What's in a Word?

 

A certain point of view

Sights, sound, smells

 

While I’m lulled to sleep by the magical sounds of jackals and owls emanating from the olive grove, I am startled into consciousness each morning by the sound of cement mixers, tractors, and gypsy trucks laden with fruit and vegetables. “Greens, greens, greens, I have greens plus the best fruit in Messinia,” so trumpets the gypsy public address system; or, “braided garlic, lots of garlic,” from the next truck. You hear the gypsy cacophony from a mile away. As the truck descends from the village center, the pleas only increase in volume.

 

Cretan heritage in southern Messinia

 

My family’s heritage is split between by father’s side (both grandparents were proud Cretans) and my mother’s side (the island of Spetses—grandmother—a mountain village above Navpaktos—grandfather. As my Spetses grandmother liked to opine: “Half of you is a knife-wielding terrorist, Yianni, and the other half is a cultured, peace-loving poet.” I’ll accept that as a badge of honor.

 

Oddly enough, this region of the southwestern Peloponnese is populated by many people whose heritage is Cretan, easily identified by the “-akis” ending of my name and many others: Savvakis, Yiannoukakis, Korokakis, etc. Cretans, even generations removed from the homeland, stick together. When I introduce myself, there is a nod of acknowledgement.

 

After the Arkadi massacre in the late 1850s, several large sailing ships left the island under cover of darkness—with no small sadness in the hearts of reugees--bound for a safer place. At that point, Crete had been occupied by the Ottomans for several hundred years, the residents reduced to chattel slavery, experiencing daily indignities imposed by the Turks. I must note that I've quite liked all of the modern Turks who I have met, but I was raised with Cretan grandparents who always referred to the “evil and viscious Turks.” My grandfather’s twin brother, Kosta, was decapitated by the Turks before his eyes. Such an experience just might jade your understanding of the Other.

 

In one of several failed revolutions against the occupiers, entire villages retreated to the relative safety of the Arkadi monastery, high in the mountains of central Crete. Eventually surrounded by an enormous force of Ottoman soldiers, rather than surrender—wherein all the defending men would be decapitated, the women and children sold into slavery—the defenders chose another option. Retreating to the gunpowder room of the walled complex, the defenders opened the gates, allowed the assailants to enter, and then promptly lit the gunpowder—imploding themselves and half of the Turkish forces who had entered in search of human booty. It was an act of heroism that today’s Cretans relish in historical memory.

 

This is an epic and legendary part of Cretan and Greek history. Several more failed insurgencies later, the Turks were expelled and Crete became an independent state, soon to be part of the young Greek nation, in 1908.

 

Those with Cretan heritage here in Messinia talk of the Arkadi disaster, the retreat of hundreds of families to the Peloponnese, and the eventual liberation … as if it happened yesterday. There is a long memory. My two Cretan grandparents were born as subjects of the sultan of the Ottoman empire, enduring daily humiliations and terror. But they also gave what they received, including my family, who paired themselves with the Cretan-European statesman and great liberator Eleftherios Venizelos, a major player in the Treaty of Versailles following World War I.

 

Here in modern times, 80 years after the Nazi occupation of Greece—an especially brutal occupation of Crete, which lasted until 1944 and included the murder of most of my great uncles (my grandfather’s brothers) and their young sons, shot against the walls of the village chapel for supporting the resistance—the country now hosts many Germans, most of whom own second “homes” (i.e., villas) in this area. The Greeks have not forgotten—but curiously, to my mind, they extend the same usual hospitality to the sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaugthers, of the Nazi occupiers.

 

A German friend told me last night, tongue in cheek: “Yes, we Germans like to occupy. You know, the best properties, the best hotels, Poland….”

 

The same could be said of the Americans.

