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We arrived at the Larnaka airport on a really hot day of June. Truth is I am used to Mediterranean climate but the air in Cyprus is unbeleivably dry during the day. The asphalt was burning my feet while laying on the side of a wall, trying to figure out how to make my way to Nicosia. I look around to see new faces; people are tanned I can see, very tanned! No wonder; it’s an island, bright and sunny 90% of the time. Waiting there for 20 minutes I saw 3 or 4 Mercedes and BMW stop by, drop people and go. Seems like they like big cars here, I thought.

Spending 2 months in Nicosia, there are some things I will never forget. Like the hundreds of cats around. People seem to adore them. Stray cats all over the city, fed by everyone, taken care of by everyone. The old city center between the walls is their fortress, not a lot of cars there, lots of little alleys and old abandoned houses to sneak in and take a nap; it is indeed a cat’s paradise. In the old center, one finds contradiction. Though it is by far a cultural heritage, with all those old houses, some of them true architectural diamonds, it is silent, left alone, as if forgotten. At least that was my impression during my first Sunday afternoon walk.

However, the days to come I was to discover its many faces. Little workshops pop out in the alleys, from the old days when each street would host a profession (the leather products’ street, the furniture street, the fabrics street…) and art galleries, architectural studios, hidden bars,  an interesting ambience which is pleasingly not too obvious. I asked people of the abandoned houses, being impressed with almost half of the district literally falling apart. They used to belong to the Turkish people living here before 1974. Greek-Cypriots don’t recognize the partition of the island, therefore they believe that this property should not be taken over; for this would also automatically mean that the houses in the occupied north belong to the Turkish-Cypriots living there now, and the Cypriots I talked to, are definitely not able to accept that thought.

My reason for being in Cyprus was to study water issues, so water was the center of my conversations with officials, locals, experts. It became obvious, as time went by, how water has always been a central preoccupation in people’s lives. Everybody is concerned and everybody has an opinion. Looking at numbers and facts, the change of legislation through time and the policies, their implementations, the existent practices and perceptions, I came to realize how complicated it is for a dry place to maintain such a water-thirsty economy it has created. Not only during the latest "climate change" years, but always, in people's memories, water has been scarce. However, the situation has significantly changed. Governement representatives told me they were ashamed to tell people there is no water for their houses during the 2008 drought. They were afraid of their reactions. Most people had the strong belief, that anything humanly possible should be done so that they are guarranteed not to have the same scarcity experience they had 3 years ago. However the more wet years that followed, domestic water cuts are still a reality on the island.

Outside of the walls is the busy city, quite tall buildings, businesses, shops, traffic; a lot of traffic. Cypriots  seem to deny to use the buses and the public transportation system is completely left alone for years (maybe one is a consequence of the other). Only a few elderly and many immigrants are using the buses (a handful of vehicles running on a not-so-regular basis). In the expanded Nicosia area, houses are big; they have green gardens, lawns, pools, numerous rooms and big garages…

Rural Cyprus is very different both from Nicosia and also from the other coastal cities and their “prospering” touristic businesses. Luxury hotels, golf courses and privatized beaches give their place to the abandoned small-scale agriculture in the rural semi-mountainous Cyprus. People have no access to the big markets, roadways are absent, and villages are left without inhabitants. I and my colleagues visited a village which was found to be very vulnerable to climate change (based on an index developed in the Cyprus Institute). Our visit was a true event even though we only stayed for a couple of hours in the morning and had a cup of coffee with some people of the village committee. They were more than welcoming and ready to tell us everything about their reality, though I could feel their doubt on the difference it would make to state their problems to us. It felt like expectations weren’t very high in terms of central state reactions; however, they didn’t seem ready to give up their efforts either.

I saw very little of the country, but it seemed to me that the occupation of the North part of the island is being felt still today in the consciousness of the people. It is my impression though that it is not anger that characterizes people's feelings, but it is sadness. Concerning water, I didn't get close to examining the issues that could link the two (division and water); apart from the pre-division existing water treatment facility in Nicosia (which as many say is to the benefit of both communities) where cooperation is seemingly taking place and water runs from one side to the other. Having said that, it is also to the spirit of the non-recognition of the division, that the government of the Republic considers its responsibility to serve the regions reached by its facilities, therefore not stopping to provide that water to the North.

In Cyprus I did see a divided country. Crossing the border and stepping in the North I felt strange, but still quite welcome when I spent some days there. Awkward as it was, I ended up staying in some beach bungalows on a little hill, owned by a British family. British are all over the island, reminding me that Cyprus was once a colony, but so do other Europeans who bought property and either live permanently (starting their own businesses) or come for long summer vacations. I tried to use my credit card in a cash machine but -surprise surprise- the card was eaten, the machine wouldn’t give it back. They don’t recognize foreign visa in most cash-machines in the North. That made me wonder of what kind of institutions exist and how they work there. The questionmark still remains over my head. 

There are some beautiful landscapes to be discovered in Cyprus, original and mysterious, as time has passed over them. Old castles, ruins, churches, mosques, are surrounded by a blend of cultures within the island and an on-going search for identity.