Crushing Shiraz

I used to dread the start of the wine-making year. Not involved in the actual grape-picking, I used to wait at home until Best Beloved arrived with the boxes of grapes and then sit and help de-stem and sort the grapes. I actively dislike no jobs in the house, garden, or field except this one. The sorting of the grapes into spoiled and usable, and the removal of stems, spiders, and bad fruit is tedious, slow, sticky. Hours hunched on a hard seat left my bum and back aching and my temper raw – how much worse for Best Beloved with his bad back, I could only guess, for he's not a whinger. The thought of this job has been hanging over me for the last few months, made worse by the fact that we have less help this year since the disappearance of Ha. Less help translates into more hours for me, I thought.

So I knew a shiver of delight last week when BB announced that he was heading for Limassol to buy 'a machine to help with the wine-making'. Foolish Asproulla! “No de-stemming this year?” I yelped with delight. Delight swiftly crushed. “A press for squashing,” came the answer. I assumed (what I hoped was) a winning expression: “But darling, we've fewer hands this year, and I dread the sorting-cleaning part of the job...” I tried to keep the hope alive in my eyes and the whine out of my voice “And we have more grapes than ever!”

So BB returned a few hours later with some new toys and a lighter chequebook, and this morning when we crushed the Shiraz, we got to play.

Because we have several different varieties of grape that BB blends for a unique taste and quality, we need to pick at different times. The Shiraz is ready first: higher in sugar than the Cabernet Sauvingan or the Grenache, and if it is left too long it will impart a caramel fruitiness that BB is trying to avoid. He tests daily for sugar content and pH from the moment that the grapes begin to truly ripen, and had decided that today was D-Day. Luckily this co-incided with the arrival of teenage cousins from Austria on their summer break, so BB and Cousin Philip headed to the vines just as dawn brightened the sky.

We had set up most of the aparatus yesterday: a scrubbed-out (by Leo with tremendous enthusiasm) plastic tank rested on Sophia's old desk, the stainless tank was cleaned and awaiting its crushed contents. The new de-stemming machine only needed to be lifted atop the tank, plugged in, filled – and all of the previous years' torture would be relegated to the realm of 'Remember when...' stories.

Alex and I were waiting for the grapes' arrival – only about 30 kilos came in four boxes. Stricter application of sulpher by BB meant that none were spoiled and manual sorting was unneccessary, so together we all lifted the new machine to its perch. Philip and Alex passed up the boxes, Best Beloved dumped in the berries and pressed the 'On' button. Paddles turned, wheels whirred, juice and skins dropped into the tank and stems shot out of the end of the hopper. In fifteen minutes the job was done and Leo washed his feet and climbed into the tank to do some final squashing. Even Sputnik enjoyed himself – he has a sweet tooth for fruit, and will carry around a single cherry or a piece of apple for hours – so he was in his element with stray grapes.

In previous years, hunched around boxes and bins, we would have gone through several relays of frappes, several fights between fractious little ones, several recitations of The Man From Snowy River, innumerable renditions of songs old and new, this year we finished inside an hour, despite a thorough cleaning of the machine... I suppose that you could have called our old way a 'bonding' experience (or 'bondage' depending on how you looked at it) but it would often be nearly lunch time before we had done the same job. Recovery would take the rest of the afternoon. I have no nostalgia for the past regarding this, and even find mayself looking forward to next week's crushing – we need to tweak the system a little so that the tank doesn't have to be emptied by bucket and ladle, but I'm sure we'll come up with something.

Life With Power Cuts

We are extremely fortunate: for whatever reason – and I've heard several ranging from our proximity to the airport to our being 'on the same loop' as the wind turbines, to our community's being too small – we have suffered no power cuts. The lights went out briefly on the day of the explosion and again for half an hour the following Thursday, but other than that we have had constant power, unlike most other residents of Cyprus. Best Beloved is fortunate, too. His home/office lies between the American and Russian and close to the Egyptian embassy, and he has not had any cuts, either.

But most of the rest of Cyprus is without power for at least one (and sometimes two or three) two-hour periods every day. And in the current temperatures and humidity levels, that can be terribly uncomfortable – or merely inconvenient... depending on how you live.

When I was first here, in 1990, many more of the houses were old – with massive walls and relatively little glass. Lots of the small businesses relied on balance scales, and May saw the start of 'summer hours' that lasted until October. Shops and offices opened seven 'til one every day, and again from four p.m. until seven. People worked around their environment, and yes, the summer heat and humidity could be taxing, and the pace of life was slow.

Modernisation brought architecture that paid no heed to local conditions: concrete and glass structures that became greenhouses the moment the sun hit at eight in the morning until well after dark, it brought a dependence on electronic stock control and cash machines, and it brought no standardisation of hours. Businesses opened when they wanted, worked through 'siesta time' and closed at five or six thanks to the miracle of air-conditioning. And home computers and limitless t.v. opportunities mean that, instead of socialising with neighbours, adults and children were more likely to spend longer indoors glued to a GoggleBox of one kind or another.

