Little Kickers Easter Egg Hunt

The Mad Hatter of nations - Paula Manoli-Gray

We are notorious for being an island with its own sense of time, and there is a long-standing joke about GMT - 'Greek Maybe Time' - thanks to people's uncanny knack for turning up horrendously late. But despite common perception that it is just a characteristic of the laid-back, hot and lazy conditions of the island, it is actually a very selective habit, which makes it all the worse.

Let me elaborate. People on the island have to go to work at certain times. They have to take their children to school and pick them up. They have to open and close shops and the like. These are everyday practises where you simply cannot be lax and late (persistently). So we can surmise that people on the island are in fact very capable of arriving on time when they have to. There are some exceptions to this – such as waiting for a courier, internet provider or handyman to turn up – but this happens the world over, so we can discount these professions for the sake of today's argument!

The issue of lateness happens mostly for social functions, and this is where I personally feel that the term 'late' sometimes goes hand-in-hand with 'disrespect'. When it comes to being invited somewhere or attending something outside of the normal work/school routine, it is like there is an unwritten law that you need to add one or more hours to the time given for said event/social function. So it goes like this: if you have been invited to someone's house for lunch at 12pm, you must not turn up until at least 1.30pm.

If you have ever been on the receiving end of this, you will be aware of the frustration, anger and pain of having your lovingly prepared meal go cold and soggy. When we first moved to Cyprus, my poor mother would almost be in tears at the sight of her banquets sitting there whilst we waited for relatives to decide to turn up. She has adapted now and usually tells visitors to arrive half an hour before she actually wants them to, but it is still soul crushing to see all your hard efforts go seemingly unappreciated.

Before I truly wizened up to getting myself to functions on time alone (instead of arranging to car share with late friends), I missed many a christening or wedding church service. My friend at the time would always want to pick me up half an hour after the event had started, whilst I argued that there was no point in turning up late when the whole point was to witness the ceremony. Despite her promises to turn up on time, she always managed to end up even later than her initial suggested time, and the two of us would enter the church as the wedding or baptism service would be ending. I found it extremely disrespectful and have never, ever been late since.

Now a parent, I have found that one of the worse cases of liberal time keeping is children's birthday parties. Only last week we were invited to a play-place party at 11am. We were the first there and as if by magic, the minute the clock struck 12pm, the majority of the guests arrived!

So why do people feel the need to disregard time? It can't be to make an entrance, as you would have to be the only one arriving late to have an impact when you walk into the room! I am afraid I have absolutely no answer regarding this practise, but if you do get a dinner invite from me, please turn up on time or you might end up wearing your (cold and soggy) meal… 

First appeared in The Cyprus Weekly, 27/03/15

denial

Hi, my name is Christalla and I am an ASD (autism spectrum disorder) mother.  

I would like to begin with the worst point of my life because in my experience, when you become a special needs mum, you always begin with rock bottom.  For me that was July 2011 when my eldest son, who was four at the time, was diagnosed with ASD.  I remember sitting in the doctor's office, tears streaming down my face as he relayed to us the full diagnosis.  Then that sickening feeling...why didn't I realise it sooner.

They always tell you that as a mother you know when something is not quite right with your child.  Well I was a mother

AND a teacher - so I should definitely have known.  "I should have done something about it sooner" - that thought plagued me and ate me up inside for many many years.  It took over 2 years for me to let go of that feeling of guilt, to forgive myself. 

So why didn't I get him diagnosed sooner?  The simple answer is, denial.  When they say "don't ever underestimate the power of denial", it is true.  I have meet many mothers and fathers of ASD children who are in denial and who have had to go through the same emotions I did.  I think it is because our children are not born with obvious characteristics like parents of down syndrome children, (don't get me wrong, all special needs parents go through the same roller coaster of emotions), it is just that because ASD is diagnosed later in a child's life, it is easy to deny what it is, especially if like my son there are no obvious early symptoms.

