1 March 2009
Sunday

One can have no doubts that it is Sunday morning when one resides immediately adjacent to the village’s main church. The bell towers spring to life at 6 a.m., repeat their message at 7 a.m., and then find their true glory at the start of Divine Liturgy at 8 a.m.—four large bells that find the path to your deepest soul.

Last night Manny and Jonathan stayed out too late, watching football at Ilias’ internet café while checking email and uploading our latest blog entry.


Signs of great life are creeping into the village: a dozen or more Europeans, likely year-round, second-home residents from the hillside villages, arrived in the morning festooned in rucksacks. They set off in single file, leaving the village for one of the many hikes through the valley. And the cleanup crew is repairing the winter damage to the waterfront, grading the town beach, and pruning the hundreds of palm trees that mark the roads into town.

Today is the last of Finikounda’s apokreatiko (pre-Lenten) festivals, but by all accounts it will be the most raucous and colorful, with plenty of food, drink, music, and dancing. Tomorrow we will set off for Methoni for the regional apokreatiko glendi (celebration), which is said to include a variety of foods, pastries, and yet more dancing and music. At this point, we have about had our fill—and need to turn our attention back to schoolwork (children) and freelance assignments (me).

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After the Divine Liturgy we recessed to the town zaharoplasteio on the waterfront for a variety of sweets and coffee in lieu of a proper breakfast. Shortly after returning home, our landlady Irini appeared with a plate of orektika (appetizers)—choice pieces of cooked pork, fresh bread smeared with taramosalata (fish row), olives, and cheese—and two large glasses of wine. The door to her house shut behind her and she was locked out, an unfortunate fact that she took in stride. “Axh, afte einai e zoe!” (oh, well that’s life). She used our kineto (mobile phone) and called a relative for a spare key. Twenty minutes later she returned with a large plate of warm plahotehanides, an unleavened flat bread served with olive oil and hard, grated goat cheese. It resembled a six-inch high plate of thin crepes. They were delicious.

We set off for the main part of town, the narrow street that runs parallel to the beach, where we noticed that the souvlaki pits were already full with pork souvlaki and sausage, and tables were full of galonis of red wine, large cut fried potatoes, and mounds of cut village bread. Children, along with several adults, were wearing costumes, and food and wine was being distributed to anyone who passed, all compliments of the sulloyos (association). Doing anything or walking anywhere involved “enduring” a veritable gauntlet of food and drink. There was dancing and music and a great deal of laughter. We were welcomed to the event as though we had lived our entire lives in the village.

We bumped into our friend Dimitri the butcher and his wife Yiorgia, with whom we had had dinner several nights earlier. “We are going to Koroni for the big parade and celebration this afternoon. Would you like to come with us?” We had planned to save our visit to Koroni for next week, but we jumped at the chance. “I will call you on your kineto.”

The only practical way to avoid more food and drink was to recess to the beach, where the patio ends of the restaurants and cafes look out at the ocean. As most are closed in winter, we felt “safe” there.

Jonathan, Ann, and Manny watched the girls take their first swim—much to the astonishment of the locals. Except Yiorgia, who noted, “March is my favorite time to swim. The ocean is at its clearest. But this is the coldest winter in memory and I will wait until April.”



For the girls, however, the clear sky and rising sun were all the encouragement they needed.











Manny and Jonathan started a conversation with a small group of Athenians who were sitting on a deck. They had made an ekthromi (outing) to Finikounda for the long weeekend. (Clean Monday is a national holiday, and all banks, government offices and businesses are closed. The people of the cities often return to the villages of their birth). With little warning, a large plates appeared, full of kalimari, deep-fried merithes (anchovy-sized fish that are served with lemon and eaten whole—head and all), steamed zuccini with olive oil, bread with taramosalata, hunks of cheese…and a medium-sized carafe of wine. This was a generous gift from the table we had only just met.

The Greeks we have met are so taken by the fact that a third-generation Greek American would speak Greek, return to the home of his ancestors with children in tow, and make a temporary residence. This particular group overhead Jonathan playing Greek tunes on his guitar—the Kalamatianos Syrto (Kalamata syrto, a circle dance) and Karagouna—and were humming right along. We were gracious in our thanks for the offerings.

After we completed the plates of food and wine, the daughter of the taverna owner arrived with a large tray of food. “This must be a mistake,” we thought, as she set our table and delivered more plates of kalimari, merithes, bread, cheese, and, for Manny, a side of roast chicken. And, of course, a carafe of the local wine. “This is a gift from my parents,” she said. We were flabergasted—both by the generosity of the offering and by the prospect of having to eat yet more food.

Just about the time the girls emerged from ocean and joined us, Dimitri phoned. “We will be picking you up at your house in ten minutes for our journey over the mountain to Koroni. It will be a huge celebration—with lots of food, all you can eat, and some very special wine. And, of course, the carnival parade.” Jonathan’s family asked what Dimitri had said. “Just come along, children.”

Dimitri and Vaso had already left for the carnivale; Yiorgia arrived alone in their second car, a very old Opel, and set off on the hairpin turns over the mountain toward Koroni. We stopped in the village of Dimitri’s birth, Vasilitsa, a collection of houses hanging precariously from the corner of a cliffside. Yiorgia wanted to show us an abandoned nunnery, where, several hundred years ago, a mountain goat was said to have found a precious icon of the Virgin Mary beside a natural spring—and on this spot the chapel was built.

