Olive Blues

I am shattered. Two days of olive picking doesn't make you fit. But I won't complain. There are people who harvest olives for weeks on end in order to earn some money. I just helped some friends picking olives. And then doing the olives with friends is more like a party than like slave labour. Especially when the weather is as good as it was the last few days.

The olive tree is originally from the Mediterranean and it is said that already in 8,000 BC people gathered its fruit from wild olive trees. It's believed that the cultivation of olives started about 4,000 BC on Crete. But it's also said that around 6,000 BC the first oil was pressed from olives in Anatoly (modern day Turkey). And then two islands are fighting for the honour of having the eldest olive tree: Brioni in Istria, Croatia (1,600 years old) and Crete (2,000 years old). Well, let's not argue about years and just agree that for centuries now olives have been cultivated for oil and preserved olives.

In the Odyssey Homer writes about olive oil, calling it liquid gold. The Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankamun was buried with his golden treasures and an olive branch. In ancient times a winner in the Olympic Games was offered an olive branch, because the Greeks believed that the vitality of the sacred tree was transmitted to the recipient through the branch. According to the bible (Genesis) a dove was sent from Noahs Ark to find land. He came back with a branch of an olive tree, which meant that they were close to land. And Thomas Jefferson, third president of America, wrote that the olive tree was the best gift ever from heaven.

According to Greek mythology the olive tree was a gift from the goddess Athena. When Zeus devised a game for the name of the city of Athens, Athena presented an olive tree, which was preferred by the citizens of Athens to the horse Poseidon presented, or a salt water spring (it's not certain what Poseidon exactly brought into this game). This is how the capital of Greece got its name and how the Greeks got their olive tree. And they still enjoy it. Nowhere in the world is the consumption of olive oil higher than in Greece: 23.7 kilos per capita per annum against 13.62 kilos per capita in Italy.

During the olive harvest the men bat the olives out of the tree with long sticks, and the women, and in earlier times also the children, gather the olives under the trees. I wish it were only the olives that fell from the trees during the battering, but also a lot of leaves and little branches fly all over the place, far away from the net which is spread out under the tree to collect the olives. Then the branches have to be sorted out and the olives around the net have to be picked up. Sometimes, seeing such a big heap of leaves with only a few olives underneath it, I just sat down and wondered about how long this work I was doing had been around in the world. Only the nets would be a modern invention, although the Romans put clothes under the trees.

Although there are millions of trees on Lesvos, the harvest here is not that spectacular, because all families on the island have an olive grove somewhere that they harvest themselves. In the bigger groves Albanian, Bulgarian, Romanian or other cheap workers are hired. In countries such as Italy and Spain, who are the biggest exporters of olives, they use enormous machines that skim over the trees and pick, sort and gather the olives. They seem to me to be monsters of machines, that take all the romance out of the harvest. In Italy they use computer driven machines that shake the olives out of the trees and gather them in nets folded out from the machines.

The only machines you encounter here on the island are a stick with a battery that drills the olives out of the tree and a kind of vacuum cleaner that you put on you back so that you can pick up the olives without bending to the ground. But the nicest story is of two English ladies, who have on olive grove near Plomari, who do all the picking by hand from the tree, clean the fruits one by one and press the oil themselves. Then they sell this very exclusive oil to very exclusive people for a very exclusive high price. That's the way to make money!

Well, I have to tell you that picking olives from a tree is not as tiring as picking them up off the ground. But then you have to climb the tree in order to get all the olives. In Spain, where they use machines to race over the trees, they intentionally keep the trees as small as possible. But then you will never have those beautiful shaped trees that make the landscape here in Greece so attractive. A columnist for the English language paper Athens News once wrote about his ideal way of doing the olive harvest: saw off the branches and pick the olives!

No, here on the island the harvest is done like it's been done for centuries: batting the olives out of the trees and picking up the olives from the ground. It's a tiring job, but then you will have lots of oil for the whole family, even for the members who live in the big cities. In Europe it's thought that the Spanish and Italian oil is the best because those are the most exported. In 2005 Spain produced about 6 million tonnes of olive oil. Greece produced about 2.4 million tonnes. That doesn't make the Spanish oil better. The Greeks are just not good enough at marketing and then most of their oil is exported to Italy where it often ends up in bottles with an Italian label. On Lesvos the olives are not all picked by hand, like the two ladies close to Plomari do, but the oil is no bulk product that is produced by racing over trees or shaking all the olives loose. You feel it in all your limbs, oil here is a fair product.

