In This Months Issue: August 2008

On July the 27th, the first batch of sportsmen and women from the Cyprus National team left Larnaka, headed for Beijing and the Olympic Games. Altogether, there are 18 team members seeking those ever-elusive Gold Medals.

An impressive number of athletes from a country which is small in both land area and population, according to the Chinese ambassador to Cyprus, Zhao Yali, [who incidentally speaks fluent Greek, having completed his university studies in Greece!]

Twelve years of pain, but no bitterness.

We all know we’re not immortal. But most of us have the basic expectation that our children will outlive us.

To lose a younger family member to illness is tragic. To lose them to senseless violence could all too easily lead to bitterness and calls for revenge.

But there are people who can rise above that. And who continue to abhor inter-communal or intra-communal strife. Who look to reconciliation and what’s best for the future. Even when the long-term effects on the family and the community have been immense.

Take a 1,000 year old village, preserve its quaint narrow streets and old stone built houses, add a venerated and spectacular monstery, sprinkle it all with star dust and you have OMODOS!

Nowhere in the Troodos Mountains offers the attraction that Omodos can and does.