Running on Hard Ground

The roughest of running trails...

Leading to the isolated "castaway beach"--all my own for a swim at 6 p.m.

Counting the Hours

An irrespressibly warm breeze blows from the eastern Mediterranean—from the plains of Asia Minor, over the eastern islands and the Cyclades, and atop this mountain where our little house sits amid the olive groves. In late October, daytime temperatures remain in the high 20s Centigrade and at night it doesn’t dip below 20 C. (low to mid-80s, high 60s). Shorts and tee shirts are still the dress code, even sitting at a cafeneion or taverna by the ocean in the evening. The ocean is like bathwater, mostly calm and inviting, with neither current nor undertow. Τέλειο—amazing. It will remain this way, for the most part, through the end of December. When I will be shoveling snow, slipping on ice, and wondering if the firewood will last until Apri--and whether the daylight will ever return to the forty-fifth parallel.

Last night I had dinner with my English friends C. and P. and their son S., who Lucia and I met in the summer of 2014. Although they live in London, they have had a second home here for the past 14 years.

C. made a comment that resonated with me.

“When I’m here, time seems to stop. As soon as we get off the plane in Kalamata and smell the aromas of rural Greece—the wild sage and thyme, the Ionian Sea—we know we are really home.”

I couldn’t agree more or stated it more accurately.

Although it might defy logic or common sense for a middle-class, middle-aged dude from rural Maine to own a home here in southern Greece—a second home that is fast becoming a first home—there are no doubts: this is the place. And with any luck, circumstances will allow us (me and Ann, and our children) to spend a few more weeks here each year. And then, perhaps, some day…a lot longer.

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Why a Fence?

I had two major missions on this 23-day trip: run the Spetses 25km Mini Marathon and win my age group—mission accomplished! if more slowly than I might have liked—and work to install a steel, one-and-half-meter-high perimeter fence around our property.

Back line

Finishing the work today along the roadway

 

But why a fence, you might ask? (Certainly it will keep the riff-raff in.) Not unlike rural Maine, with its infrequent and unwelcome “Keep Out” or “No Trespassing” signs, there is no real way to deny access, not just to people who might be curious (or worse), but to any number of evening creatures: highly destructive wild boar (on the ascendance throughout Greece), packs of jackals—heard every night, like our coyotes, and although generally fearful of people, with howls that are worthy of your attention—and all manner of “escaped” farm animals: goats, sheep, and the like. The latter two (plus the wild boar) can exact enormous damage to grape vineyards and to trees like olive, lemon, oranges, pomegranate, fig, apricot, pear, and avocado. Our property has all of these.

And gypsies. Fearless outsiders, many of whom will not hesitate to “nick” any manner of tools, steel, tiles, and the like, engaging in a kind of petty thievery. With few opportunities, this population has been relegated to the margins for generations. Some might argue justifiably that they are an entire population that has been unfairly castigated as unrelenting robbers, pickpockets, and shysters—the Others who worthy of fear and contempt. And some in the mainstream population think much worse of these nomadic and poorly understood folk.

The large number of gypsies in Messenia feed themselves by collecting scrap metal and by traveling through the small villages, their old pickup trucks plying the mountain roads and coastal littoral laden with any manner of discarded metal, fruits and vegetables piled high, all manner of bric-a-brac for sale: plastic chairs and tables, live poultry, brooms, brushes, and recycled and reused wares. The megaphones on the hoods and roofs of their trucks—which, curiously, all seem to be white and have smashed windshields—announce their presence many kilometers before their arrival. In essence, though, they provide a service and are regulary patronized by many, especially the owners of tavernas.

So you hear the magnified banter long before they have arrived at your door: “People, we have chairs, shoes, tables. Come one, come all—for garlic, melons, tomatoes, excellent deals on potatoes…clothing, boots, and ducklings.” It can be a dizzying array of offerings.

I count myself a commited non-racist, one immune to the human sin of stereotyping. Although in the depths of my heart, knowing full well that we all harbor some type of racism and a collective urge to stereotype those who look and act differently, I realize that such self-righteousness inclinations are faulty at best. Utter fabrications at worse.

But let’s be clear: gypsies steal.

Maybe not all of them, and surely not all the time. And “steal” itself is a loaded word: Bankers steal, and so do Main Street merchants, and do little white children with fair complextions, blonde hair, and blue eyes.

But stealing, or what the larger population might consider stealing, is part and parcel of a thousand-year cultural dynamic in Greece and throughout the Balkans. Sometimes out of necessity—a marginalized population who have children to feed, just like the rest of us.

