Nia's First Impressions

My first impressions—by Nia

Getting ready to board the plane from Boston to Madrid, I was nervous. I hadn’t been on a plane since 2012, and being older I can think of many scary plane scenarios that I’ll spare you readers the details. Luckily my worries drained away when we found our seats, and I was happily surprised to find that each seat had a personal screen with many movies, television shows, music, and plane facts.

I was so distracted by all the fun stuff on the plane, that I knew I would be just fine. Then the plane took off! By this time I was, of course, chewing a big wad of gum to help with the air pressure and my ears. I had forgotten how loud taking off was, and it did make me a bit nervous, especially the feeling of tipping back and going up higher and higher, but I loved watching through the window ( I got a window seat!) and seeing everything get smaller and smaller. Once we got over the clouds it was time to check out the movies! There were so many I was excited to watch and our plane trip was about 6-1/2 hours so there would only be enough time to watch maybe three movies. I ended up picking a movie, watching the first 15 to 20 minutes, then started another movie that looked good. Probably not what most people would do ( Mom watched a whole movie next to me with out switching) but I still had fun. Then the food. Ohhhhh the food.

The hardest part was that the flight attendents of course served dinner to the first class passengers first, then went down from there, torturing us hungry people towards the back of the plane. I’ve heard most people complain about plane food, and I’m not sure if my hunger just took over or if it was actually good, but when that food came I ate everything that was served and felt very content. We had a smooth landing in Madrid and I felt great thinking that this layover in the airport would be fine (little did I know that we would have an incredibly long check-in line awaiting us). Once we were finished doing all the check-in stuff and were near our gate, we just hung out and got a little snack. By the time we were ready to board the plane I was getting hungry (again), and tired, which usually adds up to a grumpy Nia. To top that off we boarded an extremly boring plane with no movies because it was was just a four-hour flight from Madrid to Athens.

We found our seats and disovered that we had to sit next a man. Sitting, waiting for takeoff, seemed like it was taking longer than usual, and they finally announced that there was a delay, then a few minutes later, another announcment said there was a water leak or malfunction on the plane, and we had to get off and go back inside to wait for another plane. After a brief wait we got on a new plane and safely took off. During this next leg of our trip, I listened to music and looked out the windows the whole time. Not a cloud in the sky and I got to look down at the beautiful world under us. Finally our plane travels were over when we arrived in Athenes, and we got picked up by our Greek friends, who we would be staying with for a day. 

With the Acropolis overhead

The first day they took us shopping all day and we walked in the streets and it was amazing. That night our friend’s daughter, Dionysia, took me out for a night on the town—just us two girls! She took me up on this hill that overlooked all of Athens. All the lights were beautiful. Finally it was time to say goodbye to Athens and make our way to Kalamata, where my Baba would pick us up. I was most sad about leaving our friends’ dog, but excited to see our house for the first time. The ride was comfortable and beautiful seeing all the mountains.

View from the bus ride, Athens to Kalamata

Waiting for our ride from the Kalamata bus station

Heels over head for our new home away from home!

We pulled in the driveway of our little house that I recongnized from many pictures. We unlocked the door and I was so excited to see the cute place I would be staying in. That night we unpacked and and went out for a yummy dinner with some friends. Walking downtown I recognized so many things from a long time ago, but also I saw all the changes that were made. I saw many familier faces, and got introduced to many new faces as well. I’ve had so many great first impressions.

I’m so excited to be back! Relaxing on the beach, eating amazing food, and exploring! I’m taking so many pictures for this blog, and will definitely have to make another post about our adventures in Spetses next week : )

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Finikounda harbor--with a few of its dozen restaurants, cafes, and sweet shops---Nis says YUMMM!

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?

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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.

We Are Famillie

We Are Famillie

The first day of summer, 21 June, the longest day of the year. Here in southern Messenia, with the sun at its apex, the sky remains light until well after 9:30—a pastel hue on the western horizon, a purple fog reflected off the broad expanse of Mediterranean.

