American in Cyprus: The Dark Side

A couple of weeks ago, Alex received an invitation for a birthday party from a girl at his school. Since I had never heard of the place of the party, I innocently asked Demetris, "Do you know where the Aroma Cafe is?" He said, "No." I followed up with, "It says it is in Kyrenia. Where's that?" At this point Demetris almost dropped his fork and said, "Lori, Kyrenia is on the NORTH side." Sure enough the party was to be held on the Turkish side of the island. Demetris has not been on that side of the island since the Turks invaded and occupied it when he was a small child. He has wanted to go there but knew it would stir some unpleasant feelings for him. I thought attending a birthday party would be an easy way to go on that side without being totally immersed in it. Plus, there would be lots of other people around so Demetris wouldn't be able to complain as much. The party was held yesterday. The parents of the birthday girl put quite a bit of effort into making it a smooth crossing for us. There were five families that needed to cross the border and they hired a minibus to transport us, and the dad met us at the crossing point. Usually, to take our car across the border we would need to buy insurance for about $65 a day. We parked our car on the Greek side and then walked through the border. Demetris was able to use his Cypriot ID card to cross and the rest of us presented our passports. Instead of stamping the passports, they stamp a piece of paper with our names on it because the Greek side could refuse us entry if we have a stamp from the Turkish side. It wasn't like they did a careful check of us anyway. Demetris handed the guy all of our passports at once and he didn't even look at us to confirm it was the same people. As we crossed over we were greeted by a large sign stating, "Happy to say I am a Turk." Not exactly what we were thinking. Demetris remembered much of the landscape that we passed on the way there, but now it is dotted by many Turkish flags and statues. We had a 20-30 minute drive to reach the party. The party itself was very nice. It was held in the yard of a coffee shop with plenty of grass for the kids to run in and a bouncy house to keep them busy. We enjoyed the company of other parents from the school that we had not had a chance to get to know much before. There was good food and the weather was very pleasant. At the end of the party the bus took us back to the crossing point. Overall, a good experience and now Demetris is ready to try exploring the north side a bit more on our own.