Sotiris, the youngest child of 9, born to Kypros and Eftyxia. Place of birth, Trikomo village, located 12 miles north of Famagusta in the province of Ammoxostos. This placed Sotiris north of the Atilla Line and so, in the summer of 1974, my uncle, at the age of xxxxx became a refugee. Overnight the streets of his past became ghostly memories and his hopes for the future shattered dreams. Worst of all, the soil where his ancestors lay was now out of bounds.

In the summer of 2024, as the fiftieth anniversary of the partition of the island and my uncle’s refugee status approached, we decided to cross the border and pay a visit to his village of birth and ancestral home.

To say that much had changed does not do justice to the concept of change. Only the ocassional landmark confirmed we were back - and here the memories were resurrected.

A home - and a history - erased.

Here, on the corner of xxxx and yyy, stood my uncle’s house. The ancestral house, home to Sotiris and his 8 siblings, all born there, all raised there. Except that, 50 years on, there is no home - no occupied abode; no crumbling facade of sunburnt skin; no stones or bricks or walls outlining the ghostly template of a house like you find, for example, in the abandoned villages of the Diarisos valley (see xxxxxxxx); not even a collapsed pile of remains - nothing, no sign at all. But for my uncle, home is not just mud and brick and stone - it’s the place where the spirit survives, even after the earthly remains are long gone.

Echoes of school days

Now, as the years drift gently by,
And twilight paints the evening sky,
I trace the paths we used to roam,
In memories' embrace, I find my home.

And as the sun begins to fade,
Memories of friendships made,
Will stay with us throughout the years,
A time of laughter, love, and cheers.