Ann and Nia arrived in Kalamata, by bus from Athens, yesterday afternoon. I drove the three of us in the rental buggy back through the hot streets of Kalamata, through the market town of Messini, and on to our final destination: A mountain village named Akritohori, located just a few kilometers east of  Finikounda. It is difficult to paint a precise picture of this gorgeous place with words—or it is beyond my modest writing skills. We passed through undulating groves of olives, past the long rows of vineyards, soon reaching Homer’s “sandy Pylos” and the tip of southern Messenia. The ocean horizon reaches south toward Egypt, west toward Malta, and east toward the southern Cyclades and Turkey. The ocean, so obviously a predominant feature, a sort of blue-green infinity, alters reality. Either that or reality has altered us—in a precious and meaningful way.

“No Woman, No Cry?”—I Beg to Differ

We climbed the final curve of mountain road and eased into our property—the sight of fresh lemons, the wafting aroma of mandarin oranges, the sheer beauty of an olive grove punctuated with crimson pomegrante, oleander, slender cypress. My bride, Ann, and our younger daughter Nia were speechless, then animated, then thankful to have arrived at Temenos, our Greek sanctuary.

Misery Is Optional

Friends back home send stories of bleak overcast, and wet cool days. My mind drifts to forbidden places: to the dark days, the unpalatable food, the angry politics; to rain, sleet, snow; to a spring that seems to never come for the long-suffering, for winters whose grip can seem punishing and unrelenting. A cultural, ethical, and spiritual wasteland. All of which is churlish, a pouty exaggeration, but a gut feeling nonetheless. A Southern European soul trapped in a Northern European reality.

I speak of whence we came, not of where we have arrived.

As the saying goes, misery is optional. And so we are here, in southern Messenia, pinching ourselves for our good fortune—335 days of sunshine, spring in February (and once again in November), a winter that can surely bring its own dread but is an afterthought. This place is a visual, cultural, and culinary feast. The contrast with our other home—lovely, pristine, alive with nature, for sure—but in so many ways an intractable “desert,” could not be more stark.

And yet I love—I cherish—our life in Downeast Maine. The true friends, the unsullied forest and sea, the stark beauty of the land of the pointed first.

But six months on, six months off—perhaps only an aspiration today, but one that is worth grasping, cultivating, and encouraging.

                                              The PG-13 Beach

Last night we joined our friends T and K, along with Kosta the Pirate, for a taverna night in Finikounda. Nia’s memory of this place, during an extended sabbatical with her siblings in 2009 and then a brief return in 2012, has slowly awakened. “Yes, I remember the church! Is that my friend from the village school? When I think of Greece, I think of gyro sandwiches!” Our taverna night last until 1:00 p.m., and by 2:00 p.m. we were home. An early night—ease them in!

Today we visited Pylos, in order to obtain photos for Evyenia’s tavtotita (identification card) and European passport, projects that will be consummated in a few days. Our dear friend, Niko, will serve as our martyros (witness) at the Koroni police station. With identification papers in hands, we can then apply for our passports in Kalamata, which will be next week’s assignment.

Niko the poet, the man of letters, the holder of this place’s cultural, historical linguistic, and artistic truths, offered the following sage advice to Evyenia, our eager fifteen year old:

“Evyenia, there are three ways to knowledge, and all three are vital. The first is reading. The second is travel. And the third is people. This three will combine to make you a complete person, one who is both wise and satisfied with life’s gifts.

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We arrived at the long beach, Anemomilos, just after noontime. We set up our cabana (shade tent) and the three of us swam. We walked past the beach frequented by locals, a few meters shy of  the clothes-optional beach—the transition zone that I have nicknamed the PG-13 beach (mostly clothed, but not entirely). We lasted about two hours, cognizant of the Greek midday sun, which can be paralyzingly powerful for the uninitiated.

Now it is Nia and Ann’s turn to weigh in on this family adventure—Temenos 2017.