I remember going through the checklist after his diagnosis:

     Did he make eye contact while breastfeeding?  Yes

    Did he smile when smiled at?  Yes

    Did he respond to his name or to the sound of a familiar voice?  Yes

    Did he point or wave goodbye or use other gestures to communicate?  Yes

    Did he make noises to get your attention?  Yes

    Did he initiate or respond to cuddling?  Yes

    Did he imitate your movements and facial expressions?  Yes

    Did he reach out to be picked up?  Yes

    Did he play with other people or share interest and enjoyment?  Yes

And the list went on and on.  My son did all of them, he reached all of his milestones except one...speech.  For speech, he reached the first few milestones, then stopped talking altogether.  However there were plenty of other reasons to feed into our denial:  we were a bilingual house and bilingual children tend to have an observation periods where they stop talking; boys tend to talk later than girls;  he had a problem with his ears (his ears were not getting rid of the excess wax, so he couldn't hear very well until the doctor removed the wax); he was shy..  However when there was still no progress after six months and speech therapy twice a week, we could deny it no longer, we had to see a developmental specialist.  That was where our denial stopped.

In my job I meet plenty of people, who when they find out I have an ASD son, tell me that their friend/relative has a child with obvious symptoms but the parents refuse to acknowledge it, lying to their friends, family and even doctor about what their child can do.  As an ex- denial expert I don't really know what to say except pray for them, pray that they see the light / or a developmental specialist sooner rather than later, because what the doctors and experts say is true - the younger you work them, the greater they become.  My son was four - by ASD standards quite old -  but I have seen him improve in leaps and bounds.  I still imagine where he would be now if my denial had ended earlier...

The disadvantages of the technologically advantaged youth - Paula Manoli-Gray

I recently worked as a cover teacher at an English school in Larnaca and the experience – although only for two weeks – was certainly an eye-opener.

Firstly, I was very surprised at how reasonable morning traffic is in our town! I am used to doing a school run from Vergina to the New Salamina area then to Drosia to drop my own two off, and have never encountered bad traffic for that particular route, but I was terrified that getting to the school's more central location would mean gridlock. Despite starting lessons at various times – ranging from 7.30am to 12.50pm – I did not experience any major traffic. I am sure that there are areas that are prone to heavier traffic, but in general, Larnaca is a good town to drive in, so, spare a thought for your Nicosia and Limassol cousins who face daily jams en-route to work and back, and count your blessings!

But I digress… the eye-opener was an insight to the teenagers of today, and how they differ to the teenagers of my generation. There is a general issue with boundaries regarding authority and an absence of respect for elders in the new generation. This is a declining standard; my generation had far more respect than today's, but less than my parent's 'be-seen-but-not-heard' generation. I dread to think what my children's generation will be like… There are a variety of factors that play a role in this, from children being raised outside of the family due to both parents having to work, to the power of technology they have at their fingertips at too early an age.

If you have children of your own, or know people with children, no doubt a large proportion of them will have a tablet, or access to one from a tender age. We have so far not succumbed in our household, but the fight is getting harder and harder as they see their friends with them or hear about the different games they could be playing. And mine are only still six and four! The issue of mobile phones is thankfully further away, but I know it is only a matter of time, and every student that I taught these past two weeks not only had a mobile, they had an all-singing-all-dancing one!

Despite the technological advances teenagers have at their disposal, I do pity them for it. Yes, life as a student is now easier when you can use Google instead of an encyclopaedia, and can print off materials, but this is a poor trade-off for living your life in full digital view.

With almost every teenager having their own social media pages, they are unwittingly committing their every teenage mistake, angst and relationship to Cyberspace for all time. Young, naive human beings striking duck-face poses, writing their every little thought as a status update, and using their social profiles with such abandon will surely find that as adults they are filled with regret for what they put out there.

Teenage years are a time when you do make your mistakes, learn hard lessons, discover who you are and what you want to be (or at least you think you do!), and these are very private and personal rites of passage that at some point in your adulthood you want to forget or leave behind. This generation will never be able to escape the experience, and some will certainly be tarnished by it.

I am sure glad that I didn't live my teenage years out so publically, and I will fight tooth and nail to ensure my children don't either when the time comes.

