Category: Blog

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.

Election day in Diafani was a quiet affair – austerity is pounding down on working people and few villagers working away could spare the time off work or the money to return home to vote.

Whilst the TV in the bars and restaurants dutifully covered the elections, nobody showed much of an interest.

A few glossy leaflets and torn posters flapped in the incessant wind, known hereabouts as maestro, but there were no arguments or discussions; no arms were waved and no voice was raised.

The people here are proud and independent and have always felt that tomorrow lay at their disposal. Now, as they quietly filed in to the church hall to vote, there was silent, passive resignation.

Villagers are opposed to the austerity measures imposed by the previous government
I have been part of this village for more than 30 years. We are far from Athens, but in the mainstream of Greek politics.

I can remember in the early 1980s, when parliamentary democracy was taking root in Greece in a new and exciting fashion, the arguments in the local cafe, the establishment of a women’s group and the excitement of the mayoral elections when a socialist won.

Following the dictatorship of the colonels, Greece returned to parliamentary democracy and power swung between the left party, Pasok, and New Democracy on the right.

Locally the vote split 60:40 in favour of Pasok, with only a handful for the communists or the far-right parties.

The ritual here as elsewhere in Greece was always the same – citizens returned to their place of origin to vote. Given time off from work, their fares were often paid for by the major political parties.

So, at election time, the village came alive as young and old returned from Athens or Rhodes or even the United States, to argue and shout, party and vote.

This time the mood was different and the village had a sombre feel until late in the evening when the results trickled in and the villagers realised what Greece had done.

The ruling parties were punished and maybe destroyed: New Democracy has been returned as the largest party but with less than 20% of the popular vote while Pasok, with a little over 13%, has been kicked into third place by Syriza, a leftist party.

Suddenly, with the faint hope that austerity is not the only way forward, the people were drinking ouzo and retsina, laughing and arguing once again.

The arithmetic does not lead to any possible coalition and there is little doubt that there will be new elections in June.

The villagers expect Syriza to gain even more seats then, and perhaps form a government. Syriza is in favour of the euro, but opposed to the terms of the bailout. This may seem a contradiction but logic has never been a strong point in Greek politics.

Many of the newly elected candidates are popular figures: singers, actors and comedians. A commentator on the BBC described the new parliament as “a circus of madmen”.

When I explain this to my neighbours they seem content with the description.

A variation of this article first appeared May 8th on http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17993965

Some birds I have seen

The area is important for passerines and large birds moving between Africa and Europe. In the springtime, depending on the direction of the wind, a steady stream of small and large birds can be seen heading north. The large birds use the wind and the action of the waves and fly without effort. Some times from the headland (sto pharos) you can observe a steady steram of raptors. Once I saw Bubo Bubo (Eagle owl) one metre above the waves heading towards Vananda and taking avoiding action from an eagle (species unknown but perhaps Hieraaetus pennatus (Booted)) that seemed half its size.

In order; Name, Location, Comments

Bubo Bubo (Eagle owl) sto pharo going north
Buteo Rufinus (Long Legged Buzzard) Diafani to Forokli Seen Avlona. Used to breed south of Diafani

Hieraaetus fasciatus (Bonelli Eagle) Avlona, Olymbos, Saria, Steno Nests south Saria and ? west of Avlona. Hides in trees to hunt birds.

Falco Eleonorae (Eleanora’s Falcon) Mostly north of Diafani and around Saria, especially sto cabo and Alimounda. About 500 pairs. In the daytime they go inland eg Avlona, to hunt, drink freshwater and bath in freshwater. In the evening they return to the coast to hunt passerines. They breed late, timing the births to coincide with the autumn migration which starts in September. The adults hunt at night forming a net several kilometres out to sea. Mating ritual in July, hunting in august, teach young to fly September. Most of them travel to Madagascar for the winter, returning to Karpathos in April. Reputedly some stay behind.

Falco peregrinus (Peregrine falcon) Diafani, Olymbos, sto cabo (among the Eleanora’s) Often seen in pairs.