Of Goats and Vegetables

The road to perdition--as well as the road home

Fallen Vegetables and the Goat Roast

Each morning we hear the gypsy vegetable trucks making their way down the mountain from Koroni, navigating the sharp bends in the road. The trucks are piled high with one produce or another—sometimes an overflowing mountain of watermelons, or a variety of garden vegetables. (My favorite for sheer audacity is the garlic truck, carrying a half ton of white bulbs, the flakes of outcovering flying out like a plume as it passes.) The bullhorns affixed to roofs shout out their offerings, and you can hear them coming from miles away. “Watermelons, we’ve got watermelons, the biggest ones from Kalamata, one euro per kilo.” Or some such.

Invariably, something falls off the truck while the driver negotiates the hairpin turns, particularly the one in front of our house. Our orchard plot is often the recipient of a watermelon or a cataloupe—but by the time I find it, the ants have all but carried it away.

The choices for my morning run are stark: run up the mountain and then back down, or down the mountain and then back up. Today I decided to run with a plastic bag (why hadn’t I thought about this before?) and for my efforts was rewarded with four large onions, two semi-viable tomatoes, and a picture-perfect eggplant. Who said there is no such thing as a free lunch?

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Last night I ran into D., a Dutch friend who has lived here for nearly forty years. The locals have given him a Greek name, and his command of modern Greek, like that of many resident foreigners (the English being a bewildering exception), is better than passable.

In Greek, our lingua franca, he asked: “Yianni, I would like to invite you for dinner here at To Steki on Saturday night. One of my goats broke its leg and so”—he makes the motion of drawing a knife across his throat—“we will have a big party. It is a big goat. Bring your friends.”

Nothing goes better with roast goat than “found vegetables.”

Jackals, Owls, and Village Dogs

Almost every night the jackals—a remnant population that migrated from Africa thousands of year ago and have survived in the hills of Messenia—begin their evening chorus. The sound is not unlike the coyotes of eastern Maine: a single howl is followed by a sort of call-and-response from the village dogs. More jackals join in and there is steady chorus of barking, yapping, and howling.

The sounds of night are not limited to the jackals. This area has several species of owls, most common a type of sawmette owl, which is not much larger than a clenched human fist, and has a unique vocalization. Other members of the evening chorus include foxes (a terrifying screeching for the uninitiated) and the chatter of the kounavi (pole cat). Beneath it all is the steady buzz of cicadas, which is reduced to a low murmur in the cool of evening. As the sun rises, the cicadas rise in pitch and volume.

The Greek Air Force—Serving or Protecting?

There is a Greek Air Force base, adjacent to the international airport in Kalamata, which is a training center for new pilots. Although there are several fighter jets at Kalamata, the trainer craft is a single-engine, single-seat propeller plane that is capable of high speeds and even higher altitudes, and manages acrobatic maneuvers in the early morning and the late afternoon. One can only assume that, like most Greeks, these young pilots are drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, and playing tavli (backgammon) when they’re not flying over our house.

Throughout the day, from sunrise to dusk, the planes fly in twos or threes overhead, turning in formation, and whining like something from a World War II movie.

Each day we are treated to own mini Battle of Britain overhead.

Goat Dinner

Dinner at To Steki with my Dutch friend D., Kosta the butcher, and young Ilias. Niko’s mom prepared the goat, roasting it over a charcoal fire, and it was served with village salad, fried potatoes, and copious amount’s of their own white wine. (I lost count after the fifth carafe.)

An extended Greek meal with friends usually generates a lively reparte, jokes, and the universal stories of the stories, which are expanded, exaggerated, and supplemented with new information.

D. is a trickster, a merry prankster who plays jokes on his friends. A few weeks earlier, he quietly approached Kosta’s farm and found his Wellingtons sitting on the covered porch beside his vineyard. D. placed a whole uncracked egg in each boot and then hid in the undergrowth. When Kosta jumped into his boots there was a roar of laughter from the edge of the garden. “Damn you, D., you bastard I’ll get you.” His words were likely more colorful that this tame blog will permit.

But Kosta the butcher has his revenge. The next day he opened D’s car and hung two goat testicles from rearview mirror.

This story has kicked around the village cafeneions for a few weeks.

