Decade of a Feta way of life . . .

Posted on July 17, 2023 by Marjory

THIS month it’s 10 years since my first Greek travel memoir, Things Can Only Get Feta, was published and I’m thrilled to say the book is still going strong: a best-seller in various Amazon categories, despite a publishing drama early on. However, it has soldiered on with vigour and even found its way recently onto the syllabus of a Greek university course. But more of that later.

If you’ve followed my blog over the past decade, you’ll be familiar with how the book, about living in Greece during the economic crisis, came about. But if you’re just tuning in for the first time, in short: my husband Jim and I, and our famously bonkers Jack Russell terrier Wallace, left a Scottish village in 2010 for a mid-life adventure in southern Greece. It was during a British recession and a downturn in the newspaper industry, in which we both worked as journalists.

**Wallace, above, and again with Jim and Marjory in Koroni**

And what an adventure it turned out to be, settling in a rented stone house in a hillside village in the remote, wild Mani region. It was a working village, raw in places, sometimes well beyond our comfort zone but perfect for our aim of living a Greek kind of life while we freelanced for various publications in Britain and Australia to help fund our odyssey. Greece was on the brink of meltdown due to its devastating economic crisis of 2010. The country, with massive debts, had to accept a bailout from the EU and punishing austerity to go with it. An ideal time for journalists perhaps, but not for a trouble-free stay in beautiful Greece.

However, we went regardless and found ourselves in an ideal location, living amongst big-hearted goat and olive farmers. We made friends with many, particularly the inimitable Foteini, the eccentric goat farmer with her famously endearing taste for thick, clashing layers of clothing and rural mayhem. Ironically, it was my curious friendship with Foteini (pushing my imperfect Greek to its limits) that helped steer our path in the village. She also became an unlikely literary muse – who knew?! Her touching stories and her antics inspired me to start writing Feta, to record a rural way of life in the Mani peninsula (one of the three that hang down from the southern mainland) that I was sure was about to change forever.

**Marjory with the unforgettable Foteini**

**The village of Megali Mantineia, where the author spent the first year of her Greek odyssey**

**Jim (back row, right) with the wonderful villagers and two of its priests at a celebration in Megali Mantineia**

The first year in the village of Megali Mantineia, beneath the Taygetos mountains, exceeded all our expectations. It was challenging, fascinating, often hilarious, and sometimes downright frustrating. We dealt with macabre local customs, a health drama for Wallace, a hospital visit for Jim, critters (scorpions, lots!), eccentric expats, but mostly it was a lesson in surviving Foteini’s ramshackle farm compound, her strong mizithra goat cheese, and a slew of scatty, but endearing animals. At the end of the first year, we decided to stay longer in Greece, which grew to four years in all, living for the final year in the nearby Messinian peninsula, near Koroni. I wrote four best-selling books about our life in Greece, and two romantic suspense novels, also set in the Mani.

**Some of the press coverage for the book in 2013**

I started writing Feta in the freezing winter of 2010/11 in our stone house, my desk wedged up against the loungeroom window with a view of the snow-capped mountains. But I also had a view of the rickety back entrance of Foteini’s old village house, where she spent her evenings. Sometimes, she must have seen me at the window. Or perhaps she just sensed I was writing about our village antics, many of them hers, and she’d phone, particularly if she hadn’t seen us for a while. It was usually with the same humorous lament. “Ach, you’ve forgotten me already, koritsara mou (my girl)!” she’d say. “When are you coming for coffee at the ktima?”

The idea of sitting in Foteini’s draughty farm shack in foul weather beside a dodgy petrogazi (small gas cooker) didn’t always appeal. However, we did go now and then in winter, which I wrote about, including the memorable day Foteini came close to blowing up the shed.

**Foteini on her donkey Riko, taken at her farm compound in Megali Mantineia**

I had plenty of material for a book, from the adventures and mishaps of the first year, and I continued to add to the narrative over the next three years. Things Can Only Get Feta was published in 2013 by a small London publisher, during a long intermission in Scotland before we returned to Greece again. From the beginning, Feta did very well and sparked great interest, particularly in Greece in the summer of 2013. After doing a phone interview with the editor (Sotiris Hadzimanolis) of the Australian Greek newspaper Neos Kosmos, about our life in Greece and the book, Sotiris filed a similar piece to a Greek news outlet and from there, the story of our exploits went slightly viral.

Versions of it turned up in a slew of Greek publications and internet news sites with variations of the headline: “Scottish journalist besotted with Greece”. While there are many authors today, focusing on a much trendier, revitalised Greece post-crisis, 10 years ago the story of a foreigner having a love affair with Greece in turmoil was certainly more unusual. More than that, it struck a chord with long-suffering Greeks who had hitherto heard nothing but negative, often beat-up, reports in the international media. There were harsh criticisms of the country’s fiscal attitudes and work practices, whereas the story about Feta was a good-news story.

We had scores of messages sent to our website with notes of thanks for my Greek ‘ardour’ and my favourite comment of all time is still: “For your information, Greece loves you back.”

However, despite the book’s success, two years later, while Jim and I were now living in Koroni, I had a falling-out with my London publisher when he seriously broke the terms of our contract. (In publishing, be careful what you wish for!) Rather than allow the book’s success to be sabotaged, I legally forced the return of the book rights to me, and republished it myself in a very short time. This was no small feat, working on an old laptop computer from a hillside house with just a mobile phone and poor wi-fi, or often, no wi-fi. But nevertheless, once re-published the book had a fresh gust of wind under its wings and continued to do very well. Not long afterwards, I published the second memoir, Homer’s Where The Heart Is, and there are now four in all (see links below).

But Feta will always be close to my heart and I’m proud to say it was to become (and the sequels too) one of the very few books to be written in English about life in the economic crisis by a non-Greek living in the country during that time. It prompted Greek author Stella Pierides to suggest: “This book might become a future reference source about life in unspoilt Greece.”

It may have been a presentment of sorts and in 2021, I was thrilled to be contacted by a charming Greek girl called Panayiota, who told me that Feta and the following two memoirs had been offered on the syllabus of a literary course she attended in a northern Greek university, under the theme of how foreigner writers viewed Greek life during the crisis. She had written a paper on the subject. When I first started writing Feta in our Greek rural village during a cold winter, I wouldn’t have believed it would end up on a university syllabus. Or that Wallace may even have been the subject of some literary scrutiny. About time!

**Wallace, up to his usual mischief on the first week of our Greek odyssey in 2010**

I’m grateful to all my blog readers on this site (some of you have been following my Greek blogs since the beginning) and others who have read my books and shared my stories and had a laugh over some of our more daring, crazy exploits and those of the famously crazy Wallace. I’m grateful to those who still write to me to offer their feedback. One Facebook friend recently told me she has read Feta 10 times so far. “Feta is my comfort-blanket read.” That’s a first! Many reviews and comments have been humorous. “More than Feta, this book is a whole picnic hamper of delights,” said one Amazon reviewer.

It would be true to say that going to Greece and writing the books changed our lives for ever, and only for the better. The only note of sadness in our otherwise happy life was that dear Wallace, one of the stars of Feta, passed away at the age of 16 in 2017 after we moved back to Britain. We were devastated, as Wallace had been through all our adventures with us and had been a talisman, as well as a welcome distraction at times. Few Greeks we lived amongst will ever forget his antics I’m sure, and neither will the many readers who wrote to me after Wallace died with kind thoughts and wishes.

The main consolation I have in Wallace’s passing is that he had a wonderful life and hopefully his memory will live on in my Greek books.

**The main stadium at Ancient Messene, which was no match for the shenanigans of Jim, Marjory and Wallace**

Feta extract

If you haven’t read Things Can Only Get Feta, here’s a funny extract from the book of one of our crazier exploits, when Jim and I set out to visit the archaeological site of Ancient Messene (10^th century AD), north-west of Kalamata. The only problem was we had Wallace with us and, as we’d discovered on an earlier attempt on Messene, only guide dogs were allowed inside this large gated site, even on a near-deserted January day. While we sat in the car eating chicken sandwiches for lunch, we mulled over how we could blag our way inside with the dog. Jim finally came up with a daring strategy. Inspired by the once-warring Spartans who’d also dreamt up unlikely ways to sneak into Ancient Messene, Jim planned to get inside with Wallace hidden in his rucksack . . . . .

“Okay. But there’s one big problem: how do we get Wallace to stay quiet in the rucksack and not start barking?” I said.

Jim thought for a minute. “It sounds a bit gross but we’ll put him inside with the last chicken sandwich. Then we’ll zip the bag at the top and leave him a little air hole. He’ll be busy eating. You know what he’s like about chicken.”

Wallace always had a thing about chicken because Brigit, his kind but eccentric breeder in Edinburgh, fed all her puppies with roast chicken, which was a disaster for feeding programmes later. It explained why chicken was the only food that the fussy Wallace liked unequivocally. He was so besotted with chicken that we had broken every rule in the dog-rearing manual by using the word ‘chicken’ on occasions where danger loomed and every other command was flatly ignored. I turned and looked at Wallace on the back seat. He was panting. He’d definitely heard the ‘chicken’ word.

I expressed serious doubts about the plan but Jim was more optimistic.

“Don’t worry,” said Jim, soothingly, “He’ll be okay in the rucksack. Remember the time we carried him in it when we were hill walking in Scotland and he hurt his paw and was limping? He was good and quiet then.”

“What would the staff do if they caught us with Wallace?”

“Call the cops, put us in the cells for the night. Feed us two-month-old mizithra cheese and village bread.”

My teeth started to ping. “Ach, let’s go for it!”

If nothing else, at least we’d have a bit of a laugh. And in a cold January in Greece, you can get like that, wanting a laugh, any laugh.

