Time Enough

 

View toward Finikounda--but it changes with the light and movement of the sun

Nearly a countdown (gulp)

 

We have arrived at the last day of the month. A Greek might say the same thing as an English-speaker: πως περαει ο καιρός / pos pernai of xeros …how does the time pass?! Although the past two weeks have seemed quite long, jam full of daily activites, surely the next two will pass all too quickly.

 

I manage to stay busy—some might say frenetic—every day. Either I’m running, swimming, working on the house and grove, or visiting friends. More likely, I’m doing most or all of it at the same time. Multi-tasking in the Mediterranean.

 

Attuned to nature

Perhaps it goes without saying that rural people are more connected to the land, the cycles of nature, and the flora and fauna that surround them. So it is with those of us who are privileged to live in eastern Maine—our own little paradise squeezed between the 45th parallel and the cold blue of the Bay of Fundy.

 

Here in Messinia, everyone is a farmer, even if they own a taverna, a cafeneion, or a tourist shop to supplement their income. People grow up from childhood working the olive harvest (late October to late November), along with the activities of the other eleven months that make their livelihood possible. This involves, pruning, clearing, tilling, and (gasp!) spraying. More and more farms are βιολογικη / violoyiki…organic. The price of olive oil has nearly doubled in the past five years, owing to increased demand, declining production (due to longer drought periods and a Mediterranean-wide infestation, the latter. especially severe in Italy), and the lack of workers to gather the harvest. Farming organically, aside from the obvious benefits, guarantees a higher price per kilo for wholesale oil.

 

Local farmers have exhausted their supply of family and neighborly olive gatherers and have resorted in recent years to employing Albanians, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis. Lately, the Albanians, who are master stone masons, have asked for more than the farmers can afford to pay. So large swaths olive production are now going unharvested.

 

Democracy…now and then

The ancient Greeks developed the notion of democracy (albeit imperfect: slavery existed, and only male citizens who owned property could vote) and it was this template that the American Revolutionaries—Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and others—looked to for inspiration, for both the Declaration of Independence and the nascent US Constitution.

After years of decline—from the classical world to the Hellenistic world to the Roman conquests, and finally the barbarian invasions of the early Middle Ages—the people of what is today modern Greece looked to the American Revolution in the 1820s for inspiration in establishing their own modern democratic state.

Which is equally imperfect. But what goes around comes around, as they say. And democracy itself is a continuing experiment, an aspirational act at its very best.

Now, in America, the experiment is threatened more so than at any time since 1776.

Brace yourself, world. We are about to come apart at the seams.

 

The Other

 

Notions of “the Other” prevail the world over.

In America, the Other might be Mexicans or Central Americans, people of color, poor people, LGBTQ+ people—and now, depending on your persuasions, Democrats or Republicans.

Here in Greece, the Other might be Albanians (of which many Greeks, including possibly us, have some heritage, dating back to invasions of the later Middle Ages), Bulgarians, Gypsies, communists, fascists…

It seems that wherever you are, the dominant demographic always finds the Other in their midst, a product of fear, ignorance, and learned behavior.

 

The six-day workweek

When Greece was getting bailed out during the Eurozone crisis of 2009 and after, the common belief among Northern Europeans was that Greeks were lazy, they didn’t work many hours, and they spent half the day taking a siesta, smoking cigareetes, drinking coffee, and playing tavli (backgammon). But, in reality, when the OEC looked at the statistics, they discovered that Greeks actually worked more hours per week than any other European citizens. The stereotype was based in racism—and even envy. Life in Northern Europe can sterile. Life in the Mediterranean countries is vibrant and sometimes a bit excessive. Their loss, our gain.

But now Greece’s conservative government is advocating for a six-day work week, while almost all industrialized nations are moving toward a four-day work week. Essentially, work more earn less. Sound familiar?

 

You’d think, surely, this means fewer hours each day over a six day period. But you would be mistaken. The government is proposing that everyone (except politicians, naturally) works the same the number of hours each day…but add one more day. For the same pay.

