Cyprus: A Bless in Disguise

Yes, I went to Cyprus recently. A country that I used to hear its name but never know what to expect or where it is located. I didn't get good result in my geography that explains why I didn't know where is Cyprus. so the last minute plan after visiting Turkey was to visit Cyprus so that I've another immigration stamp on my passport.

When I arrived in the Ercan international airport the first thought came into my mind was the Kuala Terengganu airport is much better so let alone KLIA. The second thought was whether I was in the right place looking at the environment there. I didn't do much research on Cyprus before going there. All the air tickets and hotel booking were done by other person.

The tense began when the hotels driver asked us about the white slip which we need to have before entering another 'side'. Little did I know about the political issue and tense between two sides north and south.Suddenly my mind went to my thesis which I wrote about the banking system in Sudan. Well I think the political issue in Sudan is quite similar to here which there are two partition. Check here. The adrenalin rush increased when we have to stop at the check point. One of the soldiers or may be immigration officer (I was not sure about this) shouted that Malaysian citizens need to have visa to enter here. My thought at that time, alamak sudah.. masuk the wrong side as another side did not need the visa. At that time the feeling was just wanted take a flight and going back home. However we managed to pass through the check point and went to the hotel. I had a sleepless night on that night.

The next morning the gloomy feeling was still there because we really did not know what to expect in this city but after went out from the hotel the atmosphere change as we saw the Kenari car parked near our hotel. Bangga le jugak looking at the car in the foreign land. The first thing we did was to find a mosque because we knew there must be halal food there (we didn't eat properly since we arrived here). The city was totally opposite from Istanbul. If Istanbul is a city with many mosques this city is a city with many churches. So it seems it is not really easy to find the halal food (I was wrong until I found a mosque)

Walking in the middle of the city on Sunday morning was making us look like an alien from another space. People here were staring/glancing at us. Maybe it was a bit abnormal and strange for women who wore tudung to walk in the city (at that time we were the only persons who wore tudung) or maybe the look of us made them guessing where did we came from. One of the shopkeeper asked us whether we were from Nepal. Do i look like one?. Maybe le kot coz Malays do have the look of mixture between Chinese and Indian. When we said we are from Malaysia. He gave this answer "Ooo.. that tiny country" (Yup, I must admit our country is just a small country but our KL definitely lagi besar and maju tau dari your city, our KLIA are definitely wayyyyyyy canggih dr airport you and definitely we exported our cars to your country. Yes I saw bangunan Proton and also kereta kancil here. Mode at that time: sangat bangga jadi org Malaysia) The only person guess it almost correct was a Phillipino maid who used to be a maid in Malaysia for almost 5 years. Itu pun she asked whether I'm Indonesian. Do I look like one too? huhuhu

After walking and wandering around we found the historical mosque in the city. It was actually a church converted to a mosque during the ottoman empire. I felt so blessed to visit this mosque. We met a Sri Lankan guy who reverted to Islam two years ago. Watching him taking the ablution and performed the dhuha prayer, the insaf feeling came straight to my heart at that time. When he told the story the survival of himself as reverted muslim and the survival of other muslims in this city gave me a lesson to wonder about how grateful I suppose to be. He showed us the restaurant which sold halal food. So there was actually a lane where most of the shops owned by the Muslim.

There was a funny part when I was in the Indian Muslim restaurant was the owner warned me about the spicy and hot curry they served us. I was expected the really hot curry but when I ate, I think my gulai were much hotter than that. Maybe they didn't know Malays eat cili padi and sambal belacan.

After we had full stomach, everybody seems really happy and we walked again to find another mosque. My sister's friend said our journey was more like to jejak rasul. True enough!! But it was really unexplainable feeling to see mosques in a not muslim country and you know the muslims are super minority there. To have chats with a small Muslim community was totally a bless, I got a new experience and knowledge from them.

Here, I think our journey was a bless in disguise. Before we came here we expected the places with a lot of tourist attractions which i used to heard about it but we unintentionally went to a wrong place at a wrong territory. However, Allah knows the best. He sent us there to reflect ourselves, learn a lot of lessons and counting our blessing. Yes, didn't it wonderful when we found mosques and heard the melodious azan in the land we thought we could not see or heard that?. Didn't it a joy when we met with our brothers and sisters in Islam and saw their survival and their spirits?. Didn't we are lucky to see the leftover victory of the great Ottoman empire? (this made me want to open back the history book). Truly, too many lessons learnt in a short journey from this small Muslim community. Here are some pictures of Cyprus, I told you we didn't go to the famous tourist attractions. So maybe these pictures shows the other "side" of Cyprus.




















This small mosque only opened and used for Jumaat prayer