The days leading up to the referendum...

In the days leading up to the referendum, Tilos has been as calm and chaotic as ever. 

(I've just started re-reading Henry Miller's Colossus of Maroussi, and he says that when he lived in France, he missed the qualities of confusion, chaos and passion - all things he found in Greece. 'The Greeks are an enthusiastic, curious-minded, passionate people,' he wrote in 1941.)

There were no queues at our ATM, and no problems taking out money. This is a luxury compared to early last year when we didn’t have a bank for several months; on an island like Tilos with only one ATM and few places that take credit cards, you try to keep cash on you anyway. You don’t worry about money being stolen here.

Greek friends might be cautious with money, wondering if they’ll get paid next month. But that didn’t stop people having a party at Kali Kardia in Megalo Horio on the eve of the vote.

Early summer is always a time for friends reuniting, seeing people you haven’t seen since last year. Add to that the people who live on Rhodes and elsewhere have come home to vote, and you have a happy occasion, whatever the circumstances. It’s a Greek thing.

When Edward and I arranged to meet at Kali Kardia, I’d hoped to overhear some discussion of the situation. I arrived a little early and a dozen people from our village and farms in Eristos valley, along with a few people I didn’t recognise, were sitting around the terrace in a large circle with their coffees or wine and mezzes. There was a good mood, not a hint of fist-banging debate. I guess everyone already knew which way they’d be voting by now.

Someone joked, ‘What about the Saint Panteleimon currency?’ referring to the fact that in the nineteenth century the island’s monastery printed banknotes. ‘We should bring that back in!’ This prompted a lively discussion of which Munich museum has samples of the old currency, and how busy the island was back then.

As more people arrived – some who live half the year in New York, others who live in Rhodes (and Sotiris had even come all the way from Livadia) – the decibels rose and Michalis and Maria were soon rushing around with plates of food. Nikos and Toula ‘Taxijis’, the former taxi drivers who retired a couple of years ago when the expenses got too high, were at our end of the terrace and cracking lots of jokes. I remembered the Easter Sunday when I drank home-made wine with Nikos, and he kept us draining the glasses and topping them up. 

Suddenly there were musical instruments, a lute and a lyra, in the hands of two skilled musicians, a father and his teenage daughter; she was wearing artfully ripped jeans and smiled sweetly each time she was asked how she tore them. They started playing traditional songs and soon the folks were singing along with gusto, and teasing one another. Pantelis came over to ask at one point how Australia was, and I said the life was boring compared to Greece. He seemed satisfied with that answer. The suburban places I stayed in Australia rarely had inexpensive local places like this where people of all ages gather. And Greeks love to gather. A few older men have taken to simply sitting outside the village shop on chairs, to chat and see people who go by...

People by now were buying one another ouzos or little carafes of wine. Nikos was dragging people up to dance. Ela Jennifer, as tin Lisa tora… He made a little dig at me for always being with my dog (she was waiting patiently at home), and told me to get up and dance. I resisted, remembering the time at the koupa where he made me dance to something complicated that I didn’t actually know in front of everyone – very embarrassing. But when I was sure it was an easy one, I got up and joined in. Michalis brought us another little carafe of wine, and said we must stay until the sun comes up. Thankfully we didn’t, but it was after midnight when the party finally broke up.    

I’d been thinking in the afternoon about village life. Polixeni, in her eighties, often chats to me when I’m taking Lisa for a walk. She’s usually on her way back from taking care of her husband’s grave – she visits him every day down in the cemetery, walks back up the steep hill to her house, catches her breath at the bus stop bench and gets the day’s news by greeting everyone as they pass. She’s basically fit as a fiddle, and her quality of life is as good as it could be. And my day is usually improved when Polixeni taps me playfully with her walking stick. She told me how her father uses to look after his animals. Those were good years then, she said.

