photos with the folks

Christmas day on Rodos.



The museum at Delphi.



The stadium at Delphi.

greece plus 2

I have spent the past 10 days traveling around Greece with my parents. It has been great to see them, although it has taken some adjusting to travel with two people especially after four months doing whatever I want, whenever I want. The other major surprise has been how much having them here has made me miss home (although it might have been worse had they not come to visit). Somehow having a piece of home here has made me think more about my room, the smell of the air in New Mexico, and the blue of Colorado skies more than normal. Nevertheless, we have had a whole lot of fun and explored Greek ruin after Greek ruin. On our metro ride in from the airport, my dad got his pocket picked and it was interesting to feel like I should have been able to protect my parents from this sort of thing. Sort of like the shoe was finally on the other foot, and now I wanted to keep them out of harm's way.

Perhaps their thoughts might be of interest. Here are some notes from my parents:

Jane: Greece is fascinating and I am so happy to be visiting and catching up with Scott. We started out the first night in Athens with a Greek salad and moussaka, which we haven't had again! Got that out of the way, and have discovered that the Greeks make all kinds of excellent food, including fresh creative salads and fantastic ice cream. The highlights have been visiting the ruins, whether from 2600 BC at Knossos or from 1715 in Napflio. The Roman sculpture at Delphi was astounding and the size of the temple of Zeus in Athens was awe-inspiring, even though only 12 giant pillars out of 204 are left standing. The color and size of the ocean is beautiful. One surprise has been the extremely mountainous terrain of Greece. We even visited a town like Breckenridge up near a ski area! All in all, it's been a wonderful experience to be here, soaking up the ancient culture, modern cities full of zippy scooters and Smart Cars, ruins high on cliffs with spectacular views to the ocean and even to Turkey, and walking for miles, it seems, in search of the perfect cafe for a meal or a coffee. We'll treasure the time spent with Scott and hope to reconnect with him when he's in Mexico later in the year.

Bruce: So much to see and absorb. Zeus abducting Europa...an early lesson in pickpocketry on the metro...Grand Master of the Order of St John...Suleman the Magnificent...the Acropolis of Lindos and the perfection of the Parthenon...why democracy first here and why in 600 BC...Alexander the Great and the Oracle of Delphi...the Ring of Minos and Pax Minoan for 1500 years...Hania and memories of the Navy. And what is "extra" virgin olive oil, anyway?

Cuba, thoughts

It's a myth. Many, really.
All woven and stitched tight.
Like a baseball?

A happy green alligator basking in the warm seas of the Caribbean
A communist hell and a socialist paradise
An island wiped clean of the scourge
of racism?
of exploitation?
of alienation?
of hope?

An island of peaceful people, as are all people from islands of these latitudes : it's the geography
A Che Guevara shirt on a black boy in South Africa

Hasta La Victoria, Siempre. In a soccer stadium in Greece.

and we dream, we hold our breath
but do we believe?
in what?

In the malecon and fields of sugar cane
In the hustle – everyone has a hustle
In this bush protecting us from the rain and the red dirt of Viñales
In the most beautiful flag in the world
In swimming in the ocean at sunset
In the P1 coming

Venceremos.

and we laugh, but mostly we are tired
and we ask, against who?
and it rains but the mangoes still taste like a dream

I would dance, but I'm a rockero
Let's dive into the ocean
Let's find some rum

¿Que vola?

You think you know it. It's for the workers. Are you a worker? Is He?
You think the oyster will open, and you can come take the pearl.
You want it, we can get it. You have it, we can want it.
You think it's all a lie.

La batalla de ideas.

but aren't we all?
and where are the ideas?
and where are the books?
the ones worth reading.