The prime minister cites labor shortages and declining birthrates  (a real problem—throughout the world in the post-Covid period), but Greek workers suffer under the double-edge sword of low salaries (average is 800 euros per month, even for those with advanced degrees) and stubbornly high inflation, especially for food and fuel (gas is nearly 2 euros per liter or roughly $9.00 US per gallon).

 

This is the face of “austerity.” But don’t be smug, you American readers, this new reality is coming to a theater near you. How else can the collective sustain the deadbeat 1 percent?

 

The super rich: Now marginalized by the very, very super rich

It is not unusual to see several $25 million yachts at a time in Finikounda’s outer harbor. But these pale in comparison to the vessel that anchored yesterday.

Jeff Bezos’s Koru dropped anchor on the leeward side of Schiza island. Recently constructed at a cost of $500 million dollars, this 430-foot-sailboat includes a below deck swimming pool, encased in class on all four sides. Folks in the dining room can look down at the their friends swimming below. And the swimmers can look down (and sideways) at the Mediterranean below the surface.

 

In addition, the Koru is flanked by two support vessels, the size and look of Navy frigates, each with a helicopter on the afterdeck—security for the richest man in the world and his current guest: Kim Kardashian.

 

Rather than support our humble but lovely village--not to mention our rock concert fundraiser for the village clinic--these folks flew by helicopter to the invitation-only Costa Navarino resort about 15 km west of here. Rooms start at 3,000 euros per night, the best suite costs…go figure…28,000 euros per night.

 

As one of the few Americans in this village, I anticipated a call from my fellow travelers. Alas, I need to find other company.

 

In defense of semi-fluency

“Fluency” in a foreign language—this is a loaded, highly fraught concept. Although I am capable of expressing most ideas in Greek and follow the conversations of others with relative ease, I would never assert “fluency.” Even “semi-fluency” is a stretch. But stumbling linguistically never stops me.

The locals, on the other hand, keep telling me how good my Greek is. I’m highly skeptical of their accolades.

So it was surprising last night, when I drove up to our mountain village cafeneion to hang out with the old men and work on my spoken Greek. For me, it is one of the great pleasures of being here.

I sat with a group of about four or five old farmers. A fancy car pulled up to the cafeneion and out stepped a dapper, middle-aged man, whom everyone seemed to know. Although he was originally from the village, he spent his life (and made his fortune) in Athens.

He joined our conversation. After I had spoken for a spell, about my life and work in the States, he promptly critiqued my Greek, in Greek:

“You know your Greek isn’t very good. You have an obvious American accent. And your word choice is a bit novice.” His English, which he tried to impress on me, was awfully rudimentary. 

I swallowed hard and didn’t really reply. Maybe I needed this to temper my linguistic hubris.

The man got up to use the rest room. One of the old men looked at me and said: “You know, he’s a real Malaka [translation: much worse than the relatively polite “asshole”], just ignore that pompous fool. He’s an Athenian. He’s no longer one of us. You speak excellent Greek, we all know what you’re saying.”

When the visitor with the fancy car returned to the table, the conversation had turned to sheep. So I turned to the visitor and asked, in Greek: “Let me ask you, Sir, when you slaughter and gut your sheep, how do you skin it? Do you use a razor blade, a flat blade, or a sharpened knife? Do you hang it and let it bleed out, or do you skin it on the ground? You must be expert at this because you’re … local.”

All the old man started to laugh, slapped their britches, and said “bravo, young man. This pousti [bastard] can’t do anything but make money in the city.”

It was a weird kind of vindication.

Difficult choices

The bartender at Southwest, a bar on the far end of the village, was a fellow student at the village school with my daughters in 2009. He was 12 then—so it feels curiously wrong to be served by a “child”….who is no longer a child.

“We have two specials tonight. What will it be, Porn Star or Sex on the Beach?”

My mother once told me that life would be rife with difficult choices.

 

Settling In

 

Another sunset

All the things that slither and crawl (part 2)

 

Keeping doors and windows shut (or screened) is imperative, lest the house become an extension of the wild kingdom that is our olive grove.

 

A day doesn’t go by without a firm stomping: flying creatures, terrestrial creatures, and the mass of unknow creeping things.

