Mediterranean Yoga

Mediterranean Yoga

The summer heat is building with each passing day. By 10 a.m. it is too hot to stand outside without the shade of a tree or canopy, or the cooling effects of an ocean swim. On the beach, we swim every 20 minutes for the two or three hours that we are there.

Finikounda Harbor

Finikounda--on the waterfront

By 2 p.m. the heat is so intense that siesta, the afternoon nap enjoyed by southern Mediterranean peoples (Greeks, Italians, southern French, Spanish—and probably North Africans) is hardly optional. If one has any hope of enjoying the evening, a siesta (υπνο) is imperative.

Our friend Niko, speaking tongue in cheek, calls siesta “the Mediterranean yoga.” It is low-impact and highly effective.

New Friends

Meeting new people constitutes one-third of the joy of being here. Each day we meet Greeks (usually related to someone we’ve already met) and foreigners with long-term connections to the region. Usually the latter are second-home owners and oftentimes they speak Greek with varying degrees of fluency. I carry a little notebook (and so does Nia) for new words, phrases, and the names of people we’ve met. Oftentimes we never learn someone’s last name, or only learn it weeks later. So, for example, there are ten or twelve Nikos in my little book—Niko with the green tractor, Niko with big moustache, Niko who gave us two bottles of his own wine. Such notes jog the memory, which has been impeded by heat, wine, and late nights in the village.

The Children’s Theater

The arts are vibrant and alive in southern Messenia—music, dance, poetry, sculpture, and theater, to name a few. There is a 3000-year pedigree, which provides some foundation.

Children's theater in the harbor amphitheater

The performing arts, in particular, have a rich history and are a vital element of daily life. Even small villages like Finikounda have regular performances by adults, children, and even the foreign residents. The shadow puppet theater has a thousand-year-old history in the Balkans, and it tells universal tales and themes: the village idiot, the cuckhold husband, the traveling salesman. Young and old alike take away rich messages from these performances. Adults and children roar with laughter, often for different reasons--double entendre is a rich element.

The demos (municipality) ensures that these events are well supported, even in difficult times. All performances are free of charge, and usually the audience is treated to sweets and wine after each show. So, instead of plowing the snow and salting the roads (as in Downeast Maine) the local officials produce art. The priorities seem right-sized.

A few nights ago we attended a performance of the children’s theater. The troup was aged six to sixteen. The children wrote a story about a mean king who places a spell on the children’s pillows so that their dreams become nightmares. But beware, you nasty king, for the children get their revenge!

Images from Methoni

Who's guarding this castle anyway?

Road Kill

The snakes remain on the move at least until the end of June. Only the smallest ones are poisonous adders—black and silver, with diamond-shaped marks along their back, the oxchia is aggressive if confronted, or if treaded upon inadvertently. Our Australian friends found one inside their toolbox last week. Our English friends watched one crawl up the stone stares and under their kitchen table. (It was promptly dispatched with a hoe.) A quick trip to the Pylos Medical Center is essential, regardless of the severity of the bite. The same applies (and is more common) for scorpion stings. We have a snake bite kit in our bathroom closet…along with a German-English dictionary for translating the instructions! Forget the dictionary, take me to Pylos, please!

You can’t drive anywhere without seeing a slithering creature or two. (Also large freshwater turtles.) The three of us were driving to the nearby village of Evangelismos, for a post-beach meze (appetizer of cooked sausage, cheese, chopped cucumbers, and bread) and cold beer. With no time for the hapless and snake-phobic driver to react, a nearly five-foot long neon green snake crossed the road. To my family’s utter astonishment, I took both hands off the wheel and covered my eyes. “Crunch,” a tremendous sound from the front wheels, and then a wriggling half dead snake in the rear-view mirror. This was good for several years worth of nightmares.

Yesterday morning I ran my usual loop, but a bit earlier (7 a.m.) before the girls woke. I came upon a dead jackal in the road, which had just been hit by a car. The 1.5 liter water bottle that lies beside it give you a sense of this creature’s coyote-like size and shape, and the full set of teeth.

The Venzeiko (gas station)

Sadly (for us) the cafeneion in Evangelismos was closed for siesta hour. I should have known better. So we headed back up the mountain to our village of Akritohori (referred to by the locals with its ancient name, Grizi), stopping at the gas station for twenty euros of “petrol,” to use the Greek and English name for “gas” (which means propane in Greece).

The gas station also sells olive oil (and beer!). Is there any other place earth where you can buy motor oil and olive oil off the same shelf?

Nia and I (card-carrying citizens of the Greek state) are officially residents of Grizi. This makes me a Grizaios, Nia is a Grizaia, and together we are Grizaioi. The Greek language has both grammatical case and voice—hence the variation in the names.