But maybe it's life
And maybe it's like this everywhere, just with a different name
We all have our own problems, no?
So just give up. Turn off. Quit. Or get yours and

Get out.
One last look in the mirror
before they haul you out of the Habana Libre
and in that last look, you think you can see Cuba – if that's what you want to see.

life in monodendri, thoughts

I have wanted to write more about Monodendri and Lefteris and Panagiotis. I'm not sure how old they are - probably 16 and 18 respectively. They are two very nice guys, quiet, but always giving and sharing with me as if they could see that I needed and wanted a friend. They milk sheep in the mornings and spend their days tending to matters at their hotel. By night they usually watch football (soccer) or another sport on satellite television.

These two have their feet in two worlds and yet they pull it off with incredible ease. At the end of the day they seem to know who they are and they are quite happy with it. And yet their lives are not simple, nor are they.

Both Speak English and are the only two in their family who do. They speak more English than most people in Monodendri. They learned it at school in Ioannina, an hour bus ride one way, every day. They are finished now (at least Panagiotis is). It isn't exceptional that they speak English, especially not in Europe, where everyone seems to be multilingual. What is exceptional is that to them it is not something that seems put upon them. That is, they speak English because they learned it and it helps them in business - not because it is an imperialistic remnant and not because they are dominated by an English speaking country. It is exceptional that speaking English is no big deal to these sheep herding, hotel managing, young men. They speak it, but they don't give themselves over to another culture.

They are between worlds in more ways than that: they run a sheep business (more of a lifestyle) and they have a hotel that caters to well to do Greeks and foreigners. They have spent the past two years building a new hotel next door, managing everything from plumbing to new furniture. And yet, they seem almost unconcerned about tourism. Yes, they are helpful, and yes, the do care about making sure tourists come and have a good experience, but at the end of the day the tourist business is a small part of their identities. They are proud of their new building, but are more proud of sheep milk and traditional sheep milk pie.

I asked Panagiotis about living in Monodendri his whole life. He said of course he planned to stay his whole life. A city is fine to visit, but life is in Monodendri. The point, it struck me, is that here is an example of tourism gone right. The tourism supports the town and reinforces the life that the people want to live. This may have been different had I talked with someone who didn't own a hotel, but I doubt it, for tourism generally supports life in these towns. Even those who don't have a tourist business benefit because their neighbors and friends who have businesses help them in their sheep shearing, in taking wool to market, in selling milk. In short, the community ties and structure of the sheep business forces people to share work and thus the benefits from tourism are shared as those with more money, cars, or resources help other sheep farmers. Although Panagiotis and Lefteris work in tourism they don't ooh and aah over the city life but are happy and proud of their lives.

Panagiotis heads off in June for mandatory military service. It will be interesting to see how this shapes him and his view on Monodendri. A part of me fears for the country kid heading off to the army but a larger part of me thinks that going away to military service is just something that you do - like getting on the bus to go to the city for school - and at the end of it all you come back to real life. Real life in Monodendri.

Playlist

In the event that you were curious, here is what is on my iPod for those long bus rides and plane flights. Notes are at the bottom.

1) Long December - The Counting Crows
2) Southern Cross - Crosby Stills and Nash
3) On the Road Again - Willie Nelson
4) Write a Letter Home - Jackie Green
5) Friday Night - The Darkness
6) Maria (Shut Up and Kiss Me) - Willie Nelson
7) Honey I Been Thinking About You - Jackie Green
8) Darkness Between Fireflies - Mason Jennings
9) Take Me Home - Phil Collins
10) Pop Ya Collar - Usher
11) At the Stars - Better Than Ezra
12) Here Comes the Sun - The Beatles


Notes to songs:
1) One more day up in the canyons... I also like the lyrics "I can't remember how many times I tell myself to hold onto these moments as they pass." I feel the same way so many times out here.

2) I listened to this song a ton in my tent in South Africa looking up at the Southern Cross. For some reason seeing the southern cross and listening to it can almost make me cry.