And Messenia is home to more gypsies than anywhere in Greece. The tent camps outside of Kalamata, with their austere and seemingly desperate character, tell the story of their mysterious presence.

And hence, the fence.

Other Security Measures

My friend Dimitri is a master metalworker with a veritable percolation of excellent ideas. One is for us to build a secure metal box, out of view, and large enough to hold a growing collection of tools (hoes, hand tools, metal ladders) that would otherwise “disappear” in our absence. The house is too small for all of these sundry items. An additional purpose: to store batteries for a photovoltaic array, outside of the living space, in a vented, insulated, secure container.

Another great idea courtesy of Dimitri: squaring off the mortared wall in the back corner, then back-filling it. This roughly five-meter square “platform,” with stone steps, would be located under our largest tree: a massive carob, which is always loaded with brown pods and is highly aromatic. And an excellent source of shade.

The view of Mount Likavounvos (the “wolf mountain”), visable from our porch, would be incredible with some elevation.

Shade is a critical component of outdoor living in southern Greece. Since most people (traditionally) live outside for nine months of the year, a social-gathering place—a veranda, a pergula, or some such—is an ideal element in Greek life. Even in busy Athens, the fortunate have an αυλή / avli (“garden”), a walled-in space, often with a lemon or orange tree, shockingly colorful bouganvillia, potted plants. It serves as a sanctuary. And ours will be too.

To the Bee Yards

My friend Panayioti is a full-time beekeeper, with more than 600 hives spread throughout the region. Unlike in Maine (we are amateur beekeepers), here the honey is harvested four times per hear. Such is the blossoming natural world in fair Hellas. Like traditional beekeepers, he moves his hives frequently (he can fit 85 or so into his pickup truck and trailer, strapped down with care) to wherever the blooms are happening: in the winter he places hives in the citrus groves and amid the wild oregano, thyme, and sage; in the spring they are moved near the olive blossoms, or near the chestnut trees (which produce in an incomparable, dark rich honey).

One of Panyioti's smaller bee yards--150 hives

Top of hive, sugar water covered with a cloth

Sugar water is feed from plastic bottles with small holes

Handling his bees without glvoes

Bees need water--he uses a drip system

For years I have asked him if I could “shadow” him to one of his bee yards. Last night, he said, “why not come to the mountain with me tomorrow. I have an extra veil. Wear long pants. You’re not one of those people who will die if strung?”

Greece's summer heat necessitates ventilation, front and back

Opening a hive to inspect

Finding the queen, checking the progress

I have been stung countless times and I remain among the living. So I left Dimitri (his brother-in-law) alone for an hour or so with the fencing, and I set off for the mountain with Panayioti.

I am a source a great humor with funny language mistakes. I speak with ease, but not always with care. I referred to the queen as a βασιλειος / vasileos ("king") instead of a βασιλίτσα / vasilitsa ("queen") and Panayioti couldn't stop laughing for five minutes. I wasn't sure what I said that was so funny until he corrected. The "king bee."

Hives on old tires, very clever use

An American beekeeper in Greece

I also asked him if he saw many snakes in the bee yard.

"Oh, yes, they like the shade of the tires and pallets."

"So, tell me the truth: will an ochia really kill you if it bites? Like right away?"

"Oh no, you may live several hours. Perhaps even half a day. In fact, maybe until the next morning. THEN you will die. If you are biten, go to Pylos for immediate care. Then they will send you quickly to Kalamata for more tests and  more antidote."

Wipe Away Those Tears, Young Man

I have always suffered a special kind of melancholy when leaving this country, a place that has coursed through my inner self since the age of 12, when I first came. I have experienced the sadness of leaving more than twenty times.

Happily, I have also experienced to joy of arriving more than twenty times.

This year I had the special good fortune of coming to Hellas twice in one year, an inexplicable luxury for a middle-class guy with a middle-class income. But sometimes you do what you must do—and I must be here. I won’t belabor the “why” of it. Just read this blog, with all its bumps and bruises, its wild pontifications, poor writing, and careless facts. The why of it will become evident—even just in pictures.

Ten years ago (2009) we gathered up the family “and moved to Beverely.” (The pop-culture reference will be lost on 90 percent of my readers). My incredibily supportive wife, and my (then) three compliant young children, all of us in tow.

