He Came in Through the Bathroom Window

Jonathan and Lucia (but—in truth—mostly Jonathan) have seen their fair share of work since arriving at the village four days earlier. Jonathan has worked shoulder to shoulder with his friends Paul and Denise, whose many talents have been revealed on a daily basis. Yesterday’s task was the paragon of “grunt” labor—gathering about 15 tons of rock unearthed by the backhoe operator, who spent several days clearing the property. The stones will be used to build a back wall on the property.

There are not too many countries where the heavy equipment operator arrives at 7 o’clock in the morning with a welcoming gift of olives and local wine. But this isn’t just any country, and this isn’t just any region of Greece. The hospitality that one experiences here in Messinia is baffling in both its sincerity and magnitude. It is only one of many reasons that this is such a special place.

The many small farms (mostly olive orchards and vineyards) that surround the property were once demarcated with prodigious stone walls that were eventually taken down so that modern machines could negotiate the landscape. Over time most of the stones ended up in the thousand-meter-square lot, hidden beneath a thick canopy of overgrowth.

Today the lot is tabula rosa—open, clear of debris, and ready for planting: olive trees, oranges, lemons, pomegranate, and a host of “dry garden” species (lavender, oleander, mint).

Father and daughter have still managed to find ample time on the big beach, just down the road from "their" own nearby village, which clings to a verdant mountainside facing southwest. The big beach is just beyond in the main village of Finikounda, where the night action exists.

He Came in Through the Bathroom Window

Two nights ago, after a day of working the lot, Jonathan and Lucia set off for the main village—before heading down the mountain, however, they discovered that they could not reopen the front door. The lock was jambed and every effort to spring the lock ended in failure.

The only option (a security oversight now remedied) was the bathroom window: just slightly larger than a mouse hole and fairly high up on the wall. Father stripped down to his scivvies and managed to contort his self through an impossibly small opening—to the amusement of his daughter. Harry Houdini may well have been impressed by this feat of contortion.

That evening Lucia produced song lyrics to memorialize the event, sung to the melody of the Beatles’ classic “Yesterday”—“Suddenly, our lock would not accept the key…there is a vacancy hanging over me….”

The Fake Snake

Jonathan is never quite far from the subject of snakes, of which there are several large varieties in southern Messinia, only one of which (the οχιά) is truly poisonous. The phobia remains nonetheless. As father and daughter sat on the veranda with their Greek friends, the conversation became quite animated. The subject is rendered even more practical by the anti-venom kit that was given to us a gift from their British friends.

As the Greek friends gathered themselves to leave, one of them gasped aloud, “an enormous snake by the car door!” Indeed a beastly green creature was coiled by the driver's door, as if guarding the vehicle from theft—an utterly biblical moment made even larger by father Yioryio’s response. He approaced the sname with his hatchet, poised to chop the creature in half.

Then he reached down with his ungloved hand and picked up the snake. He looked up at the now quite distant and utterly gathering of terrified souls, and quietly pronounced: “It’s plastic.”

An so the newcomers were the victims of a well-executed hoax that plumbed the depths of their most profound paranoia.

In addition to snakes, there a host of creepy crawly creatures—scorpions, ψαλίδες (a venomous forty-legged worm-like thing also called--appropriately-- a σαρανταποδουρασα.

Plantings

A dear friend and master gardener Yiota made a most special gift of two potted plants, soon to be planted in the barren lot: λεβάντα (lavender) and mint. Her father helped Jonathan plant a small olive tree later in the day. In the extreme heat of summer it will require deep watering, as will the other trees and shrubs that will be planted next week.

The prospect of a small farm on a half acre on a Greek hillside is more than a little intriguing to a Maine gardener and his daughter.