We just don’t care
IN RECENT editions of Cyprus Today Messrs Day and Roche have written more eloquently than we could about the state of this country we have chosen to live in. However, yesterday, in the space of four hours we encountered three examples of exactly what they were describing.
As folk this side of the mountains know only too well, “somebody” is supposed to be building a Boğaz bypass. They started, and stopped, five years ago leaving miles of ready-to-tarmac road. This has now become a target area for empty Efes bottles, of which we counted over 50 in the short journey to the olive factory yesterday.
Not only does this demonstrate their couldn’tcare-less attitude to the environment but also that they are drinking alcohol along the Karpaz road. Where are the İskele police, we ask? Hiding behind trees and lamp-posts at roundabouts further along the road to Gazimağusa, 24/7, catching thousands with their radar guns.
We then drove to Gazimağusa, where chaos reigns on the roads as they dig them all up. In the space of 10 minutes we almost hit three women drivers, all chatting on their phones. One smiled at us in embarrassment until being called a name. Will it do any good? Of course not. There is a mentality in this country of “we just don’t care”.
Eight years ago our Tasmanian friends came here for a month. They left with a comment along the following lines: “A beautiful country, which we are lucky enough to live in, spoiled by idiotic drivers and the s**t piled up everywhere”!
We have also just read online about the quarries blasting our mountains away with nobody controlling them. What happened to our new coalition government who promised to clear up corruption and make North Cyprus a better place to live in? Like the comment above, “nobody cares any more”.
When Victor Hugo coined the phrase, “The more things change, the more they stay the same” he was thinking of North Cyprus, sadly.
John and Barbara Grundey, Boğaz, İskele