We found a place in rural Greece (Finikounda, in southern Messenia, the western Peloponnesian peninsula nearest to Italy) to spend six months, rented the first floor of house, sent the girls to the local one-room school house, home-schooled our son. I worked as a freelance copyeditor (oddly enough, on an encyclopedia about Ancient Greece) and Ann enjoyed a much deserved sabbatical. We had scrimped and saved for this little adventure for a dozen years. Friends, family, and strangers were all supportive in our quest.

That sabbatical year, which was reduced to five and half months when my mother became ill, opened our eyes to the realm of possibility. It also set in motion, for me, a lifelong aspiration that began as a twenty year old, when I studied classics/archaeology during my junior year abroad in Athens: to find a small house in rural Greece. And that was about the time I threw myself into learning modern Greek, in which am now nominally (but carelessly) fluent.

We returned, as a family, in the summer of 2012. Marginal finances seemed to make the old dream unlikely and was nearly abandoned.

Almost by accident, the dream was resuscitated, like an old man who once wheezed and then found the special joy of breathing anew.

Building a house, an enormous financial undertaking, was not in the cards. This is the stuff of wealthy foreigners. So we found a piece of land with 17 old olive trees and a broad, let’s say stunning, view of the Mediterranean—looking toward Malta or toward North Africa, depending on your posture and imagination. (Obviously you can see neither over the horizon.) We knew the property was unbuildable, but the plan was to construct a tenting platform, obtain water, and maybe someday find an old “caravan” (British lingo for “camper”). It was the quintessential Greek property on the cheap.

But then the owners of this plot mentioned an old, dilapidated agricultural building, very small and seemingly an unlikely prospect. Thankfully, Yioryio, the father, had a vision for us and our aspirations—a way to “legalize” an old building, renovate it, possibly expand it. And so we traded the 17 olive trees for an overgrown lot, chock full of rubble and other debris.

The old house

Gradual improvements--including raising the walls for a loft space

In six short years we have transformed this old hovel into a “sanctuary,” which is an ancient Greek word and one definition of temenos—the name of this blog.

Little by little--as time and money allowed

A house warming for us with our Greek and foreign friends (Lucia posing), 2015

Each summer, with limited resources, I cleared the land—literally tons of rock and debris—paid a bit each year to raise the walls of the old structure, rebuild the roof, add windows, running water, a bathroom, and more recently a covered veranda. I planted trees and flowers and every manner of indigenous plants; found some kindly English friends to watch over the property, water the plantings (absolutely necessary for eight months—from May through October, when rain almost never happens). This little daydream became more an more real with each passing year.

Becoming a Greek

On a parallel track, as early as 2005, I began researching how to leverage my Greek heritage—all four grandparents were born in Greece more than 120 years ago—in order to obtain dual citizenship, which is permissible from both the Greek and US perspectives. (Boris Johnson, the current idiot Prime Minister--Donald Trump's lost brother--is, for example, both English and American.)

This was an epic undertaking requiring multiple trips to the Greek Consul General in Boston; obtaining an impossible trove of original documentation (grandparents’ birth certificates, wedding certificates, etc.), and nothing short of a steely determination.

In 2017 the prospect was consummated: I swore an oath to protect and defend the Hellenic Republic, passed the mandatory FBI criminal background check (no I have not murdered anyone—not yet at least), and received a military service waiver, as I had passed the threshold of age 50.

Ann, Nia (our youngest, then a minor), and I marched into the Koroni police station, with our poet-farmer friend Niko as our local “sponsor,” and received our official Greek identity cards. Then, later that summer, Nia and I obtained our Greek passports at the Kalamata police station. We are now, officially, citizens of the European Union (with no impact on our American citizenship)—and card-carrying Greeks. The same opportunity is available to our other children—Manny and Lucia—and Ann can leverage her Italian heritage (as one cousin has) to obtain Italian dual citizenship. We can all be Europeans (and Americans) together!

The potential for living happily ever after has improved. And long after I have become dust, this little sanctuary will belong to our children. If they wish.

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We are officially “registered” in the nearby town of Methoni, with its imposing Venetian castle, which was built in the early Middle Ages and once house over forty thousand souls. (All of whom were executed—decapitated—or sold into sexual or chattel slavery by the besieging Ottoman Turks in the 1600s). Yes, the "evil and viscious" Turks. My Cretan grandfather, born a subject of Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, is smiling at his famous qualifier.

I joke with my dear Evyenia (Nia) that we are now obliged to defend the castle ramparts: shield and sword in hand, ready to fight the good fight.

Today’s “fight” is against modernization, Westernization/Europeanization, and financial ruin. Greece has kept its hairy chin just above the water. And now, it is poised for a comeback—slowly and seemingly against all odds.

