7 March 2009
Saturday

Eyvenia fell asleep at 5 o’clock last night and could not be roused for dinner—a delicious vegetarian briam (a slow-baked casserole of eggplant, zucchini, onion, tomato, carrot, olive oil, and seasoning) prepared by her mother. When Jonathan woke this morning, he found Nia in our living room watching “Greek” cartoons. More accurately, she was being entertained by Japanese cartoons: Pokemon translated into English and then dubbed into Greek. For folks with minimal television reception in rural Maine, this was not the “educational” experience we sought for our children. Jonathan tried unsuccessfully to get her to join him for a stroll down to the waterfront, but she wouldn’t budge, asking in Greek, pame yia volta sti paralia ("let's go for a walk to the beach"). Then thelo (“I don’t want to”), she answered in Greek.



Yesterday morning Manny told his parents, with no lack of astonishment: “Lucia has been talking in her sleep—in Greek! She said ‘blah, blah, blah, blah.’” There is clearly some “language envy” at work, which might inspire the boy with the quintessentially Cretan name. Lucia has taken tremendous initiative in learning the language, writing down and sounding out new words as she hears them, asking questions, and making a genuine effort. In a scant three weeks, she speaks more Greek than many of the Europeans who have built villas on the hillsides.

Last night, after Jonathan returned from the Friday evening church service, he and Manny strolled down to the Internet café. Jonathan received an email message from his sister that their mother had been hospitalized, and this news generated a frenzy of emails, phone-calls, and hand-wringing. And an evening of restless sleep. We had only spoken with Yiayia the day before.

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The weather remains unsettled—last night, violently so. Although we swam (briefly, in Jonathan’s opinion, as an act of faith) just a few days earlier, last night the village was battered by hail, extremely high winds, and lightning. We are desperate to do a handwash of laundry, but the weather changes from moment to moment—from an insense cobalt, and relatively warm, Mediterranean blue to a hostile tempest—and air-drying clothing is a hit or miss enterprise. Not unlike Maine in early May.

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Just after noon, Jonathan set off for a longer run (about 15 kilometers) up the west side of the valley. The downpour from the previous evening left a track of super-soaked mud-clay, every bit as slippery as ice—but the air temperature was about 60 degrees F. The plan was turn at 32 minutes out, which may have been as far as any “reasonable” person could be expected to run through deep mud. Jonathan was prepared to run another 10 minutes, closer to the elusive “end” of the valley—but decided to save it for a drier day. Halfway back it began to pour rain and deeps bellows of thunder echoed through the length of the valley. He sought shelter for a spell under an ancient olive tree, avoiding the first of his two phobias (fears): lightning and snakes. By the time he emerged at the outskirts of town, Jonathan received more than a few curious stares from the occasional farmer pruning his olives and grapes.

Nia and Jonathan did a “cool down jog” along the waterfront, returning home moments before a stupendous downpour of hail and several cracks of lightning.

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After a brief siesta, Jonathan visited Dimitri at the butcher shop for a bit of parea (“company”). As it turns out, the two have some common interests—among other things, as armchair family historians, wilderness hikers, and advocates for less development in pristine places. Dimitri mentioned his efforts and those of other local people in fighting several planned development projects—a massive windmill farm planned for the unspoiled--and largely inaccessible--mountaintops, a tuna-processing plant on the uninhabited nature sanctuary of Schiza island, and various construction projects on fragile landscapes. As in eastern Maine, where a massive LNG project (with the developers' patently false promises of economic development) was successfully defeated (for now), the people of Messenia have drawn a line in the sand—quite literally—to preserve their special environment.

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