Today at the end of the afternoon, when we looked at the grove, there were another 11 trees to be done tomorrow. However, the good news was that a neighbour was offering to come with some fish, so we organized a barbecue. And that's the good thing about a harvest here on Lesvos: food and working, drinking and picking, laughing and sweating, it all goes together.

Copyright © Smitaki 2007

Olivia

Whenever my mother put a big salad on the table my father used to say: "Yuk, rabbit food!". My father didn't realise then that this 'rabbit food' was very healthy. It's part of the Mediterranean diet, which is known to be one of the healthiest in the world: a lot of fresh vegetables, fruit, beans, bread and olive oil.

Tourists know the choriatiki as a tomato salad with feta and some cucumber. In the winter you can also get a tomato salad, but the Greeks will not eat it: you eat whatever grows in your garden and now there are no tomatoes growing. So you have to do with green salads like lettuce, cabbage salad and grated carrots. The best is a mixture of these, anamichti, which is usually served with some green herbs and some spring onions.

Spring onion is the wrong name here in Greece for an onion that, as soon as summer is finished, is planted and harvested all winter long. And you don't find only 'winter' onions in the Greek winter fields. There are also leeks, beetroots, beans, cabbages, big onions, potatoes, celery and all kinds of green salads like rocket and radiccio.

Aubegines and courgettes are also a rarity for a Greek winter dish. In the winter they eat a lot of beans here: haricot beans, broad beans and those juicy butter beans. In Holland I would never order beans in a restaurant, but here they are a delicacy. Then you also have fava, a purée made of green peas (green fava) or chickpeas (yellow fava). The green fava can be compared to the Dutch speciality green peas soup and yellow fava is like the Arabian dip humus, fava being without cumin.

In Greece the beetroots you eat (panzaria) don't come in tins, but from the nearest field. They are cooked and served with their leaves, which taste a little like spinach. This dish is served with skordalia, a mashed potato cream with lots of garlic, which goes beautifully with the beetroots.

And then there is the famous chorta, wild vegetables, what my father would have called: "Weeds!". I have to admit that I eat chorta not because it tastes so nice, I eat it more because I know that it's so awfully healthy. Sometimes you will be served a chorta (or you are lucky with a good cook) that's not as bitter as usual and then of course you can enjoy the taste.

When you see so much healthy chorta served, you would think that the Greeks care about the quality of their food. However, a recent survey shows that more and more Greeks are abandoning the Mediterranean diet for fast food, like souvlaki from the local snack bar. Children are becoming too fat and don't eat so many vegetables anymore. So also here in Greece the modern food trends strike.

In the last years more and more 'Biologica' signs have appeared in the olive groves, which means that the Greeks have discovered organic food. They grow organic olives now, but how organic are they? The signs are not there because organic olives are healthier, it's because you get more money for organic olives. In the past they all used pesticides to keep away pests. They even used little planes to spray the whole of the island with toxic clouds. Nowadays they're not allowed to spray wherever there is the sign 'biologica'. Now they have to hang envelopes with the eggs of insects which have to fight those nasty flies. But are all 'biological' fields like this, that's the question. A Greek is fast in saying that something is organic. But for Greeks growing something organic just means that he's not using the strong pesticides (like DDT).

Fact is that the rains that have poored down for a month now and were last weekend pretty extreme and were causing floods and two dead people in the Northeast of Greece, came just in time to save the olive harvest. The small crinkled olives in a short time turned into healthy fat olives.

In Molyvos tension rose because the old olive press was dismantled and a new one was installed. Typical Greek the new one was ready just in time. Today the first sacks of olives arrived to get pressed into that green yellow gold. The farmers are laughing again because it's a saying that a very hot summer gives good quality olives.

I don't laugh that hard. On our land there are so many olives that the harvest will take two days instead of one. And also a while ago I promised friends to help them with their harvest, not knowing that the olives would make such an abundant comeback in such a short time...

