Nicosia [GP:Nicosia]. Hot. Sunny. Sticky.

So, here we are once again in Nicosia where sweat is collecting in unusual places on my body at an unreasonably late hour of the night.

This morning we had a session on conflict resolution efforts in Cyprus. I won’t say that all of my questions were answered (they weren’t), but a lot of the points I’ve found myself raising over and over were at least addressed. For the first time, we had representatives of both the Greek and Turkish communities here making solid admissions on points I’ve noticed – yes, Cypriots tend to blame the mother countries (Greece and Turkey) for the problems that have plagued the island. Yes, the educational system on the island (both halves) is hideously skewed, and school children are taught only of the horrific acts committed by the other side and left completely in the dark about what their own side has done. I was reminded so many times over of Mehmet’s presentation that so followed the party line – the Turkish guerillas were freedom fighters while EOKA, the Greek counterpart, was a terrorist organization. Finally, admission comes that this sort of thing needs to stop. After all of this, after everything we’ve done here, this was the right note to end things on.

Things aren’t over here for us, not yet, but tomorrow will be spent going to the ruins in Paphos and the southeast – yet another component of the program that will no doubt run over on time and unnecessary narration, but I think that somehow this drew a nice closure. As always, I could see another way to do it – I could have very happily spent a full day with the team this morning and skipped, say, the pointless lectures by the math professor at the University of Cyprus.

This afternoon, Rob and I crossed the line and met up with Gülsen to hit a couple of bookshops in the north (naturally, this happened after I spent £14 to send 5 kg of books home). Found some interesting tracts on the Turkish perspectives, then went to a bookstore in the south and found some great counterparts on the Greek side of things. They’ll be great for the curriculum unit I want to do on conflict resolution.

Tooled around the old city with Laura and picked up a few cheesy souvenirs. I can’t believe we’re leaving in two days. I wonder if I’ll come back to Cyprus. I’ve really taken a liking to the place and the people here – even if no one will speak Greek with me. The more I stay, the more I feel like I’ve only just scratched the surface.