In case there is still some notion that Tilos is a quiet place where nothing ever happens, it seems that we are back on the main route for people fleeing events in the Middle East. I walked up through the Skafi valley one afternoon this week, collecting bits of rubbish – Turkish kofte wrappers and water bottles – left by a recent arrival of refugees. I’d seen them after they arrived in my village, the police helping them into a truck to take them to the monastery above Livadia, where they could stay until the next boat to Athens. It still feels strange to be in the midst of events that most people only understand vaguely from the news.

A friend emailed me from the tiny island of Pserimos saying ten illegal immigrants had arrived and were waiting for a boat, all young, 12-24. They’d paid $2,500 for the very short crossing from Bodrum to Pserimos – people-smugglers are making a fortune out of these people who have left behind good homes to flee the war.

Beautiful birds circled above the Skafi valley; if only migrating people were so free. Skafi beach was littered with another batch of brand-new life-jackets, which I gathered up and covered with rocks to stop them blowing into the sea. It was the same as last July, and I amused myself with the thought that unemployed Greeks should go into business selling life-jackets back to Turkey.

When I went to buy vegetables one morning from the farm at Eristos, an Italian couple were waiting for Michali and we exchanged a few words in a mixture of Greek, English and Italian to pass the time. Michalis – still strong in his eighties from working in his fields – came back with some fresh-cut aubergines for them and they piled tomatoes, peppers, courgettes and watermelon into their car and drove off.

‘Can you speak Italian with them?’ I asked.

‘I’m shy to speak it, as I don’t know the grammar, but I understand them when they speak,’ he said. ‘I only did two years of Italian.’

I asked if he was at school when the Italians ruled Tilos. Italy took over the Dodecanese from the Turks in 1912. At first they let the islands continue with their own culture, as the Turks had for centuries. But then the Italian regime changed and became more oppressive. From 1938 to 1943, all school lessons were in Italian, and Greek language and history was forbidden.

‘I did two years,’ said Michalis, ‘and then I went to Rhodes. There, Greek school was taught in the churches.’

‘Secretly?’ I asked.

‘Yes, of course, krypha, secretly. But it was proper school! You had to do your homework and pass exams to pass to the next class, and all that. But after that, I couldn’t continue as there was no Greek high school.’

When the Germans took the islands over from the Italians, from 1943 to 1945, they allowed Greek schooling again. They had other things to deal with.

In the last hundred years, so many of the Dodecanese islands, previously highly populated, flourishing and self-sufficient, had their livelihoods taken away as they passed from one great power to another until they were almost abandoned by the time the Second World War ended.  I’d thought about this a lot while in Kastellorizo, which went from 10,000 people to a few hundred.

We talked a little about current events and the dimopsifisma, the referendum. ‘If Greece leaves the euro,’ he said, ‘they’ll devalue the currency and you’ll need a big bag of money just to come down here and buy your tomatoes!’

I bought my tomatoes and peppers and zucchini, and Michalis gave me a melon as a gift. It’s a wonderful season for local fruit and vegetables. I’ve been cooking yemista (peppers and tomatoes stuffed with rice, meat and herbs) and melitzanes tiganites (slices of aubergine, salted to take out the bitterness, then dipped in flour and fried in oil). I also made karidopita, walnut cake soaked in honey syrup – made with local honey. 

In the evening, I sit on the terrace in one of the comfortable old chairs I inherited from a friend who moved, with Lisa chewing a bone close by. My wine and olives on an improvised table made from a plank of wood and some bricks, I look out at the rugged hills and bright moon, hoping things won’t change too much.

*** 

If you're interested in pet-sitting Lisa when I have to go away in mid-August, mid-October, or over Christmas, please contact me through the contact form, Facebook or Twitter for more information. She's a lovely, affectionate dog and the house is in the heart of lovely Megalo Horio. Thanks!

