Category: Blog

Going to the Doctors

Going to the doctors in the west, is a private, secret, lonely affair. You catch a bus or drive alone, enter a waiting room, quietly talk to the receptionist, trying to keep your name a secret and take a seat as far away from everybody else as you can. Your name is called. Surrounded by stainless steel, enamel and machines you complete your business with the doctor and you leave as discretely as possible. You may never see that doctor again, in street or surgery.

Here it is different. To start with, everybody knows your name, and pretty soon they will know why you are there.

Yati esai edw? Why are you here? What’s wrong with you?

And you have to explain. Be it haemorrhoid, verruka or cancer of the colon, they want to know. Even if, at first, you avoid explaining exactly what is the problem they will press you until they know all the painful and gory details. They are not being rude or nosy. As fellow villagers they feel they have a right to know your ailment in much the same way that they have a right to know your income, or how much rent you pay. The conversation always ends with them saying that with gods help you will be ok. And they can’t say that if they don’t know what’s wrong with you.

Then, there is the sharing of the gifts. It is normal, here in the village, to take a small gift when you visit the doctor. Not to gain special advantage, but as a sign of respect for a learned profession. Nothing expensive; some lemons from your tree, artichokes perhaps, figs or something freshly baked. And because you are all together, perhaps five or six of you in a space with room for only three or four you are soon chatting and sharing your gifts. There is Anastasia, 92 and sprightly as a spring lamb. Her eyes are a bright, baby blue and dancing around as she asks how you are. Her hands are bent and crippled with arthritis, but she drags her goats here and there and carries their food up and down the steep mountainsides around the village and in Saria. Last night she was in my yard trailing two baby goats, looking for their mother. She tells me where she found the mother and laughs, but her dialect, without t’s, d’s, g’s, or seemingly any recognisable consonant is difficult to follow. Then she reaches into the folds of her apron and hands me three lemons. She will be killing goats soon, she says, so if I need any kind of meat associated with a goat then she will find me some.

Now comes my neighbour Calliopi. Her friend is with her, a woman known to me only as thea (aunty). These are big women, very big women, they have trouble with diabetes caused by lack of exercise. They live in little houses side by side at the bottom of the steps leading to my house. All day they sit on the steps in the shade gossiping and doing crochet work for some niece or granddaughter’s wedding. They are so big that they have to turn aside to let me pass and sometimes I have fantasies of rolling them back together again to block the path against passing marauders. They are like the mythical black rocks that Seferis wrote about, tis sumplugades petres, that closed behind the ancient ships that sailed between them. When they are sitting at the bottom of my steps I know that nobody will bother me.

They give me koulouri, the hard bread, round like a doughnut, that is so good in the summer when dampened with water, dipped in olive oil and eaten with olives or salty cheese. Of course, taken together with ouzo. The thea has been ferreting around too in her apron and finds me fresh walnuts. This could be a successful morning. They ask me why I am here, sympathise by saying it will get better and tell me a little of their ailments. I do not probe too far.

A widow and another 90 year old man, who seems to own half the village arrive. I stand up to give them space and step outside to rest from the constant chatter. Everyone is talking to everyone else, sharing gifts and cursing old age and decrepitude. One by one we are called in to see the doctor.

The village does not do badly by the Greek medical service. Doctors in Greece have to work in a remote place before being given their full licence and being allowed to practice on the mainland and central places. So we have a series of young doctors on a six month or one year placement. This works surprisingly well. There is a lot of mutual respect and the villagers are surprisingly tolerant to whoever is sent to us, be they gay or straight, man or woman. With the three port policemen that are stationed here, the occasional policemen and the young visiting schoolteachers there is plenty of opportunity to form a parea or party every night and our visiting doctors seem to like it here.

Every month a Flying Dolphin hydrofoil comes from Rhodes, with doctors, nurses and paramedics. Then you see a straggle of old people crank their way at different speeds to the end of the harbour, with their corns and coughs and pains and general complaints. The flying dolphin can do x-rays and blood tests and so provides the services of a travelling hospital.