 

The plumbing shop

 

Nothing brings me more pleasure than entering a dark, cavernous shop for the first time, meeting the owner, and telling my story. It is the premiere way to hone Greek-speaking skills and further expand a growing vocabulary, which can be bizarrely arcane: the word for “plunger,” for example, is not used in normal, polite cafeneion conversation. But it has its moments.

 

The proprietor of the plumbing shop has said he has more than 20,000 individual things—that is a big vocabulary for one day.

 

I gathered all that I needed to install—with the help of dear Dimitri and his plumbing guidance—an automatic watering system: plastic hose, sending unit, an assortment of fittings.

 

Getting grid power

 

The subject of electricity is a sore point, largely because I have to explain again and again why I don’t have it after 12 years. Part obstinance, part frugality, part tax avoidance. The state fleeces homeowners through the electric: only a portion is for actual power, the rest covers municipal taxes and a host of incomprehensible add-ons.

 

Little fixer-upper

My local Mafia chief (name withheld for reasons of safety) has put in another application with the demos (municipality) so that they might pay for the five or six poles that would bring grid power closer and reduce our installation costs. This will benefit a few of us who live outside of the skethio (village plan) Although, the truth be told, photovoltaic (PV) is the solution, especially a system that can be packed up an stored in our absence. This serves to gypsy-proof the house, if only marginally.

 

I tell the story of my power woes to the old men in the cafeneion, where I love to sit and be engaged in lively conversation.

 

“Yianni,” one man opines, “the demos is a bordello—just forget it. Get some solar panels and avoid those thieves."

 

Up periscope

 

This revisits a previous post.

A few days ago, while lounging on the big beach, my friend T. and I noticed a large black object swimming a few meters off shore, parallel to the beach. Everyone pointed and shouted out χελώνα/helona (turtle), the famed Careta-Careta. 

 

This section of beach is the nesting place for the very large (3-5 feet, head to tail) and highly endangered Loggerhead turtle, which lays its eggs at night in the sand dunes, usually in late July, just after the big moon. Like salmon Downeast, the babies find where they were born years later, in order to create the next generation.

 

Its grapefruit-size head popped out of the surface every minute or two. This lovely, gentle creature was doing a kind of reconnaissance for the evening “deposit.”

 

Low and behold, the next morning we found the nest and the paddle marks in the sand. As amateur conservationists, we did what we are told is right: we planted a ring of dried bamboo around the nest, in order to prevent it from getting trodden by oblivious tourists—of which there are, thankfully, so few these days. They should stay on Mykonos!

 

In about 90 days, more than 30 baby turtles will hatch, dig their way of the sand, and make the mad dash to the surf—half of them eaten by seagulls, if they haven’t already been dug up by foxes or jackals.

 

Drawn to the place

 

A visual feast in most directions

Our village on the mountainside

Olive trees on the horizon

Foreign residents are now returning in droves, although some vanish into their hillside villas. Some are recent arrivals (like us, 17 years ago), others are multigenerational families—German, Dutch, Austrian, French, English…and at least one American. It is interesting to see how many of these foreigners have “integrated,” in the sense that they speak credible Greek, eat and drink Olympic style, and can do the Messinian circle dances—these are the uncloistered ones. I fall into that category because it is the most gratifying thing to be a part of the community. Doing so earns respect and admiration.

 

Everyone in our mountain village knows me—and seems they genuinely like me—and the same is true in the “main” seaside village, Finikounda, down the mountain (682 feet of reverse elevation, to be precise).

 

I am treated with excessive kindness, traditional hospitality, and even a smattering of love. It is clearly a mutual affection, demonstrably the “old” Greece that I remember from the 1970s and 1980s.

 

Not a day passes without the sensation of being privileged—that is, the privilege of being part of a vibrant and welcoming community.

 

The famous visitors

 

This place draws some very wealthy and famous folks—British royalty, Beyonce in her yacht offshore, Tom Cruise with an entourage, musicians, artists, and the like.

 

A buzz in the village follows a sighting.

 

What is paradise without venomous snakes?

 

This place abounds with snakes, some very large (over 2 meters) and harmless. But there are two vipers that are especially venomous: the οχιά/ochia and the αστρίκη/astriki. They are both small, with black and white diamond patterns. The latter one with a white underbelly. Not that I've examined one too closely This is just around the time of year when they are found with some frequency: either crawling or squished on the asphalt.

