Now I want to tell you another story from a different point of view. I talked with my uncle who had to leave his house to another place with his wife and his little son. As I told you in the first story (that my father told me) the village was surrounded by the Greek armies. But people didn`t give up and they defended their villages for 22 days. My uncle says that. . .
We were not even sleeping during these days. One day, Turkish authorities came with a suggestion of moving to an other village called Hisark”y. In this way armies of both villages could defend their people better. So, we migrated to Hisark”y village and this took 3 days. As we moved to that village we had lots of troubles because the population of the Tepebasi village was 416 and the other village's population was 220. Now there was not enough food or housing. It was a very little village for a population of 636 people.
After a while we (my uncle and his family) had to move to another village called Fota in July. There were not enough places for their animals; therefore they had to move to that village, hoping to have a better life style. Then we lived there till December 1964 and then we had to move for the third time -- to Lefkosa. We lived there for ten years until 1974. But still they had lots of problems in their life styles.
In 1974 the war ended. Then the Turkish authorities told us to go back to our villages if we wanted. But we (me and my family) didn`t go back because we had gotten used use to that life style during 10 years. Also also our house that we had in the village was damaged badly and it was impossible to live there. Although, we could restore the house and start to live there again, we didn`t want to migrate for the fourth time with our children. Our house still appears but is in very bad shape.
Another reason was that the village never returned to those days before the war. There were big economic problems that people had when they went back. We continued to live our lives, although we were tenants in our houses that we were living in in Lefkosa. Tepebasi village was one of the worst damaged villages.
DEMOGRPAHICS:
Occupation or life's work: Farmer.
Age: 65.
Sex: Male.
Nationality: Turkish Cypriot.
Where lives now: Nicosia.
Where lived during the events in this interview: Migrating
from place to place. His village (Tepebasi) is near Kyrenia.
What was the occupation (or life's work) of the main income
earner in the household when growing up: Farmer.