On the Volcano

On a windy evening I was on the island of Nisyros, standing beside a tiny, surreally perfect blue and white chapel high above the village of Nikia, surrounded by warm orange light as the sun went down. I heard a cow somewhere below on the slopes towards the sea, or in the caldera of the volcano. The wind was cool, so after I'd descended the steps and Yiannis finished taking photographs, he suggested a shot of tsipouro for the road at the restaurant where we'd parked the bike. I drank it and walked out to see a full moon, bright and yellow, against a dusky blue sky.

My Greek friend Yiannis is a photographer, but he also has a day job, from which he had two weeks’ holiday. Since I get a chance to write about Greek islands a couple of times a year for a newspaper or magazine, I need to keep exploring them. I am deliriously happy to be back home on Tilos, but June is a good time to travel. We cooked up a plan to spend a few days in neighbouring Nisyros (an hour away by ferry), be back in Tilos for Yianni to open his Home Gallery on the weekend, then take a longer trip to Kastellorizo. Friends had agreed to look after Lisa; Yiannis had gently reminded me that we could take her but we wouldn’t get to do as many things - I’d told him about a disastrous time when I’d had to take her along to Crete.

We rented a scooter on arrival in Nisyros that lunchtime, after dropping stuff at the hotel (Three Brothers, at the port). Twenty minutes later, up a winding road and on a bumpy, rocky, pot-holed track, I remembered I get terrified on the back of a scooter when I’m out of practice. ‘Er, do you mind if I walk?!’ I asked, feeling like an idiot. What a start to the trip. But it turned out to suit both of us, as he’d be stopping often to take photos. 

 

And so, the scooter bumped along ahead and I wandered slowly and happily along a track I’d explored before, looking at spiky plants with dusty-pink flowers, poking my nose into a chapel built into the rock. As he photographed an old tree, I walked up a slope and found the remains of a house with a threshing circle and cistern and vaulted stone rooms, overlooking the centre of the volcano. Further along, I visited the little monastery of Stavros, finally descending towards the volcanic craters, reaching a white and yellow point on the path where I caught for the first time the earthy sulphur smell from the fumaroles that always makes me feel close to something mysterious and deep.

Veering off to one of the smaller craters, I spent half an hour just poking around another deserted farm with its stone walls and threshing circle. Yiannis wondered what had happened to me – there’s no phone signal within the caldera. I studied the shapes and the colours on a slope – tinges of green and orange and pink – as the wind caught the rising steam. The centre of the volcano felt peaceful and otherworldly. 

Because it’s a unique place, though, coachloads of daytrippers can present a bit of a problem. Suddenly I heard a noise and spotted not one but two – no, three – coaches coming down the road in the distance. People would be here soon.

Stephanos crater is a vast white sunken circle streaked with yellow and grey, with steep walls and a flat, cracked mud floor punctuated by a cluster of blow-holes. Around the edges of the crater, bright yellow openings release hot vapour, rising in wisps as if to inspire the oracle. I knelt close to listen to the hissing and gurgling within, and was momentarily blinded by the steam on my sunglasses.

    

  

Soon, I overheard two English women, talking about volcano experiences they’d had. Apparently at one, they cook you food over the heat. ‘Oh yes, I’ve done that,’ said the other. Why do some people travel in a way that makes them jaded? 

We drove away, up to the rim of the caldera and then around towards Nikia where we saw the rugged north-facing cliffs of Tilos across the sea: over there, a cloud hung above the mountain where I knew the monastery of Ayios Panteleimonas was. Here we took a little road downhill, past abandoned stone houses and wandering cows, and found ourselves at another church of Ayios Panteleimonas. Steps led down to a cove of jagged and pocked black lava. This was Avlaki; I’d seen photos of it in the volcano museum on my last trip. Somewhere in the waters below, hot springs bubbled up.

A few once-genteel buildings now stood beautifully desolate around a small harbour, their plaster crumbled away and their balconies rusting, returning to the natural grey and red stone. I was mesmerised, thinking of the stories that might be unearthed of this place; maybe I'd just inhaled too much sulphur. I went for a swim off the jetty to wash off the dust of the road, while Yiannis took a photograph of water spilling over rocks. High above us at the top of the hill, the sides of buildings were lit by late afternoon sunlight.

