Rain

Rain over the Gulf of Kalloni

On Saturday we were all looking forward for the rain to fall. After a summer with only blue skies, you want something different. But instead of the rain, we got the last trick of the season from our arsonist. He set fire to a field left from the road from Molyvos to Favios. The southwest wind that preceded the rain was blowing hard; the firemen were not at strength, because, amongst other things, there were no planes to help control the fire as they already were parked in their winter stabling.

The fire was lit in at least five different places and it was free to travel; it hurried up the mountains in the direction of both Eftalou and Vafios. Within two hours the fire crept over the mountain at the camping site at Eftalou, where it threatened a farm and houses. Fortunately the firemen on the road to the dump knew how to stop the fire; because had it gone further, crossing that road, the fire would have found a paradise of pines and olive trees and then the disaster would been great and Eftalou left totally blackened and charred.

About an hour after the last flames were extinguished, a hesitant rain started to pour down from the black sky. There was just enough water to give the people living around the fire a worryless sleep.

On Sunday thundering clouds sailed by and flashing lightning hurried along the horizon but it was only at night that the downpour started and on Monday the Heavens opened and let down a continuous fall of water.

That was enough to put out all fires and a blessing for the olive trees, which, for the moment, received enough water – thank you – in order to get ready for a good harvest.

The falling rain also lowered the temperatures and so finally the long and beautiful summer has come to an end.

Tomorrow the sun will be back, but then the leaves will whirl down and temperatures will no longer reach 30oC. Fresh green grasses, yellow and purple autumn crocus and pink cyclamen are emerging from the earth: Kalo ftinopero (have a good autumn), like the Greeks say.

(with thanks to Mary Staples)

@ Smitaki 2011

Vrochi (rain)

The Greek government decided to build desalination plants for drinking water on at least 13 islands. This will be the solution for the driest islands. Last year Cyprus had to be saved from a sincere drought by a ‘water bridge’: water was brought to the island by big tankers (for the Turkish part they are building a pipeline from Turkey).

Lesvos is not on the list of the driest islands. Maybe during a very hot summer in high season the water is closed off some parts of the day. Plomari however always gets quicker into the problems. So they built a huge reservoir in the mountains, but since years the works to finish it have stopped because there was no money anymore. This winter the mayor of Plomari restarted to harass the responsible minister in Athens who promised money, but the money never came. Let us hope that we see the lake finished in the coming years. About the not functioning reservoir in Molyvos there is no news.

Anyhow, we do not have to worry for the next summer on the island. It rained that much this winter (that even is not finished) that all rivers are full with water, little streams running merrily in waterfalls from the mountains and a lot of fields are under water. The adjustments at the estuaries and the cleaning of the river-beds of the last years have proven to be successful because when for two days it was raining cats and dogs, there were no announcements about floods, like it was the case after the torrents from heaven in October 2006 that caused more than one flood on the island.

People who suffer from a winter depression had a hard time here on Lesvos, because the sun was seldom to be seen and when it did not rain, somewhere at the sky-line there always were lead colored or pitch black skies that held the promise with more rain.

The optimistic people however could look through those menacing skies: all variations of the colors of pink, white and purple of the anemones are now coloring the green grasses and the almond trees are proudly showing their masses of rose flowering blossoms. Even the hard southern storms of last week did not manage to blow the flowers away.

Zeus, who is amongst others responsible for the rain, was in a very bad mood this winter. Where were for example the Alcyonides Days, mister Zeus, that you create each year so that Alcyone and Ceyx have all the quietness to brood over their offspring? Alcyone and Ceyx were so happy they called themselves Hera and Zeus, what made Zeus that angry that he sent a storm to drown Ceyx, and then Alcyone was so sad that she jumped into the sea. But the gods got mercy on them and changed them into a pair of halcion birds (kingfisher). Since then the Alcyonides Days are a period in January with a calm sea, high temperatures and sun (see Alcyonides Days), a period when everybody changes back into summer clothes and gathers on the terraces in the warm sun in order to make plans for the coming summer. I do hope that Zeus will get under the spell of the unfolding spring and will create some warm days, but the weather forecasts are still only talking about rains to come.

