Water and Junk

What ho, brethren. Still here in sunny Cyprus and experiencing water shortages and land development frenzy as the locals attempt to build as many concrete houses and sell as many plots of land as they possibly can before the VAT deadline - which is July 1st. Cyprus joined Euroland January 1st 2008 and VAT is an EU requirement on land sales, but they sensibly negotiated a six month respite to avoid stalling the relatively buoyant economy. So, the Euro currency is in but the laws are delayed, and just as well when building and development are 20% of GDP.

What none of the local headlines are saying is the effect that this huge splurge of urban expansion and fast-track modernity is having on the local ecosystem. Cyprus hasn't had rain for many months and even hospitals are suffering water rationing. It was of course not a real hospital which found its taps running dry, but merely a clinic in the old Limassol hospital, housing (among several other things) a drug rehabilitation centre. This scandalous situation took many days to remedy. Meanwhile people living in districts high up in the hills and mountains are not recieving even their ration of water.

We've coped pretty well due to the fact we're living in a luxury villa with tanks on the roof (most new houses have these, along with efficient twin solar panels) and so on the days when drinking water is out, we're still able to shower and wash up, and we drink from the litre bottles of water we stash when the drinking water is running, which is around 50% of the time. But we also have a swimming pool, which aside from the appalling loss of life it wreaked upon the insect life when we pulled off the covers (they seem to have got the message now, for I'm just fishing out the dumbest of shield bugs, small spiders, and the odd millipede now - or maybe we killed most of them on days one and two!) takes up gallons and gallons of the precious stuff.

Still, all around where we're staying, the building continues. Yesterday I was woken at 7am by the sound of an earth moving truck, and a medium to large caterpillar bulldozer, which proceeded to spoil my early morning appreciation of the wonderful bird life by removing a good proportion of the local shrubbery and creating a moon landscape between us and the building site we've adjusted to already. I became disconsolate, depressed. I come away from London to relax and find myself thinking deep thoughts about humanity and greed and brutality and lack of knowledge and respect for nature. As I top up and chlorinate the pool.

The rest of the countryside round about is agricultural; orange and lemon groves, olives and artichokes, and the scent is so intoxicating we wind down the windows of the little efficient Nissan Sunny we've rented and breathe it down into our city-tarnished lungs to keep it there forever.

But look closer and you'll see junk everywhere - this is a working environment and farmers are the least sentimental about nature you'll ever meet - not just empty agrochemical containers and spent shotgun cartridges, but abandoned fridges, food wrappers, coca-cola cans, dumped vehicles and the whole appalling detritus of modern living tipped without care into any available gully. Every roadside is littered with cigarette packets and lighters and metal and more food packaging; and every beach, even the protected ones where turtles nest, has a high tide mark of multi-coloured plastic which makes me wonder whether there is any concept of nature guardianship operating here, and feel embarassed to be a part of the culture which is creating a rubbish tip from this paradise.