Falco tinnunculus (Kestral) Diafani Often seen in village at dusk. Nests near the school.

Falco naumanni (Lesser kestral) Cliffs north of Diafani Rare

Falco vespertinus (Red footed falcon) Sto Cabo Roosts amongst Eleanora’s. Rare

Falco biarmicus (Lanner falcon) Diafani to Papa Minas Rarely sighted
Corvus corax (Raven) Diafani, Avlona, Steno, Calamnia One flock has about 30 birds. probably young. Pairs are territorial. Very large. Passerine.

Apus pallidus (Pallid swift) Kamara and other caves on the east side of Karpatos and Saria. West side? Big cave Saria?

Larus melanocephalus (Mediterranean gull) Breeds on Amoi (? better check) Common, widespread

larus cachinaus (Yellow legged gull) Breeds on Amoi (? better check) Common, widespread

Laurus Audouinnii (Adouin’s gull) Sometimes solitary pair seen in Diafani. Isolated, nests on cliffs eg Mavri petra Rare. Red beak, grey-green legs. Larger than Mediterranean.

Alcedo atthis ( Common kingfisher) One pair in every bay in later September/October for two weeks. Not seen in Springtime

Bubulcus Ibis (Cattle egret) Springtime going north on East side, Diafani to Alimounda Few. Threatened by the cats at Vananda.

Ardeola ralloides (Squacco heron) ditto Diafani (sto potamos) Flies at night. Few

Egretta garzetta (Little egret) ditto Few. Threatened by the cats at Vananda.

Egretta alba (Great egret) ditto Few

Ardea Cinerea (Grey heron) ditto, but linger around Alona. ? breed

Ardea purpurea (Purple heron) ditto Few

Ciconia ciconia (Stork) ditto. Also Avlona. Once or twice

Platalea leucorodia (Spoonbill) ditto Few

Ardea goliath (Goliath heron) ditto Huge bird. One pair seen one year

Pelecanus Crispus (Pelican) Diafani 3 or 4 times When food is scarce due to bad weather. Fed by fishermen. Become domesticated.

Phalacorakas carbo (Cormorant) Forokli to N Saria Dark feet Fishes

Phalacorakas aristotelis (Shag) Ditto Often yellow feet

Des marestii(?)

Pandion haliaetus (Osprey) East Saria, Diafani bay Fishes off Diafani. Appears in autumn going
South. Flies with wings at high angle.

Tyto alba (Barn owl) Diafani, Avlona Eats rats and mice

Athena noctua (Little owl) Alimounda In the autumn

Otus scops (Scops owl) Diafani Heard at night in the spring

Caprimulgidae (Nightjar) Diafani cemetry and sto potamo

Cuculidae (Cuckoo) Beaches South of Diafani Years ago I found several exhausted cuckoos along the riverbed at Country. Also Avlona

Upupa epops (Hoopoe) Cliff tops towards Vananda and to papa Minas Spring and autumn

Merops apiaster (Bee eaters) Arrive in spring and gradually go north to Alimounda. Return in the autumn. Easier to ear than to see.

Oriolus oriolus (Golden oriole) Diafani, Vananda and Ag Konstantinos Rarely seen, easy to recognise

Alopechan aegyptiacus (Egyptian goose) Forokli to Ag Minas Solitary

Calonectris diomedea (Cory’s sherwater) Off shore 5pm and later heading north More than 200 going north daily. Where do they nest? Also solitary around Steno in calm weather

Puffinus yelkouan (Mediterannean shearwater) Off shore south of Diafani Fewer than Cory’s

Hybrobates pelagicus (storm petrel) Off shore in rough weather Rare

Monticola solitarius (Blue rock thrush) Sings early morning and evening A dozen pair around Diafani. Others along the cliffs of Karpathos and Saria

Ptynoprogne rupestris (Crag martin) Diafani and to pharo Spring. Suffer from cats.

