2003
On Christmas day 2003 I went to the occupied areas to give a blood donation ‘gift’. Not out of love of the ‘TRNC’ pseudo state, or respect of its so-called ‘government’, but to symbolically pay a long overdue family ‘blood’ debt out of honour. Back in the early 1920s at great risk to themselves, Turkish friends smuggled my ethnic Greek great uncle on a boat that eventually reached Piraeus Greece. They saved this teenager’s life and he lived to old age.
My blood donation was extremely well received by the hospital’s management. You will see something some may find strange: Greek Cypriot, Turkish Cypriot, Russian, and Ukrainian blood is the same colour. We are all human beings that bleed.