The explosion on July 11 turned all of that on its head. Even if we did lose power along with everyone else, it would not inconvenience us much. We built our house of mud-brick and shaded all the windows with roof overhangs. Although fans help keep it cool, without them inside temperatures are a long way from unbearable. The fridge and freezer would be our vulnerable points, and we would have to plan meals around hours when we could use the oven (the unpredicatbility of the cuts are one of the things which make them maddening for those enduring them – so many friends have said 'I'd just got the pizza ready and the power went off!' or 'The joint was halfway through cooking, and we had no electricity for the next three hours...'). Other than that the loss of the computers and DVD player would be the worst that we would face, and then I would just have to put my Mommy Creativity hat on... or head for the beach.

Others are not so lucky. For people with compromised health, for the elderly, for families in small apartments dependent on airconditioning, the lack of power is more than a mild inconvenience. For office and shop workers in fancy new buildings, the working day becomes untenable. For businesses as small as our local health food shop or as large as the Paphos Mall, stock control has become massively more complicated: everything must be written by hand and entered into the computers later. Banks close during the cuts – and the employees congregate outside in the shade. Petrol stations shut down. Mili and I took Lucky to be spayed, and fortunately the vet's operating theatre had big windows – when the power went out, he just went on snipping and stitching. Hospitals, of course, have back-up generators... but they are not sufficient to run the aircon in non-vital areas, and when I went for an appointment the other day, doctors, nurses, receptionists, and patients alike worked or sat, limp-clothed and sweaty, sighing and fanning themselves with whatever came to hand.

I think that no-one realised how absolutely dependent we are on an uninterrupted supply of electricity to make modern life in this climate bearable, and to sustain the pace that we have gradually assumed to 'keep up with' the rest of Europe, and to live 'in the style to which we have become accustomed'.

On a brighter note, a friend in another town reports a surge in community feeling. 'No longer do we sit inside, cut off from our neighbours,' she said. 'People come out at dusk. The barbeques are fired up, neighbours gather for a beer together, children play in the street...' If every cloud has a silver lining, this must be it – a sense that people, neighbours, family, friends, are in this together – and for the long haul (the Electricity Authority, although it has been buying power from the North, and has borrowed emergency generators from good neighbours Greece and Israel, but is predicting that this situation could last for at least six months until the generators at Vassiliko are fixed and running again). Maybe it will also raise the awareness of the need for more environmentally suitable architecture for both home and work environments... We'll just have to see.

Heat and Unrest

With several consecutive nights of demonstrations outside the Presidential Palace behind them, police in Nicosia have spent today supervising the clearing of ornamental rocks from the big roundabout in front of the Palace gates. People here are angry. They are calling for the President's resignation as it becomes more and more evident that not only the National Guard was aware of and counselling the removal of the 2000 tonnes of explosives that took out the Navy base and the power station on Monday, but also the Ministers of Justice, Commerce, Defense, Foreign Affairs, and Finance – as well as two high ranking people from the President's office -- all of whom had surely submitted minutes of meetings and reports as to the seriousness of the situation.

But Mr Christofias has yet to offer an apology, or an explanation for the government's continued inaction. And he is sure to duck any responsibility (such is the nature of corruption and cronyism in a society as small and interrelated as ours)  – though he has promised 'A thorough investigation and full accountability.' He had a 'conversation' with the Attorney General the other day.. A chat, I imagine, in which the two discussed how the president might best be exculpated. Nothing like the criminal investigation that should be taking place.

Meanwhile more details are emerging as to the actual events. The base commander, realising the dangers posed by the poorly stored ammunition following some minor explosions of the detonators within the containers last week, organised an exercise that got all personell off-post. The officers, NCOs and conscripts were sleeping under canvas some distance away – and probably cursing their CO for the heat and inconvenience. When the fire broke out in the early hours of Monday morning, the commander orderd that the sentries leave their posts, and dismissing his own driver ('Where shall we go sir? How can we leave the base unguarded?' they asked. But 'Go to the others, go somewhere, just get the hell out of here!' he answered) went with his commander, a senior NCO, and the 19-year-old twin conscripts who were manning the base firefighting apparatus, to assist the fire crews in putting out the brush fire. The driver, on his way out of the gate after collecting something from his office was caught in the blast but survived. Of the base, nothing is left but a huge crater.

The commander had also had the presence of mind to send part of the fire crew to warn the power station, and to block the road to the arriving shift. A friend of Best Beloved's got to work there shortly after seven to find a scene reminiscent of a war zone.

'But if they knew that it was going to blow, why didn't the commanders leave too?' Alex asked last night. 'They could have saved themselves...'