First appeared in The Cyprus Weekly, 20/03/15

Creative little minds

Please do not mention Gina Ford to me, as she literally drove me stir crazy during my pregnancy. By means of pregnancy planning I invested in every book she wrote as follows and in no particular order:

The Contented Pregnancy

The Contented Mother's Guide

The New Contented Little Baby Book

The Contented Baby's First Year

The Contented Baby Goes to School

The list is actually endless, however dear Gina forgot to write about the “Contended Mother” as my experience was more like “Demented Mother”, upon applying the Gina Ford techniques to bringing up a baby!

After my brief brush with Gina, I decided to assume control of training from the perspective of a loving mother. It was then, I started applying some of my professional skills as a cruise ship trainer, coupled with the of teachings of my husband at Progress International www.progressinternational.info to my one and only son Alex :0).

In essence, Human Beings are 4 dimensional, meaning, there are 4 parts to our nature and this goes for kids too!

1. IQ Mental Intelligence: Mind

2. EQ: Emotional Intelligence; Heart

3. PQ: Physical Intelligence: Body

4. SQ: Spiritual Intelligence: Spirit

For simplicity, let’s focus on the first intelligence; our mind, which possesses the ability to be logical, think abstractly, count numbers, visualize, create, articulate, decode music and a million things besides. When you look at the brain from a physiological perspective, it’s clearly divided into 2 parts; which are commonly referred to as “Left Brain” and “Right Brain”.

The Left Brain acts like a serial processor within a computer; it’s logical, mathematical, procedural, functional, pattern orientated and it’s what most of us associate with the 2 letters of IQ, although this is actually a misconception. The easy way to remember the Left Brain function is “Left for Logical”. The Left Brain scans the present moment and extracts specific details and more details of those details, then organizes and categorizes the information, associates it with the past and projects it towards the future. This is sadly how we educate most of the children on planet earth today using a “Left Brain” academic style of learning, which is largely based on symbolic reasoning of letters words, numbers and other patterns or archetypes to facilitate so called “Logical thinking”. For now, let’s leave the symbols for the symbol minded!

Conversely, the Right Brain thinks abstractly, innovatively, artistically and reaches out with human expression. It joins human feeling with creativity and the easiest way to remember its function is by the phrase “the Right Brain Reaches out”. Incredibly, the Right Brain views the present moment as one big picture collage that is connected to our sensory receptors of what it looks like, sounds like, smells like, tastes like and feels like. It sees everything as one and dwells in the magic of the now.

When we as adults speak of the Right Brain and its amazing attributes, we are in a sense reminiscing of how wonderful life was in our youth or the inspiration of past creative or eureka moments! Our children start life untainted by the norms of society and expectations of culture. They see the world with a sense of oneness and wonder. They laugh, play, live life in the present moment and connect with other happy souls without prejudice, guilt or judging, until we teach them otherwise.

Yet sadly, in the words of the 1970’s song by Styx “The Logical Song” we send our children away and teach them how to be sensible, logical, responsible and practical. We show them a world to make them so dependable, Left Brain intellectual, cynical or perhaps to be a modelled after a certain size or colour of vegetable.

The interesting thing here is that when one of the world’s greatest ever minds “Einstein” ceased to exist, it was discovered that his brain was no larger in size, no heavier in weight, or greater in diameter than the average human brain. The neural pathways however between the Left and Right Brain were considerably more inter-connected than any other human brains experimented on previously. After all it was Einstein himself who once said “I never invested anything logically”.

Surely, as loving parents we can learn something from inspirational all of this this. The true essence of life requires thinking and feeling or logic and creativity to be truly happy, motivated and successful. The vast majority of our educational institutions however follow largely Left Brain curriculums and our children are taught not to reach out and question, but to copy templates, patterns and various forms of symbolic reasoning, which hardly contribute to critical thinking or living joyfully in the present moment. It’s no surprise then that most of us in the western world are suffering from some kind of stress disorder.

So as a humble mother of one creative little brain, I have learned to question more and balance his needs to counter the institutional way of thinking and to stimulate both sides of his emerging mind.


