Meet the President

My life on the little Greek island of Tilos mostly revolves around my dog, the sea, my garden, walks, swims, nature and my island neighbours, writing and editing books – which is how I like it and I feel grateful that is the case. I’d never really paid much attention before to the role of the president of the Hellenic Republic. And while I used to do formal meetings for my job a lifetime ago, now I prefer underwater meetings with moray eels and octopus…

But for a few days last week, the first item on my to-do list read: ‘Saturday 1.30, meet the president.’

It started when a message arrived on Thursday morning from Stathis in the mayor’s office. ‘The president of Greece is coming.’

‘I know!!’ I replied, excitedly. I’d heard rumour of it, though maybe for reasons of security I hadn’t seen any announcement, just a brief mention. The reason seemed to be our official status as Greece’s first ‘zero-waste’ island, an initiative that aims to recycle and re-use nearly all the island’s rubbish.

Privately funded by PolyGreen working in collaboration with the municipality, the scheme seemed very ambitious when first announced in a meeting in the square. But much happened last year to prepare, and over recent months young people employed by PolyGreen visited every home on the island to explain how it works. The element of education is important, bearing in mind that in Greece, ‘recycling’ bins are regularly filled with normal rubbish.

Now on Tilos bins have been removed, electric vehicles collect from each household several times a week, and everything is sorted to be shipped away for ‘circular waste management’.

But Stathis didn’t mention this. What he said was that the president of Greece was coming and wanted to meet me. Strange things happen sometimes, I’ve found, when you write books on a small island. Still, it seemed very odd. He asked me to come to the square on Saturday where the president would have a ‘relaxed conversation with citizens of the island’, which sounded more realistic, although not particularly ‘relaxed’ from my point of view.

It was a good pretext for learning something about the president of the Greece a.k.a. the Hellenic Republic, however. The role of Proedros tis Ellinikis Dimokratias was established in 1975 when Greece became a presidential parliamentary democracy; elected by parliament but with mostly ceremonial powers, the president is the official head of state and the commander-in-chief of the Greek armed forces. Katerina Sakellaropoulou, a lawyer and judge, became the first woman president of Greece in March 2020. Photos showed her sometimes looking appropriately fierce and sometimes with a kind, wry, rather cute smile.

Amazing! I was looking forward to seeing her on Tilos, and joked to Ian that maybe she could make me an honorary citizen of Greece, like Victoria Hislop…

On Saturday, I woke up listening to the waves, and the birds; the wind of the last few days had dropped and the sky was a deep blue. It was a beautiful day. Then I received another message from Stathis saying I was invited to join the president at her table. I was honoured but petrified and wanted to learn more. ‘We’ll talk in the square,’ he said.

I tried to continue my morning in the usual way. In the garden, I cleared some more of the winter weeds that grew while we were away in Romania, and planted some seeds. It was hot and we went for a swim – I tried to read a few pages but couldn’t concentrate. When we came back a farmer’s red truck was by the gate, and I bought some vegetables. Then I put on a dress and sandals in lieu of my usual shorts and boots, and drove off to meet the president.

Other people were going about their day in the usual way too, it seemed, until I approached the helipad and saw a Chinook recently landed, a few locals standing around it.

In Livadia, the post office in the square had got a fresh lick of paint, a peach colour with burgundy trim, and the scruffy old noticeboard on the harbour sported a new ‘zero waste’ sign. People were dressed up and bagging tables in the shade – which were covered in the usual way, alas, with plastic water bottles and plastic frappe cups…

Time ticked on, and the youngsters chosen to make a presentation wearing the full traditional dress of Tilos, long layers of embroidered wool, looked listless… Then dark cars drew up and, accompanied by a security man and important-looking personages in full military regalia, there was the petite figure of the president of Greece in a stylish white jacket. Everyone clapped as she strolled through the square greeting and talking to people.

Half an hour later, at Michaili’s Taverna, with butterflies in my stomach, I was ushered to a place at a long table next to our mayor Maria Kamma, and then the president of Greece, Katerina Sakellaropoulou. I was even introduced to her, and although I was too nervous to say anything interesting at all, I was able to present her with a copy of my last book, Wild Abandon, and she was gracious enough to examine it, ask some questions and ask me to dedicate it to her. I’ve never dedicated one of my books to a president before. So if you own a copy, you’re in good company…

There were presentations of other, more official gifts, by our mayor Maria.

‘Exigiseh to elephantaki!’ - explain the little elephant! - hissed the lawyer of the municipality of Rhodes to Maria as she stood there with the unenviable task of gifting a cumbersome metal statue of a Tilos elephant.

‘Eh, vevaia, of course…’ she replied.

The president drank white wine with ice (‘the colder the better’, she said, because it was a hot day, though maybe she’d had bad island wine before…). The table was heaped with salads, courgette fritters, fried calamari, tiny shrimp and huge fresh fish… I’m not sure if the president didn’t like the tiny shrimp or is just an animal lover, but at one point I spied her feeding some to the cats.

I listened in to conversations. The CEO of PolyGreen, Athanasios Polychronopoulos, talked about the zero-waste programme to the president. ‘We have to change many minds,’ she said seriously. He explained how he had chosen to implement this initiative on Tilos because of the openness of its community to embrace change; there was talk of the first gay weddings in Greece and how the island had handled the Syrian refugee crisis.

There was also plenty of banter. The Regional Governor of the South Aegean ordered a plate of goat, and the owner of Eleni Beach Hotel smilingly declined to taste it because it was from the other village, Megalo Horio.

Sadly, my Greek felt rusty from my time in Romania and my nerves kept me quiet (honestly!), afraid to make some terrible faux pas. That said, when dessert arrived and the restaurant had run out of plates and spoons and decided to provide plastic ones instead, I felt I had to speak up and say no thanks to unnecessary plastic!

President Sakellaropoulou demonstrated great poise and knew how to say and do just the right thing. Before she left, she had some photos taken. She stood on the steps of the taverna after lunch with the ladies who’d provided it, and made sure everyone was in the picture. She even asked to have her photo taken with me, but I haven’t managed to get a copy of it.

And then she was gone, and I went and had a swim and relaxed.

And now the next things on my to-do list are the more usual work items, tax return and reading the proofs of my new book… But I don’t think I’ll ever forget the day I met the president.

 

Here are the wonderful official photos of the president visiting Halki and Tilos:

Επίσκεψη στη Χάλκη και την Τήλο – Προεδρία της Ελληνικής Δημοκρατίας (presidency.gr)

President – Presidency of the Hellenic Republic