Here I am with a September blog entry in….. by the skin of
my teeth!
This will be a short pictorial account of our July trip to
Thrace, to Evros, my husband’s home area, right up in NE Greece, near the
Turkish and Bulgarian borders. It’s a
trip dedicated to Rosie and David who couldn’t make it together with us ….this
time!
En route we see many herds
of goats grazing in the parched pastures, sun-flowers still following the
course of the sun but, by late summer, beginning to look a little full-blown.
So we head up north, through
Macedonia, past Kavalla, into Thrace, on to Alexandroupolis – one of the many
cities named after Alexander the Great. I love the fact that its lighthouse is
so near the main road!
As we follow the river Evros
north, I enjoy seeing the villages with their minarets; for me a lovely blend
of the Muslim and Greek Orthodox communities, especially redolent of the time
that H and I spent in Arab countries - in fact, we first met in Kuwait. I still
hear the call to prayer with a touch of nostalgia!
We go past Didymoteicho, the twin-walled city as its Greek
name explains, and on to Kofovouno, the village possibly named after the hollow
mountain nearby, that is – with caves within it.
Okay, so who took a pot-shot at the village name-sign??
We spend some time together as a
family, catching up with relatives’ news. What I find particularly disarming is
that, while they may not have seen you for months and months, after initial
greetings of welcome, they will begin conversation with you with the Greek “Allo?” or ‘So what else is new?’ as if just picking up where you
left off in a previous chat!
This time for me the theme seemed
to me to be tradition: teaching
grandchild how to plant seeds and tend the garden; passing on the cultural
tradition of ethnic dance and costume, while celebrating on July 20th,
the panagyri of the Prophet Ilias, to
whom Koufovouno’s church is dedicated. The panagyri
or celebration traditionally meant that the icon or even remains of the saint
would ‘go round throughout’ the village for the locals to pay their respects.
It always means a get-together for people from local villages and often from
much further afield. In Koufovouno local people who work in Germany come down
to observe the prophet’s name day at home. Thracean music has a lively rhythm
and their dances are executed with great dignity – it’s hard to remain seated
when the clarinet and bagpipes start to play!
It was fascinating to watch the
storks, these wonderful birds that migrate annually from Africa to nest by the
Erythropotamos River, an Evros tributary. Mama storks carry on the tradition
and teach their young to fly. Below, after watching several maternal demo
flights, baby stork can be seen testing out his wing-span. It took several
afternoons before he managed to get his confidence up and leap from the nest.
Here are some of the crops traditionally
cultivated in the area: the cotton plants which look like beautiful rose bushes
when in bloom, and garlic.
About ten years ago at this time of year, the
approach to Koufovouno reminded me of the final lines of Mary Campbell Smith’s
poem, ‘The Boy in the Train’:
‘For I ken mysel’ by the queer like smell, That the next
stop’s Kirkcaddy!’
In Kircaldy you smelt the
linoleum factory; in Kofovouno the pungent aroma of garlic drying in the
village yards.
Sadly now that market has been lost with merchants buying the
cheaper produce from Turkey and China. This hot summer other crops had to be
left to bake in situ as the cost of
seeds, fertilizer and electricity to water the fields continue to rise unchecked, which means
farmer outlay could not be covered by the price offered by local merchants. Local
farmers simply cannot make a living.
Years ago when I was living and teacher-training
in Athens, I remember observing a class where the teacher asked the students
what crops Greece produced. When a child answered, ‘Oranges, lemons and
olives,’ the teacher seemed well pleased – a very southern, agricultural
perspective.
Here I want to show
you just a little of the wealth harvested here in the north. In Macedonia tobacco is a prevalent crop and
in late summer you see the leaves hanging out to dry in the heat.
Sunflowers, too, provide seeds and oil for cooking.
When my niece, Jennifer, was little, on being shown a
picture of my father-in-law’s fields of sun-flowers, she asked if he was very
rich. It seemed to her tha he must be, to afford to have fields of flowers rather
than ‘real crops’.
So, Jen, many moons on, with attendant and
colour-coded insect, this basking beauty is just for you!
Finally, and at the
expense of sounding like the ‘Milo/portokali’ speech from ‘My Big Fat Greek
Wedding’, since I am on the topic of flowers and Koufovouno, with deft thematic cohesion, let me recommend
to you Greek speakers the blog on the village by Dimitrios Louloudakis (whose surname could be rendered as Little Flower!) - simply Google : ‘Koufovouno - Louloudakis’ –
it’s fascinating.
