Category: Blog

For two winters now we have had good rain. This raises the water table and allows ponds and puddles to remain throughout the year. The frogs find plenty of food and breed. With a little assistance they have re-ocuppied the river valley below Olymbos and, if you take the footpath, you can hear them croaking away. There are probably more than 100 at any one time in this location. The frogs are genetically different to other breeds and on other islands. The Dodecanese are like the Gallapagos Islands and there are genetic variations on each island within a number of species.

We have several rare or endemic species in N. Karpathos and Saria and there will be increased interest in what we have and how they are protected. Each year more tourists will come to visit the natural riches of the island.

Currently up to 100 tourists a year are attracted to Diafani by the diverse and interesting bird life, botanists and zoologists follow.

Please do not pick up the frogs.

An illuminating exploration of a fascinating, troubled character, this book immediately sent me back to re-read ‘The Flight of Ikaros’ with a renewed depth of awareness of its writer and appreciation of his reflections during his travels. Roger Jinkinson’s deep experience of village life in Greece, empathy with his subject and awareness of the limits the craft of biography enable him to take the reader with him towards an understanding of the complexities that made up Kevin Andrews. The result is a work that is both passionate and objective, severely critical and yet tolerant, allowing the conflicting views he hears to enlighten rather than confuse and always reminding us of the greatness of ‘The Flight of Ikaros’ and the fact that no Greek had a bad word to say about ‘Kevy’. An excellent book.

At this time of year we get many birds passing by or coming to stay. Sitting in Anna’s cafeneion just now I saw a Montagu’s Harrier beating its way north from the lighthouse and on to Vananda. The other day, in cloudy conditions a Marsh Harrier appeared like a ghost along the mountain slopes west of Avlona. In and around the village I have seen many colourful arrivals: Hoopoes, Golden Orioles and Bee Eaters. There are no large herons as yet, but we have seen Cattle Egrets, a Squacco Heron and a Little Bittern. I wonder why the herons arrive at much the same time. Meanwhile, hour by hour, day by day the Eleanora Falcons arrive in ones and twos. Soon they will be chasing insects above the village on a warm evening. I have even seem them hunting butterflies when the thyme is in flower.

Diafani shares a unique and vibrant culture with Olymbos. The black clothes worn by the older women on a daily basis, the costumes worn for festive occasions, the food and music the dialect and way of life define To Chorio (the village) as being different from the rest of the world. Geographical isolation has never stopped the movement of these people, they are to be found in Iran, Congo, Japan and in large numbers in Baltimore. But everywhere they go they take with them their own values and tradition. To do otherwise is to risk being labelled an American, or worse. Those that remain lead outdoor lives ‘though a television is often on in the background, and there is the internet and the oddly named social media.

The world is full of monocultural media selling love as the sole emotion, one that is fixated with its own exchange rate equating love with sacrifice and humiliation:

I would give everything
My life is not worth living
I beg you to forgive me

and so on.

The false emotion with its sloppy, invasive language accompanied by tunes, so bland they cannot be whistled has devalued every society it has touched, especially amongst the young. And it is done for money.

So I feared the worse when I saw the flyer advertising the open air performance of Klytaimnistra in the village square. I know little of Greek Classical theatre, but learned the show was going to consist of an hour long monologue by a woman explaining why she murdered her husband Agamemnon and how she lured him to a bath where she ensnared him in a robe and then hacked him to death with a ceremonial axe: striking him three times, the last strike accompanied by a prayer to a god as if this were some animal being sacrificed.

Extracted from plays by the father of theatre, Aeschylus, the grand themes of the monologue include sin, murder, punishment and a fatalistic conception of human life. It did not seem to me that such a show was going to be a chart topper. Either nobody would turn up, or the crowd would be raucous and heckle the poor tragedian.

In the evening some 200 chairs were spread in a classic arc around the Plateia but by nine o’clock, the scheduled performance hour, just one lady sat there, all black and sombre in the middle of the front row, her cavai drawn over her head to protect her from the sea breeze. Then another came, and another and another, filling the front row from the middle outwards. A solid black phalanx of large ladies come to see what all this fuss was about, and no doubt to advise on the suitability of the play for viewing by their grandchildren. Husbands sat in the rows behind and tourists too drawn by the drama and then as the monologue commenced grandchildren were hushed and advised they could watch and they too were drawn in among the audience.

There was a hush throughout the village as the actress, the classically trained Evangaleia Balsama strutted her stuff: screaming and wailing, shouting and cursing; her long hair blowing in the wind like a banshee as she screaming at the infidelities of men and their lust for war and destruction and justifying the murder of her husband.

The audience was riveted. And why not? I have seen the gestures of the actress in everyday use by my neighbours: the clenching of fists, the arms upheld in supplication, the face upturned to God. I have seen the women rend their hair and scratch their faces in grief and shout and scream and wail. So the phalanx of black figures in the front row, nodded or sighed or gasped or raised their hands and muttered as the plot unfolded. And now I can understand these everyday actions were passed down from mother to daughter from the city of Athens for more than 2,500 years.

And then suddenly it is over. Silence, then applause and the crowd slowly disperses, emotionally drained, but, somehow cleansed, strengthend by their links with an ancient city. Katharsis and good acting worked their magic and the dross of 21st century ‘culture‘ is kept at bay a little longer.

