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.