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Saturday, June 16, 2018

The Neighbors

In the summer of 2014, I worried deeply about a family I left behind in Margariti, Greece. They seemed to need a little more help than the other families. They were living outside our balcony window, atop the electric pole. A family of storks.

Storks choose one mate for life. They raise their children together in one nest and if something happens to one of them, the other stays alone for the rest of its life.

When I first arrived in Margariti in 1983, the stork nests dominated the scenery. They were everywhere.
This giant nest on the old house was the residence of the first stork couple with whom I would become well acquainted. The sound of their clacking beaks each morning was part of the countryside cacophony. They would swoop down to pick up snakes and other tasty treats or fly off to the lake and return with their prey squiggling in their beaks. They often landed beside the house to peck at dried sticks and grass, choosing carefully for their nest, a nest that would soon contain a few chicks watching in awe as the adults took flight.

The children had black beaks in contrast to the red adult-beaks which indicated that they were too young to fly. But by the end of August those beaks were adolescent pink. So the young  birds began their hesitant departures from the nest. First in small circles--wobbling through the air with their parents gliding gracefully nearby, later flying far from the nest, away from the watchful eyes.

The storks' annual departure was one made for a Hitchcock movie as it all happened within twenty-four hours. It was a bit eery. In one afternoon, all the swallows that had lived under the balconies and the eaves of the village houses, would line the electric wires. It was an unofficial signal that the end to the summer was at hand.  The very next day, both the swallows and the storks would be gone--on their way to Africa. We'd awaken without the noise of those clacking beaks that had been present every morning before, and every nest, stork and swallow, would be completely empty.

Then and now, the storks mostly prefer electricity poles for a building location secure from predators. You can see one in the 1983 photo to the right.

But occasionally one or two might be electrocuted when wet straw of their nest touched a live wire. As a result, the village government put large plastic containers at the top of the poles and the birds learned to build their nests inside those protective containers.

That nest in the photo is now across from our present-day balcony. We watched that same couple raise their little ones over many years, the children flying away, the parents moving to Africa for the winter and then returning to the same nest each summer to raise a new batch of babies--a cycle renewed. I didn't think much about it until a few years ago when one stork came back alone. That bird sat by itself in the nest all summer and again the following summer until one year no bird returned and the nest was left empty for several years.

However, in the summer of 2014, a new young stork started checking out that location. Eventually there were two of them and they  worked to fill the plastic container with straw and sticks.  It was a little late in the summer for setting up house, so at first I thought they were just using that pole to rest.


I snapped a photo of the reflection in the balcony door, a sort of clandestine move on my part. I was so excited to see a new young mother moving in, I  didn't want her to know I was spying.  You can see her working with the beginnings of a nest. And a few weeks later there were baby birds in that nest.

I watched them each morning as they grew, but when the swallows lined the electric wires, those babies still had not left the nest. And the next day when every swallow and stork nest was supposed to be vacant, that one family was still there. On our last day in Margariti, I saw the baby birds being taught to fly. I hoped they were able to make it down to Africa without the help of the flock. I tend to think the parents, with their adventurous spirit, having waited longer than the rest of the flock to have their children, were resourceful enough to get the family south. I thought about them all that winter.

I'm guessing they made it there  because the parents returned and took up residence again the following summer, and the one after that, each time producing one or two offspring. And this year they are back.

It appears we have neighbors who love to return as often as we do . . .  and who can blame them? It's a perfect location to spend the summer!





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Friday, April 6, 2018

NOT a Bucket List

A "bucket" list implies the end of which I'd rather not contemplate. Instead the list I've decided to embrace, is a little bit different but still carries the same charm, and it rhymes with the original. This list is generated when people tell a person he or she is too old to do something, and the reply is, as it should be, "F---it! I'm gonna do it anyway!" Hence, the other list.

Number one for this old biddy is water skiing. I've wanted to do this since I first watched fellow campers water skiing on Lake Chateaugay in the mountains of New York about fifty years ago. So why didn't I? Oh, it was too dangerous or I didn't want people to see me above water with my butt hanging out of my bathing suit or, more recently, it might throw out my back. . .

The instructor at Lichnos Beach in Epirus Greece, helped me finally realize this dream. Okay, so I never said I expected to stand on the water, only to ski, hence the name of the activity. And as a very short and insignificant post script, I did throw my back out. Darn!

But there's something to be said for putting your fears on the back burner and allowing yourself to just do it! And so, though my back may delay my next attempt, I now know what it is to feel that brief moment of flying atop the water because I did make it to a standing position for about 3 seconds, which of course was not memorialized by my "photographer." However, he is forgiven, as I'm pretty sure he was startled by the shriek I let out as my knees straightened, and he was probably more surprised by that momentary success than I!

Onward to number two on the list. Run a marathon.

Well, running a marathon probably requires some preparation, so that item has been tailored to running a 5K which I can run perfectly well on my flat even treadmill, with the added fan feature cooling off my face.