A cold and cloudy day in Avlona. High in the sky, many swallows, swifts and martins. Perhaps 100’s. Close to the ground a harrier quartering the terraces. To the west, above the ridge , long legged buzzards, buteo ruffinus, and suddenly, 15 large eagles close to the cloud line. A remarkable sight. And now the bee eaters have arrived.

The above story is abridged slightly. Minas liked appearing in my books. I wanted to read the story to him so he would understand how much he was loved. Unfortunately he died before I could return to the village.

Minas was a great musician in his younger days, one of the best. Even now he reaches heights that others avoid. Twenty years ago he was awesome: a John Coltrane of the lyre he improvised like no one had done before and took the our music to the edge and beyond. His status is recognised: I entered a bar late one night in to chorio, the village up on the mountain. A small group of teenagers were gathered round an old cassette player listening to a tape. It was Minas and they were trying to understand how he played this note or extended that and how he had the audacity to do what he did and still keep the audience with him. Now, when the young people play, it is possible to hear Minas’ music shine through. Minas rarely plays these days, there is a macho element to playing at festivities: the musicians compete for money and play for hours on end. Occasionally a lyre or lauto player will take a break for a minute or two while they rub their hands in neat whisky to ease the pain in their fingers, but the music goes on, it is relentless. Minas tells me his fingers are not strong enough, he no longer has the stamina and while he will sometimes play for me or other friends I thought I would never hear him play in public again. But I had reckoned without Michaeli, also a well respected musician though, with his proclivity to play Cretan style lyre, considered to be slightly left field. Michaeli has a fine voice and an encyclopaedic knowledge of traditional songs. He is also meraklese, a musician who can orchestrate and conduct a glendi, festival, to cover the gamut of emotions. A year ago I stumbled into the village glendi a little late. Michaeli was playing lauto and, to my surprise Minas was swinging away on the lyre. The trills were there, the swoops and flights of fantasy and ecstasy as, head back and far away, Minas peered beatifically upwards through his pebble-thick glasses. I sat next to my old friend, found a glass and lifted an ouzo to his throat and of course pushing his glasses back up his nose.

Later I was told the expected lyre player had not turned up and Michaeli asked Minas to play:

Just for five minutes.

They had been playing for more than three hours when I arrived and were singing mantinades, the rhyming couplets that are integral to the festivals here. At first I could not follow the words, but slowly realised they were singing about Minas. Not about his hypochondria, his size, or his grumbles, but Minas the miraklese, who had been a great dancer, Minas the musician who showed us the way, Minas the lover with good looks and flashing smile, Minas, the village Romeo. All the while he sat there concentrating on the music, trilling away on the lyre as if they were singing about someone else. And then his son began to sing. The mantinada must have been formulating in Georgos mind for some time, for these things are rarely instant compositions. He wanted to sing verses about his father which conveyed his love, respect and trepidation. Verses which all of us should sing if we could, but one line just would not come out:

What shall we do when his music stops?….

is a simple translation, but Georgos could not say the words. The lines stuck in his throat. Holding back tears strangled his voice and he could not finish the line. Two or three times he tried and by now we knew what he was wanted to say and we helped. Softly, at first, we sang along, gently giving support to his voice until finally Georgos gave full throat to his thoughts about his father and the chorus rang back:

What shall we do when his music stops?….

and I could see that Minas was crying as was I and many others in the hall. Now we had our glendi, we had the catharsis of feelings shared with fellow men and women and we were glad. Minas played for another two hours until he could play no more. He handed his lyre to the next musician, shook hands with those around him, held me and kissed me, and left. The party went on until dawn.

The author’s tales from Karpathos, an island full of mesmerizing people and a dazzling landscape, are nothing but sheer poetry in my ears….
Jinkinson paints his images from a palette that is so rich in colours and light and this is done with the greatest respect for the friendship he has developed with local people…

I love the descriptions of the characters, the bread making women, the young girls, men in the cafeneion, winds, sea, fish, birds, pathos and humour. Roger Jinkinson is a gifted writer of short stories. Can also recommend “American Ikaros: The Search for Kevin Andrews”

The ex pat cliche book, portraying the Stoic Brit putting up with the vagaries of an unfamiliar culture is far away from this wonderful collection of stories. Buy it, enjoy it, love it. And if you didn’t buy the first book, do so NOW !!

Always, before a storm hits, the electricity goes and with it the wifi and the phone and the clackety clack of the refrigerator and other twentieth century devices.  Suddenly I am aware of silence as the village holds its breath and then far away the flash of lightening and thunder rumbles round the heights of Orkili.We do not get light rain here,  it does not drizzle, only sheets and pours as the flat roofs fill up and the primitive drainage system send torrents of water onto the narrow lanes and alleys of the village.  

When the storm is above and the thunder and lightening instantaneous the dark village feels threatened and I remember the catastrophe of the flood twenty years ago. Then,  I am gratful that I live on the side of a mountain as I sit on the first floor of my little house and the windows rattle and the doors shake and the air is full of rain. One day the sun will return to bounce blinding beams from the newly scrubbed houses and the fridge will rattle again and maybe there will be wifi and the ferry boat will come and if it is a special day the fruit man will appear from the south.

I have been out with my binoculars for three days. The first day I saw a lone Eleanora, a juvenile Long Legged Buzzard and a pair of Golden Orioles. The second day, close to Vananda, I came across a Purple Heron and minutes later, arising from the same spot, an Osprey. And today, without even leaving my house I saw a very dark juvenile Bonelli’s Eagle.

There cannot be many places in Europe where it is possible to see such interesting birds with so little effort.