Kibkom North Cyprus Forum

We have a guy at our gate who produced a very scruffy looking Girne Catalkoy Belediye card asking lots of questions regarding our house, where we shop, do we go to hospital, how many cars etc etc I am a bit doubtful of him anyone else received a visit?

I am pretty sure I read in a local paper a month or so ago that there was going to be a survey done......again also think Catalkoy was mentioned. If I recall correctly it was to try and get an understanding of what services, shops, amenities, facilities etc would be required in the future. To be an aid to planning the growth and development of the area.

Cannot remember much more as the memory cells have cleared this one out!

Yes, The Belediye are carrying out a survey to try and improve Catalkoy asking questions about your life style here, what you like, and what you dislike, Its all above board and they are wearing an ID badge, They are happy to stay on the outside of your gate although I was happy for him to enter into the garden and sit down, so this message is just letting people not 8to worry.All I can say is, Well done Catalkoy Belediye for caring about their residents

Well that's as may be & thanks for confirming it is genuine but his grasp of English coupled with our scant Turkish would not make for much useful information.
Eg do you go to hospital? - yes - British Hospital? - no Girne Hospital - 10 mins? - no longer than that! What does that mean?

The company doing the survey is called Lipa, the people speak a little English and the form they use is in Turkish, so they not only have a spoken translation problem but also a major problem in trying to convert the written Turkish into spoken English. We had exactly the same problem in trying to read the written Turkish and then translate it into English and try to answer in Turkish as well - a most enjoyable half an hour spent answering lots of questions that were not on the form - how do we know that?????

At then end of the interview the guy dropped paperwork all over the place, I got him a plastic folder to keep it all in for the next time and guess what?

Yes, in the paperwork was the same form in English!!! I took it away and scanned it into my PC and then gave him the forms back again, he went off as happy as Larry (or Ali, if you prefer). No harm, no foul but the answers we gave would be useless to the outcome of the survey, because they questions we answered were not on the form - doh!

The questionnaire is eight pages long and if anyone wants a copy just email me and I will be happy to send it to you. It is in PDF so you will need Adobe. Good Luck.