As it turns out, though, nature's terrain is a bit more challenging with her monstrous hills. And the chatter and competitive nature of the other runners can be a distraction. AND! For Goodness sake, aren't there supposed to be those tables with little cups of water when you get to the top of a hill??

So let's just modify that "running" to "finishing." I did maintain a slow trot that never became a walk. . . and for that I am proud, placing three hundred and thirtieth as I met the finish line, which is evident by the normal town activity going on in the background as they'd already cheered 329 people and probably thought the race was over. However, I was not last and my bib number is hanging proudly on the wall of our home.

I look forward to other activities like hang gliding, paddle boarding and yes, parachuting! But lately I've been sidetracked by several experiences that scream:

"You ARE too old . . . you just don't know it!"

Friday, February 23, 2018

Winter Epirus

I always thought it was a bit dramatic, my husband's insistence that we cover the beautifully tiled floors of our New York bathrooms with some not-so-beautiful rugs. It's too cold on the feet, he always says, this from a man who could suffer the most numbing circumstances without complaint.

With my experience of a February Epirus, however, I now realize the sensation he's been avoiding comes more from an Epirote memory than the present-day winters of New York. No matter how long the heater in the Margariti house has been running or the house air has been warmed to a comfortable temperature, the tiled floors remain painfully cold to the touch. And this is in a fully formed, windowed, modern, heated home. I can barely imagine how it was in his childhood home, a home I arrived at in the sweltering summer of 1983. A home with no heat, no running water (so forget about a warm shower on a winter morning) and enough space under the doors to allow entry to creeping creatures or winter winds.

In this Winter Epirus, there are several unexpected surprises. One such delightful surprise is the water . . . it's  everywhere!

Rivers run off the mountains, into the sea, from every direction. And flat valley fields have become lakes filled to capacity, their farm roads submerged with only the smallest edges peeking up through the water to let the unknowing eye understand that these are, in fact, not lakes! Such abundance of water exists, of course, because of the winter rains--constant and steady. And that rain brings idle time. For many of the villagers, cafes and taverns remain the favorite places to pass that time. The summer crowds have dwindled to local residents and rather than familiar outdoor living, they huddle beside warm fires in well sealed taverns. At first glance, a village that appears sleepy and void of residents is actually bustling with life. It's just mostly indoors.

The Epirus winter siesta is the fuel that fires the evening rendezvous as the summer-siesta ritual is carried into these darker days. Most shops still close at 2:00 (and not one second later, as I learned one day when I tried to get something from a launder in Igoumenitsa). The schools let out at the same time so the students and the workers can go home for the afternoon meal and customary snooze. For myself, however, I find waking up in the winter darkness a bit disconcerting, as sunset occurs within the siesta window of time. But the siesta seems to be the norm as shops reopen around six in the evening and cafes spring back to life.

Thursday, January 25, 2018

On the Greek Countryside: An Unforgettable Lesson

During one warm Epirote month in 1964, the Margariti elementary students, under the direction of one imaginative and cunning teacher, created the most memorable of projects. It was a museum filled with the artifacts that the villagers had collected over the years, mostly ancient coins and other paraphernalia from history, some found while digging on the family farms, others passed down from generation to generation.

The teacher understood the value of these items and sought the children's help to collect and display them, creating a wonderful museum right there in the classroom. They worked for days, writing descriptions of each item and then they proudly wrote the owner's name of each contribution on a small place card. It was meant to be a secret project until its unveiling on opening day -- a temporary museum that provided a multi-layered lesson of history and language, one that required research and note-taking, a lesson greater than any the children had learned prior, or ever would learn afterwards. 

Unforgettable.

My husband, Nick, was one of those students and he recalls the excitement of the time. Each day a new coin or ancient relic would be brought in. The contributing student, a star at the head of the classroom, would describe his or her piece and gain the much-sought-after attention and approval of their teacher. My father-in-law, Toma, had a nice little collection of coins that Nick gingerly wrapped in a handkerchief and brought to school. It was a variety of coins that out-shone the other students' contributionsNick was very proud.

The students created invitations for their parents. They also created posters to be hung within the village so that everyone could share in this open invitation -- enjoy the beauty of the artifacts and admire the students' creativity. Two days before the grand opening, the museum pieces were placed around the room and carefully arranged. The school was decorated while the beautifully sculpted invitations and posters lay upon the teacher's desk, ready for distribution the following day. The children's excitement could hardly be contained as they pulsed with the delicious secret they awaited to share with their parents.

But, the next day, the teacher was gone and so were all the artifacts.  

And no one ever saw him again . . . or the artifacts.  

So much was stolen that day.  The disappointment those children felt is indescribable, but worse is the horror of those who had lost gold and silver that they had held for generations. We can only hope that this man suffered in some way for his crime against Margariti.

Perhaps one of the gods caught up with him.





Independent authors often have quite a challenge in getting exposure for their work. I hope, dear reader, you will consider writing a review on Amazon or Goodreads.com.