 

A man and his tractor

 

It would be exaggeration to say that there are more tractors than cars—but not a big one. They buzz about at dizzying speeds, sometimes carrying whole families—mother, father, kids, yiayia (grandmother), and a goat or three in the bucket, their rear legs bound—on their way to their olive groves or foraging patures. After so many years of land division (for example, each son receiving a small plot as his inheritance; or each daughter her prika or dowry) the local farmers own multiple lots. Sometimes just a strema (quarter acre) with a dozen olives trees, occasionally a larger parcel with hundreds of trees.

 

Olive trees are the life-blood of this community. Wealth is measured not in acreage but in number of trees. Niko might have 120 trees, Dimitri 1,200, Panayioti several thousand.

 

The way to access your parcel is by tractor. It is also a way to go the cafeneion for a thick cup of coffee.

One-room village school

These a few of my favorite things

Can't get there from here

Who needs electricity in the summer?

Newly installed door plaque

Summer Solstice and a rusty nail (or five...six?)

Camp Yianni

Don't tread on the loggerhead turtle eggs

Vastly undersubscribed

Summer Solstice and Αγιο Πνευμα/Ayio Pnevma

 

A relentless torrent of summer heat, blowing hard from the shores of North Africa, marks this first day of summer in southern Greece. It is also the weekend of Pentacost (50 days since Easter), also called Ayio Pnevma or “Holy Spirit.” The village would be jammed full for this long weekend.

 

At 1 p.m. the thermometer read 43 C. (that’s 108 F.) in the shade. Add the steady wind and it felt like a blast furnace.

 

Thankfully, there is no Saharan Desert sand storm, a stifling phenomenon generally associated with late winter or early spring, but it felt like my overbuilt beach umbrella—“it can withstand 6 Beaufort” according the man in Pylos who sold it—just might pinwheel down the beach. When it threatened to do just that, I took it down, but in the process was nearly take with it down the kilometer of white sand. I held on for all it was worth trying to close it. It was my Mary Poppins moment.

 

I woke today with what felt like a massive hangover, but all I had consumed the night before (let’s say as a novelty) was nonalcoholic beer. Is this even possible? Perhaps it was some kind of subliminal seduction, or punch-drunkness from the extreme heat.

 

The creepy, crawly world

 

Forgetting my own admonition to keep all of the drawn covers closed—with an old CD/brick for the shower, rubber stoppers for the kitchen and bathroom sinks—my first sight of the day was a sarandapothia, a forty-footed creature about six inches long, wriggling in the sink. These strange creatures arise from the subterranean world, get lost in the house, and then pinch you while your sleeping. It is a excruciating welt and one that you never forget. 

Blinded by the light

Keeping an eye on homestead

 

Unable to climb the stainless walls of the kitchen sink, I look around for something with which to dispatch it, settling on the plastic cooler cover. I beat it relentlessly, until it broke into two pieces—both still wriggling. This is no way to start the day.

 

Wealth, relative or not

 

Greece has always attracted the international jet set, but today the representatives of that class—and their toys—abound.

Run down (or up) the mountain

 

Greece, which survives on tourism and agricultural exports, is the second poorest country in Europe (after Portugal) but poverty here, like in America, is relative. The Greek government, not unlike the US government—now with more than $40 trillion in debt and a daily interest payment of $3 billion—is not a great reflection of its lower- and middle-class population. Nevertheless, a small percentage of Greeks are very, very wealthy.

 

An aside: For some reason, the US government no longer advertises its debt-to-GDP numbers, probably for political reasons. While the idiot politicians in Washington, DC, spend like drunken sailors, but enjoy “Cadillac” medical coverage, working stiffs struggle with multiple jobs and a declining net worth. Our grandchildren, as they say, will pay the price.

 

But in a relative sense, the very poor in Greece are better off than the very poor in America, with guaranteed (if sometimes sketchy) medical care, available to all, and there is probably less hunger overall. Which is not to say that there isn’t poverty, destitution, and struggles among ordinary Greeks.