Delicos urbicha (House martin) Flocks mixed with above Ditto

Alectoris chukar (Chukar) Mountains and Cliff tops Saria and North Karpathos

Himantopus himantopus (Black-winged stilt) The rocks in Diafani Four seen first time Spring 2009

Actitis hypoleucos (Common sandpiper) Shore Diafani and Alimounda Spring. Solitary

Tringa ochropus (Green Sandpiper) ditto Ditto

Chlidonias hybridus (Whiskered tern) Diafani harbour Ditto

The village is connected to mainland Greece by a ferry. Years ago, when I first came to the island, there were three ferries a week in each direction.

Now there is one, but the cabins are clean, the food is good and the 18-hour journey gives the opportunity to meet fellow travellers and renew acquaintances with fellow villagers.

Except for August, the ship is sparsely occupied and when I came out in late September I was soon talking to Dimitris, a port policeman coming back from leave in Athens.

Public servants are much abused these days and often blamed for the crisis in Europe. There are five port police in my village and it is easy to caricature them as expensive and unnecessary.

However, we are close to Turkey, a major route for drug- and people-smuggling. There is the ferry boat to oversee, and even if they are nearly empty, the daily tourist boats that come from the south of the island have to be attended to.

Dimitris’s wife and children live in Athens and he tries to get to see them every six weeks for a long weekend, but the irregular ferry schedule makes this difficult.

Working-class Greeks are happy to talk about their finances and Dimitris told me he had been earning 1,500 euros a month (£1,300, $2,000). I asked about the “had been”, and he told me the government had cut the salary of all public servants.

His pay, he said, had been reduced by 230 euros a month and from October this would be reduced by a further 70 euros.

I wondered what would happen in Britain or Germany if the police had their pay arbitrarily cut by close to £300 a month.

And I wonder how much tax take the government lost by cutting public-sector salaries and how much the shops have lost as money is taken from the pockets of the population.

Families are under an ever-tightening squeeze in Greece
Greece applies a strict supply-and-demand model to higher education and there is much competition for the few university places.

In return for a college education, schoolteachers and doctors agree to spend their first year in remote rural places and in the islands.

Of course, the doctors are extraordinarily young and so were the teachers, but that is changing.

There are no jobs on the mainland for last year’s teachers and so they have to spend another year in the village teaching the children of shepherds and fishermen, labourers and stonemasons.

Another year away from friends and family, another year before marriage and children.

The state of limbo is unlikely to nurture a feeling of gratitude towards the government of the day as it struggles to alleviate the effects of corruption and mismanagement by its predecessors.

A further blow is a sudden emergency property tax, based on size, and householders in the village have received one-off bills for 400 euros and more.

A cruel twist is that the government is collecting this tax via the state-controlled electricity company. The threat is: If you do not pay, your electricity will be cut off.

The electricity company does not like tax collecting, nor do its employees, and the villagers are saying they will not pay.

If they really do join protesters who refuse to pay motorway tolls this tax strike could drag Greece into an unstructured default and nobody knows where that would lead.

If a government cannot gather taxes, it cannot govern.

Life is not cheap in Greece. I recently paid 42 euros for 18 litres of petrol for my small boat, which makes it expensive to go fishing.

A 250-gram packet of butter costs in excess of five euros at the nearest shop though it is cheaper at the supermarket some 40km (25 miles) away.

The sudden hike in the price of milk and butter will lead to more goats in the village and a return to eating drilla, the thick sour cream extracted from goat’s milk.

Life is not all doom and gloom. With care, I can still have an evening meal and drink a small bottle of retsina in a local taverna for less than 15 euros.

But we do not buy fish in restaurants anymore. Instead, we take our own to be cooked and shared with whomever is around.

The Greek newspapers say this is a bumper year for tourism, but there were spare beds in the village even in August and in September the place is empty – there are more tavernas than tourists.

We still have day trippers from the south but they are on the lower end of the social scale and have little money to spend. Some bring their own sandwiches.

Earlier in the year, the fishermen from Kalymnos were ordered to stop fishing as there was no market in Rhodes for the catch.