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Watching Them Grow

Kids we met during our sabbatical year in 2009 have all grown up—it happens to kids everywhere! Among the fellow students of our daughters, who attended the one-room village school, are a number of long-time foreign residents, including K. an Egyptian boy who speaks Greek, Arabic, German, French, and English—at the ripe age of 17. Given that most Americans can't speak credible English, this impresses all of us.

We crossed paths in one the village back streets last night and immediately recognized one another—although I am markedly greyer and he is two feet taller: A strapping, handsome you man with uniquely soft features and decidely Middle Eastern presence. “How are Lucia and Evyenia,” he asked excitedly, “and when will they be arriving?”

The House

Part shrine, part bunker—our liter-sized house in the midst of 5,000 olive trees and a vineyard receives a lot unsolicited compliments for its traditional simplicity. It is not a behemoth concrete villa with a swimming pool (and a view of the beach?), but the kind of house that most of the local Greeks remember from years past. The American word would be “quaint” for which there is no precise Greek equivalent.

“You have fixed a traditional house, bravo Yianni,” a group of men offered in my last visit to our village’s sole cafeneion. The local people, lamenting the loss of the old ways, have patted us on the back countless times.

Here are some images of our mountain village located 3 kilometers east of Finikounda. It is not the tourist mecca of its larger sister village, but a traditional remnant of rural Messenia.

Village Square in Akritohoir

Typical village stone house--with goats in basement

Walkways in the village

One-room schoolhouse, in search of an English teacher (hint, hint, hint)

View from our porch--vineyards and Lykovounos ("the wolf mountain") beyond

Views of Finikounda below

A Place Called “Taverna”

For the non-Phillhellene, a “taverna” is a restaurant that serves traditional food and usually has outdoor seating and the family's own wine. Fifty years ago Finikounda was called Taverna, because it was little more than an expanse of sand, a small protected harbor, and a single taverna. The oldtimers in our village still call it Taverna.

“Yianni, are you going to Taverna tonight?” The answer is, yes: I’m going to taverna in Taverna!

The Family Has Landed

Ann and Evyenia arrived in Athens, via Madrid, a few days ago. In a few hours, I’ll be picking them up at the Kalamata bus station, about 60 kilometers northeast of our village. It is a lovely ride through the rolling hills, past dozens of villages with populations of fifty to 150 souls, a veritable sea of olive groves and vineyards.

I am told by the locals that I need to carry my bride over the marble threshold, where the blue evil eye hangs from a large beam.

And so now our family adventure will begin in earnest. And someone else can weigh in on the narrative.

Into the Aquamarine

Everyone’s a Farmer

Althought the air temperature is high—mid- to high 80s, occassionally touching the low 90s—the ocean temperature is relatively low, which comes as no surprise. Twenty-two kilometers southwest of Finikounda is the deepest ocean trench in the entire Mediterranean, at a depth of over 17,000 feet. Offshore storms churn the depths and well up volumes of seawater, which are driven shoreward by circulationg currents. The end result is pockets of warm water surrounded by long fingers of chilled ocean. It is quite sensation while swimming.

But the shock of immersion is tempered by the sun’s intensity. Given the clarity of the water—crystalline at 40 or 50 feet, you can see the reflection of a coin lying at on the ocean floor. The most careful beachgoer can get a sunburn even under water.

I ran to T. and K’s house a few days ago in the early morning, stopping for a quick swim before making the steep ascent back up the mountain. The total distance of about 7 kilometers was only possible owing to a short-lived morning overcast, a blessed relief.

A visit to the village cafeneion (there is only one in our village) was the highpoint of the morning. Welcomed graciously by the proprietor and a small group of farmers, and treated to various beverages not generally associated with breakfast, all of those present offered contrasting suggestions on how and when to prune the fruit trees, repair the roof, and negotiate with the Albanian day laborers. (“Never pay an Albanian more than 30 euros per day,” they urged. “If you pay more, they’ll work less.”)

The truth is that everyone is a farmer, even those who own tavernas or other estabishments, and one’s “net worth” is not measured in the amount of acreage but in the number of trees. “I have about five thousand trees, maybe more,” one man proclaims.

