mily left Kingston in September to move to Cyprus for a year while Grant Wright teaches about and builds wood-frame houses for a private company. They are sending occasional letters and photos to the Kingston Community News to share with readers. Family members in Cyprus now are Grant and Gina Wright, and two of their children, Chad, 14, and Gage, 5.)

Another day in the life in Cyprus. We have been here almost three months now and the boys are getting along well at school, making more friends all the time.

Gage had such a hard time adjusting at first but now he is running around and playing tag like little boys and girls do, and he loves school! It has been a lot of fun watching Gage learn to read and write – he speaks his Greek like a true Cypriot.

Chad has been hanging out with his friends on the weekends. They like to hang out at the cinema or McDonalds with other kids. Chad has also been involved with a rugby club, the “Limassol Crusaders.” He has a couple of friends from school playing as well. It’s a very physical game but he enjoys it.

I was invited to play with the men’s group, but after one practice and going to watch a game I decided it was a little to rough for me and Gina said we don’t need the doctor’s bills! The game we watched was on a British Air Force base, Dekalia, east of Larnaca. I could see myself on the stretcher!

Gina has been enjoying her time with the American Women’s Coffee Club every other week; she has made some good friends. We have recently moved to a new location. Gina wanted to be closer to the schools. Our new place is much more comfortable, four bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths plus two full kitchens. So, if anybody needs a vacation we have a nice setup here!

We will miss our neighbor down the street who we call YaYa (it means grandma). A few months back, the boys picked three big bags of olives off our tree then dropped them off at YaYa’s house. We would always see the YaYa picking olives on our street. A few weeks later she came by and brought us some fresh olive oil. It was very good.

YaYa doesn’t speak any English so Gina and I did the best we could. I fixed her a coffee (sketo). Gina shared some chocolate chip cookies that she really liked. When we were done it appeared she wanted to go to the back and see our tree. Well, needless to say, we all picked that tree clean. YaYa is an olive-picking machine! We picked another five gallons at least. It was dark when we finished.

I think we are all going to miss the ice cream man as well: RAMBO Di GEORGE SOFT WHIPPY. He makes some good ice cream crepes. I liked the ice cream cone dipped in chocolate the best; Chad loved the crepes. We have his phone number if we need our fix!

We had a pleasant Thanksgiving holiday with a traditional turkey and trimmings, mostly with other Americans we’ve met here.

The weather has been outstanding! Little rain by our standards, but in October it was record rainfall for Cyprus! It has been nice and sunny everyday for the last four weeks. It is cool at night here, around 50 degrees F. I did not miss the snow and cold you had at all, although the boys would have enjoyed it very much. They would like to go to the Troodos Mountains for the next snowfall up there.

I had hoped I would have more to write about the work we came here to do, but there have been so many obstacles. The wood-frame house business is pretty new here, I believe it is a lot easier to get through the process if you are already established in business. It’s a learning process for me and my employer, Kathleen Mohseni. Kathleen has come to Cyprus to build Lindal Cedar Homes, a 60-year-old company that gives a lifetime guarantee on the structure of the homes. She has found her way to get appointments with the top officials in the government and building departments. Persistence pays off otherwise I don’t know how anyone would get anything done here.

Cyprus in general seems like one big construction site; everywhere you go there is something going on. The country seems to be facing a lot of change. I am sure it has a lot to do with joining the European Union. Our main difficulties stem from the European standards. We have to provide seismic, acoustic and thermal calculations, which are not supplied on our drawings for Cyprus.

We are going to get the foundation started within the next week or so. It will be a slab unlike those in the states (which are normally six inches of concrete). For a basic home here the foundation is 15 to 20 inches thick – that’s a lot of concrete! The typical home here is done with concrete columns and beams; they fill in the rest with brick.

Even the roof structures are built with concrete although there are some companies doing wood-framed roofs much faster and just as efficient. The homes are very cold at night with all the concrete and difficult to heat. The wood-frame homes are going to be a welcome idea once people begin to understand them and not be afraid of the ‘wood’ idea. The homes we are building will be mostly stick-frame. The weather is just too hot for the traditional log homes. The plan is to build the log homes in the Troodos Mountains because of the much cooler weather in the higher elevations.

If anybody would like to write our new address is:

Grant and Gina Wright

and boys

20 Chrisosotiros Street

4152 Kato Polomedia

Limassol Cyprus

Phone 011 357 25313072