The large hotels import squid from Thailand and undersized red mullet from Morocco and the smaller restaurants could not attract enough customers.

We still get the super-rich in their gin palaces. They buy bread from the little shop, drink an ouzo or two, and head back to their bunks to sleep it off.

They are welcome, of course, but there is little evidence of any trickle-down effect.

European newspapers like to blame the Greeks for the crisis but when the man in the taverna, or the woman queuing for vegetables, say they did not cause the problem, it is hard to disagree.

(this article first appeared on the BBC website September 28th 2011 as Greek economic crisis: Living on less)

The older generation in the village are thrifty and hard working; they are used to a frugal existence and times of extreme hardship.

Hundreds of thousands of Greeks died of starvation and the complications of severe malnutrition during World War Two and the Civil War that followed.

Memories of those times can be seen etched in the faces of the old people and the habits handed down to their children.

Women are in charge of the home, a loaf of bread is kept until it is used and, if you could see the effort it takes to produce, you would understand why.

Hand-sowing wheat and barley, reaping, winnowing and grinding the grain is back-breaking work, and kneading dough for the huge loaves baked in outside wood ovens is not light work either, so it is easy to sympathise with the women as they carefully store a week-old loaf back in its bag.

In Britain we throw away millions of tonnes of food a year. In the village they throw away nothing.

There are three main sources of income to the village: crofting from the sea and the land, tourism, and money from the diaspora.

The last two have suffered adversely from the crisis in Western capitalism.

Tourism is in decline due to higher travel costs and the shortage of money in northern Europe.

The decline has been exacerbated by the trend away from small village hotels and tavernas towards all-inclusive holidays at globally-owned and funded mega-hotels.

International currency fluctuations also have an adverse impact.

Many of the older men in the village went to work in the US and Canada, where they paid their taxes and social security dues before returning to retire in Greece. The US and Canadian governments keep their part of the contract and dutifully pay pensions into the local bank accounts of the returned workers.

But, despite all the furore and turmoil, the euro remains strong against the dollar – added to which inflation has eroded the value of these small pensions.

While bankers continue to make billions from playing the market, these retired builders and decorators, taxi drivers and cooks, lose 10% just to change their money from dollars to euros.

Wages in the village remain low. Plasterers and bricklayers earn 40 euros a day – if work is available. The few government jobs pay even less and, in this context, it is understandable that workers in Greece do not rush to pay their taxes, particularly when they see the ostentatious wealth of the upper decile.

Greek society is family-based, the public sector is over-bureaucratic and its economy unreformed. Next to the state, the Greek Orthodox Church is the largest land owner in Greece. It has substantial holdings in Greek banks, many of its employees are funded by the state, and yet it pays very low taxes.

In less than 50 years, Athens has grown from the size of a small provincial town to an urban sprawl of five million, sucking the brightest and best from the rural community and unbalancing the economy.

Much of the trade in the village is done by gift and barter and the villagers care little for the EU, the World Bank and the IMF.

Excess produce is shared in times of plenty. When times are hard, the proud people stay in their houses and go to bed early.

Among the old men in the local cafe there is a near unanimous view that it was a mistake to enter the eurozone, and a longing for a return to the drachma, which they believe was the world’s longest running currency.

While they get by on very little, the dreams of their children and grandchildren are being destroyed.

The only positive outcome of the crisis is the return of young people, including graduates, to the village.

There are plenty of empty houses here, no shortage of land, and good rains last winter have expanded the opportunities for new crops, as well as giving greater returns from old.

An attraction is that work on the land is mainly a winter activity, leaving the summer months free for fishing and beach parties.
The return of the young is revitalising the village, strengthening family and community ties and reversing a century-long trend of depopulation. The young people will learn much from their parents and grandparents, and bread will be kept to the last slice.

(This article first appeared on the BBC website as: Timeless values help Greek villagers weather crisis www.bbc.co.uk)

This poem was written for Kevin shortly after his death. It is from a Summer Snow a collection published in 1990. Ruth clearly knew Kevin well.

