward Famagusta. My father, cousin Savakis, and a small group of friends accompany me. My father spots the first tears on my face.
“You can do this, Tasoula,” he says and holds my hand as he did when I was a small child.
At this moment everything inside me is aching for what was. The closer I come to facing the ghosts of my past, the more I tremble.
As the bus travels farther down the highway, I am stunned by the changed landscape. The road signs and the village names have all been changed from Greek to Turkish; the Saint Barnabas Monastery, where my cousin Vasilios lived as a young monk, is under Turkish control and has been turned into a museum. We, the faithful, are now required to pay in order to enter and pray, something I could never agree to. The last time I saw the monastery and the ancient city of Salamis was April 1974, when my family and I attended Holy Thursday service and made a picnic amid the ruins of Salamis on our way to celebrate Easter in Mandres.
When the borders first opened in 2003, my parents, my siblings, and their families first made the pilgrimage. I traveled to Cyprus to help prepare them for the journey, but I could not summon the courage to accompany them. I make this journey today because I am ready to transform the anger I feel within. Bringing the icons back to Cyprus did not heal the pain I felt about my inability to return home as I thought it might. I still find myself overwhelmed with a need to rid myself of this haunting burden.
It is important for me to smell the air of Famagusta, to touch the sand I played in with my siblings as a child, and to walk barefoot in the waters that embrace my city. Perhaps I will discover, after being abroad since 1976, just how much of that girl from Famagusta is still left in me.
The bus turns off the two-lane highway onto a smaller road and into a parking lot. Hand in hand, my father and I walk by buildings that were destroyed in the invasion. I look up at the bombed-out hotels and apartment buildings, stunned to see that they have been frozen in time since 1974.
The sand is blistering hot as we continue to the beach and walk past European tourists sunning themselves, completely oblivious to the history and suffering that took place in the very location they chose to vacation. This land is sacred to us. Our people died defending our country, and we are the silent witnesses to the atrocities that took place on this soil.
We continue on for about two tenths of a mile, until we reach the farthest tip of this stretch of beach. As I turn to my right, just across the bay, I see Varosha, the area of Famagusta where I was born. Once my childhood home, it is now a ghost city.
I let go of my father’s hand and enter the sea fully clothed, captivated by the view of my birthplace in the distance. This is the photograph that you see on the cover of the book. Every emotion I have overwhelms my heart as my eyes rest on the ghost city. Just a short swim away and I can become that young girl from Famagusta again. I am sad, I am angry, I am horrified—I am in mourning.
I don’t hear the cries of my father or my friends who urge me to return to shore. Their voices are muted by the sounds of the waves brushing up against the shoreline and by the voices of my youth. Varosha calls to me from a distance, so I continue wading until the sea reaches my waistline. The quickened beating of my own heart senses the Turkish soldiers standing on a platform to my right with their guns pointed at my head, shouting for me to return. I am fearless. I have waited forty years for this moment, and their guns do not scare me.
I look across the water and I want to shout to the world, “I am a girl from Famagusta. I am from this ghost city, but I am no ghost. I exist and I want to be heard.” Which law or international treaty gives these soldiers the right to kill me for wanting to go home? If we are silent when the law is abused, we have lost our moral compass.
Varosha stands as an outdoor museum to remind us of the impact of war. This apocalyptic remnant of the invasion is a warning to the rest of the world. It is a symbol of wasteful destruction and the social impact of cultural cleansing. Facing my painful memories, I realize that I have been living in the same purgatory as my parents. I, too, have been waiting year after year for politicians to come up with a solution to the Cyprus issue. There will be no resolution until we, the people, make it so.
I am finally able to let go of my anger and resentment as I realize that everything I have gone through to this moment now bids me to call upon every Cypriot—Greek and Turkish—wherever they are, to peacefully walk home with me. I also call upon every good citizen around the world who rejects violence and injustice to join me in this peaceful march. To the 65 million refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced people that exist in the world today, who are adrift, struggling, and fearful, I am one with you.
My parents are at the end of their lives. With each passing day my fear of being unable to bury them next to their ancestors consumes me. My parents deserve to have in death what the politicians could not give them in life, something that is our God given right . . . the freedom to go home.
One person can change the world; this we know. Be that person and walk with me.
If you would like to find out more about my work and become a culture crimewatcher go to www.walkoftruth.org and please visit www.tasoulahadjitofi.com.