Copyright © Smitaki 2007

Flee for your life

The Greek weather has been awful these last few days: storms, rain, thunderstorms and some earthquakes (although these aren't caused by the weather). In the 5 years we've lived here we've never seen such a wet and stormy autumn. It's like the January and February days when the sea produces angry white foamed waves. That's why we often say these days: today it's no refugee weather.

Although I do ask myself if there aren't bold people smugglers, who even though the foam is flying around your head, they just put the refugees in the rubber boats, cut the bottom and shout: "Flee for your life, to Greece!".

Because even after a stormy night it's common to see refugees sitting at the bus stop or near the Olive Press in Molyvos. Then you ask yourself what journey they must have been through. The same question that the English film director Michael Winterbottom has been asking himself.

A few years ago Winterbottom was struck by the news that some 58 Chinese were found in a container on a boat. They had suffocated to death by trying to reach England illegally. After an investigation amongst refugees in England, however, Winterbottom chose to film the escape route from Pakistan to England. This film 'In This World' was awarded the Golden Bear at the 2003 film festival in Berlin.

For the main characters Winterbottom found in Pakistan two boys from Afghanistan: Jamal, a refugee and Enayat, a son of Afghan parents. With a small film crew and a light camera they followed the escape route from Pakistan, through Iraq, Turkey, Italy to France, from where the way finally led to England.

The boys were at the mercy of several people traffickers. They travelled in small pick-ups, by bus, they crossed snowy borders on foot, they travelled in a container by ship and Jamal travelled by train and for his last journey he found a hiding place between the wheels of a truck.

The film gives a heart-rending idea of what the refugees that arrive in Lesvos must have been through. And then still Lesvos is not the promised land. First they have to go to Athens and from there the journey takes them further into western Europe. That's if they're not caught. When you see how many of them get caught here on Lesvos, because they entered Greece illegally, how many of them know to slip through the grasp of the police?

In 'In This World' the escape route went from Istanbul straight to Italy. But for a few years now the escape route also goes more and more over the northern mainland of Greece or through the Greek islands. Greece now complains a lot about the increased number of refugees that come from Turkey. They accuse Turkey of not fighting the people traffickers. On the other hand it's Turkey that accuses the Greek coastguard of sending refugees back to Turkey by making their boats unfit to go further. International refugee organizations say that Greece mistreats the refugees and the German magazine Der Spiegel even accused Greek coastguards of torturing refugees.

Well, I'm wondering if all these accusations about Greece are true. It's common knowledge that it's the smugglers who cut the rubber boats in order that the refugees go as quickly as possible to the Greek coast (and some of them drown). And for myself I do believe that the Turkish smugglers are not fought against much. How else can you explain the huge number of refugees that arrive on Lesvos? (Or do I now sound like a real Greek?). Anyhow, I see the refugees nearly every day, marching by on their way to Molyvos, to Athens, to a land of milk and honey. Afghans, Pakistanis, Iraqis, with just a plastic bag in their hands, trying as much as possible to be invisible on the now completely empty Eftalou Boulevard.

In the summer they were also easy to spot. Although they did their utmost to be looking at their Sunday best, in the heat it was easy to spot them, with their long trousers and the plastic bag in their hand, amongst all the international tourists who were cruising along by the sea.

It's a fact that the asylum centre on Samos, which was hot news a few months ago, was too small. But how can you know that in a few months time the number of refugees will triple? If today on Lesvos a boat with 275 refugees were to arrive, like happened in the Peloponessos last weekend (the Turkish boat was on its way to Italy when it ran into problems due to the bad weather), they certainly won't know how to handle so many people.

Anyhow it's sad that such a migration of nations takes place so close to us. You feel powerless, what can you do? If you watch the film 'In This World' you understand that the refugee business has become very big business, because especially in Greece the numbers of refugees is rocketing. And big business means that the cargo isn't always treated well. But even if you arrested all the people traffickers, the refugees would still keep on coming. They will keep on finding illegal transportation, they will keep on asking for help in order to reach the rich western countries.

In Molyvos they're not often bothered by the police too much, because there are simply not that many police here in the North of the island. The refugees walk, take the bus or a taxi to Mytilini and from there they try to get a ticket for a boat or a plane to Athens. These refugees show how leaky the European frontiers are. How else can you explain that you see more and more of these refugees on planes to Amsterdam?

