Our Troubles in 2022

I will have to start putting you into the picture and start our story from 2008, just before the economic crisis that hit the world.

I had just moved my family from Polis Chrysochou, in the west part of the island of Cyprus, to more central Limassol. My wife and I were working as musicians, and we were confident that we would find more work in this city, playing in its hotels and restaurants.

We rented a house in the outskirts of Limassol, Parekklisia, and lived in it for a couple of months or so, and then… the world economic crisis of 2008 broke out! 

Musicians all over the island lost their jobs all at once, and I realised that we would not be able to find work any time soon!

As we were not in a position to pay the rent any more, I notified our landlord, Andreas Stylianos, that we were leaving.

He asked us what we were planning to do, and I told him that we will camp anywhere we could, and try to survive with the little money I received from some premises I rent out in Greece.

Upon hearing this, he kindly took us to an olive grove that his wife owned and told us that we could live in it, build ourselves a self-fabricated house and settle there in peace.

He assured us that he would never ask us to leave his premises unless he had to sell the land.

Having been assured repeatedly that we could stay there as long as we wanted, we moved into the olive grove and, with his permission, I started building (by myself) a metallic mobile-house right at the edge of his field, next to a brook, so as to be completely out of his way.

I was then 60 years old!

Having some mechanical skills and knowledge (I had obtained a Mechanical Engineering diploma in South Africa decades earlier), I kept building our home by myself for six or more years.

In the meantime I repaid Andreas and his family many times back for the favour he did to us by letting us survive on his ground without charge:

Even though we had no previous agreement on this, I watered his olive grove daily all these years, (with increasingly more water at his request), and paid the whole electricity bill for pumping the water out of the ground, all these years without complaining. Needless to say that my electricity bill was nearly double than it would normally have been…

His wife, being a confectioner and without work, asked me to build for her a workshop to make and bake her goodies and sell them.

I obliged and I gave up building my house for a while in order to design and then build her a mobile workshop, (much like my house is, but only smaller), including all the stainless steel benches, sinks etc…which she has been using for the last 12 years now.

I did not ask for any payment for all my work, and received none for it.

And that was not all: I built for them a garage for their car next to their house, I built them a long fence along their home, and then another one for his best man’s house… and did them many other favours, such as letting his cousin live in the shack I have built right next to our home, all this without any payment and with a good heart.

I also supplied their workshop (and the shack I had built, where his cousin now lives) with municipality water which was kindly made available to me personally by the municipality.

To be fair, I have to mention that they did offer us once some money when I told them that we were completely broke that month…

During all that time, and up to now,  we have been surviving by using the money that I was receiving from Greece for renting out some premisses I inherited from my father.

With that meagre income, I kept my family alive and bought all the steel, wood and tools necessary for our house’s construction. 

My wife was also cleaning houses in the neighbourhood wherever she would find work, which helped us meet ends…

These were difficult times for us, but by the Grace of God we went through them all.

My son, our third child, was born as soon as we moved into the olive grove.

I stopped building my house at the age of 66, when I fell ill, contaminated by two bacterias that lived in the underground water that we were all drinking from until the municipality connected us to the grid…

These bacteria left my daughter and myself feeling chronically tired! 

In 2019 my wife had enough of me and of my never ending struggles and left me…

We divorced and my two youngest children followed her.

I thank God that Danielle stayed with me! My eldest daughter is a wonderful child, and a true follower of Jesus Christ (as I taught her to be, by my example and by means of our daily bible studies).

Danielle also proved to be an amazing piano prodigy!

As soon as my wife left me, the owner of the land asked me to also move my house out of his land! (I have disturbing thoughts and suspicions as to why he asked us to leave just then).

I reminded him of our initial agreement, but he insisted that he had the right to change his mind!

Regardless: The problem is that I am now 73 years old, and the money we receive from Greece is dwindling fast, threatening to stop altogether. (The 3 rooms that I let out in Greece as offices are old and unless they are brought up to today’s standard they will be vacated).

Having been born in the ex Belgian Congo from a Cypriot father and Greek mother, and having lived in Africa the great majority of my life, I do not receive any pension or aid from anywhere. 

I applied for aid from the Cypriot government, but even though I am entitled to have it they refused to give it to us. By their shrewd manipulations of their own laws, the Cypriot social services as well as many other governmental bodies bring much shame on their country.

Now that I am being forced to move my 13 ton home structure out of the olive-grove, I find myself  barely capable of paying for the removal, let alone buying a piece of farming land (that has access to water, and hopefully electricity) to put it on!

No matter how much I want to oblige and get out of where I am not wanted, I still find myself incapable of moving out of their land.

After nearly 3 years of threatening to move us out forcefully, Andreas has now disconnected us from the electricity grid (no electricity means no internet) and has tried repeatedly to disconnect us from our water supply as well.

Our situation is getting now ugly and threatening…

Without electricity we find it very difficult to upload videos on the internet (which does bring us some income, and which also allows us to sow the seed of the gospel with our subscribers).

We need help, but have not made any friends in this country except for the pastor of the church we used to attend many years ago. He is now trying to help us find a farming land up in the mountains, where the government wants to repopulate.

Constantin Economides

My Father’s Autobiography

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