“Let’s try him out in the rucksack first,” said Jim, unzipping it and taking things out. First, we threw in a couple of Wallace’s dog biscuits and lifted him inside the bag, which was roomy. He didn’t like it at first but when he caught a whiff of the biscuits, he squirmed around inside to retrieve them, thinking it was a new game, better than hiding biscuits in shoes.

I wasn’t totally convinced, but Jim still seemed confident, and I guessed it was just a bit of a boy thing.

“Okay,” he said. “Get ready to leave now. Get all your stuff. As soon as we unwrap the chicken sandwich and drop it in, we’ve only got a few minutes or so to get through the gate and on our way.” He checked his watch at the same time, as if this was a finely tuned military raid.

We got out of the car and locked it. Jim put on the rucksack with Wallace in it and I dropped in the chicken sandwich, torn into several pieces, which was the messiest part of the plan, and zipped up the bag, leaving the air hole. The minute the sandwich hit the bottom, Wallace was down there like a deep-sea diver and the bag was wriggling like mad, then all went quiet. I could almost hear his lip-smacking enjoyment over the chicken. We walked quickly through the main gate, Jim stood to one side while I went to the small cabin window. I remembered the attendant from the first time we came here, but assumed she wouldn’t recognise me after a summer of foreign visitors. I asked her what time the site closed.

“Are you together?” the woman said, pointing to Jim.

“Yes?”

She looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Can I ask what’s in the rucksack the man is carrying?”

“Just lunch things,” I said in a nervous, squeaky voice. I glanced at the rucksack and thought I saw the edge of it was wriggling. Maybe she saw it as well.

Jim sensed the hitch, aware that Wallace was growing restless, eager for another chicken soother, so he started walking down the dirt track that led between broken columns and the outlines of ancient buildings.

“My husband’s impatient…big archaeology fan. Been reading all about Ancient Mess…”

“Okay,” she said, cutting me off. “But you must be back by 3.30 when the site closes.”

I turned and legged it down the track, smiling to myself. When I caught up with Jim I could hear Wallace starting to whine and the zip was coming further apart at the top as he tried to get his snout into the cool air. Jim walked faster. The site sloped down to an old amphitheatre and from there it was a short walk to a cluster of olive trees. Once there we were safe, out of sight of the entrance cabin.”

. . . . . or were we? Find out how the smuggling strategy panned out finally, one of many amusing adventures in Things Can Only Get Feta

Book extract and all photos ©Marjory McGinn

To celebrate 10 years of Things Can Only Get Feta, the ebook will be discounted to 99p UK/US for three days on Amazon stores from Monday July 17. I hope enjoy it.

To buy Feta on Amazon UK or US click this link:

The book is available as an ebook and paperback on all Amazon sites. The other books in the best-selling Peloponnese series of memoirs, Homer’s Where The Heart Is; A Scorpion In The Lemon Tree, and A Donkey On The Catwalk, are also available on all Amazon sites, the paperbacks also through Barnes & Noble, Booktopia in Australia, and independent bookstores.

Marjory’s latest book Wake Me Up For The Elephants is a travel memoir with a broader canvas: Africa, Fiji, Australia, Scotland, Greece, Ireland. It’s a collection of candid and hilarious tales based on real journeys many taken by Marjory as a journalist and described by best-selling author, Peter Kerr, as “Travel writing at its best.” The book is in part a prequel to the Greek series of memoirs on what the author’s adventurous life was like even before she embarked on the Big Greek Odyssey.

The ebook and paperback are available on all Amazon sites. To buy the Kindle version, in either the UK or the US, click on one of the links below:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C2N788HD
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C2N788HD

For all books by Marjory McGinn visit her Amazon page: https://www.amazon.com/author/marjory-mcginn

Or visit the website: https://www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com

If you have liked Marjory’s books, do consider putting a review on Amazon sites. It helps a book become more visible and is always appreciated by the author.

Thanks for stopping by.

© All rights reserved. All text and photographs copyright of the authors 2010-2023. No content/text or photographs may be copied from the blog without the prior written permission of the authors. This applies to all posts on the blog.

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Wild woman of the Mani . . .

Posted on January 23, 2017 by Marjory

Readers have made a pilgrimage to a Mani village to see the unique farmer, Foteini

AFTER my three travel memoirs were published from 2013, readers have been in touch to say they visited the locations featured in the books. Many have made it up to the hillside village of Megali Mantineia, in the Mani, where the first book (Things Can Only Get Feta) was set, and mainly in search of the inimitable goat farmer Foteini.

This unassuming rural woman, whom I met at the very beginning of our odyssey on a village road, seems to have struck a chord with many readers, as she has with me. Perhaps it’s her struggle to survive a tough farming life on her own, made harsher still by the Greek economic crisis. It is also, I suspect, her endearing eccentricities, her tendency to wear mismatched layers of clothing and oversized hats, shoes that look like Cornish pasties, and her odd habits, like washing skinned bananas before she eats them.

I recently called one of my favourite friends from the village, the lovely Stavroula (Voula), who lives near Foteini but unlike her, usually answers her village phone. Voula and I hadn’t spoken for a while and at first she thought I must be in Greece. She got excited at the prospect of a visit. When I told her I was in England she shouted vibrantly down the phone: “Well, when are you coming back here? We’ve missed you!”

It’s the quality I most love about rural Greeks, the fact that when they warm to you they are inclusive and caring. Their interest in you is like a big, delicious hug, and is irresistible.

Marjory riding Foteini’s beloved donkey Riko

I was told that all was well in the village and everyone was surviving the crisis, which was good news. The only recent news I could glean of Foteini, however, was that her beloved old donkey Riko, which I rode on my last odyssey in Greece (from 2014 to 2015), has been pensioned out to pastures sweeter and a new beast has taken his place, as Foteini uses her donkeys for her rural work. Riko was a gentle, stoical creature and he made an appearance in all my travel memoirs.

Foteini, however, continues to attract readers to the village. One American Facebook friend told me she went to the village just to find her and was ecstatic when she did, but was then very put out when Foteini rather stubbornly wouldn’t agree to a photo session beside the donkey.

Some readers have told me they have also gone in pursuit of Foteini, waving a copy of Things Can Only Get Feta, which features Foteini and Riko on the cover illustration, which must have amused her, or maybe terrified her perhaps, I can’t tell which. Some have bravely angled for a coffee in her ramshackle ktima, farm compound, which I wrote about at length, but no-one has pulled it off yet, I think. I am left amazed at so many sightings of Foteini when I had always thought of her as somewhat shy!

The village of Megali Mantineia beside the Taygetos mountains where we spent the first year of our odyssey

The church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, in the village

One reader called John recently sent me a long email telling me about his summer visit to Megali Mantineia. He was thrilled to drive along the main village road and find Foteini walking along it with Riko loaded up with wood. John told me that he stopped the car and jumped out, waving Feta, and shouting ‘Good morning’ in his best learner’s Greek.

“She came up to me and put her hand on my shoulder and spoke for about 20 seconds…,” he explained, “though I honestly couldn’t recognise one Greek word. Then she placed one of her big bronze-like hands on my hand. What an amazing experience. To most people this would probably not mean much, but to me it meant a lot. I asked Foteini if I could take her picture alongside Riko and she said ‘yes’. I was totally amazed. It was brilliant. My wife, who hadn’t read Feta at that point, said to me, ‘This has made your holiday, hasn’t it?’ And to be honest, it really had.”

Foteini uses her donkey Riko to transport firewood. Stacking it on a donkey is something of a rural art

At Foteini’s farm there is ingenious plumbing like this hosepipe and a soap holder fashioned from a sawn-off bottle

Recently in East Sussex I was invited to give some talks about my time in Greece at local book groups. I was not surprised to find that it was not Greece in crisis, or the recklessness of Jim and me – and crazy Wallace the dog – going on a mid-life odyssey that piqued their interest so much, but Foteini. They wanted to know all about her: how she lived, what her house was like, and about her outrageous horticultural couture. I passed around photos of her and the village and they were pored over. I imagine the women of peaceful, retiring Sussex have never come across anyone quite like her. Neither had I when we first started our Greek odyssey in 2010 in the remote southern Peloponnese.

Foteini became the most unlikely creative muse for me. From the moment I saw her riding Riko on that village road in 2010, wearing a massive straw hat, her donkey loaded up with ‘half a house’, she stirred my journalistic interest, initially, with her “promise of authenticity, tinged with craziness” as I wrote in Feta. It was Foteini who talked us into renting the small stone house we’d just viewed in the village. We dithered over it for many reasons. She merely said: “But why wouldn’t you take it?” Great journeys can start on such simple promptings as this. It was she who first christened me Margarita, a name that has stuck with me in Greece. But it was also her character that drew me to her, and against the odds, even with my rusty Greek language skills, she and I began the most unusual, and challenging, of friendships, which I described in the books.

Sweet and lovely Voula from the village, giving Marjory a hug

Foteini was not the only villager, however, who we came to love during our time in the Mani, which stretched to three years. There were other Greeks who became an indelible part of our lives, especially dark-haired, gregarious Voula, whom I have already mentioned, and her lovely mother, Nikoletta. When the pair sat side by side, they were like “two voluptuous bookends”. I wrote about them both in my first two books, where I had called them Eftihia and Pelagia, though sadly, Nikoletta passed away in 2012, which was a great loss to the village. There were also many other characters: Voula’s brother Yiorgos, locals who ran the kafeneio and tavernas, the farmer with the Paul Newman eyes, the ever gracious Leonidas. Yet still people contact me about Foteini (not her real name, by the way).