We have a deep an abiding love for this country, which represents much more than our cultural heritage.

It is not just a “second home” but both a mythological and metaphysical home, one that courses through our blood and lives in our warm beating hearts.

Sunset between the bambo, Finikounda harbor to the right, big beach to the left

The Battle of Navarino

The Battle of Navarino—the Reenactment Festivities

“You know, Jonathan, your looking more Greek every day.” I took my English friend R’s comment as a small badge of honor. I don’t want to be another pasty American.

I joined my friends R and A to watch the reenactment ceremony in Pylos last night, along with more than 15,000 other people. We had the good sense to arrive two hours before the event began, but still every single table in the town square had been claimed, every possible seat along the waterfront was occupied, people had even climbed onto old buildings for a better view.

But I spied a small group of Greeks placing money on a table and quickly hovered over them. One of the advantages of speaking Greek is that ability to weasel your way into and out of situations.

“May we take your seats when you leave?”

Soon they were gone and we had claimed a highly prized and coveted table with a birds-eye view of the festivities.

And festivities they were indeed. Once the sun had set, a loud amplified commentary began in all of the languages of the original combatants (except Turkish)—French, English, Russian, and Greek. The flags of all four nations flew and representatives (military and embassy) of the foreign parties circulated among the crowd. With the exception of Russia. Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea and illegal occupation of eastern Ukraine—once part of the larger Greek world and still with a population of ethnic Greeks in the Black Sea city of Odessa—the Russians have seem somewhat less welcome.

After securing our table, we took turns individually walking amid the multitude. We had managed to park R and A’s Lada—a Russian-made 4x4 with screeching wheel bearings and questionable steerage—a ways out of town, pointing toward Methoni (our later taverna destination), in order to ensure a swift escape.

The Greek Navy had several destroyers and light cruisers in port; the British had a smaller warship; the firemen, police, and press were everywhere.

The event began at sundown, with a boom crane extended several hundred feet above the inner harbor, an individual dressed in all white performing on a ring perilously above the water. A fleet of three masted ships, all of them more than 90 feet length overall, pirhouetted about the harbor in balletic fashion, in very close quarters. A commentary in English, Greek, and French boomed from loudspeakers.

"And so the allied ship encircled the Turkish fleet. Each watching the other," the narrator boomed. "And finally a cannon from a Turkish ship was accidentally fired, and the well trained allies, our friends from England, France, and Russia, replied in kind." This went on for some time, the tall ships with sailors in period costume, lip-syncing the narrator's words.

The commentary described the lead-up to this epic naval battle, describing how a fleet of 200+ Ottoman galleons was surrounded and then obliterated by cannon fire.

A replica of an Ottoman galleon was blasted out of the water and then a massive--truly massive—fireworks display ensued for a half hour. It was said to have cost more 150,000 euros and it was truly spectacular. The folks in my local cafeneion complained in advance.

"The demos [municipality] can't fix the pot-holes or replalce the broken garbage bins, but they can pay for this display"?

My little camera, sadly, was unable to capture any useable photos of the sailing vessels, which were remarkable. But here are a selection of photos of the event before the sun set, and a few of the firework display.

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After the final salvo of fireworks, we dashed up the hill to the parked Lada and managed (it seemed unbelievable given the large crowd and the enormous number of buses) to escape from Pylos ahead of the multitude, arriving at “Nondos” grill in Methoni for an 11 p.m. meal—my first real meal of the day.

A Fascist By Any Other Name

They Say It’s Your Birthday

Today is my lovely daughter Lucia’s twenty-second birthday. Χρόνια πολλά, Λουκία μου! With some luck, we will speak via the Internet this afternoon, the marvels of the digital age keeping us close even though were are thousands and thousands of miles apart.

Photos of the Olive Harvest Next Door

The pruning is complete. These trees have been cut hard, the nets have gathered the olives, and the farmers are off to the press.

My favorite tree, right on the line. She could tell a few hundred years of story

Our best trees--absolutely loaded with olives--will be harvested soon

The Old Fascist

The heading of this section is not a reflection of our current president. And that's the truth. But it could be.

A day doesn’t pass without someone in the village approaching me with a Trump joke or comment. My father, a Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, told me years ago that when traveling or living overseas, never criticize your government, a bit of advice I followed often against my better judgment.