4) Some lyrics from this song; "The TV says nothing, nothing to me, I feel so alone in the highest degree. Like a tree with no roots, like a gun that don't shoot, like a dog outside on a chain. And there's no use for me to sit here and moan, many a man has been more alone. I might feel better if I write a letter, if I write a letter home." The song then continues for a while to these lyrics "But as for me I'm halfway to Denver, how long has it been I just can't remember. It all starts to fade 'cause the life that I've made is the life that I dream on. But there's no use for me to sit here and moan, many a man has been more alone..." I like that I am half way to Denver, and when I feel low I do write letters home. Some of you may have gotten some. And the TV usually says nothing to me because it is all in Greek.


5) This song reminds me of Big Al. We took all the extracurricular activities and we weren't particularly cool. We even did take dancing, although I don't think it was on a Friday night.

7) A song about a girl I think about a lot, but who, I suspect, doesn't think about me. Lyrics: "I don't want to be your one weekend lover, your boy in the back, your one or the other. And I ain't looking for a wife or a mother, but honey I been thinking about you." The song continues, "I ain't interested in your hotblooded sister, I'm sure there's a man for to love and to miss her. I didn't mean nothing I just happened to kiss her, but honey I was thinking about you." Perhaps that's why she thinks not of me.

8) This song is also about love, but I think of it in terms of exploring new places: "You should know by now that someone's been there, long before you, you're never going to be the only one." I always feel like some great explorer, but really it has been done before. That doesn't disappoint me, it just give me more history to research.

10) "Hey ladies, hey fellas, you know you're doing good cause they're jealous. They only hate you cause you're a go getter, pop ya collar, don't let them sweat ya." Exactly. Pop that collar.

12) One of the best songs ever. Reminds me of the sun rising when you are sitting at the bottom of a canyon, waiting for it to get light and warm you up. Also reminds me of making bets for when the sun would leave the canyon. The winner gets a Symphony Bar.

Monodendri

In the past few weeks I have been editing a guide to ancient Greece for a Russian professor of Classics (perhaps he wasn't satisfied with my work - I haven't heard from him recently) and I have been working on a guide to the Vikos Gorge. This is harder than I thought it would be. There is a lot of information that is hard to get and hard to put together. Nevertheless, it has been fun.

All the snow in the Vikos Gorge area was followed by almost a week and a half of rain, with the snowline moving up to about 2000 meters or so. This meant that the Voidomatis river was raging! It had been totally dry when I was first there, and to see it full of water was a little surprising. When I went down to have a look it appeared that the water level had been some ten to twelve feet higher in some places (depending on the width of the canyon, of course). Fantastic!

It was such a pleasure to see water in the canyon but I was also very happy that I didn't face the same when I hiked through previously. Crossing would have been difficult to impossible.

I also had fun hanging out with the two young guys in Monodendri (yes, there are only two), trying to convince them to take me with them in the mornings to milk the sheep. They wouldn't let me. They thought that it would make me smell too bad. I didn't want to force the issue, but I really wanted to milk a sheep. I had to settle for tearing up bread and putting it in a bowl of fresh milk that had been heated and was amazingly salty. I guess that you don't really drink the milk straight, but put bread in it. I am not sure if they salted it or whether it really is that salty straight out of the sheep. They said that cow milk tasted funny to them and they couldn't drink it.

They also treated me to a pie of fresh sheep cheese, although not pie in the American sense, and not cheese in the American sense either. It was great. We followed that up by watching Champions League Soccer.


Here are some photos:



The Monastery at Monodendri built in 1412. The paintings inside are from 1413-1414. Amazing. It was built with money from Michael Veovodas Therianos because his daughter, by the grace of God, had been cured from an incurable disease.



The river, quite full. Last time it was just rocks - and my hair was shorter.



Lefteris (aka "Lefty") and me, warming ourselves by the fire, talking soccer. Lefteris is a traditional name that means free or freedom - or so he claimed. Although he had milked the sheep that morning, he didn't smell.