Sharon Holmes
A now contended Mother & Founder Larnaca Parents Network

Buying local… if I can find it! - Paula Manoli-Gray

It was my son's birthday last week, and he wanted a desk from his nouna. A simple enough request, but as always, I found that when I have something specific in mind, I can never find it in Cyprus!

Of course, there are many shops that sell children's desks, but sadly, the nice ones are all designer and overinflated in price. Then you have the other end of the scale – cheap MDF - which is again sold out here for far more than it is worth. Eventually, a plea on Facebook was responded to by a nice lady who lives 10 minutes away from me, and was selling her children's old desk. It fit the bill, and the task was completed!

But this is something that frustrates me no-end about living in Cyprus. I can never find what I want, so I most often end up buying it online. This upsets me to some degree as I do really, really want to support local businesses, but when a) you cannot find the item, or b) it is double or triple the price you can get it for online, then supporting my town goes out of the window in favour of getting what I want at a reasonable price – and I feel bad about that. But my pocket is not unlimited and even if it were, why should I pay more just because we have an issue of chronic overcharging out here? I always tell people 'vote with your feet', and that is what I do; I give my custom to those who provide goods or services to a good standard and at a reasonable price, which is why you do not see me sitting at trendy cafes drinking beverages that cost more than they do in London!

Granted, it is so much better than it used to be… I remember the days when a trip to Nicosia was the only way to get most things as Larnaca was lagging so far behind – especially in franchises. At that time, there was little choice even in the capital, so it was either the limited number of things at overinflated prices, or not at all! And those who have lived here a long time can surely relate to the era where anything that came from Greece or Italy – however cheap in its respective country – would be marked up ten-fold and lapped up by consumers just because it was 'made in Greece' (or Italy!). Those were the days when consumers too shared the blame as there was an air of snobbery and a desire to pay more to be able to boast that what you had was expensive or designer, and businesses were happy to oblige. Oh how the mighty have fallen since then.

Thankfully, things have changed. Larnaca has caught up and - with the exception of a handful of franchises and restaurants - we have just as much as Nicosia and Limassol have, even if we do not have a mall. And variety has also entered our market; variety in goods and the welcome addition of variety in prices. There are reasonable shops, there are budget stores and cut-price outlets, and there are much better sales than there previously were. Add to this the big surge in second-hand goods being sold in bricks-and-mortar shops and on Facebook groups for both Larnaca and the island as a whole, and theoretically, you should be able to pretty much find everything. But still, I struggle to find 'the right thing' a lot of the time. I don't know if it is just me and I have very specific/fussy tastes, or if we tend to have a lot of variety and an over-saturated market for some things and a lack of certain others.

But there are still businesses – who despite the crisis and a drop in customers – that will not get off their high (pricing) horse. And this is one of the reasons that I think I will probably be buying online for a while yet.

First appeared in 'The Cyprus Weekly', 13/03/15

Playday with the hungry Caterpillar - Angels with Special Needs

No need to call back - Paula Manoli-Gray

We seem to be living in a paradoxical time when it comes to communication – or at least it feels that way on the island.

Whilst most people have the latest smart phone, tablet or computer and spend more time with their heads down trying to impress faux friends on social media than talking to their real ones, they seem totally incapable of answering business emails or returning calls.

Not having lived in the UK for many years, I do not know if this is a global phenomenon or one of our 'quaint' Cyprus-isms, but it is certainly wide-spread here and extremely frustrating.

I have personally found that even some of the most 'professional' or esteemed business people – and/or their assistants – can be totally incapable of sending off a polite reply to at least acknowledge an email. And this also extends to civil servants and public services where there should – at the very least – be an automatic reply to say that your email has been received.

And when it comes to returning calls, forget it. I know of a friend who had an appointment with a respected specialist doctor in Limassol but had to cancel and has now spent the last two months trying to reschedule another, only to be told (literally) several times a day that 'someone will call her back'. No one ever does – and they know that it is in regards to a fairly urgent medical issue.