'Because it was their job,' we answered. 'There was still the possibilty of putting out the fire, of saving the base and the power station – and as long as that possibilty existed, they had to go. Even knowing that they were probably not going to make it, trying was their duty. And knowing that the young brothers with them were probably going to die too, they still had to try. That's what it means to lead, to take responsibility – whatever the consequences.'

The last few days have been full of funerals.  S has been to three, including those of the twins:  'These are my friends, guys my age, guys who got drunk and joked, guys I had push-up competitions with... Another friend is lying in hospital with no eyes and half his brain gone.  We all feel bad: our officers are telling us that these guys were heroes -- maybe so, but they're still dead.' The funerals have been marked by anger, but also by dignity. And underlying the sadness and bitterness is a fear for the future: Cypriots were feeling fairly comfortable, despite the recession. Now, with 60% of our electrical generating power knocked out, with rolling power and water cuts affecting pretty much everyone, the economy is set to take a heavy blow.  Small businesses are losing money, people can't use the banks, the supermarkets are dark, hot, running on a skeleton staff.  Traffic lights stop working as the power once again shuts down... It will be a long road back.

Amendment to Explosion at Mari

Apparently, the National Guard is now saying that all 98 containers at the ammo dump went up yesterday, leaving a truly enormous crater (and solving the disposal problem).  I had wondered how only two had -- but that's what all the news sources were saying.  Thanks to Sue in Larnaca for putting me right to that.

Shortly after I hit 'publish' for the last blog post, I thought of a better title:  Why Politicians Should Not Be Allowed to Make Military Decisions...

Explosion at Mari

Yesterday morning at around six two containers of ammunition – part of a stockpile of 98 containers confiscated in 2009 from an Iranian ship heading for Syria – exploded at the navy base near Zygi. Twelve men were killed: the Commandant of the Navy, the commander of the base, an NCO from OYK (the Cyprus SEALS), twin brothers doing their national service, and six firefighters who were part of a crew that had been called out to deal with a brushfire an hour and a half earlier. The base was destroyed, and the new power station next door – responsible for delivering 40% of the Republic's power – was so badly damaged that it will have to be rebuilt, and much of the island was without power yesterday. The airports and hospitals ran on emergency generators and the desalination plants have been switched off. Nearby houses and villages were extensively damaged. Sixty-two people were injured: two remain critical.

The explosion was about 50 miles from us, and we didn't hear it. We had a short powercut in the immediate aftermath, and a haze of smoke reached us at about 10 a.m. Other than that, so far we are unaffected.

Rumour control worked overtime yesterday, but today some things about the case seem to have crystallised. The Defense Minister and the head of the National Guard have resigned. The President has sent his condolences to the families of the dead. Funerals are happening today. The National Guard is busy building firebreaks around all its bases and ammunition facilities.

The Cyprus Customs seized and impounded the cargo of the Cypriot-flagged vessel following the urgings of the American and Israeli governments, and against the wishes of the National Guard leadership who insisted at the time that they lacked the facilities to store the munitions, stored them at the Evangelis Florakis Naval Base at Mari. American, British, and German offers to remove, store, or help destroy the munitions were refused as the Cypriot government did not want to upset negotiations with the Syrians. Despite numerous reports from the Base Commander and other senior officers stating that the containers were deteriorating and that urgent action needed to be taken, nothing was done. And a brush fire, so common during these hot summer days, triggered a catastrophe – the only possible consolation being that, but for the integrity of the base commander (who ordered hundreds of conscripts packed into trucks and evacuated rather than sending them out to fight the fire) and the early hour (a nearly empty motorway rather than one packed with commuters), could have been so very much worse.

As usual, in a community as small as Cyprus, everyone is either affected by an event like this or knows someone who is. Our family got off lightly: Best Beloved's brother was due at the base for training with OYK at 0700 – he arrived an hour after the blast and spent the day there cleaning up. BB himself drove past on the smoke-shrouded, debris-strewn motorway on his way to work at 0730. Stelios, the Big Ones' friend, nearly finished now with his military service, had trained with OYK: one of his instructors and two of his friends are dead.

'It's a wake-up call for all those guys who think they're safe doing National Service here,' said Sophia at lunch today. 'This is Cyprus. It's supposed to be safe here to be in the army... It's not like we've got wars or anything. They're all crapping themselves now, digging trenches round the bases and making sure that everything's properly stored...' I don't agree. The army has plenty of ways to hurt you in peacetime, and incompetant politicians can hurt us in war or in peace.

What I'm left wondering – and no pundit that I've read has taken on this question – is what happens now with the other 96 containers? They're presumably still in the same place, still sealed, still exposed to the summer sun, and even more unstable than ever... 'Budget cuts', according to the press, was the reason that funds were denied to build any sort of a shelter. Let's hope that the budget can stretch to safe and efficient disposal before another avoidable tragedy strikes.

