How many holidays do you have a year?
What do you do on your holidays?
A lot o people - maybe the majority - try to unwind their work-stress on holiday in a different environment from their everyday-life just laying in the sun and relax and/or drink and relax.
On the other hand, there are a minority of people who intend to do something active but different from their daily work and get a fresh air physically and mentally to unwind.
This autumn I was contacted by a volunteer agency in Japan, and as a result I had a pleasure to meet a Japanese lady, who is in many ways unique.
After her visit to Cyprus, she wrote a short essay. With her permission I would like to introduce here this lovely essay of hers.
I hope you will enjoy it and you might even find a hint for your "New Year's Resolution" for 2003.
Her article has been published in the local "Cyprus Weekly" and, from our impressions, has been warmly received.
Being Led by Goddesses
Original Title : Experience of CAPCA in Cyprus
by Yuki Nakase ©
(Translation by Seiko Castleton-Knight)
One of my childhood memories is of great fun playing with a white dog belonging to our neighbour. As my children are all grown up now, I became eager about getting involved with dogs again and there was a place to realise my wish in Cyprus.
My days in Cyprus started at five thirty in the morning. I would get dressed, go quietly downstairs not to disturb my host couple, have a simple breakfast and off I go. At mid-October in Japan it would be rather chilly weather, but in Cyprus it offers such a pleasant temperature and just a T-shirt is quite enough.
7 o'clock is the time to start work. With the pinafore put on and trouser-bottoms rolled up I start cleaning my allotted area.
Initially the dogs barked at this unfamiliar human-being and some nervous dogs were running away from me, but eventually they started welcoming me, wagging their tails vigorously and even jumping at me. During the cleaning the meal preparations and the washing-ups are done as well.
Having finished the cleaning, here comes coffee time. With coffee, home-made cakes and biscuits some ten volunteers for the day enjoy chats. Although I was not able to join the conversation, it was nice and pleasant to hear their merry English conversations.
And the dinner time for the dogs; it is the greatest fun time for both the receivers and the givers of specially prepared meals with biscuits, rice and meat. This is the time all the 150 dogs go quiet, too.
There are quite a few smart pointer-kinds with short hair. There also are beautiful dogs like collies and many poodles. Amongst them all, my favourite was the sturdy mongrel with mixed hair of black and brown. His name is "Sweep".
He walks on his three feet as his left foreleg is injured. His splendid isolation and non-flattering character was his charm for me. I went three times for walks outside the Shelter with him. He excitingly went around marking here and there, but obviously got tired easily, so that we had to rest frequently.
I was told that a new Dog Shelter would be built next autumn and Keith, General Manager, showed me the model. It will be built near the Paphos Airport. I wonder if Sweep will finish his life there. More volunteers will be needed and they plan charity bazaars with efforts to raise money for the new Shelter construction.
After clearing everything of the dogs' dinner our volunteers' work is over. It is usually mid-day. The staff have many other jobs such as registrations of new dogs, vaccinations and medications, clearing waste, food supplies, preparations, hair cuts, dealing with visitors and necessary sorting of papers.
During my near-one-month stay in Cyprus I was able to attend the Dog Shelter 17 times. I was blessed with the blue sky everyday, but it was now the beginning of rainy season. Despite the weather all the works carry on and in the rain or extreme summer heat the work becomes very hard.
It is 15 minutes walk from the house of the Haberghams, the hosts of my home-stay, to the Dog Shelter. Occasionally I walked a longer way taking 25 minutes. If you walk a while beyond the bridge over the canal in front the house, you will come to a rich agricultural world.
Olive trees heavily bowed with fruits over the fence, pecan-nut trees, orange orchards, potato fields and pomegranate trees seemingly nobody picks the fruits, many of them are opened and dropping. Sometimes I picked one from the tree and tasted it it was very tasty unlike Japanese ones and it became my favourite fruit. I also, for the first time, tasted a cactus' fruit.
A vast peanut field contained areas of "harvested", "growing" and "shooting" levels, which was rather amazing scenery to my Japanese eyes. There were also three huge fig trees in the garden of an under-construction-house, where I found a great joy to look for ripe fruits. I simply loved that path with green vegetations, under the blue sky and in the bright rays of the sun.
Some afternoons I walked around lovely villages on the hills together with the staff - Annie and Chris & her dog. I frequently went out to Yeroskipou and its coast. And then my host couple kindly took me on drives for sightseeing, bowling and parties. Thoughts of Roy and Wendy make me sentimental even now.
They were so kind and sincere, and held numerous conversations with my broken English with tremendous patience.
The existence of Seiko, the only Japanese in Paphos, also gave me psychological ease during my one-month stay.
I am now feeling that my experience in this foreign land offered me a turning point of my life and also feeling that I have learned some basics of GIVE and TAKE from communicating with the dogs.
It was not just a coincidence for a middle-aged woman with no language ability to come to Cyprus. Goddesses led me to enjoy people, animals and vegetations of Cyprus - that's how I feel now.
I am hoping to visit there again when the new Dog Shelter is ready.
All the people and the dogs I met in Cyprus, I sincerely thank you all.
