"They threw a piece of bread at me and I slept on the floor, on an old garment"

A wonderful man in whom life, but also his parents, showed from the most tender age their hardest face. She lived from one house to another, she walked alone on the street, she suffered, she was tortured.

The story of this woman, a strong slap, even for anyone who lives or feels that she lives hard. A shocking testimony from a 92-year-old who wants to send her own strong message…

Mrs. Adriana Markou reports to ant1iwo:
"I was born on 4/1/1926 in Marathovounos (occupied village of Mesaoria) and today I live in Kiti in the province of Larnaca. My childhood was more than a nightmare.

My mother was the richest in the village but she loved a very poor young man and because her parents did not want him, he stole her. They considered what their daughter did a great insult and ended it. They never agreed to see us in their lives, nor to help us.

When my mother gave birth to her third child, my father decided to go to Australia. When her parents found out, they found my father and told him, "We will give you the money to go to Australia but on the condition that you never go back." I was two years old then. He never sent a letter or money. We never found out if he had other children, another family.

We were hungry and my mother decided to send my older sister (she was 7 years old at the time) to Limassol to work as a maid to a married couple. He sent me to my grandfather (my father's father) and took our little sister with her. They went to Famagusta because he could easily find a job there.

I lived well with my grandfather, poor but well. When I was 5 years old, my grandmother got sick and my grandfather could not take care of both, but he had already grown up and was having a hard time.

At one point my mother contacted him and asked him to take me to Famagusta to see me. My grandfather took me and my mother told him that he decided to give me to a family in Limassol. He did not want to but my mother insisted. So, I went to Limassol.

Unfortunately, these people did not treat me well, they threw a piece of bread at me to eat and did not let me sit at the table with them but outside in the yard. I was sleeping on the floor, on a piece of clothing. They called me because I did not do all the housework. But I was 5 years old and I could not clean the whole house. There I spent the worst years of my life…

When I was 7 years old, I started hanging out with the maids of the houses next door. Every day they told me: "You have to go to escape. Go to the police and tell them gums ". One morning when everyone left the house, I broke it…

I walked for several hours and asked passers-by to tell me where the police station was. I told the police in great detail what I was going through and asked them to send me back to Marathovounos, to my grandfather. But they wanted to send me to my mother. After informing her, they put me on a bus and sent me to Famagusta.

When I arrived, my mother was not there and I sat in a corner waiting for her. A little further down, a little girl was sitting alone. After a while, I went to him and asked him who was waiting. She replied: "I am kicking my elf, Adriana". I cried and hugged her. I told her: "My Panaia! You are my elf ".
I only stayed one night with them. In the morning my mother sent me to my grandfather. Unfortunately, my grandfather grew up and could not. It was different this time…

My grandfather begged to raise me. I stayed with him for a very short time, I had to go to my mother.

 Life with my mother was even more difficult…

Every day we went with her to the warehouse where she worked. From morning until school, we waited for her outside. We played with my sister but also with the other kids in the neighborhood. A week later, a lady who often passed by and saw us approached me and asked why I was there every day. When I explained to her, she asked me if I wanted to go with her and asked to see my mother.

She told my mother that she wanted to take me with her, to stay at her house. She gave it to me and in fact with great joy.

She was a teacher and her husband was a pharmacist. They lived in Larnaca and cared for me like their own child. They even made me sleep with their child. It was there that I saw and felt for the first time what a real family would say. I wish I could live forever but unfortunately, after 5 years, when they had another child, I left. A lot happened and that was when the world war broke out, it was 1940 and I do not remember how and why I left.

I went back to my mother but after a few weeks, she gave me to another family who already had two children. I even remember that the lady of that lady, who I later called her aunt, was a comedian in the profession.

They had me well and I wanted to stay close to them but when I was 14, my mother came to pick me up because she wanted to marry me. She had agreed with the groom's parents. My aunt (the woman I lived in) told her that I was too young and that she was wrong but she insisted. I did not want to get married either but I never dared to tell her.

He was 19 years old and was from Karpasia. Because I was very young, the priest refused to marry me and my mother issued a fake paper stating that I was 16 years old. Then they married me.

My husband and I had 6 children, I gave birth to my first child at 16. We had difficult years, although he was a police officer by profession, I had to work to be able to raise our children. During the first years we lived with my mother, my sister and her fiancé. My mother asked for it and I thought that she probably regretted and was sad that I spent so many years away from her and in fact so hard. That was when I met my older sister.

We lived in Famagusta and in 1960 we went to England. I worked from morning till night, cleaning houses and we lived on my own salary. We lived in England for 30 whole years and I worked in a shoe factory.

I was fighting just to see my children well, I did not want them to go through that I…
We returned to Cyprus when we retired. Unfortunately I lost one of my sons, he died shortly before he turned 72, he had kidney disease. My husband passed away 20 years ago. As for my father, I never saw him, we never learned anything.

When I tell my children my story, they get melancholy. They ask me how I endured a life from house to house and without the love and care of my mother and father, without friends.

Never, neither my mother nor any of the people I lived in their house hugged me, gave me a kiss on the cheek. But every night, I thank God for sending me two families who offered me shelter and food, treated me well and I did not have to grow up on the streets. God rest their souls as well as those of my grandfather who cared for me so much.

Today…

With my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, I feel so beautiful and so calm. Everyone loves me so much and they never spoil me. I raised my children with dignity and I am very proud, they give me strength and that is why I am still alive!

My soul burns every time I hear that a couple divorced and their children took over the office or left them to their parents.

Please do not abandon your children, think that first they must be well and then you. "A man tells you that he has been hurt so much and that even now, 92 years later, he remembers it vividly and the wounds still hurt."