On the final approach to Koroni, the Taygetos Mountain range, which shelters distant Sparta, came into view. Fully clad in snow and stretching nearly the entire length of the adjacent peninsula, a legendary place known as the Mani, the uppermost peaks rise over 8,000 feet. The snowy peaks against the cobalt sea provide a most fantastic relief of color and dimension






















Koroni was jam-packed with revelers. Our timing was perfect—the parade had just begun. The press of humanity, the boom of the public-address system, and the general cacophony of laughter was one step from asphyxiating. Clowns, magicians, acrobats on stilts—this was New Orleans mardi gras but without the unpleasantries, the pickpockets, and the obnoxious drunks. The parade floats were light-hearted and often very humorous, and the overamplified running commentary that issued from speakers at every corner explained each float. We were particulary taken by the Obama float. “Finally an American president who isn’t a total idiot. Long life Obama!” Amen.

If pictures tell a thousand stories, here are some of them from the Koroni carnival.























































































































2 March 2009
Monday (Kathera Deutera / Clean Monday)

Today marks the first day of the Orthodox Lenten season, a time when the faithful prepare themselves for the Passion. Today’s proscriptions include a total abstinence from meat and dairy products, and from olive oil, the staple of the Greek diet. As Papa Yiorgi said in yesterday’s homily—which in Greece is delivered before Communion—what matters more is not what goes into the mouth, but what comes out. He urged the parishioners that they “abstain” from vulgar thoughts, petty jealousy, anger, and mean-spiritness—and practice acts of philanthropy, kindness, and self-sacrifice.

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Jonathan set off for a run while the others slept, an attempt to reach the vigli that sits alone on a ridge across the bay. The vigli can be seen from the village harbor but there does not appear to be roads there.

A vigli is a stone watch tower that dates from the Venetian period, from the middle to late Middle Ages. They were a type of early warning system against piracy, a way to signal the next vigli, perhaps many miles away, which in turn sent the signal of approaching trouble down the coast. The resident were then prepared to defend their homes or flee into the hills.

Jonathan triangulated an approach, following the Koroni road, and then cut through a series of olive groves, descending a magical stretch of isolated sandy beach. An old man who was tending some goats instructed him to “take a right when the pavement ends, and follow the dirt path.” The dirt path led to a fork in the road and then a choice of multiple paths. Unable to see the vigli from sea level, he attempted to climb the headland of loose rock and mud.

By 9 a.m., the sun was burning with a greater intensity than any day so far, and small geckos were scurrying left and right. Jonathan recalled yesterday’s conversation with Dimitri on the subject of snakes. “You don’t need to worry about the really big snakes, which are mostly harmless. It is the small ones, the ocha, that can kill you if you get treated right away. Last year a man hiking on Schiza suffered a snake bite, and before he could get back to the mainland, he died.” This warning did not make Jonathan wish for big snakes!

His hands sliced by thorny bushes and with no sensible egress in view, Jonathan retreated to the idyllic beach and headed back to town, determined to try again in the coming week.

Shortly after returning home, our landlady Keria Irini appeared with a large pot of bean soup. “I’m afraid that is has olive oil in it. But I made it yesterday, not today.”

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To Yamo tou Katrouli—The Marriage of Katrouli

We took a taxi from Finikounda to Methoni before noon, arriving just in time for the yamo tou Koutrouli, the “wedding of Katrouli.” This is a famous panagyri (festival) known throughout Greece whose origin is in medieval Methoni.

Katrouli was married but he and his wife were childless, a situation remedied by a second wife—a union said to have been blessed with seventeen children. The church refused to allow Katrouli to separate from his first wife, but in the end there was some sort of accommodation reached. Of course, there is more to the story, but this is what we have pieced together.

This little vignette became the source of the town’s most famous celebration. It is held on Clean Monday, and the centerpiece is a very sarcastic and irreverent play that has been performed annually for many, many years. The “marriage” mocks the institution of the church in rhyming couplets—a long poem with many actors reciting passages interspersed with music and shouts from the townspeople. No “prisoners” are taken, as it were: priests, monks, nuns, political figures—all of the sacred cows are roasted on the first day of Lent. The actors include girls posing as nuns dressed as harlots; cigar-smoking priests and bishops; Katrouli himself and his new wife (both played by men); the jilted first wife; and a host of other characters, many dressed in drag, all in medieval costumes and acting out their parts on a large stage on the waterfront, in the shadow of the Methoni castle.






A copious, seemingly endless, amount of wine is served, compliments of the town, along with the traditional unleavened flat bread of Lent (called lagana), bean soup (without olive oil!), and taramosalata (fish roe). The town is full of revelers from the nearby villages, and there is a great raucous celebration that continues until late afternoon. By the conclusion, several thousand people are, quite literally, dancing in the streets.

The attached photos and video gives a taste of today’s events.



















































































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We returned to Fini via taxi and then strolled down to the beach to fly our kite. Kite-flying, like bean soup and lagana, is part and parcel of Kathera Deutera. We were not alone in this activity, and soon struck up a conversation with Theodoros and his Serbian wife and their two young children, on a day excursion from Kalamata. Theodoros, a man in his late forties, was a fountain of wisdom of the subject of building and flying kites. He offered us his assistance and advice, handing the controls of his own kite to his ten-year-old son. Theodoras’ hand-built kite was framed of split bamboo, which grows wild everywhere, and an amalgamation of paper, plastic, and string. It flew higher than any kite we have ever seen. “You see, it has the colors of Olympiakos, our football team.”

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