After the film was made Jamal, one of the main characters in 'In This World', went back to Pakistan. But not for long. Soon he went back on the route he once travelled as a movie star, although this time he did it as a real refugee, to reach England in a few months and there ask for asylum.

The world is adrift and there's nothing we can do to stop the refugees. Big families are raising a lot of money to put the life of one of their members in danger, in order to give them a better future. Lesvos, or any other Greek island will be just a stopover on their long and dangerous journey. That doesn't mean that there are no immigrants on the island. Lesvos, like the rest of Greece, has a large number of legal and illegal Albanians, Rumanians, Russians and Bulgarians. They come in through the North of Greece, which is quite a different journey and quite a different story.

Copyright © Smitaki 2007

Ouziotary

Water finally fell on the island, it was about time. Nature relaxed in the wet days and the ouzo producers no longer have to worry about enough water for their production. Many of them boast of the quality of their ouzo thanks to the wonderful mineral water on Lesvos. If their plants are to work full time, then of course there needs to be water flowing from the mountains.

And by the way, it's not entirely true that all the ingredients for the ouzo come from Lesvos. The alcohol for the first distillation comes mainly from grape skins. And because in the middle of the last century phylloxera killed all the grapes on the island, for years there were not enough grapes to provide alcohol for ouzo production. So some have to be imported from elsewhere. But it's a fact that the Lesvorian ouzo is the best in Greece. In Plomari most of the ouzo producers use, for the second distillation, nearly 100% alcohol made from the so called ouzo yeast (according to Greek law you must use at least 20%). Last year the European Union declared ouzo to be a protected Greek product.

What else goes into ouzo besides alcohol? The main herbs are aniseed and fennel, but some also add cardamom, mastic, nutmeg, cinnamon or cloves. Yes, ouzo is a herbal drink. Especially one which has a fresh taste of licorice, tastes more like it than other brands. And on Lesvos there are many brands. In the cooperative shop in Molyvos I once counted at least 40 brands. The biggest producers are in Mytilini and Plomari. So you have people who drink Mytilini ouzo and those who drink Plomari ouzo. Small villages like Agia Paraskevi, Skalochori and Petra also make their own ouzo. This ouzo is only known locally.

Drinking ouzo is not only a matter of personal taste or just to have a glass of ouzo. Drinking ouzo is an art and a culinary joy. Because whenever you order ouzo, some little nibbles are served with it (mezèdes), such as little fish which are said to taste best with ouzo. By looking at the mezèdes you can also judge a taverna: when there are no mezèdes served with the ouzo the taverna is not a good one. And you can consider an invitation by a Greek for an ouzo as a dinner invitation.

So when I recently invited some friends over for an ouzo tasting, I spent hours in the kitchen making great food. For the occasion I got some 13 different brands of ouzo, nicely decorating the table: Matis, Ouzo Plomario, Pitsiladi, Smyrnio, Mini, Fimi, Samara, Tikkeli, Kefi, Varvayanni, Psaropoela, Petra en Yannatsi. The alcohol percentage varied between 39% (Matis) and 46% (Varvayanni). As a kind of dessert I found a bottle of Turkish raki (45%) to taste, in order to make a comparison with all those Lesvorian brands. And indeed this Turkish ouzo-like drink ended up being quite good.

Before we started a friend told me that we were probably going to get seriously ill. If not for the alcohol you consume, drinking ouzo can be very healthy, especially when you have stomach problems. However, drinking so many brands one after the other is asking for problems. But we behaved very sensibly. Just as in a wine tasting, we threw the ouzo we disliked into a huge glass. But for days afterwards we couldn't bear to look at a glass of ouzo.

There were many names we had to invent to give our verdict. Ouzo is never fruity or full, but can be perfumed or smelling like petrol. It's a mild one or a strong one, it burns or tastes chemical, it's not so bad or you can't drink it, it's okay or it's yuck!, it is or it isn't, it smells like medicine or licorice, it's fresh or it's like dishwater, it tastes heavenly or awful. I can tell you that tastes that night were varied. While some friends threw away their glass of Petra ouzo, I really liked to finish my glass. On a few brands we all agreed: Mini, Kefi and Pitsiladi became our favorites and ouzo Tikkeli was condemned, because everybody agreed about its bad flavour.