Giving Foteini a copy of Feta

When I first gave her a copy of the book on a visit in 2014, she grabbed it in her big meaty hands, turning it this way and that, with a look of wonder. Having anything published is an incomparable experience, but watching Foteini gripping her copy of Feta, a book she inspired in so many ways, ranks as one of the most satisfying moments of my life.

* * * * *

Riding Riko

When I had the mad urge to ride Foteini’s donkey Riko along the village road from her ktima, it took a bit of persuasion. Jim also needed a bit of prompting too, as I described in this extract from my third memoir, A Scorpion In The Lemon Tree:

“Foteini stared at me hard. ‘You want to ride Riko, on the road? Out there?’

‘Yes, just for 10 minutes. You know I won’t let anything happen to him.’

She scratched at her face, worrying a curly grey hair hanging from her chin.

‘You’d be careful wouldn’t you, koritsara mou? (My girl).’

‘Yes, of course, I will,’ I said, wondering if she felt this nervous when she took him out on the road, or did I just seem like a total rookie.

Jim was watching me with narrowed eyes. ‘What’s going on? I’m having a Greek breakthrough moment. I’m making out words and I’m not well pleased.’

‘I’ve asked Foteini if I can take Riko along the road for a ride.’

‘Oh, no way! You know how people drive in the Mani. A car will hit you both.’

‘Shhh! Stop fussing. Can a woman not have a moment of madness in her life?’ I said, remembering Zorba the Greek’s famous appeal for getting in touch with your inner rebel.

Jim shook his head. ‘Margarita, you have not been a woman bereft of mad moments, I seem to recall.’

‘I won’t be long, I promise.’

‘Okay. Margarita mou,’ Foteini said at last as she led the donkey through the main gate. She handed me the lead rope, which was all I had for reins, and for a crop, she gave me a thin piece of whittled olive wood.

‘Take him,’ she said. ‘You’re always giving me things. This is my gift to you. Enjoy it. And don’t be long.’

I brushed my legs over Riko’s sides to move him quickly down the road. As I went I could hear Foteini and Jim grumbling together, and Wallace whining. It was like a Greek chorus.”

January Promo

My second memoir, Amazon best-seller Homer’s Where The Heart Is, which continues the story of our three years in the Mani, is currently on an Amazon Kindle promo for the rest of January at 99p (UK only). To buy, click the link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00WEC7YCY

For more information about this book and the two others in the series, including the latest, A Scorpion In The Lemon Tree, go to the books page on the website www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com or the books page on Facebook www.facebook.com/ThingsCanOnlyGetFeta

The latest is on all Amazon sites:

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I’m always happy to hear from readers. Please click the comment link on this page. Thanks for calling by.

© All rights reserved. All text and photographs copyright of the authors 2017. No content/text or photographs may be copied from the blog without the prior written permission of the authors. This applies to all posts on the blog.

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Will the crisis kill off unique Greek monasteries?

Posted on February 13, 2016 by Marjory

Dimiova women’s monastery high up in the Taygetos mountains in the southern Peloponnese

IT was sad to hear of the death of one of the last two nuns at the unique Dimiova monastery, east of Kalamata, in the southern Peloponnese. Sister Christina, in her seventies, died last December after a long illness. I had met her and the Abbess of Dimiova, Sister Kiriaki, during a retreat at the monastery in 2012 and wrote a blog piece about my memorable experiences there.

With only the Abbess remaining now at this remote place high in the Taygetos Mountains, the future of this outstanding monastery, which houses one of the most revered, and mysterious, icons in this part of the Peloponnese, will now be in doubt. There are only a handful of working monasteries left in this region, particularly for women.

During lunch that day at the monastery, it was Sister Kiriaki who remarked that the economic crisis had impacted drastically on the monastery, on its much-needed repair and renovations and its ability to support more nuns. The two remaining nuns had been leading very humble, restricted lives even before the crisis began, but now the situation was much bleaker, as it has been for most priests as well in the Orthodox Church, and the churches themselves.

In a few short years, the lack of funds throughout Greece will mean that many old monasteries will have to close their doors, apart from the highly visible and protected monasteries of Mount Athos. Already in the southern Peloponnese many have closed, due to lack of staff or because they are becoming derelict.

In a modern world where religion has less significance for many people, a common complaint (even from younger Greeks as well) is: “Why do we need monasteries?”

The Orthodox religion is an integral part of the vibrant Greek culture, but the issue goes beyond religion, I think. These Greek monasteries, and many churches, are unique historic buildings and contain a wealth of outstanding Byzantine frescos that are surely as important to European art tradition as any Italian Renaissance masterpiece. Painted on the interiors of churches, often open to the elements, the frescos are fading and in need of regular upkeep, now mostly impossible in the crisis. If you are lucky, you might see inside one of these establishments once or twice a year on certain saints’ days.

The monasteries are also an enduring part of the communities that surround them and have, during difficult periods of Greek history, protected communities, hidden Greek freedom fighters and promoted the Greek language and its culture. If these great institutions close, and finally crumble into ruins, it will become near impossible to revive them in future decades.

One day in the future, Greeks will surely climb out of the economic crisis, but without these splendid historic and religious monuments the country they inherit will not be the one we know today. And that would be a tragedy.

To give an idea of how special Dimiova is, I am posting here a slightly shortened version of the blog I wrote in 2012. If you feel strongly about the subject, do please leave a comment on the post.

* * * * *

WHEN my friend Gillian Bouras and I hit on the idea of going on a short retreat to the monastery of Dimiova, in the Taygetos mountains (southern Peloponnese), the plan had great appeal. Friends said we were crazy, but undeterred we went ahead with our strategy for a trip in early August in the lead-up to one of the holiest dates in the Orthodox calendar, the 15^th of that month, which is the feast day of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.

Gillian is an Australian-born writer who has lived in the southern Peloponnese for over 30 years and has written extensively about it. We both had slightly different expectations for this jaunt but what we did have in common as writers was being able to gain access to this traditional and rarified way of life, still shrouded in centuries of Orthodox mystery, before it disappears altogether in Greece. At Dimiova, in the remote northern western slopes of the Taygetos, sadly there are now only two elderly nuns left.

Sister Christina, who died last December, was one of only two remaining nuns at Dimiova monastery

The church of the Dormition inside the monastery walls

The preparation for this short trip was more protracted than I would have guessed. I had to enlist the help of a Greek friend who had contacts within the Greek Orthodox Church. Because monasteries are highly respected and guarded here, we needed authorisation from the head of the church for the Messinian region, Bishop Chrisostomos. And after many weeks of waiting, we were gratefully given the go-ahead.

Two weeks before the visit we were also required to meet Papa Sotiris in the hill village of Elaiohori. He was co-ordinating our trip and also takes the Sunday services at Dimiova and oversees its ecclesiastical well-being.

Papa Sotiris is a genial young priest with a modern outlook. Having worked previously as a businessman in Kalamata city, he gave up his career to join the priesthood, despite the fiscal sacrifice that entailed, and has not had one moment of regret. He was delighted (and a little intrigued) by the request to visit Dimiova, but there were certain conditions.

We had to be at the monastery 7am sharp. The clothing rules were strict: sensible dark/black clothing – long skirts, no bare arms or legs, sensible shoes, no bling of any kind. We were told the nuns led a simple and somewhat severe life, that they would be adhering to a semi-fast on the lead-up to August 15. The most vexatious rule was saved for last. There would be no talking at the monastery. No talking?

Although talking is not strictly forbidden, Papa Sotiris told us the nuns don’t like to talk unless they have to, especially at this devout time of the year. But since we wanted to write about monastery life, the no-talking rule was awkward.

“How will we be able to glean anything about the nuns’ lives if we can’t talk to them?” asked Gillian.

We were simply to find that out for ourselves, Papa Sotiris seemed to indicate rather mysteriously.

Sister Kiriaki (left), Papa Sotiris and Sister Christina

IT’S Friday morning at 6am when set off on our pilgrimage and it promises to be another scorching August (38C) day. The drive up the winding road with hairpin bends, occasionally with a scattering of rocks, from a recent unseasonable downpour, sets the right kind of reflective tone and we are both secretly wondering if we aren’t crazy after all with this monastery expedition.

The last few hill villages are left behind as we drive further into the Taygetos, having passed no other vehicle along the road, or seen another soul. But Dimiova, when it comes into view, tucked into a mountain slope, surrounded by fir and pine trees, is bigger than expected. The outer walls and monastery buildings are white and the tiled, domed roof of the church is poking up from the inner courtyard like a jaunty hat. I am now anxious to get there as I bump the small Fiat car painfully up the last steep, boulder-strewn metres of dirt road to the front gates.

A morning service has just started in the monastery church, dedicated to the Dormition of the Panayia (Virgin Mary). A bell tolls and the sound of the liturgy is sonorous and spine-tingling in this lonely mountain location. At the door of the church we are met by Sister Kiriaki, who is also the Abbess of the monastery, whom we are relieved to find does talk (though not volubly).

But she has rather charmingly forgotten why we are here or what they are to do with us. She looks a little weary but at least the modest bags of cold drinks and fruit we offer as gifts for our stay are met with a smile. The large watermelon is given an especially warm appraisal.

She ushers us into the church beside the other remaining nun, Sister Christina, who is wearing a similar long black robe, her head wrapped in thick long black scarf. Kiriaki returns with offerings of her own, prayer ropes called komboskini, comprised of thick knotted wool interspersed with small beads (rather like a Catholic rosary). We are to hold these during the service, taken by Papa Sotiris.

The church is a lovely example of early 17^th century design, with frescos painted in 1663 by the monk Damaskinos. The main focus of this church however is the old and much revered icon of the Virgin Mary (Panayia Dimiovitissa), and Child, which is claimed to have miraculous powers, as are many icons dedicated to the Panayia, though this particular icon attracts many pilgrims from all over Greece at this time of year.