I love my country—America the beautiful—and the institutions of our Republic. I am especially proud of the military service of my father and his five brothers during the Second World War: five combat Marines in the South Pacific (Okinawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and mainland China) and one brother attached to General Patton’s mechanized forces in Europe. According to a former commandant of the US Marine Corps--speaking to my Uncle Artie, a Marine infantry man on Iwo Jima at the tender age of 17, the combat service of my father and his four Marine brothers represents an unsurpassed Marine Corps distinction shared by no other family in the past 200 years. Whether this is true or not, I may never know—but my assumption is that it is indeed true. And ours was an immigrant family. And no one was locking up their children in cages on the border while allowing ISIS captives to go free.

Oops, there I go again, violating this blog's apolitical principle.

The sense of service runs deeply through my family. I am so proud of my brother, Gregory, who serves as civilian board member for a US Medal of Honor committee; and my recently departed sister, Dyan, who directed the University of Virginia Teen Health Center for 25+ years and spent a lifetime in the trenches fighting for women’s reproductive health--which is now threatened by old white men in Congress. And in my small way (very small), serving as a firefighter and first responder in my own small community in Maine. A life of service is a life well lived. My parents and grandparents taught us this by example. Whenever you can help, offer your hand.

But the current holder of our nation’s highest office is not my government—rather he is some freak of nature, a rogue abberation that afflicts the body politic. Number forty-five (sometimes speaking his name causes indigestion) is such a pitiful creature, a worthy recipient of Greece’s universal adjective (μαλάκα / malaka = wanker).

To be clear, the rest of the world—duly represented in southern Messenia—thinks this man is utterly unhinged, the very worst manifestation of the one-man freak show. Certainly there is more pity than ridicule; that is, pity directed at our long-suffering population back home.

With his usual wry sense of humor, an English friend asked me a question last night.

"Do you know why Trump has placed severe trade sanctions on Germany?" I scratched my head.

"Because they didn't help us on D-Day." I laughed but of course it isn't funny. The reference was to Trump's comment that we can now abandon the Kurds because "they didn't help us in World War II." In a blow to America's integrity, issued by Tweet, he stabbed our allies, our brother's in arms, squarely in the back. An unforgivable betrayal. A total disgrace by a man who dodged the Vietnam draft because of "heel spurs."

So General Mattis, a reticent and cautious man, a genuine war hero, made a dig of his own yesterday: "I got my heel spurs on the battlefield, not on the golf course."

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But no, the fascist of whom I speak is my near neighbor, Leonidas. He wears his name—the famous Spartan king of antiquity—with no particular honor. This according to the villagers who tell me that he once served the military junta (1967-1974) as a henchman and an enforcer. But what goes around come around, as they say.

This particular fascist has a garden plot a few hundred meters down the road, which is fed by an illegal water line that has bisected our property long before our acquistion of it in 2013. Like most things in Greece, getting something for nothing—and not paying taxes—is a kind of national sport.

His line has been severed twice during our tenure, first by a hired tractor and then by the power auger that we are using to drill holes for the perimeter fence. No one really knows where the line is, so each we hit it as if we are striking the Lotto number. A bulls-eye. The odds against it are enormous.

His stern request that I submit (yet another) application to the water district to move the line to edge—to the right of way—has been adamant. The villagers tell me in no uncertain terms, “it’s his problem, not yours. Ignore that old fascist malaka.” But as the outsider, the foreigner, one cognizant of the necessity of water in this parched country, I sought to comply. To a certain point.

He returns on a daily basis and fulminates, telling me what I must and must not do. I have always been compliant with my elders—alas, I am the son of a Marine Corps colonel—to a certain degree, but a few days ago he pushed my button once too many times (see previous posts).

Nevertheless, yesterday I drove over the mountain to the lovely coastal town of Koroni, with its imposing medieval castle and wealthy German second-home owners, on an unrelated mission. I happened to park my buggy outside the δημαρχειο / dimarchio or mayor’s office, the place where such issues are addressed. So I popped and had a few words with Niko, the kindly man who I recalled from having done the same in 2015—apply for the line to be moved. I also spoke with my friend Dimitri, the newly elected vice mayor (not in charge of vice, but as an assistant to the mayor) and he offered to do his part to expedite the request.

Dimitri, a dear friend, a poet-butcher-farmer, offered the following to Niko:

“This is my friend Yianni. He’s not a foreigner, he’s every bit as Greek as the two of us, an heir to his Cretan heritage, a real Greek with an incredible family story and, I might add, very fast running legs. He is a marathoner of some repute.”

I blushed and left for my mountain village.