But this lack of communication also occurs when you are trying to give something or help someone and there is no actual benefit to you for getting in touch, so it is not a one-way street of being ignored only when you require assistance or information - it is just a system of being ignored all the time!

As a journalist, I am always left baffled as to why my emails and phone calls go unanswered when it comes to my approaching someone to write an article on them – a positive thing and a source of free publicity. You would be amazed how many people completely ignore me, or tell me they will be back in touch with some information and are never heard from again. It costs very little time, effort and financial outlay to fire off a reply to someone or return that call in the name of manners and professionalism, and I have to admit, I often judge someone on the basis of how efficient and considerate they are in answering their communications.

So, why does this occur so much in Cyprus? Is it because people are so busy and overstretched, or because they believe that their time or lives are more important than the rest of the island's? Or is it one of those laid-back attitudes that we have (and that was the polite way of saying it)? Whatever the reason, it creates a culture of frustration and distrust in people, services and businesses. We stop asking questions, we stop complaining, we stop getting involved, we stop offering our time or assistance… simply because 'no one will respond to us anyway'.

And the saddest indictment of our times? That you are far more likely to get a response from someone if you go via their social media account than any other form of communication, along with the pleasure of seeing photos of them partying, cuddling their cat, or showing off the remnants of their dinner!

First appeared in The Cyprus Weekly, 06/03/15

Bright Sparks - Fun SUNday

Piggy in the middle - Paula Manoli-Gray

The recent news that a number of wealthy individuals and businesses on the island collectively owe over €163 million in taxes to the state cannot have come as a surprise to anyone. There is a commonly held belief amongst the 'not-rich' that those who amass that kind of wealth do so precisely because they do not pay their dues.

In previous years you couldn't have dreamed of seeing a 'name-em-shame-em' list as these issues were hushed up, and no one would dare to humiliate those in the Big Boy's Club. But, what with The Crisis blah-de-blah, things have changed, so now we know exactly how and why the big bank balances are as high as they are – and shame on them.

Then you have those at the very bottom of the social class structure who have nothing. These people are (rightly) helped out by the state, charities and kind individuals through food packages, subsidised bills, clothing and household donations, state benefits and the like. But, for some people in this bracket, things are actually better than they ever have been, and some are much better off due to the increase in the different avenues and benefactors that they receive from.

So, what we have is the rich-set not paying their taxes and enjoying a life of riley, and those on the very bottom being fed, clothed and generally looked after. But what about the 'forgotten middle class'?

The forgotten middle class typically looks like this: married couple, both in employment with 2.5 kids. On paper they seem to be financially okay and can buy food, just about pay their bills and are likely to own their home. As such, they would not qualify for help and would be considered to be fine. But the reality is, the forgotten middle class is almost worse off than the lower class in these current times. They might be able to pay – or just about pay – their mortgage, but they certainly don't have the funds to maintain their home and will go white at the thought that there might be an emergency plumbing situation that would require fixing, because they just couldn't afford it. They might be able to feed their family, and even enjoy the occasional coffee or takeaway on the weekend, but they won't be going on a holiday any time soon. They might have a car, but whereas before they would have been happy to take a trip into Nicosia for a day out, they now have to think twice about their petrol consumption.

This class is the most stung, most targeted and most overlooked class, who, despite the previous definition of what being middle class was, are now just about scraping through, and are most likely living hand-to-mouth. But they simply do not qualify for assistance and they certainly won't be getting anyone's sympathy or charity. They are taxed to the death, they are worked to the bone and they are surviving rather than living. For the first time, this class is worse off than their parents, and in many cases, has to rely on their parents' help to buy the kids their new school uniform or pay for them to go on a school trip. Quite simply, this class is drowning without a life-raft in sight.

I am not trying to imply that all those who are classed as 'needy' are being adequately fed and clothed or enjoying it, and for a great many, these times are hell as one or both partners are out of work and they literally have nothing. But I do think it's time that the ones in the middle were acknowledged too, because they are the ones struggling to pay the taxes that the super rich refuse to, and the needy simply cannot.

First appeared in The Cyprus Weekly, 27/02/15

Happy April - Happy Easter