I was getting used to the scooter, and grinned as I admitted that we wouldn’t have done nearly so much without it. Later, after sunset at Nikia, we drove back up and along the caldera’s rim to the half-dilapidated village of Emborio, where cats leapt across the alley from one roof to another. 

Next day, we found the Roman shrine of Panayia Thermiani, and continued along the coast via Cape Katsounis to see the layers of volcanic eruptions in the cliffs: then at the end of the road we left the scooter and walked around the cliffs to Pachia Ammos, where the grey, red and white of Nisyros rock merge to form sand that looks chocolate-brown, and behind the dunes are lavender bushes and olives – perhaps once there were farms.

Nisyros felt wild and natural and abandoned. A man we met at lunchtime at the lovely meze restaurant at Loutra said, ‘In old times, people made things. Now we break them.’ But it’s a wild abandon full of beauty and colour.

The meze restaurant at Loutra

Yiannis had compiled clever itineraries to make the most of our short trip. One of the books mentioned a ruined castle at Parletia, but it wasn’t marked on the basic map we had. The lady in the restaurant kitchen at Nikia said we’d find it, and pointed us in the right direction. We walked along a rough and overgrown path, losing our way a couple of times in the scrub as it seemed to peter out, scrambling down gravelly sections, resolving a couple of times just to keep going to see what was around the next outcrop of rock. Eventually we found some broken walls on a very steep lava neck with fantastic views from the top, and decided that was it. Heading back to Nikia, I realised I was starving, and at that moment a group of piglets launched themselves down the hill, squealing. 

We’d been out at dawn – optimal photography hour – and now it was late afternoon were getting tired. ‘Let’s go to the sauna?’ suggested Yiannis. I’d pointed it out to him at the entrance to the village of Emborio, a tiny cave where hot steam rose up naturally out of the rock. Yiannis thought we should change into swimsuits to make the most of it. Laughing, we stuffed clothes into the bag and parked the scooter across the entrance. We sat inside on a stone bench, surrounded by green rocks, feeling around for the hottest steam vents, relaxing in the peace.  

I heard a coach pass by on the road outside. And then it stopped. We peered out, and the people in the coach waved. They all trooped out... Time to throw clothes on, and get back on the bike.   

 
 

 
 

  

 

The Place To Be

‘Are you the Octopus lady? Back from Australia?’ asks the Englishman walking down the steps in Megalo Horio. Lisa is wagging her tail as if he’s a long-lost friend until he confesses he's not really a dog person. Well, I suppose I am the Octopus Lady, though it sounds like a circus freak, in the same way that Kyria Vicky became the Elephant Lady by association with the museum.

I have been reprimanded for not writing a blog since my return to Tilos, but who has time? There’s been fresh bread to bake, capers and oregano to gather and prepare, migrating birds to spot, a tan to top up... The verticality of Megalo Horio took a bit of getting used to all over again after nine months away, and I’m just getting my breath back. In fact, after so many months without my own home, I wanted to take time to enjoy the simple pleasure of moving back into my old house in the village.

There’s been the bright moonlight to admire, and the lemon-yellow morning sunshine that creeps across the mountains, illuminating the lines of old terraces, and the warm afternoon sun that brings out the brilliance of yellow flowers on the hillside. Clear blue sea to dive into. The quiet at night in the village, when all you can hear is a Scops owl’s haunting call, gentle footsteps as someone passes along the alley. Mornings of soft birdsong and bees buzzing and sheeps’ bells.

Lisa seemed to remember me, though she had been perfectly happy and well cared for in my absence thanks to Stelios and his parents, and house-sitters Guillaume and Natacha. But she gratifyingly made a fuss, licking me, grabbing hold of me with her front paws, rolling over for the belly-rub. And we're back to our routine of walking to the beach every day.