Streets of Koroni

A lovely place to stroll under the Venetian castle

Bottoms up. Another use for hull

The mayor's office, in a medieval Venetian building

View of the larger town of Koroni

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The Battle of Navarino

By 1829, Greece had suffered more than 300 years of brutal occupation by the Ottoman Turks, who had overrun most of the Balkans by the year 1500, all the way to the gates of Vienna. Ruthless and pitiless overlords, “tax farmers” who had burtalized the local Christian and Jewish populations, by 1829 the walls were collapsing and the call for revolution—Ελευθερία η Θάνατος, Freedom or Death!—was announced from every church, mountain top, and arid plain.

Countless European mercenaries, including Lord Byron who died in the Battle of Messolonghi, sought to free Greece from the Turkish yoke. A viscious and brutal guerilla war had ensued since 1821 against the “sick man of Europe.”

The decisive battle that won freedom for much of mainland Greece—but not the north or the eastern islands, and especially not Crete until the 1890s—occurred nearby in Pylos, about 20 kilometers to the west.

The Battle of Navarino, a very famous naval engagment (part of the first-year curriculum at the Annapolis Naval Academy), happened on Navarino Bay, a large enclosed body of sea near the town of Pylos.

Surrounded by a combined fleet of Greek, British, French, and Russian warships, the pride of the Ottoman fleet—more than 200 galleons—were obliterated. And Greece was freed—to fight future battles and regain more territory in the 75 years to come.

My own Cretan grandfather, Andoni, living in Manhattan in 1912 (having immigrated from Crete in 1908), returned to Greece with another 100 Cretan mercenaries to fight the Ottomans in the Battle of Ioannina, an epic conflict which was part of the First Balkan War (1912).

Charging into battle on the plains of Ioannina, his twin brother by his side, they fought the Turks in close combat with long swords against the emblematic Turkish scimitars (the curved sword that appears on today’s Turkish flag). His brother Kosta was decapitated in front of his twin brother’s eyes. It is a story that all of us grandchild heard repeatedly while growing up. The evil and viscious Turks. Long after my grandfather died, my father continued the tradition, speaking about Turkish brutality. A brutality that continues to this day against the Kurds of Syria.

The great Battle of Navarino is re-enacted each year and for the first time I am here to witness an event that draws more than 15,000 spectators (in a town of 2000 souls). The celebration includes representatives of Britain, France, and Russia—each contributing warships and personnel—and a massive showing by the Greek Navy. Full-size replicas of Ottoman galleons are set adrift offshore and then obliterated by the Greek Navy’s fusilade. There are fireworks, vendors, gypsies selling their wares. It will be a hoot.

I have been invited to this year’s celebration by a group of resident English friends. Photos to come.

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The other night I joined a group of friend for souvlaki at the Albanian shop on the waterfront in Finikounda. These can be trying times for a non-drinker of alcohol in Greece, where everyone buys everyone pitchers of wine and cold beers. They sure look enticing, but I’m a happier soul without this indulgence. But sometimes denial requires more explanation than I desire.

So I ordered a non-alcoholic (that is, zero percent alcohol) beer just to look “normal.”

In front of a crowded table, he water brought all the drinks in one large try.

“And for you, my friend, here is a drink for children.” He set the bottle in front of me and winked disapprovingly.

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Run to the Venetian Tower

On the hillside below our house there is an old Venetian watch tower dating to the early Middle Ages, which is accessible from Loutsa beach on a narrow trail that runs along a cliff edge. There is an incredible, isolated sandy beach there, where the threatened loggerhead turtles lay their eggs---and where people in know can swim and sun in relative peace.

Running through a wild landscape to the Venetian tower

Big beach in Finikounda--Loutsa beach on the distant shore, near our house

Today I accessed it from above, winding through the olive groves and into a thicket of brambles and thorns—as evidenced by my bloody legs, later washed clean in the ocean.

In the period of Venetian occupation (1200 to around 1600) a series of these towers existed along the coast and were manned by small groups of soldiers, who looked out to sea watching for incoming pirates or Turkish raiders. When such vessels were sighted, fires were lit in the towers, and then in the next tower down the coast, until the advance warning was received in the massive castle in Methoni. The residents (more than forty thousand at its height) would entry the single gate over the moat, close the doors and wait it out, hurling every manner of debris, arrows, and cannons on the besieging Turks.

