First Rain in Cyprus

Posted by Sarah Waldrip on Jun 13, 2011 | 1 comment

 

After being here for two weeks, I was beginning to strongly believe the locals about the lack of rain on this island. I had been told it is sunny 80% of the year in Cyprus, and up until yesterday, not even a drop of precipitation had crossed our paths. However, on the way home from a pleasant weekend in the southern beach city of Limassol, the weather took an unexpected turn.

Our tour bus stopped off in a peaceful mountain town known as Lefcara for lunch and a look at the beautiful hand made lace for which the area is known. It started as just another sunny day, nothing out of the ordinary, so we tried to find the shadiest restaurant patio (and thankfully succeeded, although the server was not as friendly as the other locals we met, and none too pleased with our indecisiveness).

After trying out a pork dish called Alfelia, we still had 30 minutes to spare, so I wandered into a small shop near the bus to browse the jewelry and lace. After purchasing a beautiful pair of opal inlay earrings, we noticed the clouds gathering in an unusually rapid way above us. The shopkeeper and his wife stepped out on the steps with us to chat about our shared English backgrounds (his parentage was half British, half Cypriot). Just as we were laughing about his obsession with Liverpool soccer, a crack of thunder interrupted the conversation abruptly.

The excitement of the shopkeeper at the sound was obvious. His eyes widened, and a smile lifted his cheeks immediately. The town had been extremely quiet and sleepy up to this moment, but the people all around suddenly poked their heads outside and came to life.

“It is almost never cloudy like this! It might rain!” he said. His tone was much like we Tennesseans get when snowfall comes by surprise, something we enjoy immensely for its rarity. The energy was contagious, and I too looked up to the sky hopefully.

The shopkeeper smiled again, hopped down the last two steps, and said, “When it rains, we run outside in our clothes and do this!” (gesturing wildly with his arms up toward the sky, spinning in a circle and smiling even bigger). He pointed up the steep, narrow and winding street and described how the water flows down like a river when it rains, sometimes so suddenly that it rises to the level of his bottom step in just minutes.

My smile back at him felt as genuine as his elation, and for a moment, as he was moving his postcard stand and lace pillows in off the street side, I forgot I was so far away from my home – an outsider looking in – and felt great joy, as though this were my home too, if only for a moment. It reminded me of something another shopkeeper had told me, back in Nicosia, when I had asked who the orange and lemon trees lining the street belonged to, and if it was inappropriate to pick one to eat.

“These trees belong to the island,” he replied, “They belong to everyone.”

The rain finally started to fall just as our bus pulled away from Lefcara, and lasted no more than five minutes before we had passed through the other side of the mild storm. Nonetheless, it was more significant than any rain I can remember in my 22 years of life. Today, the storm clouds have returned, passing less quickly, teasing us with thunder, swirling ominously; today, the locals and us roommates are watching out the windows intensely, sharing the excitement, all of us, as residents of this parched island in the sea.