After 14 rounds of ouzo/raki we had no more energy to judge the design of the bottles. I started this whole ouzo tastery because of the new label for Mini ouzo. The merry girl from the Sixties has been replaced by a more modern looking young lady. She seems to be dancing like crazy, she's got a more swinging skirt, her shoes have come off and her legs have a healthy brown colour. However she doesn't look as happy as the sixties girl. But at least the contents of the bottle didn't change, unlike Malamatina, our favorite retsina brand, which last summer got a new bottle, but also new retsina in it. The new Malamatina doesn't taste as good as the old one. Last summer we made it our job, whenever we came upon a place that still had old bottles, to help them use up their old stock.

Since antiquity there have existed all kinds of aniseed drinks like tsipouri. Ouzo only appeared in the mid 19th century. In 1860 Efstathios J. Varvayannis arrived on Lesvos and made his home in Plomari. He had already learnt the art of distillation in Odessa (Russia) and he applied this art to the famous grapes of Lesvos, its delicious water and aniseed. The recipe is a family secret and is still used to make the Varvayannis ouzo. In the Varvayannis Museum in Plomari you can see how they used to make ouzo and what has changed in the making of ouzo.

When Greece was liberated from Turkey ouzo really became popular. Ouzo was once thought of as a replacement for the well known absinth, a drink that particular made the French and Vincent van Gogh crazy. Ouzo isn't a dangerous drink, although it's said that people from Plomari, who drink amongst others Varvayannis ouzo, which has the highest alcohol percentage, are crazy. There's even a local saying: never take a woman or a donkey from Plomari.

The only danger in drinking ouzo consists of the quantities you drink. One glass of ouzo leads to more. Two glasses of ouzo lead to far more, three glasses of ouzo lead to another bottle (in most restaurants ouzo is served in a small 200ml bottle), four glasses of ouzo makes for good company and when the fish still isn't finished you risk losing count of your glasses.

Well, Pitsiladi also comes from Plomari and I will never ever say again that all ouzo is good for me, unless it comes from Plomari. I also know some people from Plomari and they really are lovely people. Plomari has the right to call itself the ouzo capital of the island (and of Greece) because they do make really good ouzo. Most of them have a strong perfumed taste, which for a lot of people makes the good quality of the ouzo. The biggest ouzo producer of Mytilini, Mini, has for years been owned by the French company Pernod Ricard. Mini remains a local ouzo, with a foreign taste. The new Mini-girl keeps on dancing, but her face shows tiredness and seems to say: "Help, I'm falling!". Well, maybe it's time to change my favourite brand...

Copyright © Smitaki 2007

In a green, green, green, green, ouzo, ouzoland...

This year the last charter-tourists weren't very lucky. It was raining cats and dogs for many days and the rain filled the streets, the rivers and the fields. While the tourists were mourning their last days, the inhabitants of the island were happy. Finally water! And if you listened very carefully, you could hear nature sighing: the grass was growing as fast as possible. The island is green again.

Dried up riverbeds and wetlands were flooded, as were some dirt roads. The water-birds must have been partying. Yesterday we saw the flamingos not only wandering around the salt pans near Skala Kalloni and Skala Polychnitos, but also they were roaming around in a flooded field at Skala Vasilika (just next to Skamnioudi).

Would these birds know that their living areas are in the news, thanks to some hunters who don't respect wildlife protection? The Lesvorian Forest Department and the Office for Wildlife in Kalloni have for over a year been trying to make the area of the saltpans next to Kalloni and Agia Paraskevi into a protected area, because there are still hunters permitted to shoot there. Which is absurd because these wetlands are known for their rare bird species, and are therefore some of the favourite spots for birdwatchers and are often visited by normal tourists who like to admire the flamingos. Not only hunters threaten this area, but also motocross racers, illegal builders and illegal dumpers. So help these organizations to better preserve wildlife and sign their petition on the website: www.naftilosendrasi.gr (Look on the right side for the in English 'ONLINE PETITION').

The European Court probably agrees with these actions. Last week Greece was sentenced by the Court for not having enough Special Protected Areas for migrating birds. According to Europe 25.2% of Greek territory should be divided into 186 protected areas for birds. Until now Greece only has 151 such areas and about 12 birds species in Greece are in danger of extinction. Thanks to some hunters who don't care about wildlife.