Gone To Soldiers, (Almost) Every One

When Cypriot males reach eighteen years, they are required to perform military service. Last year saw the first wave of the Big Ones' friends leaving for military service: Stelios went to the navy and did his training as a marine to guard one of the missile bases agaist seaborne attack (in theory, anyway), and Yiannis went off to the commandos – to do whatever commandos do.

Last week saw another wave of friends shaving their heads and going 'to the KEN' – as basic training is known by its acronym for The Centre of New Recruits' Training. Yioti also opted for the navy: he wants to retake his exams to get a higher mark and figures that between pulling guard shifts he can swot his physics and computer studies, Nick is probably heading for the infantry, Tzirkalis wants to be a driver, Dinos has chosen the navy... and Joey, whose ambition for the last three years of technical college has been to be a chef, is headed for the catering corps.

Alex still has two years before his enlistment starts: because he repeated a year of kindergarten (don't ask!), he is a year behind anyway, and because he is taking A Levels he has Grade 13 to complete instead of finishing at Grade 12. This means that most of his friends will have finished their service by the time he joins up, but he doesn't seem to fussed about that. He wants to join the commandos ('At least I'll stay fit, be kept busy, and learn something,' he said. 'Rather than being bored to death pulling endless guard duty or sitting up on some Godforsaken Observation Post on the Green Line!') and is hoping that his less-than-perfect eyesight doesn't disqualify him.

It seems such a short time ago that my friends and I were sipping coffee at a mother and toddler morning discussing army service and how we hoped that the Situation would have been resolved by the time our sons reached conscription age. Now for me, that's unlikely – with Alex, at least (maybe by the time Leo's eighteen, ten years from now, conscription will have ended) – and for my friends, impossible.

And where would the Cyprus National Guard be without the soldiers' mothers? There are no washing machines on the bases ('We washed everything by hand!' said Best Beloved, who did his service in the early '80s), so mums collect the laundry. The food is pretty bad: 'Mystery Meat stew,' said Stelios. 'You learned not to ask what was in it!' so mums bring home-cooked meals (hopefully Joey will change that for his fellow soldiers). Many conscripts don't yet have their driving licenses, let alone a car (and the stipend they receive will in no way stretch to a taxi), so mums living within ten miles of their sons' bases are constantly driving their offspring on and of post at odd hours.

Ah well, it's all part and parcel of living here. It will be our turn soon.

Gone To Soldiers, (Almost) Every One

When Cypriot males reach eighteen years, they are required to perform military service. Last year saw the first wave of the Big Ones' friends leaving for military service: Stelios went to the navy and did his training as a marine to guard one of the missile bases agaist seaborne attack (in theory, anyway), and Yiannis went off to the commandos – to do whatever commandos do.

Last week saw another wave of friends shaving their heads and going 'to the KEN' – as basic training is known by its acronym for The Centre of New Recruits' Training. Yioti also opted for the navy: he wants to retake his exams to get a higher mark and figures that between pulling guard shifts he can swot his physics and computer studies, Nick is probably heading for the infantry, Tzirkalis wants to be a driver, Dinos has chosen the navy... and Joey, whose ambition for the last three years of technical college has been to be a chef, is headed for the catering corps.

Alex still has two years before his enlistment starts: because he repeated a year of kindergarten (don't ask!), he is a year behind anyway, and because he is taking A Levels he has Grade 13 to complete instead of finishing at Grade 12. This means that most of his friends will have finished their service by the time he joins up, but he doesn't seem to fussed about that. He wants to join the commandos ('At least I'll stay fit, be kept busy, and learn something,' he said. 'Rather than being bored to death pulling endless guard duty or sitting up on some Godforsaken Observation Post on the Green Line!') and is hoping that his less-than-perfect eyesight doesn't disqualify him.

It seems such a short time ago that my friends and I were sipping coffee at a mother and toddler morning discussing army service and how we hoped that the Situation would have been resolved by the time our sons reached conscription age. Now for me, that's unlikely – with Alex, at least (maybe by the time Leo's eighteen, ten years from now, conscription will have ended) – and for my friends, impossible.

And where would the Cyprus National Guard be without the soldiers' mothers? There are no washing machines on the bases ('We washed everything by hand!' said Best Beloved, who did his service in the early '80s), so mums collect the laundry. The food is pretty bad: 'Mystery Meat stew,' said Stelios. 'You learned not to ask what was in it!' so mums bring home-cooked meals (hopefully Joey will change that for his fellow soldiers). Many conscripts don't yet have their driving licenses, let alone a car (and the stipend they receive will in no way stretch to a taxi), so mums living within ten miles of their sons' bases are constantly driving their offspring on and of post at odd hours.

Ah well, it's all part and parcel of living here. It will be our turn soon.