The Venetian castle in Methoni, with with Lion Gate (an emblem of Saint Mark of Venice), was besieged for many years prior to its fall to the advancing Turkish forces. When the castle finally fell, in the late 1600s, all of its 10,000+ defenders were decapitated, the women were sold into sexual slavery--sent to the harems of Constantinople, the seat of the Ottoman Empire, which was siezed from the Byzantine Greeks in 1452. The hundreds of children were taken back to Turkey, the boys “made” into eunuchs, the girls given as booty to the Turkish overlords.

The evil and vicious Turks. Papou (grandpa) wasn’t joking.

My grandparents were born on the island of Crete, which still occupied by the Ottomans until a final revolution in 1905, and hence were subjects of the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. It is no wonder that my grandfather welcomed the opportunity to leave New York City, with 100 other Cretans, just a few years after he had arrived, to fight the Turks in northern Greece in 1912. It was time for justice and he wasted no time. His sword was sharpened and he was ready to take some heads. But sadly, his twin brother lost his own head in battle.

So, running along the cliff’s edge, this sweep of history raced through my mind with every step. After passing by the old Venetian tower, I took a track down toward the sea in a wild, overgrown landscape. At one point I lept over an alarmingly large snake. When I arrivd at Loutsa beach, I literally tumbled down an embankment on onto the sand.

I landed unceremoniously a few feet from a Swedish family—momma, pappa, and three teenage daughters—all in their beautifully tanned birthday suits. After recovering from our mutual shock, we all laughed about it, said hello, and I was on my way down the beach to do a bit of my own sunbathing/swimming.

Nudity in Greece is hardly a phenomenon that needs much in the way of explanation. By and large, foreigners and Greeks are respectful of local sensibilities--this is a socially conservative nation--and remain discrete.

But it just is, especially for the Germans, who introduced co-ed nude swimming in their own country in the nineteenth-century. It was, in fact, considered by doctors to be a healthy and necessary tonic for a life well lived, and it was and is encouraged.

Making New Friends and (One Potential) Adversary

Voidokoilia, the famous natural harbor from Homer's Iliad---an incredible place to hike and run

The Olive Harvest

The olive harvest is now progressing at full tilt, from first sun until sunset. Here are photos from the other side of wall.

Step one, placing the nets

Pruning while harvesting

Ready for the village  co-operative press

Well pruned trees

Tread Lightly—But Carry a Big Stick

Panagia mou! (Holy Mother of God), Dimitri howled, the power auger still firmly in his grip.

I looked across the pasture and witnessed a prodigious geyser of pressurized water shooting a couple of meters into the air, as if he had hit the mother lode of Texas petroleum. But no, it was water, and it wasn’t mine. It belonged to my neighbor-farmer, old Leonida, just down the road.

Damn it. This was the second time we’ve severed his life in just three years. Oddly enough, it was Dimitri’s brother Yioryio who nicked it the first time while plowing our field with his Fiat tractor.

Leonida is a man who no one seems to like. The very mention of his name causes the other village to put an index finger to their heads and then turn it violently.

Water is highly coveted in Greece, a precious commodity that must never be wasted.

“Yianni, we hit the Lotto. A 100-millimeter line in a two-strema [half acre] field, how in the hell did we find it?”

The first time, years earlier, Leondia appeared in the field utterly apoplectic, yelling at Yioryio, who sat atop his tractor replying softing, “Relax, Leonida, please stop screaming.” That time we repaired the line in a matter of minutes. This time, Dimitri and I were unable to find the shutoff—because, I learned later, it is a pirated line—and the water continued to flow ceaselessly.

Many phone calls and no small amount of head-scratching. Dimitri’s Bangladeshi worker, Oudeen, followed orders by reaching into the hole we had drilled, pulling out debris to expose the broken line. After some time we were able to shut the flow but not fix the problem. Dimitri’s other brother, the plumber Lambros, was far off in the hills harvesting olives and wasn’t answering his phone.

Leonida’s illegal water line bisects our property and should never have been there, installed many years earlier under cover of darkness in order to evade the authorities. This is the way in Greece: avoid paying for anything until absolutely necessary. Especially taxes.

I expected the old man to appear at any moment, enraged, and expressed my concern to Dimitri.

“To hell with him, it’s his problem not yours!” This was repeated by most of the villagers who I had spoken with the first time. It made me uncomfortable as the outsider.

But cognizant of being the foreigner, and with full knowledge of the need for water—he uses it to water his greenhouses—I took the trouble to approach the water district office in Koroni (Leonida had harangued me to do so) and put in an application to have the water line moved up to the right of way on the edge of the road, where it should have been in the first place—away from the roots of the olive trees, the tines of the tractor, and the sharpened auger bit. Three years later, nothing had been done. Rather typical for Greece.