 

The cast of characters

 

In our village in Greece, not unlike our village in eastern Maine, there is a colorful cast of characters. For example, the tractor driver who sings operatically while driving; the village idiot (I remain a contender for this role); the gypsies, the Albanians; K. the sailor who has transformed eating and drinking into an Olympic event; and the crazy American who runs up the mountain in the heat of the day. The latter has been nicknamed by the old men at the cafeneion, who wave when I pass: to katsikaki, the little mountain goat.

 

Driving in Greece

 

It is all too easy for a foreign resident to be drawn into Greece’s culture of dangerous and reckless driving. There is a “need for speed” and a cultural imperative that demands that you pass the car ahead of you.

 

But here are the principles of driving, in proper order, to which I attempt to adhere:

·       Don’t kill yourself

·       Don’t kill someone else, and especially not their goats or sheep

·       Don’t drive off a cliff, on guardrail-less roads with hairpin turns

·       Let tailgaters pass you by slowly down to an excruciating pace.

 

However, dear friends, practice as I preach not as I practice.

 

On the way to Pylos this morning, I was tailgated by a wealthy [expletive] German in a Mercedes Benz Kompressor. No matter how much I accelerated he remained on my tail. So I did the right thing and pulled over. Then I chased after him—he was slowed by a cement truck—and followed his bumper by a few inches, swerving into the oncoming lane as if I were to pass him and the cement truck in one fell swoop. It was the apex of stupidity, but it was immensely satisfying. My wife and kids would have rightly horrified.

 

Thievery

 

My grandmother used an old adage when I was a child: <Οποις φιλαει τα ρούχα, εχει τα μισα (opios filai ta rouxa, exei ta misa). It was a phrase people used a hundred years ago, which mean (literally) “he who looks after this clothes, ends up with half,” meaning “we will all get ripped off, but those who are careful get only marginally ripped off.”

 

Accept the fact that in most of Greece, your house and car will be broken into—maybe by gypsies, or by Albanians, or by Greeks, or maybe even by some suspicious American. Everyone is a scapegoat because everyone is a victim at some point.

 

A British couple installed a state-of-the-art security system a few years ago. After their house was broken in, they found the alarm system on the bottle of the pool.

 

Here is the way to proceed under such circumstances. Always leave your car unlocked and your glovebox open (which prevents smashed windows and attests to the fact that you have nothing of value). Likewise, leave a bit of loose change on your kitchen table, and carry everything else with you wherever you go. I have rucksack with passport, ID card, cash, camera. It stays me with constantly—the cost of doing business.

 

The thieves want euros (European currency), gold, and jewelry. They are not interested in foreign currency (because exchanging it raises a big red flag), laptop computers, and other toys of the industrialized West.

 

This is what it has come to in Greece. Watch your clothes, you’ll end up with half. Hopefully your shorts included.

 

What’s in a name?

 

My American name is Jonathan (please, not “Jon”). My Greek name is Yianni. Almost no one calls by either name. 

Can't get there from here

 

Here I go by a multitude of names: Tzon (no letter J in Greek), Tzonathan, Yianni, Yanno, Yanko, to katsikaki (the little mountain goat). As we say in Downeast Maine, “just don’t call me late to dinner.

 

Our former landlady (from our sabbatical in winter/spring of 2009) is famous for irrational, violent verbal outburst and a generally loud voice. Her name is Irini (Irene), which means “peace.” Go figure.

 

Navigating the linguistic minefield

 

My spoken Greek is serviceable but very, very far from perfect. I make some epic blunders as do all who learn this ancient/modern language.

 

Among the linguistic landmines, there are words that sound so very similar. For example, kounoupia (mosquitoes) and kounoupidia (cauliflower). Don’t go into a restaurant in the winter—which I’ve done—and order boiled mosquitoes. Likewise, tzatziki (a lovely cucumber/yogurt dip) and tzitzikia (crickets or cicadas).

 

The word for the verb κλαινω (kleno), ‘to cry,’ is alarming like κλανω (klano), ‘to fart.’ I was so lonely I could…. You get the idea.

Camp Yianni

 

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