The icon of the Panayia Dimiovitissa shows the blood stain down one cheek. Above, Papa Sotiris lights the votive lamp that hangs above the icon

The icon is best known for the curious mark on the Panayia’s right cheek, which is said to be a blood stain, and there are many theories as to how it came to be there.

Papa Sotiris at the end of the service explains a little of the history of the icon and tells us it is the general belief that the icon was damaged by a sharp blow with a knife or axe during the struggles of the Iconoclastic period of Greek history (8^th to 9^th centuries AD), when many icons in Greece were defaced or even burnt.

The icon, he says, had been brought here for safe keeping some time in the 8^th century, when the first monastery building was erected, and during a violent skirmish between the defenders of the icon and interlopers, the image of the Panayia was struck and blood sprang from her face. The signs of it remain today, hence its miraculous powers.

The monastery of Dimiova has always been one of the most important of the Messinian region and has a gripping history. During the 15^th century it was set on fire by the Turks during a local skirmish and rebuilt a century later, only to be attacked again by the Turks in 1770.

However, it survived and became a meeting place for some of the great revolutionary leaders in the Greek War of Independence against the Turks in 1821. It is said that some of these leaders, like the heroic Theodoros Kolokotronis, plotted the opening shots of the war, started in Kalamata on March 23, from within these hallowed walls.

The monastery is best known in Messinia for its annual procession (started in 1843), and the carrying of the icon from the monastery down to a church of Giannitsanika on the edge of Kalamata, a journey of over 13km, which takes around five hours.

After the service, Papa Sotiris offers us Greek coffee with several other parishioners in one of the lovely old dining rooms in the monastery. Despite the no-talking rule, Kiriaki, at least, is in good conversational form, perhaps enjoying a respite from their solitary life. Kiriaki is in her mid-sixties yet looks much younger with a fresh, unlined face.

Kiriaki’s story is not an unusual one in Kalamata. After the Second World War, along with many other war orphans, she was left, aged two, under a certain plane tree near Kalamata Cathedral. The convention was that youngsters were left here to be taken in by kind Kalamatans, but in Kiriaki’s case she was taken to Dimiova.

She has known no other life but this. It’s a fairly regimented existence, with a 5.30am start for prayers, a simple breakfast (they only eat twice a day) and then work in the fields and gardens, tending the monastery’s flocks of sheep and goats, cooking, and then retiring at eight or nine o’clock, depending on the season.

The winters here, says Papa Sotiris, are long, cold and dark, with very simple accommodation and heating. They have no TV, no computers and only one radio tuned into an Orthodox religious station.

“The nuns are allowed to speak if they want to,” explains Papa Sotiris, “But most of the time they choose not to. They find it peaceful not to talk.”

“They are like two canaries in a cage,” he explains with an ingenuous flourish, “It’s a lovely cage though, a lovely environment and they don’t want to fly out into the outside world.”

To us it seems a bit lonely and yet once it would have been otherwise. When Kiriaki was a child there were a few dozen nuns in residence, and earlier in its history, as a monastery for monks only, it was capable of housing up to 100 people. Over the years, though, as the older nuns have died, the numbers have not been replaced.

Many people come to Dimiova primarily to see the miraculous icon and it is kept under lock and key for most of the time. In this region there are many stories also about its miraculous powers.

Papa Sotiris says: “There have been many, many stories in the nearby villages of people experiencing miracles. Everyone has their own special story.”

The miracle that needs to befall the monastery at the moment, sadly, is funding. The monastery buildings and the church, which were partially damaged in the earthquake of 1986, are in constant need of maintenance and restoration. The monastery is always grateful for public donations, however small, to help this cause as one of the few working/occupied monasteries, for women in particular, in the Messinian region.

Over a simple but tasty lunch that day of black lentils with onion and sturdy village bread, Kiriaki tells us the monastery is suffering in general from lack of funds, like other church institutions here, because of the economic cutbacks in Greece.

With restoration work on some Byzantine churches, particularly in rural areas, already being scaled back, the future of monasteries like Dimiova and the gentle souls who inhabit them is more in doubt than ever.

Sister Kiriaki hitting the traditional wooden talado, which is used to call the faithful to prayers or for meals

When we finally take our leave much later after the lovely esperinos, the evening service, for the long nerve-pinching drive back down the mountain, we are told to come back soon and are given more gifts of filakta, small embroidered pouches smelling of lavender, which, whispers Kiriaki in my ear, are to be worn near the heart “for protection”.

The inside of the church with its ornate iconostasis and some of the frescos on the interior columns

All the way down the mountain road in the fading light I feel sleepy with the heat but I have to keep my eye out for more scree over the road, but luckily it’s all clear. Neither of us feel inclined to talk, lost in our own thoughts.

Apart from the heavenly mountain setting and the history of the place that you feel in every well-worn corner of Dimiova, for me it is the two lovely nuns who are the spirit of the place. And unexpectedly inspiring.

At a time when Greece is rocked by harsh austerity measures, job losses, rising suicide rates, and loss of confidence, here are two people uncomplaining about a life pared down to the bone. Their simple life and their serenity has a way of cutting through all our modern worries like that church bell tolling down a deserted mountainside at seven in the morning.

* Information about Dimiova through the Metropolis of Messenia www.mmess.gr

A longer version of this blog post formed the basis for the Chapter, Touching Heaven, in my second travel memoir Homer’s Where the Heart Is. For more information about this book and the first memoir Things Can Only Get Feta, about my three years living in the southern Peloponnese, go to the books page on the website www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com or order through www.amazon.co.uk or www.amazon.com

Thanks for calling by.

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From the Big Apple to a Big Greek Village

Posted on December 6, 2015 by Marjory

Caption for linda and hubby with NY skyline

A recent photo of Linda and Nick in front of the New York skyline

This week I am interviewing Linda Fagioli-Katsiotas, a New York teacher and writer who married a Greek in the 1980s and bravely went to live with her new family in a remote and raw village in Epirus, in Greece. Her fascinating story is the subject of her memoir The Nifi.

Q: Welcome to my blog, Linda. Tell us a bit about yourself.

A: First let me thank you for inviting me to this interview. I was born and raised on Long Island, outside of New York City. My father’s parents were Italian immigrants and my mother was from the little town of Malone, in the Adirondack Mountains; her parents were French Canadian. I’ve been a teacher for 21 years, working with immigrant children at my local school.

Q: In your 20s you married a Greek. Tell us a little about that.

A: I met my husband in 1980 at a restaurant on Long Island, where we worked together. Nick had been in the US since 1978 and didn’t speak a lot of English but it was enough. Later we eloped after knowing each other for about a year. It was a marriage with all the trimmings for failure: different culture, religion, language, ethnic background, but somehow we made it.

The traditional village of Margariti in Epirus

A young Linda and Nick in 1983 getting to grips with village life, and roasting a goat for lunch

Q: Later you went to live for a while in your husband’s native village of Margariti, in Epirus, north-west Greece. What was your Big Fat Greek Immersion like?

A: At that age, I had no idea what I was doing. I was madly in love and, probably like every young person then, I wanted a life that was different from the mainstream. Nick was quite a tough person and I realised when I got to his village why he was like that. Most of the people in Margariti are tough. It’s a matter of survival. The journey to his village was my first trip out of the US. Epirus is a beautiful mountainous area with some of the most exquisite beaches as well like Karovostasi. But lovely surroundings quickly lose their appeal when you’re living in quite primitive conditions, without the ability to communicate with anyone.

Q: In your book you have a funny description of your first day, looking for a workable toilet in your mother-in-law’s house. What was it really like there for a young American?

A: The difference between living on Long Island and living in Epirus was extreme. There was no running water and we had to collect it from a nearby natural spring, no fly screens on windows or doors, very few cars, no television signals, maybe one or two telephones in the whole village, but not at my in-laws’ house. And yes, that toilet! Many toilets in those days were just holes in the ground. Nick’s was a porcelain toilet but it only had a pipe leading to a ditch outside the house. There was often family waiting outside the rickety door held shut by a piece of string.

Linda helping her mother-in-law Chevi to make pita bread in 2003

Q: Apart from toilets, your worst problem, I imagine, was trying to get to know the in-laws, but speaking no Greek.

A: Yes, that’s true, and to make things worse my mother-in-law Chevi spoke a northern dialect, Albenetika, which I didn’t know either. We couldn’t disagree on anything though because between us there weren’t enough words in any language for us to argue. But she was kind and always used simple body language and, in later years, simple Greek words, and somehow we understood each other.

Linda and Nick in the village this year and on Karovostasi beach (below)

Q: You live in the US, but still spend most summers in Margariti and, judging by your blog posts, it looks idyllic. What is the village like now?

A: I have enjoyed writing about my Greek life on my blog www.truestorythenifi.blogspot.com. These days, Margariti is perfect. It has the old-style charm that it originally had. It’s near to many different beaches and seaside villages but it’s also away from the tourist crowd. Most important, however, are the changes that brought the amenities I had in the US: Internet connections, indoor plumbing, satellite TV and a car. Anyone who is yearning to live the old way without these modern conveniences is someone who’s never done it before.

Q: When did you decide to put your experiences into your first book The Nifi? How was it received?

A: The word νύφη (nifi) means bride in Greek but is also used to refer to a woman who marries into a family. My mother-in-law, Chevi, had an arranged marriage with a member of the Katsiotas family. He was a stranger from another village. I wanted to write down the stories that she’d been telling us over the years, which were so incredible, with so much drama and heartache. I wanted my two children to understand their background. In the book, I have also juxtaposed my experience as a non-Greek nifi in alternating chapters with my mother-in-law’s life. The Nifi has sold well, but best of all, in the UK. So I want to thank all my British readers.