Around 22 September it became clear that hunters are not careful about what they shoot. Around Agiasos some hunting patrols found some poachers who had killed 62 Corn Crakes (Crex Crex), birds that are protected worldwide. It was even the Lesvorian Hunting Association which brought this scandal out into the open. They definitely have to have a serious word with their members about what and where they are allowed to hunt.

The same thing applies to Cyprus. This nation was in the news last week because hunters killed 52 Red-footed Falcons, also a protected bird. In a letter an English birdwatcher asked bird lovers not to go to Cyprus anymore, because of this scandalous deed.

I myself do not know that much about birds. I know a tiny little bit about what a quail looks like because a very long time ago I went hunting with a man on Rhodes. He was hiding for an entire morning in the bushes, only to take one shot at one quail. As far as I know it was a wild quail. Here on the island it seems that they breed quails, only to get them shot by hunters. I must admit that my only hunting adventure gave me a feel for the excitement that a hunter must feel while hunting. But here on the island they play foul: I was told that a few days before the quails are set free, to be prey for the hunters, they are fed with corn soaked in ouzo!

Well, if those hunters are also fed with a glass of ouzo, I wouldn't want to get too close to them. Because I was also told that a quail looks nothing like a Corn Crake. And because a few years ago some local hunters, probably bored with small game, set free some wild boars around mount Olympos. Of course these boars multiplied, so that now they are not only fun for the hunters but also a nuisance to farmers. I don't fancy the idea of meeting a boar while walking in the forest. And what are you supposed to do when you meet a boar that has eaten food soaked in ouzo?

The boars have become such a nuisance that they extended the hunting season. However the situation on Lesvos is not as bad as it is on Limnos, the island north of Lesvos. There they have a plague of rabbits and for years even the hunters cannot prevent the rabbits from destroying all the vegetable gardens. Also on Limnos the hunting season has been extended.

And then our neighbour Chios, the island south of Lesvos, hit the news because of some other animal cruelty. Last summer an incident even made the international press. A student first enticed a stray dog with a piece of salami and then poured cooking oil over the poor creature and filmed everything with his camera phone. He sent it to his friends who informed the police about this cruel deed. Recently the government of the island made the national press for distributing free rat poison. Everybody knows that rat poison not only kills rats but also cats and dogs. So there must be a lot of dramas with cats and dogs on Chios.

These campaigns against rats are probably also the cause of death for tens of cats and dogs in Molyvos. I have a rat problem as well. Under our roof lives a family of rats that regularly party and cause damage in the barn by eating their way through wood walls and drawers in order to find food. They're too smart for our 14 cats and I seriously wonder when they will manage to eat their way through the roof in order to sit with us in front of the fire. I know: rat poison can be disastrous, but how do I get rid of the Rat Family? Where is the Pied Piper of Hamelin, so that poison is no longer needed?

Copyright © Smitaki 2007

Wrong!

In the autumn edition of the Dutch Greece Magazine is a readers Top Ten of the most popular Greek Islands. Lesvos is in fifth place. At number 1 is Crete, 2 Chios, 3 Karpathos, 4 Samos, 6 Kythira, 7 Kefalonia, 8 Ithaki, 9 Rhodes and 10 Naxos. Spread over two pages they briefly describe the winning islands. They write the following about Lesvos:

"North of Samos we find Lesvos, which is as big as the province of Utrecht (in Holland). Plenty of sardines swim in the bays and in the south there are millions of olive trees. The island is also famous because of Sappho, who lived there in the 7th century BC. Sappho of Lesvos was a poetess who wrote about the friendship between women. She founded a school for women where dance, music and singing were taught. That's why Lesvos is the island of celebrations! Mytilini is the capital of the island and from this city, when the weather is clear, you can see the coast of Turkey. Our readers love the island especially because of its beautiful nature, the possibilities for an active holiday and the happy crowds."

It's true that Lesvos is north of Samos. But between Samos and Lesvos is the island of Chios. So Lesvos is north of Chios! It's also true that Lesvos is about as big as the province of Utrecht. Lesvos happens to be the third largest Greek island, after Crete and Evia.