Unhoused
(for Kevin Andrews)

I wanted one glass tonight
of champagne, to your swim.
For having known you. But you’d laugh –

– no drink here without food
between six and nine. And bring
curd cheese from neighbours round the corner,
salad picked on hills, island liquor
you weren’t supposed to touch.
‘Half a glass,’ you’d say, an impatient
accurate centaur, forgetting your pills.
‘You come so seldom.’ Only you knew
the dark padding loneliness. Your rough links,
copper spots of warmth in winter,
weighting like Agamemnon’s gold
neckbone I never felt outside your house:
I couldn’t afford them. Only a bracelet, a ring.

You’d know what to do with a neolithic axe
but what happened when lightning struck?
Those fits: I’d sit near, uselessly gentle.

The blue hands on your wall, meant
to keep off the eye – maybe they worked.
Who knows what might have happened?
How else could you go? Burnt scrub
on exposed Cithaeron that Easter
crackled with gods. You said, ‘I like that –
crackling with gods.’ We’re born
to such hopeless houses,
strangers to what we love.

You shared what helped. The I Ching.
Dowland on pie-crust records. (I sent more –
they melted and warped in the mail.)
Goat-pipes. All your presences were real:

tangerine smoulder on a tripod,
books and the wood that held them,
iron tools on the plank by the stove.
Each had its history and smell.
When your grandchild was born
you twisted a bronze wire anchor.
I delivered it to the world
where you buried your gold.
The self you were goes into hiding
off Cythera, for God’s sake, in a force
seven storm. Whatever happened,
there was that sweet smile after, floating back,
an assured child from an unshared reach.

The first sunny day and a walk to Fokai and back along the cliff tops. In an hour I saw a purple heron, a grey heron and four egrets. There are many flycatchers, but as yet no yellow birds (these arrive together each year in mixed flocks). I have not see long legged buzzards (buteo rufinus) which are normally present. Last week in Avlona I saw a golden oriole. Later I watched a hen harrier hunting by coursing the edges of fields. while a Bonelli’s eagle flew above the mountains. Cuckoos have arrived for the second year running, but the migration season is running at least three weeks late.

The migration is well under way with bee eaters, little bitterns,wagtails, eleanora’s, a booted eagle and a lanner falcon(?). Everything is very green and there are herbs and flowers everywhere.

Georgos works these days as a guard for the wildlife and landscape of Northern Karpathos and Saria. Sometimes I help in this work and I also keep an eye on Bonnelli eagles for the Hellenic Ornithological Society. I am proud to bear the honorific title Keeper of Saria. There are 600 breeding pairs of Bonnelli in Europe and I estimate we have four on the island. I have been watching one pair for three years now. I recognise them, they recognise me. The male has several feathers missing from the trailing edge of one wing. They do not soar, but course their large territory in straight lines looking for rats and mice, snakes and small goats. Sometimes they ambush doves and gulls. They are wonderful birds.

Last autumn we were up on the plateau of Avlona. It had rained and we were looking for birds and picking snails from the dripping plants (snail pilaff is wonderful). The sky was clear but after ten or fifteen minutes looking up and around I noticed movement on the ground thirty metres away on a low hill. Four ravens were gathered round something large on the ground. I thought it a dead animal, but it was something alive, something red and brown, exactly the same colour as the damp earth. As I focused I saw it was a young Bonelli being teased by the ravens. They got too close and suddenly it reared up with open wings. Ravens are big birds with a wingspan over a metre, but Bonelli’s are bigger. Even this young bird was half as big again as the ravens. They pulled back, hopped away and tried to look disinterested. The Bonelli hopped and bounced and took off to complete a circle of the hill before it settled again a little further away.

I have been back several times to the same place, but never seen this bird again. I suspect it moved away looking for a mate. The parents have moved nearer Vragounda where they are disputing territory with Long Legged buzzards Buteo Rufinus. I don’t know why they moved. Perhaps it is not my business.