Q: What did your mother-in-law think about your first book, inspired by her.

A: My mother-in-law passed away just as I was finishing The Nifi. She died two weeks after a stroke but remained in her home the entire time. I cannot put into words the effect that those two weeks had on me. Chevi knew I was writing the story but I don’t think she realised it was going to be a book. I wish there had been time to show her some translated excerpts. I am sure she would have loved it though!

Q: What else have you written?

A: My first work of fiction is called Your Own Kind. It was published last spring. In the book, Sara is a young girl who comes in contact with several young men from different cultures. Love, jealousy, desire and racism play against each other in a plot that takes the reader from Turkey to Greece to Long Island.

I’m currently working on a new novel. I tried not to have a Greek theme, but we write what we know, right? So, the characters are not Greek, but they’re southern Italian, which is basically Greek!

Q: Okay, if you say so! Still on the subject of Greece, however, what do you think about the economic crisis there. Has it impacted greatly on Epirus and your Greek family?

A: It has unfortunately impacted on everyone I know. My generation, those who started families 30 years ago, did so in the upward climb of those wonderful improvements I mentioned before, whereas the generation before that was mostly living in poverty. Life has been good for a few decades now and young people only know that life. I think the effects of the crisis and the austerity will be hardest for them.

I know people of my age, however, who have saved relentlessly and worked like dogs all their lives, expecting that hard work and savings would be enough, and now they’re poor again. Life is difficult in Epirus now but the region was always Greece’s poorest child, so these are very tough people. Most live off the land or know how to if they must.

Q: Would you and your husband ever consider retiring to Greece one day?

A: I have two adult children, Nikki and Thomas, who are just settling into their own lives in the US. I really do not think I want to be separated from them more than a month or two but, again, you never know.

Q: How can we find out more about you and your books?

A: Both The Nifi and Your Own Kind are available at Amazon.com. I always love getting feedback from readers.

The Nifi

UK Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B014B5TRYE

US Amazon http://amzn.com/0989219410

Your Own Kind

http://amzn.com/B014FHVK52

Blog: www.truestorythenifi.blogspot.com

Email: authorfagiolikatsiotas@gmail.com

Twitter: @katsiotas_linda

Promotion

Linda’s book The Nifi will be available at 99 cents US and 99 pence UK as a Kindle Countdown Deal on Amazon for a week, from December 7.

Meanwhile, another book about Greece, Homer’s Where The Heart Is

TO read more about living in Greece during the crisis in the southern Peloponnese, read my second travel memoir Homer’s Where The Heart Is.

This book is the sequel to the first, Things Can Only Get Feta (published in 2013) about the start of our long odyssey in the rural Mani.

Both books are available on all Amazon’s international sites and also on the Book Depository www.bookdepository.com (with free overseas postage).

On the website www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com you will also find a ‘books’ page with other information about the books.

To buy either of my books please click on the Amazon links below:

Things Can Only Get Feta

Homer’s Where The Heart Is

You can also find me on Twitter @fatgreekodyssey

And Facebook www.facebook.com/ThingsCanOnlyGetFeta

www.facebook.com/HomersWhereTheHeartIs

I always welcome comments on the blog. Thanks for calling by.

© All rights reserved. All text and photographs copyright of the authors 2015. No content/text or photographs may be copied from the blog without the prior written permission of the authors. This applies to all posts on the blog

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Why the EU must embrace the Zorba philosophy

Posted on July 18, 2015 by Marjory

Anthony Quinn as Zorba, with Alan Bates, dancing the sirtaki in the 1964 movie

THE events of the last few weeks, as Greece has fought for a new bailout deal, have left us all in shock. They have shown us how oppressive and vindictive the EU can be and, in contrast, how spirited and stoical the Greeks are when under attack and fighting for their lives.

I don’t want to add any more to the voluminous public discussions. Greater minds than mine have debated all the political/economic issues of the crisis. As someone who loves Greece, I can only pray there will be a good outcome for the country, despite more austerity piling up against it.

What I have gathered from watching recent events unfold – the June referendum and then EU leaders, particularly Germany, acting like schoolyard bullies – is this: most Europeans don’t really understand Greeks, or their culture. It’s as if few of them have ever been to Greece.

What EU leaders have tried to do is shoehorn the Greek character into a northern European template. It won’t go; it never will go. It’s ham-fisted and almost laughable. Greeks have a different story, a different history and cultural influences. Greece is still the least European country in Europe, still leaning gently towards its old Levantine influences, which makes it the exotic, appealing, often chaotic and, sometimes, maddeningly different place that it is. But we wouldn’t have it any other way.

A favourite old friend, Artemios, from Santorini typifies the Greek character: generous, maverick and an expert at skinning prickly pears

Wonderful, vibrant villagers from Megali Mantineia, where we lived in the Mani from 2010

Greeks will never be cool-headed, flinty, northern European clock-watchers, which is why generations of foreigners have flocked to Greece for respite. Apart from its physical beauty, Greece still has the human touch, which is something that has been lost in many parts of Europe, and the UK as well, to a degree.

Greeks have not been blameless in the way they have handled their economy, but I believe that it’s basically because they are different from their northern partners, their character has come in for a battering. They have been labelled as lazy, work-shy and corrupt, and these clichés have been echoed unfairly throughout much of the international media.

There is corruption, of course, as there is in every country, and there are complex reasons for it, but I believe that due to a weaker and not very independent media, the corruption and excesses of past governments have not been exposed as they might have been in western countries. Only now are we seeing more transparency in Greece, and the internet and social media has helped to expose wrongdoing where some of the press has not.

We forget that Greece has only recently emerged from a devastating series of occupations and political upheavals: 400 years of Turkish occupation; the punitive German occupation of the Second World War and the Greek civil war it spawned, and a disastrous military takeover in 1967 with a regime that lasted until 1974.

Four decades of relative calm since the 1970s is but a drop in the ocean for a country to re-invent itself. Until recent weeks, at least, the economic crisis was just another upheaval that Greeks have had to cope with.

During my time in Greece, I have found Greeks are among the hardest working people in Europe. In the last five years I met countless people, especially in the restaurant trade, who work more than 12 hours a day, seven days a week from May to October and in many areas like the Peloponnese will then do a long olive harvest in the winter.

Greeks are bred tough like Foteini, a ‘traditional woman’ from the Mani

Foteini, one of my farming friends in the Mani, who features prominently in both my books, is an unforgettable character and the toughest woman (a pensioner!) I’ve ever met anywhere. She harvests olives from her 200 trees, alone, every year, without fail, and rears a few goats to supplement her paltry farmer’s pension of 300 euros a month, which has been cut back since 2011. No pensioner in the UK would live like Foteini.

Not only have the Eurocrats tried to reinvent the Greek personality but they have also asked for the impossible, for a country to change its system overnight.

Andreas, one of our Greek friends in the Mani, who I wrote about in my second memoir Homer’s Where The Heart Is, put it this way during a discussion about the crisis in 2012, and I quote from the book (chapter 20): “The Troika moans at us… they say we don’t make changes fast enough in the government, and with taxes… but they want us to change centuries of customs and business in a few months. We cannot do it! Impossible!”

The recent events have proved him right. Impossible, and heartbreaking!

After a lifetime of visiting Greece and after four years living in the southern Peloponnese, most recently Koroni, in Messinia, I do not recognise many of the criticisms and cliches levelled at the Greeks. And nor do I feel they deserve the excruciating contempt and hatred that has been slung at them during the crisis.

Perhaps the main fault of ordinary Greeks (and not the dynastic elites or the shipping magnates) is not just making a mess of their fiscal spreadsheets, but in not putting money first in the way that other societies in the west do. In my opinion, this is a country that has put life to the fore, and people, with a belief in leventia (generosity of heart), parea (company), kefi (high spirits) filotimo (sense of honour).

I have found Greeks to be the kindest people I have ever met. When we lived in Koroni for a year, we befriended a couple who had a small holding (with a few goats and chickens) near to where we lived. Tasos and Eleni are warm-hearted and interesting people, whom we saw regularly and became fond of, along with their lovely family.

Gifts to strangers and hospitality, filoxenia, is alive and well in Greece

One day, after their long olive harvest, they arrived at our house with a big basket full of gifts from their farm: olive oil, olives, capers, goat cheese, herbs, and a bottle of their homemade wine (above). They simply wanted to show us hospitality, filoxenia, and make our stay more pleasant. We were overwhelmed by this gesture of friendship. It’s not the first time I’ve experienced this in Greece. Whether Greeks are in crisis or not, they never lose this generosity, or their indomitable spirit. The Zorba factor.

I believe it’s not Greeks who need to change radically, it’s the ‘other’ Europeans. They need to thaw and become more like the Greeks; get in touch with their inner Zorba. Perhaps then they’ll understand Greeks a bit better, offer a more reasonable fiscal blueprint for the future. And create a more compassionate EU.

As Nikos Kazantzakis, author of Zorba the Greek, wrote: “A man needs a little madness in his life!”

The Eurocrats need to kick off their shoes, find a beach and dance on it. Opa!

Homer’s Where The Heart Is

TO read more about living in Greece during the crisis in the southern Peloponnese, read my new travel memoir Homer’s Where The Heart Is. This is the sequel to my first memoir, Things Can Only Get Feta (first published in 2013) about the start of our three-year adventure living in the rural Mani.

To those who have already read the latest book, thanks for your kind comments and Amazon reviews, which are always appreciated.