Praise the Lord and pass the feta

So I waited for Leonidas to appear, which he did at the end of siesta hour. He was fulminating, gesticulating, and quite incensed—not at me but at my workers, his lifelong neighbors.

“You need to go back to the water company and put in another application.” I had been forewarned that he would make the demand and was told by everyone that I ought to ignore him. But I couldn’t ignore him. He was so angry he was on the verge of tears.

Of course, like most things in Greece, there is always more to the story.

This little old man was a fascist—and not in the figurative sense. He had been an enforcer during the time of the military junta (1967 to 1974), which modeled itself on Spain’s Francisco Franco, with a touch of Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini for good measure. Looking at him in 2019, a spindly old toothless man, it was hard to believe he had once been a holy hell-raiser. And yet he was once much feared and today totally reviled by many in the village. Many count themselves as communists, socialists, or at the very least committed anti-fascists. (I fall into the later category.) The legacy of the junta lives on nearly fifty years after its demise and the restoration of Greek democracy.

Still I am the outsider, water is precious, and it is not mine to deny him what is (rightfully not) his. So I chose to be accommodating and compliant. To a point.

I relayed what had been told to me. “It’s your problem, not mine. Why don’t you go to the water district and put in an application yourself. I’ve already done this once.”

His reaction was slightly more violent. His voice raised, he began poking me in the chest and speaking more loudly. I resisted responding in kind--after all he is an octogenarian, although still yet strong, judging the poking and shoving. Instead, I raised my voice every time he raised his. Suddenly my Greek became ever more fluent and effortless, and a bit colorful. He continued to brow beat me into contrition. He failed in that attempt.

He began goose-stepping in circles and then poked me one last time.

I am the son of a Marine Corp colonel, hardened by the Pacific War, and I'm well atuned to being brow-beaten.

One final time he said, “What you need to do is…”

I didn’t let him finish his sentence.

“What I need to do, Leonida, is go to the water district and tell them that you’re stealing water, and have been for twenty years, while I’m paying for it and so are your neighbors." My finger was now firmly planted in is his sternum. For a moment I fantisized speaking to a certain president of the “unfree” world, another fascist, a word he likely couldn’t even spell. The fantasy was nothing short of empowering. Standing on the steps of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, yelling at an ignorant old man, my finger stuck in his chest..

Then his kindly wife appeared on the road’s edge shaking her head, looking down at the ground. I sensed that she had been down this road for a lifetime, a husband who lived a life of intimidation and pontification.

I put my finger away and lowered my voice, leaving him to one side, walking down the roadside with his wife, while the old man fiddled with his mobile phone.

“Ma’am, I want to be a good neighbor. I want to do the right thing. Your water is essential and I am so sorry about the line being cut. I do want to make it right. Tell him that the plumber will be here after siesta. In the meantime, you can fill a barrel on your pickup from my tap for now. But also tell him that it’s his responsibility, not mine, to make this right. Once I’ve completed fencing and gating the property he will not be able to enter. If I have time, I will take a few hours of my day and return to Koroni again to inquire. In the meantime, he should find a way to correct the problem.”

She thanked me. “You don’t have to go tomorrow, whenever it’s convenient for you.”

I shook his hand and he goose-stepped away.

---

Later in the day, after an Albanian had spliced the broken line and turned the main back on, I was told by many in the village not to go to the water district. “To hell with Leonida,” they all shouted in the cafeneion, a Greek chorus of resistance.

And yet I still feel like I want to do the right thing before I leave here in less than a week.

----

Always New People

I was working on a freelance project this morning and a woman appeared on a motorbike, asking some questions to Dimitri in flawless but heavily accented Greek. I appeared on the veranda and the two of us began conversing in Greek, both aware of the fact that neither of us was speaking our native tongue.

Oushee, an Austrian woman in her sixties, lives in a nearby market village and has been in Greece for many years. We traded our stories, spoke of our lives, and became friends instantly. She has children who are the age of mine and they too speak Greek. It is a special to meet people who are equally smitten with this incredibly inviting and lovely place.

All morning I have been working alongside Dimitri and his Bangladeshi worker, Oudeen, all three of us chatting away in Greek.

Two thousand years ago, Greek was the lingua franca of the eastern Mediterranean. I suppose in some ways it still is that common tongue for many peoples.

No bad sunsets--looking west toward Finikounda