Pruning Our Trees--Orange, Lemon, Mandarin, Fig, Apricot, Pomegranate

Tractors provide basic transportation and seem to outnumber cars. Basic transportation for the entire family: Momma, Papa, the children, yiayia (grandma) can be seen clinging to a tractor as it pulses through the fields—and on the main road—at dizzying speeds. Entire families defy the laws of gravity (if not other laws), common sense, and any posted speed limits. It is worth adding that there is apparently no statute that covers “farming while intoxicated” (FWI?).

Into the Aquamarine

The sea—crystalline, indescribably beautiful, and utterly seductive—meets pristine white sand beaches. Sixty percent of Europe’s loggerhead turtles lay their eggs on these beaches, which are protected from grotesque development by the European Union’s “Natura 2000” laws.

In my estimation, the beach accounts for one-third of the joy of this place. The other two-thirds are the people (both local and foreign) and the culture. Under “culture” a multitude of subcategories issue: food, dance, music, religion, history, archaeology, architecture…the list goes on ad infinitum. But for me the three-hour beach day (with sunshade, book, writing pad, snacks, and lots and lots of water and sunscreen) stands as a bare minimum. I cannot understand folks who go to the beach to swim for twenty minutes and then retreat to the shade of a cafeneion. It is bizarre behavior that is typically Greek. While the Greeks sip coffee and engage in fenzied political discourse, the foreign residents are beached whales.

Home away from home--the essential shade

My day ends at 2 a.m. and begins at 8 a.m—with a run down the mountain to the nearest beach, a swim, and then the arduous return journey. This is usually followed by a few hours of work in the perivoli (orchard), some home repairs or improvements, and then the journey to the big beach, a three-kilometer stretch of dunes and shore. There are fifty or so people there in June, perhaps a few hundred in July and August. A large swath of the big beach is cloths-optional territory—quiet, low-key, safe. Too hot for gawking.

A light afternoon meal (it is too hot for much more) is followed by the premier afternoon event: siesta. It is a restorative that makes the late evening out a delicious possibility. Seven o’clock: water the fruit trees. Nine o’clock, head to the main village of Finikounda for a coffee and sweets. By ten o’clock, the final rays of color vanish from the horizon and a purple pastel welcomes the evening. The big question emerges: where to eat. There are a dozen choices in Finikounda alone, a seaside village with just 250 winter residents. Only the Germans seem to eat much before 10 p.m. The restaurants and tavernas are humming at midnight, and still open at 2 a.m. A few of the bars are open until 4 a.m.

This is the summer routine in coastal Messenia and most of the rest of Greece. It is civil, immensely fulfilling, and repeated daily.

A Water Line Runs Through It

Water disputes in Greece are as old as Greece itself. Our elderly farmer-neighbor’s unmetered (i.e., illegal) water line runs through the middle of our property. Our tractor man has now cut the line twice while plowing—it is buried under as little as six inches of soil in places.

The first time old Leonidio appeared, he was screaming and crying simultaneously—utterly apoplectic that the water line irrigating his orchard had been cut. Needless to say, his wrath was directed at Yioryio, the tractor driver. Yioryio said nothing while the old man fulminated. He urged me to remain quiet and stoic, pretending not to notice the loud yelling, the kicking of the ground, the shaken fists. The polite neighbor in me would have none of it. “We will make this right, Leondio, don’t be upset.” Yioryio was visibly disappointed in my politeness.

And now, a year later, he appeared today, emerging from the almond grove to discuss matters with me politely. Could I please go to the mayor’s office in Koroni and explain the situation. Could I go to the water company office and complain. “But Leonidio, you are taking the water without paying. Do you really want me to tell the demos (municipality) about this”? He grunted in frustration. “I want to be a good neighbor, and I don’t want you to lose your water supply.”

In the end I offered to pay for an hour of backhoe trenching, in order to re-situate the line nearer to the road. He seemed satisfied with my solution. Later in the day I found a bag of oranges and a bottle of wine on my doorstep. Hospitality in the face of drought.

Water is life itself to a Greek farmer. Who am I to upset the garlic cart?

Morning run in the morning heat

Medieval watchtower (vigli) just beyond our orchard