Both books are available on all Amazon’s international sites and also on the Book Depository www.bookdepository.com (with free overseas postage). If you are in Greece you can inquire about having the book ordered at your branch of the Public store www.public.gr

If any readers have queries about availability for both books, please contact me via the contact page on our website www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com where you will also find a ‘books’ page with other information about the books.

To buy either of my books please click on the Amazon links below:

Things Can Only Get Feta

Homer’s Where The Heart Is

You can also find me on Twitter @fatgreekodyssey

And Facebook www.facebook.com/ThingsCanOnlyGetFeta

www.facebook.com/HomersWhereTheHeartIs

Thanks for calling by.

© All rights reserved. Text and photographs copyright of the authors 2016. No content/text or photographs may be copied from the blog without the prior written permission of the authors. This applies to all posts on the blog.

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Interview with writer Effrosyni Moschoudi

Posted on January 19, 2015 by Marjory

Effrosyni Moschoudi

This week I am delighted to welcome Effrosyni Moschoudi to my blog to talk about her writing and her unusual spin on myths and mystery, and her life in Greece during the crisis.

Thanks for joining us, Effrosyni. Tell us a little bit about yourself and when you started writing.

I was born and raised in Athens, though my mother’s family come from Corfu, an island I still have strong links with and which has been an inspiration in my writing. Having studied computer science, I worked for 20 years in IT in the hotel and airline industries. In my early 30s I spent two-and-a-half years working in England. After losing my full-time job in Greece due to the crisis, I decided to start writing full-time.

I have been writing all my life! I have vivid memories as a child, sitting on a stool before my open bedroom window, looking up at the starry sky with a notepad and pencil in hand, writing poems about the beauty of the sight. In my 20s I started writing love poems and I also set the foundations for much later, when I finally wrote my debut novel, The Necklace of Goddess Athena, published in 2014.

This is a novel with an intoxicating mix of Greek mythology, time travel and romance, set in Athens, which became an Amazon #1 best seller in the Greek and Roman category. What is the book about and what was its inspiration?

The story is about two young time travellers from Ancient Greece, Phevos and his sister Daphne. They arrive in modern-day Athens, not knowing why their mysterious father Efimios, an unsung hero of the ancient world, has sent them to the city. They only know they are there in the service of the goddess Athena and they will be guided by certain signs. It is only when the pair become involved with two orphaned siblings who live in the foothills of the Acropolis, that the reason for their time travelling becomes clear, as they set out to uncover some ancient family secrets.

I think the book derived from my desire to explain to others the essence of ‘Greekness’. I can imagine that Greeks may seem insanely quirky to the rest of the world, seeing how loud we can be, how huge our food culture is and how devoted we are towards our parents and children. I sought to write a fantasy that bares the Greek soul. My story’s backbone is the Greek triptych, ‘Country, God, Family’. This is what defines us as a people and has saved us in difficult times. My main character Efimios, from ancient Greece, is a symbol of this triptych.

An old photo of the popular West Pier in Brighton

Ayios Gordios beach, a typically idyllic location in Corfu

Your second novel, The Lady of the Pier (The Ebb), is set in England and Greece. Why did you choose these two different locations?

This book combines my love for both Corfu and England. It is set in Brighton in the 1930s and in Corfu in the 1980s. The part of the story concerning one of the heroines, Sofia, who adores her grandparents and their village in Corfu, brims over with autobiographical elements as I used to spend my summers there. As for Brighton, I became fascinated with the West Pier and its history during my time in England. I felt it was a shame that this magnificent landmark no longer existed and I wanted to bring it back to life through my story.

You obviously have a great love for Britain and a superb grasp of the language, but as a native Greek what makes you want to write in English?

Ever since I was little, I had a huge affinity for the English language. I watched a lot of English and American TV series and wanted badly to speak it. I started private English classes in Athens when I was 10 and from the beginning the language mesmerised me. I started writing poetry in English in my teens and when I finally started writing my first novel, it made sense to write it in English. Besides, the book market is miniscule in Greece right now, so writing in English as an indie author has given me more creative opportunities.

Greece has recently experienced a disastrous five-year economic crisis. How has it affected your life and work?

The crisis has seriously affected my life, as it has everyone’s. Five years ago I lost my job at Athens Airport, where I was purchasing Airbus parts for an airline. Although the home budget for my husband and I has now shrunk, and with it our social life, travel and fun outings, we lead a comfortable life and still enjoy the simple pleasures in life.

We have not been blameless as a nation, however. There has been a huge amount of corruption in this country and ineffectiveness in the political system and the public sector, which has to be fixed. In a way it’s as if the country has suffered from a serious disease and the current situation (with austerity and reforms) resembles a painful healing process. I think the country will come out of the crisis stronger than before.

Most foreigners adore Greece and many have come here to live, and to retire. What do you think it is about Greece that still attracts them?

Actually, I have first-hand experience of this! My husband Andy is British and has lived in Athens since 1999. It only took him a couple of years to decide that he feels like a Greek, even before he learnt enough Greek to communicate properly. His family visit us occasionally and they all adore Greek food, the beauty of our islands and the open-heartedness of the people. We have many foreign friends who feel that way about Greece as well and plan to retire here. When I was living in England in my thirties, I loved the place and the people but I missed the summer heat and the landscape here. I couldn’t live outside of Greece again.

The unspoilt local beach near Athens where Effrosyni often swims in the summer

Where do you currently live in Greece and what makes it special for you?

I live in a quiet, picturesque town with a tall mountain range on one side and the seafront on the other, about 20 miles from Athens city centre. I spent time here with my family as a child, so when I married it made sense to live here. It’s idyllic. I can look out my kitchen window and see the places where I used to play as a child back in the 1970s. That is precious to me beyond words. The other benefits are of course that the beach is close by, which is wonderful in the summer.

Tell us a bit more about your latest book?

My latest book The Lady of the Pier – The Ebb is part of a trilogy and was published in 2014. It’s a historic tale and also a tragic love story set in two time frames, in England and Corfu, with two very different heroines, Laura and Sofia. Laura has ambitions to become an actress in Brighton’s West Pier theatre and is drawn to two very different kinds of men. Sofia is also searching for love and is lured by the charms of a flirtatious British tourist on holiday in Corfu. Although the women are separated by time and place, they are connected in mysterious and, occasionally, paranormal ways. I am currently working on the second and third parts of the trilogy which I plan to publish this year.

You have a new website. What will readers find there?

In my new website, http://www.effrosyniwrites.com, readers will find information about my books, including downloadable free excerpts. It also has a blog, with author interviews, book reviews and tips for indie author.

Where to buy Effrosyni’s books:

The Necklace of the Goddess Athena

Amazon (US): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I5GXHCO

Amazon (UK) : https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00I5GXHCO

The Lady of the Pier – The Ebb

Amazon (US): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LGNYEPC

Amazon (UK): https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00LGNYEPC

Connect with Effrosyni

Blog: http://www.effrosinimoss.wordpress.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authoreffrosyni

Twitter: https://twitter.com/frostiemoss

Thanks for spending time with us Effrosyni and I wish you great success with your writing career.

Things Can Only Get Feta

For details about my two travel memoirs (Things Can Only Get Feta, and Homer’s Where the Heart Is) recounting our adventures in the Mani, and for reviews and articles, please visit the Greek books page on the www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com website

A new edition of Things Can Only Get Feta has been published. Visit Amazon UK to buy the Kindle version or the paperback version.

If you like the book please think about leaving a review on Amazon. It will be very much appreciated.

Thanks for stopping by.

© All rights reserved. Text and photographs copyright of the authors 2015. No content/text or photographs may be copied from the blog without the prior written permission of the authors. This applies to all posts on the blog.

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My big fat Greek love affair …

Posted on September 2, 2013 by Marjory

LAST week started off quietly enough, writing a few stories to promote my book here and there; some social networking. But by Monday night all that had been swept away. I found myself in the centre of a mini media frenzy in Greece. As a journalist, I am used to being on the other side of the notebook, so this was something new.

It followed a recent interview I’d done with the editor of Australia’s esteemed Greek newspaper Neos Kosmos about why I and my partner Jim, and our dog Wallace, went to live in the wild Mani region of Greece for three years during the economic crisis, which became the subject of my book, Things Can Only Get Feta.

I was sent a link on Monday to the published story in the Greek edition of the newspaper. But it wasn’t quite the story I’d expected. The Mani adventure was certainly there, but this had a different spin. Here was a story that exposed me irrevocably as a woman who has had a long love affair – with Greece. Outed!

I blushed as I read about “the unbelievable story” of my “erotic relationship” with the country, and that I had been “besotted with the place” from the first moment I had set foot on Greek soil as a youth.

All true, and the feature was written affectionately and without irony by Greek-Aussie editor Sotiris Hatzimanolis. I have indeed been in love with Greece all my life, from a fateful childhood friendship with a Greek girl called Anna in Australia, as a shy Scottish migrant, to my regular jaunts there ever since.

I didn’t think for a minute that Greeks would be moved by the passion of one foreigner for Greece. Boy, was I wrong, as the response to the story proved. Sotiris had known something about the Greek psyche at this moment in time that I didn’t.

The article in Australia’s Greek newspaper Neos Kosmos, with the headline “An Australian journalist in love with Greece”.

The Neos Kosmos piece was picked up quickly by an Athens press agency and sent out everywhere in Greece. By Monday evening it was on most internet news site and blogs – splashed with a similar headline “A Scottish journalist’s love affair with Greece”. One headline simply yelled, “Marjory McGinn in love with Greece”, like something you might have seen scrawled on the bike sheds in primary school.

The stories were sometimes revamped and occasionally in English, with a quaint Google-style translation. In one instance I was described as having “the most erotic relationship with Greece”, as if I’d just written a novel called Fifty Shades of Greece. I wish!