Separate Czechs

Give us this day our daily run

But contrast this with the super yachts that now ply the Gulf of Messinia. My friend K. has a clever app called “Vessel Finder” which identifies, by GPS, which boats are where: both commercial and pleasure vessels. We look up one that passed on the beach yesterday, which took the prize this week for conspicuous consumption. With a crew of 32, and 12 paying passengers, it is available to charter for $900,000 per week. It was a massive toy for the 1 percent, who rule the world over.

 

Pork on the beach

 

As mentioned earlier, Greece is afflicted with a growing number of wild boar, which bring havoc to the olive groves, are hazards to drivers on the road, and (depending on the circumstances) can be very dangerous for walkers, runners, and, cyclists.

 

View from the porch

Which is a nice lead-in to Ilias the butcher, who every Sunday makes several six-foot skewers of a delectable dish called kondasouvli. Messinia is pork central (the domestic kind) and this is the apex of pork: heavily seasoned, woven onto long skewers, then slowly cooked over a charcoal fire for five or six hours.

 

I ordered mia merida (a single serving) at 8 a.m. and picked up my insulated box at noon, on the way to the beach. This may be the ultimate beach snack.

 

Perils of the distance runner

 

I try my best to run in the morning, before the sun rises too high. This is nearly impossible when you don’t crawl in from the village much before 2 a.m. But run I must.

 

A few days ago I ran on the circuitous agricultural roads behind our house, which lead to narrow paths, then down the crumbling cliffside to Kantouni, which we have nicknamed the “castaway beach”—accessible only by boat or by dodgy path.

 

I arrived there at 8 a.m. and expected to have this strip of sand to myself. Alas, a young Dutch woman—another runner—was doing repeats in the sand in her birthday suit, hijacking my modus operandi. We said hello to one another (we met informally in the village) but the better part of valor told me not to hang there for very long.

Kantouni--the castaway beach

Loutsa, the nearest beach

 

A quick swim on the other end of the beach, I dressed and set off again on the path back to Loutsa, which is festooned with an array of very large spiders, which I try to avoid. Running around the mother of all spiders, and stepping off the trail for a moment, my feet hit the loose scree and I tumbled about twenty feet down the hillside, which is covered in brambles, thorns, and scrub brush. I managed to grab a wild olive tree, slowly myself down. But the damage was done: bruised, battered, and bleeding, I gathered myself and ran the last half kilometer to Loutsa beach. For the few people there so early, I was a sight to behold.

 

Good food: A hallmark of civilization

I ran up the mountain back to the house but was intercepted by my neighbor Zacharias on his tractor. He offered me a bottle of water to wash off the blood and the grit, and suggested that I ride with him up the steep grade (200 meters of elevation in just over 2 kilometers) but I said “no thank you” and limped home. I’m still sore all over, but it hasn’t stopped me from going back twice since.

 

Full moon rising

In the evening I joined my friend Niko the poet for a simple taverna meal, then we walked to Lostre, a seaside bar with tables along the harbor. He ordered Rusty Nail after Rusty Nail (whiskey with Drambouie).

 

I asked him what this drink was called in Greek: it is πρόκα/proka…which means, oddly enough, “rusty nail.”

Loggerhead sea turtle

Yesterday while walking along a nearly deserted beach, a large black creature appeared, swimming parallel to the beach inches below the surface--slow, graceful, and seemingly determined.

It was the enganged Loggerhead turtle, which searches for a nest each July--usually near or just after the full moon. I followed its path from the shore. Apparently it was doing some kind of reconnaissance for the coming evening.

Sure enough, this morning evidence of it's nest was apparent. Just follow the flipper track up the shelf of sand to where it levels.

Both Greek and foreign residents are protective of this special creature, which can be three-to-five feet in length.

In about ninety days, around 30 to 50 little turtles emerge, if they've not been discovered by foxes or trampled on by humans. To that end, locals will ring the nest in bamboo as a way of protecting it. 

Here is a video of the turtle swimming; another where it pokes up its grapefruit-sized head; a still photo of the nest with the flipper marks clearly visible.

This yet another reason why this place is so magical.