Serious problems have to be dealt with in the south of the island, or they put you on the ferry boat to Rhodes. But he real crunch is this. If you are really ill then a helicopter will come to take you to Athens. So long as you are not too old, say 70 or more. Then they tell you the weather is bad and to hang on a little longer. You can hang on as well as you like, but the weather will not clear. So, no matter how many times I am asked, I never reveal my true age. And my passport is well hidden.

There are many musicians in the village, and the people love music. They love their own more than any other, but their tastes can be eclectic.

In Vasillis’ and Elias’ bars you get anything from local to Egyptian to Greek pop to Dodecanese music. In Gabriella’s’, rembetika to world music via motown, jazz and blues. At the Anixis there is blessed silence.

The people do not play to perform. They play because they have the kefi or feeling for music. They must be in the right mood, or it must be the right day, or the right festivity. Above all they will not play when it is a day for remembering a deceased friend or relative, neither will they play, or dance , or be seen to enjoy themselves within one year of a death in the family, or of a close friend.

You will see several lyres and a lauto in Michali’s place, for he is a great musician and will sometimes play Cretan or local music for his customers. He plays Cretan style, a four stringed lyra with ba long bow without bells. He is at his best when singing sad and ancient ballads of love and loss.

Hanging up in Gabriella’s you may notice a lyra. This belongs to my friend Minas Prearis. He made it. He is of an older generation, a man of hidden, but great depth and he plays beautifully.

Sitting having my morning cafe latte in Gabriella’s and trying to read, I am joined by Agapios a shepherd and painter and decorator, who just happens to be writing a book on the flowers of Karpathos and Saria. He knows them all, and has identified several that are known only in Karpathos and one unknown previously anywhere in the world. Maybe it will be named after him louloudi agapiou. Motown is playing and Gabriella is shouting at her customers as usual. On the hill someone is using a pneumatic drill. Minas Prearis walks in, picks up the lyra that he has not touched for nearly a year and unpurturbed by all the fuss and not noticed by anyone, starts to play beautiful local music. We fall silent. He plays one final tune that I recognise and love, nods to me, puts down the lyra and walks away waving at nobody in particular. It is moments like this that bring us alive.

Another time we had supper with new visitors to the village, professional musicians; Jaap, a Dutch clarinettist and Natasha a guitarist, singer songwriter. Natasha is from Siberia and full of passion.

Georgos and I provided the octopus and Gabriella cooked octopus spaghetti.

Of course, two hours before supper Georgos wanted to go fishing for atherinos the delicious small fish. We threw the nets five times and caught nothing, maybe half a kilo in all. Each time we had to clean the nets and this is boring work and I row the boat and this is tiring work.

We were pissed off.

I shouted in my best Greek.
God is a bastard
I shook my fist at the sky.

We threw the nets one more time.

When we pulled them in they were full of fish. I mean thousands. Maybe tens of thousands, we caught 10 kilos ! Cleaning the nets took three hours.

So I guess God might be a bastard, but she has a sense of humour. Georgos told me to say nothing more.

At least we had fresh fish for meze.

So, Jaap put on one of his CDs and played really sweet clarinet along with the music, while Natasha told me I had soul. She then sang sad Russian music. They are both excellent musicians. Meanwhile Minas Prearis turned up. He had been kind of flirting with Natasha the night before. He sat there looking at her, fluttering his eyelashes 20 years older and half her size. I asked him to play.

No, no, no. The usual stuff.

Natasha wants to hear….

Suddenly, without tuning up or any preparation he has the lyra and is sitting inside Gabriella’s playing beautifully. Feet tapping, head nodding, smiling at Natasha. winking at me. He stuns the company, keeps us in total silence for half an hour, puts down the lyra , smiles and walks off. As if to say;

This is my territory, I play the best music. I am the boss.

And he’’s right.