Greece and I do have a history, yet I have skirted around the issue of my affection for Greece most of my life because I’ve found that other people feel uncomfortable when you confess your love for a country, especially one that’s not yours.

By Tuesday, several Greek newspapers had contacted me for interviews and ran features in the following days, and one Athens TV station was keen for a live interview, but there were problems with the link-up and it’s still pending. Which is just as well. I think the Greeks have enough problems at present without having to listen to my less-than-perfect Greek.

Another feature in Athens daily newspaper Dimokratia

But this welcome publicity for the book isn’t the main point I want to make here.

The story Sotiris wrote had struck a chord with Greeks still suffering through the crisis, jaded and tired with their troubles. And the response to it was enormous. Our website, named in the stories, suddenly had 150,000 hits in three days – which crashed the site at one point. And there was a flood of emails, mostly from Greeks, with messages of thanks to an unknown foreigner for saying something nice about Greece for a change.

It made me realise how, over the past four years, there has been so little written about Greece that hasn’t been pessimistic, blaming, insulting at times.

Greeks have suffered critically during the crisis, as has been well documented already, but what I don’t think has been conveyed so accurately in the international media is how the crisis, and the effect of the austerity measures, has crippled their self-confidence as well as their standard of living. Many Greeks told us, when we were living in the Mani, they were ashamed of how low their country had sunk, even though it wasn’t all their fault.

So I want to share a few of those thoughts and wishes (both serious and light-hearted) from my recent correspondents (full names withheld). All the emails sent were sent in English.

“Thank you for being gracious toward Greece in these difficult times. We Greeks have been subjected to pure and evil racism because of the crisis, with an intensity that we never expected. In (some European countries), patients in hospital have said they don’t want to be examined by Greek doctors just because they are Greek. Greeks have been bullied because of the usual stereotypes. Greece is not perfect and there are many things to be corrected, but it is very unfair for Greece to be demonized the world over.” – Stergios

“Your story has made me really happy. It is an inspiration to Greek readers who really need something like this right now.” – Kelly

“I felt proud and grateful when I read about you and your love for Hellas (Greece). I would like to thank you for coming to my country and wishing that Greeks would love this country as much as you have.” – Giorgos

“Any anthropos (person) who falls in love with this place isn’t (doing it) by accident. For your information, Hellas (Greece) loves you back. We are living the economic nightmare here that those who would call themselves “human” have played out on us. I know we will win as long as we are together and help each other.” – Stephanos (Greek American living in Greece)

“I am so proud that you would visit my country, my people, my beloved places. Thank you so much for what you have done for us. I want you to come here again to love us more, to feel the Greek hospitality.” – Olga

From a woman who thought we were still in the Mani: “We will be beside you and protect you as guests. Greek hospitality is great to those who respect us. Our country is your country.”

And lastly, a comment sent to my Facebook page from Kyriacos: “Way to go, Marj! You are a pure Hellenic lady. Be well.”

So, what’s not to love about Greece and its warm-hearted people? Here’s my similar wish for the country. Be well! Or, as they say in Greek, na eiste kala.

For details about the book visit www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com and www.facebook.com/ThingsCanOnlyGetFeta

Visit Amazon to buy the book (Kindle version – new edition). A new edition of the paperback will also be available shortly.

To leave a comment please click on the comment link below

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Southern Peloponnese is the star attraction

Posted on July 7, 2013 by Marjory

Stoupa beach in the Mani

THE Hollywood movie Before Midnight is now doing the rounds with mixed reviews, but one aspect is indisputable – the real star of the piece is the southern Peloponnese.

Focus on this wonderful region of Greece has been long overdue. Having spent three years living in the Mani region (situated in the middle of the three peninsulas), I can vouch for its beauty and real authenticity.

From my experience there, I have drawn up a list of some favourite places to visit, mostly in the Mani. The recommendations for tavernas and other businesses are based on my personal taste alone. Come to the region one day so you can draw up your own list of favourites.

Hillside village of Megali Mantineia

* BEST HILL VILLAGE: Megali Mantineia, in north Mani.

There are many lovely rural villages in the southern Peloponnese but this is my favourite, partly because my partner Jim and I, and our mad Jack Russell dog Wallace, spent the first year of our Greek adventure here and it was the inspiration for my book Things Can Only Get Feta. It’s a short drive from popular Santova beach and nestles on a quiet hillside beneath the north Taygetos Mountains. It’s an unspoilt village with a tight-knit community where most people work as goat farmers or harvest olives.

Unusually for a rural village, there are four very good family-run tavernas here offering traditional dishes. The Lofos (27210 58630), with its vast terrace overlooking the Messinian gulf is on the drive up from the sea; Iliovasilema, or more commonly called Yioryia’s after the owner’s wife (27210 58660), and nearby Sotiris Taverna (27210 58191); Anavriti Taverna (27210 58062), behind the main church, and the Kali Kardia kafeneion in the heart of the village (27210 58306).

Dining experience in Kardamili

* BEST COASTAL VILLAGE: Kardamili

Kardamili is an hour’s drive from Kalamata and is the village where some of Before Midnight was filmed. It has a nice old harbour and pebble beaches. The Taygetos mountains form a picturesque backdrop and there is an historic area with traditional Maniot tower houses. From the village are good walking tracks up to the villages behind, like Agia Sophia and Petrovouni. The late Patrick Leigh Fermor’s house is situated at the southern end beside Kalamitsi beach, with excellent swimming and snorkelling.

Favourite walk: from the old town up to Agia Sophia. Favourite taverna: Hariloas (27210 73373), by the harbour, for its charming owner Maria, and the food, of course. Try the doorstep-sized moussaka, always freshly baked.

Favourite shop: The Bead Shop on the main street of Kardamili (693 9455 365), run by Gill Rochelle. This is a treasure trove of unusual handmade jewellery and a trillion fab beads if you want to get creative while on holiday and make your own. Gill is also very knowledgeable about this area.

Kalogria beach with the house of George Zorbas

* BEST LITERARY CONNECTION: Kalogria beach

Ten minutes further south from Kardamili is the sheltered sandy cove where much of the book Zorba the Greek was conceptualised. Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis spent some time here with the real George Zorbas when they were running a lignite mine nearby (see earlier blog post in November for more details). The beach here, where the writer lived in a wooden hut, now demolished, was also the inspiration for the scene in the book where Zorba teaches the narrator to dance the sirtaki. Stoupa is a close second, a long sandy beach nearby with a good selection of tavernas.

Altomira village in the Taygetos mountains

* BEST LOFTY VILLAGE: Altomira

This is a fabulous village in north Mani at nearly 3,000 ft with a stunning view towards Profitis Ilias, the highest peak in the Taygetos range. The village is partially in ruins, though many Greeks are buying houses and renovating them for summer holidays. The best approach is from the main Kalamata to Stoupa road with the turn-off to Sotirianika, and a 4×4 is recommended.

If you’re a fit, keen walker, there is an old stone kalderimi (donkey track), called the Biliova, from Sotirianika up the side of a hill that will lead you to the village, with great views. You will need to get hold of a local walking map.

Near the Cave of Hades, Cape Tainaron

* BEST SPOOKY SITE: The Cave of Hades

This is situated on Cape Tainaron at the tip of the Mani peninsula. From the end of the road, at the car park, you take the path down to a nearby cove and the cave is behind a high rocky outcrop, covered by bushes. This is the doorway to the Underworld mentioned by ancient writers and scholars. The place where Hercules performed his 12^th labour, dragging out the three-headed dog Cerberus. From here there is a path to some ancient Roman ruins with mosaics and further on is the lighthouse on the southernmost point of Greece.

Favourite taverna: This is on the road down to the fascinating town of Areopolis, and the Cape, at wide Limeni Bay near Otylo. Takis Taverna (27330 51327) is right by the water where fishing boats pull in and land the day’s catch.

Stunning Voidokoilia beach

* BEST BEACH: Voidokoilia

Apart from the long peaceful Santova beach in the Mani, the most perfect, photogenic beach is Voidokoilia, near Navarino Bay on the Messinian peninsula (left-hand prong). Shaped like the Greek letter omega Ω, it has two headlands, one with a ruined Frankish castle on top. The sand here is soft and the water pale and silky. There is nothing much here apart from the beach, so head back towards Pylos town to the fishing village of Yialova with its own sandy beach and a row of nice tavernas and cafes by the water.

View across Kalamata city centre

* BEST CITY: Kalamata

Okay, it’s the only city of the southern Peloponnese, but as Greek cities go, this one is very appealing. Set at the head of the Messinian Gulf, it has the lot: a long clean city beach; history (the historic centre, Frankish castle, cathedral and archaeological museum); a vibrant café scene along Navarino Street; a bustling marina with a selection of tavernas.

Favourite tavernas: Koilakos for fish, especially calamari and grilled octopus, Navarinou St, 12, (27210 22016); the Argo, Salaminos St 52, (27210 25380). Favourite dish, grilled sardines. The other dish is the lovely Adonis, a very entertaining waiter, and a city celebrity. Ta Rolla, Sparta St, 53 (27210 26218). An old-style taverna in the market area of the city with wine barrels full of a lovely local brew and specialties like bean soup and stuffed tomatoes.

Best monastery/silk workshop in Kalamata:

Head to the 18^th century Kalograion (Nuns’) Monastery in Mystra Street (near the Ypapanti Cathedral). Once internationally famous for its silk products, made at the monastery by the nuns, it still produces many lovely items in-house though the nuns number only a couple of dozen these days. The shop here stocks unique hand-printed scarves, embroideries, as well as small icons and religious books.