Stelios messages from his house one day to check I don’t need the car. We have an informal car-sharing scheme in place, and he has some stuff to move. A few minutes later he walks by the house carrying a fridge on his back. Lisa wants to go with him so I follow him down to the car, helping to push the seats forward so he can put it in the boot.

‘Prosekeh to jami,’ I say – mind the window. The back of the car is a different colour because the window had to be replaced after an accident last summer. ‘Etsi egineh?’ Is that how it happened, I ask, grinning, knowing how much stuff gets carried around in the car over the summer when the kantina is working.

‘Kapos etsi,’ he says, grinning back. ‘Something like that.’

The young kids play football outside the house in the afternoon. Itinerant salesmen advertise their wares – from flowers to live turkeys – over the loudspeaker as they stop on the road below: ‘Come ladies, we’re in your neighbourhood for a few more minutes’. I hear a voice that sounds like Grigoris calling my neighbour to do some work, and a few hours later when I’m walking Lisa to Eristos, I see them riding a tractor stacked with hay bales, and they wave hello. I’ve missed the easy friendliness and intimacy of the village, from the morning when we’re rubbing sleep out of our eyes to the warm evening when Rena and her family are sitting outside the shop.

There have been impromptu dinners with friends old and new, too...

‘Echo psaria,’ says Michalis, stopping at the gate to stroke Lisa. I have fish. He doesn’t need to say they’re fresh: some things go without saying. He invites me to come and eat in the evening at the house of Ian and Margarita, an English-Polish couple who have been living just a few doors away for a month’s holiday with their beagle Lola, and are constantly insisting I join them for dinner or just a glass of wine and some aubergine salad. Margarita, like me, has happy memories of childhood holidays in Greece, only being from Poland her family used to drive to Greece with the car loaded up with all their food, even potatoes.

‘I can’t tonight, I have work,’ I protest. But later Margarita comes by and repeats the invitation. So although I’m hardly sensible after a long day, I grab a half-empty bottle of plonk and head over, and we laugh sitting out on the terrace and are happy to be a long way from the UK election.

Another evening a group of us go to Livadia to the apartment of John Ageos Daferanos, resident of Tilos since late last summer, to see his photographs. I talk to him about the images over coffee. ‘They’re my interpretation of the island, my attempt to penetrate the mystique of the place, to capture its spirit. In this isolated place there is peace and silence but also a wildness inside.’ (See the ‘Island Life’ page of this blog.)

The oleander flowers are just coming out, I notice as I start to walk to Livadia. A car driving towards me slows down, and Savvas from the post office says hello. ‘Come two packets of food for Lisa,’ he says. I ordered the Friskies she likes online. He’ll deliver them soon. ‘The next time I come in Megalo Horio.’ I thank him and walk on, beaming at how much I love life on a small island. Next morning, I receive it with a hole in the top of the bag: the clever crows spotted something that looked like food on the top of Yorgos Orfanos’ truck.

It’s almost three weeks since I got back, but people are still stopping to say hello and welcome me. They ask how long I’m staying, and I say, ‘I’m staying.’
Some who have been reading this blog since last year will want to know if I’m back here alone after following Ian to Australia. The answer is that he will stay there and continue looking after his mother, who has Alzheimer’s; I had to come back home for a while - left Australia two months ago to see family and for work - and once I got back to Greece, I knew I was staying. We didn’t have an easy time of things, having barely spent a month alone together while I was there. We decided to let go, get on with our lives separately and remain just friends for now. 
I’m glad I had courage to lose sight of the shore, but now I’ve trusted and followed my heart back to Tilos, the source of so much happiness for me. Greece was still waiting. Lisa was well. I returned here at the same time of year, late April, that I first moved here four years before. My lemon tree, cut back over the winter, is already flourishing with fresh green leaves. Time to plunge into the island's deep waters and lie on its hot sands again.