Kalamata 5K

The three of us set off for Kalamata, about one hour away, late in the afternoon—after spending an hour in a quiet beach called Tsapi with our English friends C. and P. You follow a long winding road—aka “the James Bond” road—down the mountainside from our house and end up literally in the middle of nowhere.

"Nowhere" has two tavernas that serve traditional food—roast goat, salads, merides (small fish that are deep fried, eaten head and all). We swam, we ate, we swam again—and then headed back up the mountain to our little house in the vineyard for a power snooze.

A young man in town researched road races and found one in the center of Kalamata at 7:30 p.m. There were over 300 participants, representing several local running clubs. The course, a double loop through the old city center, was challenging given the temperature (it had cooled to about 95 degrees at start time) and relatively hilly terrain.

Before the day was out, I joined the local running club (Συλλογος Δρομεον Υγειας Μεσσηνιας—the Association of Running and Health of Messinia), paying the 5 euro annual fee. The club runs all over Greece, European, and also abroad. They send 40 runners to the New York City Marathon each year.

Runners countdown to the start

The participants, like runners everywhere, were supportive and enthusiastic. Runners exchanged race times, training tips, and the location of upcoming events. There was a triathlon in Naflpion last week; an 18 kilometer trail race in nearby Stoupa next week; and for those planning ahead, the Kalamata Marathon next April.

Boxed in at the start

22nd place out of ~ 300 overheated souls (96 degrees at the start)

12th century church of the Apostles

Earthy post-race entertainment? Already hot and sweaty

Greek mannequin--Momma's well fed boy

The entry fee was 3 euros, and the organization was stellar, with chip timing and a phalanx of motorcycle police ensuring the safety of the runners. The race was sponsored by the Kalamata police and was a narcotics awareness event. There were booths set up with literature on how parents can steer their children away from the bane of drug use.

I finished the 5K in 22nd place in a field of 300+, with a relatively slow time of 20:50. I was so hot, full of lunchtime goat, and mildly sun-stroked—but I gave it the club try. At the signup table they asked me the name of my club. Of course, it’s the SAC, Sunrise Athletic Club of Washington County. Sadly, I was a team of one!

Nia and Ann served as my support team.

Victory Is Ours!

Freshly minted Greek (dual nationality) citizens...card-caring members of the polis

Jonathan and Nia consummated a seven-year process at the Koroni Police Station this morning, achieving the final manifestation of Greek (dual) citizenship. (The US permits dual citizenship with a dozen nations or so, including Greece). We received out all-important identification cards. Now Nia can study tuition-free in any European university that accepts her (room and board is not paid for), plus work and travel without restriction in any of the 29 EU nations. Later this week we will apply for Greek passports in Kalamata, a relatively simple process now that we have obtained the IDs.

Not My President!

“Sir, have you no sense of decency?”

         Maine’s U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith to U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy on the Senate Floor (1954)

A news “junkie” back in the States, I have largely avoided the U.S. news until now. But gradually I find myself drawn back to that unfortunate reality of American political life. These are strange times, as evidenced by the bizarre character with the orange spray-painted toupee.

This blog’s caveat against politics and all manner of pontification is now thrown to the wind. But it's nearly impossible to silence a progressive democratic socialist nut-case like me.

Political temperance, now forsaken—following in the footsteps of the buffoon who occupies the central throne of the White House—it is indeed time to vent.

Be it known:

Your president is a pathological liar who is the new century’s walking, breathing, talking obscenity.

Your president is:

--An ignorant, spoiled narcissistic child unfit to occupy a dog house, not to mention being the leader of the free world.

--A moral menace and ethical non-entity

--A six-time Vietnam-era draft dodger who makes Dick Cheney and Bill Clinton look like war heroes by comparison.

--A lying, sniveling sexual predator (by his own admission)

--A greedy, hypocritical and petty robber baron with a forty-year pedigree to prove it.

--An idiot of epic proportions, a perfect match for the uneducated, the unread, the ill-informed electorate who fawn over a TV-culture man with zero knowledge of political history.

--A perverted soul who celebrates the “family values” of predators like Fox’s Bill O’Reilly and Alex Jones. The latter he calls an “American patriot”—a low-life who has perpetrated the myth that the Sandy Hook massacre of young children was a “media hoax”—tell that to the parents of twenty-eight murdered kindergartners, Mr. President.

Your president is a shameful abomination, an insult to my father and uncles who fought for American democracy during World War II.

Mr. President, have you no shame?

----

Alright, lighten up Yianni—you are in Greece in the summertime. What could be more wonderous?

Now, by popular demand: It’s Nia and Ann’s turn to weigh in on this family adventure—Temenos 2017.