This is an oasis of calm in the city with a courtyard shaded by orange trees and two small churches. Later, head to the Ypapanti Cathedral to see the ‘miraculous’ icon of the Panagia (Virgin Mary) saved from a fire in the 19^th century during a skirmish with the Turks, and the patroness of this city.

Other places to visit in the southern Peloponnese: the archaeological site of Ancient Messene, north-west of Kalamata, close to the village of Mavromati; Nestor’s Palace, one of the finest Mycenaean sites in southern Greece, near Pylos. The twin “eyes of the Venetian empire” Koroni and sprawling Methoni castles at the tip of the Messinian peninsula; lastly, Monemvasia, Greece’s “rock of Gibraltar” in the Laconian peninsula.

For more information about what to see and do in the southern Peloponnese go to our home page on www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com or visit www.mythicalpeloponnese.gr run by the Greek National Tourist Board. A great site for walking tracks in the Mani and other information: www.insidemani.gr

Marjory and Wallace with the new book

A book about living in Greece

For more details about my book, Things Can Only Get Feta (Bene Factum Publishing, London) based on three years living in the Mani, southern Greece during the crisis, visit my website www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com or visit Facebook www.facebook.com/ThingsCanOnlyGetFeta

Visit Amazon to buy the book (Kindle version – new edition). A new edition of the paperback will also be available shortly.

To read my recent story in The Scotsman newspaper about the southern Peloponnese please click on the following link: http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/features/travel-mani-delights-in-greece-1-2976801

If you are a resident or frequent visitor to the southern Peloponnese please share your favourite place and tell me what it means to you. Click on ‘comments’ link below

To leave a comment please click on the comment link below

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Things can only get feta …

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Marjory

CAN you have an adventure in crisis-torn Greece and not come unstuck? Can you take a mad Jack Russell dog to a rural region and not create havoc? Can you ever feel like more than an outsider in a mountain village that has changed little over the centuries?

You might find the answers to these questions, and hopefully have a giggle along the way, in the book based on my first year in the Mani, in the southern Peloponnese, due to be published in July this year. It’s called Things Can Only Get Feta (Two journalists and their crazy dog living through the Greek crisis) by Marjory McGinn.

In the first year of the big fat Greek adventure, along with my partner Jim (which I started writing about in this blog in 2010), we had such an amazing time, having travelled extensively through this beautiful region, and having befriended some wonderful local characters, that I wanted to shape it into a book so that other adventurers/armchair travellers could get a feel for this unique rural way of life.

Chairman: Wallace soaking up the sun in the Mani

Chairman: Wallace sunbakes in the Mani

I was encouraged by many of the regular blog readers who wrote to the website saying how much they enjoyed our mad meanderings in Greece, especially with naughty Wallace the Jack Russell in tow. A big thanks for that and I hope you enjoy the book.

For an outline of the book and details of how to pre-order it, click on this link to take you to the home page of our website: http://www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com

Visit Amazon to buy the book (Kindle version – new edition). A new edition of the paperback will also be available shortly.

Land’s end: Marjory and Wallace at the southernmost point of the Mani peninsula

Looking back

When we set off in early 2010, it was supposed to be for a year’s adventure only. We aimed to live in the Mani region (middle peninsula of the southern Peloponnese), but we had no idea of the exact location, or what our life would be like, or even if we would find a suitable place to live, especially in the midst of an economic crisis. But that’s the whole point of adventure – stepping right into the unknown and taking whatever comes your way.

The village we ended up in surpassed all our expectations, particularly with regard to the location and the wonderful local characters we met, some colourful British expats, and the mad escapades that would unfold. But other things were difficult, as we outlined in the blog: dealing with Greek bureaucracy, buying a Greek car, surviving the first scorching summer, dealing with alien wildlife (the critters, not the expats) – scorpions, polecats, snakes, hornets.

Then there was the problem of getting a tiny Greek village with typical zero-tolerance of ‘pet’ dogs to accept the crazy, barky, territorial Wallace. Many villagers had never seen a Jack Russell dog before and to their mind, he just looked like a small mutant sheep. To find out how Wallace’s immersion into Greek life panned out, you’ll have to read the book.

Branching out: Jim and Wallace enjoying the lush olive orchards in the spring

One year’s adventure turned into another and in the end we stayed almost three years in the southern Peloponnese, having loved every mad and magical moment. Then there was the Greek crisis, of course. I commented on this in the blog along the way and we did see some massive changes over the three years, particularly in the city of Kalamata where shop closures and business failures were a daily occurrence.

The austerity measures affected everyone in the region, sometimes tragically so, but one thing that never changed was the stoicism of Greek people and their enduring spirit particularly in the face of often spiteful criticism by the international media. Stories from outside the country that depicted Greeks as ‘lazy’ and ‘work-shy’ were not helpful, and yet anyone who has lived in the country will know just how hard most ordinary Greeks do work and strive for a better life, with no state handouts.

Water baby: Wallace swimming in a cove in the shadow of the Taygetos mountains

In our three years, we travelled the whole of the southern Peloponnese, through the Mani, Laconia and the Messinian peninsula, much of which we have already written about and many places we haven’t got round to writing about yet. I will post some short blogs on these, with photos, over the coming months, and general thoughts about Greek life, as we found it. So please keep reading, and your feedback, as always, is appreciated.

We are currently back in Britain for the time being but are keeping close ties with Greece and look forward to our next big fat adventure there.

Best wishes for a happy summer.

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Will the crisis kill off unique Greek monasteries?

Posted on September 6, 2012 by Marjory

Dimiova women’s monastery high up in the Taygetos mountains in the southern Peloponnese

IT was sad indeed to hear of the death of one of the last two nuns at the unique Dimiova monastery, east of Kalamata, in the southern Peloponnese. Sister Christina, in her seventies, died last December after a long illness. I had met her and the Abbess of Dimiova, Sister Kiriaki, during a day-long ‘retreat’ at the monastery in 2012 and subsequently wrote a blog piece about my memorable experiences there.

With only the Abbess remaining now at this remote place high in the Taygetos Mountains, the future of this outstanding monastery, which houses one of the most revered icons in this part of the Peloponnese, will now be in doubt. There are only a handful of working monasteries left in this region, particularly for women.

During lunch that day at the monastery, it was Sister Kiriaki who remarked that the economic crisis had impacted drastically on the monastery, on its much needed repair and renovations and its ability to support more nuns. The two remaining nuns had been leading very humble, restricted lives even before the crisis began, but now the situation was much bleaker, as it has been for most priests as well in the Orthodox church, and the churches themselves.

In a modern world where religion has less significance for many people, a common complaint (even from younger Greeks as well) is: “Why do we need monasteries?”

The Orthodox religion is an integral part of the vibrant Greek culture, but the issue goes beyond religion I think. These Greek monasteries, and many churches, are unique historic buildings and contain a wealth of outstanding Byzantine frescos that are surely as important to European art tradition as any Italian Renaissance masterpiece. Painted on the interiors of churches, often open to the elements, the frescos are fading and in need of regular upkeep, now mostly impossible in the crisis. If you are lucky, you might see inside one of these establishments once or twice a year on certain saints’ days.

The monasteries are also an enduring part of the communities that surround them and have, during difficult periods of Greek history protected communities, hidden Greek freedom fighters and have promoted the Greek language and its culture. If these great institutions close, and finally crumble into ruins, it will become near impossible to revive them in future decades.

One day in the future, Greeks will surely climb out of the economic crisis, but without these splendid historic and religious monuments, the country they inherit will not be the one we know today. And that would be a tragedy.

To give an idea of how special Dimiova is, I am posting here a slightly shortened version of the blog I wrote in 2012. If you feel strongly about the subject, do please leave a comment on the post.

The church dedicated to the Dormition of the Panayia at Dimiova was built in the 17th century

“How will we be able to glean anything about the nuns’ lives if we can’t talk to them?” asked Gillian.

We were simply to find that out for ourselves, Papa Sotiris seemed to indicate rather mysteriously.

****

The Abbess Sister Kiriaki, left, Papa Sotiris, the priest at Dimiova, and Sister Christina

Papa Sotiris, top, lighting the votive lamp in front of the icon of the Panayia Dimiovitissa. Above: the icon showing the bloodstain on the Virgin Mary’s face

The icon is best known for the curious mark on the Panayia’s right cheek, which is said to be a blood stain, and there are many theories as to how it came to be there.

The winters here, says Papa Sotiris, are long, cold and dark, with very simple accommodation and heating. They have no TV, no computers and only one radio tuned into an Orthodox religious station.

“The nuns are allowed to speak if they want to,” explains Papa Sotiris, “But most of the time they choose not to. They find it peaceful not to talk.”

“They are like two canaries in a cage,” he explains with an ingenuous flourish, “It’s a lovely cage though, a lovely environment and they don’t want to fly out into the outside world.”

Many people come to Dimiova primarily to see the miraculous icon and it is kept under lock and key for most of the time. In this region there are many stories also about its miraculous powers.

Papa Sotiris says: “There have been many, many stories in the nearby villages of people experiencing miracles. Everyone has their own special story.”

Sister Kiriaki, top, hitting the traditional wooden talado, which is used to call the faithful to prayers or for meals. Above: Sister Christina in reflective mood

The flower garden in the monastery grounds is a place of gentle reflection

* Donations for the church are gratefully received. Information about Dimiova through the Metropolis of Messenia www.mmess.gr

A longer version of this blog post formed the basis for the Chapter, Touching Heaven, in my second travel memoir Homer’s Where the Heart Is. For more information about this book and the first memoir Things Can Only Get Feta about my three years living in the southern Peloponnese, go to www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com/blog or order through www.amazon.co.uk

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Big fat Greek blog

Life in the southern Peloponnese with two journalists and a crazy dog

Tag Archives: Greek crisis

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