It is a capricious God, this Zeus. Thousands of years ago, in the bronze era, a king offered his son to Zeus. This cruel deed made Zeus so angry that he decided to flood the world. He opened the floodgates of heaven and for nine days it poured down. Deacalion, son of Prometheus, got warned on time by his father and he build a boat that saved him and his wife Pyrrha from the floods. The boat stranded on top of the Mount Parnassus (close to Delphi) and so they survived. (It is said as well that they stranded on the Etna in Sicily, the Mount Athos in Chaldiki or the Mount Othrys in Thessaly).

When the water started to get down, Deucalion thanked Zeus and asked the oracle of Themi how he could repopulate the world. The oracle answered that he had to throw the bones of his mother over his shoulders. Deucalion and Pyrrha understood that those must be the stones of mother earth (Gaia) and so they threw stones over their shoulders and from the stones Deucalion threw men came and from the stones Pyrrha threw women came.

This story of creation is a lot the same as the biblical story of Noah and his ark. Only Deucalion and Pyrrha did not save any animals. Will this be one of the reasons that the Greeks are not always so nice for the animals...

The Flood

I already said it last week: the southern wind was coming and that often brings rain. And warmth. Last Monday we had a night of -2°C, this Monday the quicksilver went up to 20°C. Summer! And this warmth we really needed, because this time the rain was a little too much.

Holland, Germany, Belgium and England got a bad surprise with the cold, storm and snow. Greece, and especially Lesvos, was tortured with rain. It rained and it rained, one full day, two full days and the third day the rain did not yet seem to stop. And now I am not talking about some drizzle or light rain, but without end it rained cats and dogs.

Masses of water fell down. The first days it meant that we stayed inside. It was not cold, the animals all had a roof where they could shelter and anyhow rain was good for the plants. The third day however we felt annoyed not to be able to go out without getting thoroughly wet. And then the messages from the outside world started coming in: The road to Petra was flooded, Mytilini full of water, Kaloni flooded...

When we went for lunch in the afternoon to Anatoli, we could see it with our own eyes on the national television where Lesvos, among some other places in Greece was hot news. The quays of Mytilini looked like one wide river estuary, brown water everywhere flowing into the sea. Kaloni was worse. A brown mass of mud entered houses and shops, in some places 1 metre high! Children panicked when the water invaded their school. They had to take refugee on the first floor. A lot of people got surprised by the rising water.

In the afternoon when on the island the state of emergency became a fact, the rain slowed down and we could drive to Petra. Merry waterfalls dropped down from the mountains and several mud streams still used the road to go down. The Bay of Molyvos as well as that of Petra was coloured brown from the mud and had branches, trees and other stuff all floating around. The harbour of Petra looked like a Tsunami had passed, so many things floated on the water. As well as in Mandamados, in Petra several houses got flooded.

You probably know the sight in Lesvos of all those dry rivers in the summer. Sometimes it is hard to imagine that there will be water streaming through. In the winter there always crawls some water. The masses who sought a way through those rivers this last Friday were probably never seen. The wide river after Kaloni in the direction of Mytilini swole that much that it occupied the main road most of the day and no traffic was possible from or to the capital.

I always wondered why Kaloni had this wide high street in the direction of Skala Kaloni. Now I know why it is such a royal road: they built it above a river. This river could not handle all the water and came up. Not only houses and shops but also many pieces of land got flooded.

Molyvos and Eftalou were lucky. Only some land got flooded and the road next to the bus stop at the school was for some hours under water. The lovely small river next to the road to Vafios became a wild roaring river which overflowed the road as well sometimes.

Now the sun is out again, the temperatures have risen like in summer, mushrooms shoot out of the earth and the people are resettling themselves. In Kaloni and Petra complete furniture, clothing and carpets are sunbathing outside. People clean and scrub, they are not in a good mood.

The day after the flood we took a walk to Molywood, the green part of Molyvos under the Donkey Station where it is full of olive groves. There we could see how the water had behaved. From the mud banks we had to wade through, you could see that only a small river came out of its bed at least 1.5 metres higher. Many roads are damaged or destroyed, many crops on land drowned. No, this winter rain we waited so long for did not make anybody happy.

Copyright © Smitaki 2005