Living on £30 a month

TWO Bangladeshi hotel management students subsist on £30 per month, according to a report in yesterday’s Phileleftheros.

The report states that while the two young men, Ratou and Liton, were in Bangladesh, a friend had told them that Cyprus was a good place to study hotel management and that life was pleasant and cheap there.

According to Ratou and Liton, life has not been bad for them in Cyprus but it has not been particularly good either. They have not been able to do too much outside of their coursework because they have not been able to find paying jobs.

“There are no jobs and whenever I do find something, the employer does not pay. They want you to work for them without paying you,” one of them said, adding that as a result he has to get by on £30 per month, which he spends on food.

The students said that they cannot afford to eat out or go to any bars or clubs, as they would like to do, so instead they sit in front of the stores on Onasagorou Street and watch the pedestrians go by.

Ratou and Liton said that they were staying with another person in a single room that they rented for £140 per month.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.