Lesvos has two huge gulfs that cut deep into the land, so that you can speak of three 'legs'. In the Gulfs of Kaloni and Gera a lot of sardines swim, but they also swim in the open sea. Kaloni, which has its harbour in Skala Kaloni, is famous for its sardines, fresh or canned. The canned sardines are salted and a wonderful substitute for the salted anchovy. The less salted sardines (a few hours) are a speciality on the island and are called 'sardines pastès'. In high summer there are plenty of fresh sardines and in August Skala Kaloni has a famous Sardine Festival, where you can eat sardines for free for a whole day.

When you talk about the sardines of Lesvos, you also have to mention ouzo. The Greeks say that ouzo is the best drink when you eat sardines (and other fish). Lesvos is the largest ouzo producer in Greece and it has over 40 different brands that are among the best in Greece.

In the south there are millions of olive trees. I guess the number must be right, because it's estimated that the whole island has over 16 million olive trees. And they're not only in the south, but also in the north, the west and the east. Only in the centre of the island are they in a minority, because it is covered with large pine forests. Far in the west you'll find no trees at all. There you'll find only plenty of petrified trees.

Sappho is indeed the most famous person from the island, because she was born here and lived here. Already in her own lifetime she was famous. She wrote about longing, sadness, love, jealousy and about friendship between women. But also about heroes, gods and about nature. The famous people of that time founded schools, as did Sappho. And because at that time it would not have looked good if she had opened a school for men, her school was for women, where they were taught dancing, singing and music. (See also Boulevard News from Lesvos 3 April 2006).

I don't understand why that makes Lesvos an island for celebrations. The god of wine and parties, Dionysos, never came to the island. The inhabitants don't party any more or less than elsewhere in Greece. And Lesvos is certainly no party island like Rhodes, Ios, Zakynthos or Mykonos. The only musician mentioned in Lesvorian history is Orpheus, whose head came ashore at old Andissa after his violent death. The island is known for its philosophers and writers. The philosopher Theophrastos from Eressos succeeded Aristoteles. Besides Sappho the Nobel Prize winning poet Odusseus Elytis was also born on the island. Famous writers from the island are: Giorgos Valettas, Stratis Myriveles, Elias Venezis and Argyrus Eftaliotis.

Mytilini is the capital of Lesvos, an island that is also called Mytilini. Why the island is still called Lesvos, which was its name during the Turkish occupation, is unclear. When the weather is clear you can see the Turkish coast. Well, I think you need very bad eyes not to see Turkey from Mytilini. Or the weather must be very, very bad, which is not often. From nearly all over the island you can see Turkey. Only from some parts in the west can you not see the Turkish coast. Lesvos lies in a kind of 'Turkish bay', so that you see the neighbouring country from the North, the East and the South. When the wind is coming from the right direction on summer days, in Eftalou you can hear the bass booming from the Turkish discos on the other side.

It's entirely true that Lesvos is loved for its great nature. Besides the petrified forest, some monasteries and picturesque villages it has nothing else to offer except for its pure and beautiful nature. Besides its beauty the landscape has great variety: from green high and steep slopes with little waterfalls to rough and barren mountains, from large areas full of olive trees, from whispering pine woods to enchanting chestnut woods, from beaches with black pebbles (Golden Beach Eftalou), from private little beaches at the end of a bay to the long sandy beaches of Vatera and Kampos. Besides that Lesvos is a paradise for people who love flowers (especially those who are fond of orchids), the island is also a mecca for birdwatchers. In the spring many migrating birds stop on the island to rest or to take refreshment in the wetlands and the saltpans of the gulfs. The bible of the birdwatchers, 'Birding on Lesvos' by Richard Brooks, numbers over 300 species of birds you will find on the island.

The island is loved by walkers during spring and autumn, although still not many organizations have taken up the island in their offerings. I don't agree that the island is praised for its happy crowds. Of course you will find some in the capital or in the places where the tourists go during the summer. Molyvos, Petra, Anaxos, Skala Kaloni and Skala Eressos do offer a lot of cozy restaurants, shops and terraces in the summer. But the island should be praised for its quietness. Even in the midst of high season in August you will find relatively empty beaches and plenty of tavernas where the owner welcomes you still in the Greek traditional way.

Today on the island north of Chios nearly all the tourists have left. Also the sardines have gone elsewhere. Now the fishermen go after other fish, shrimps and shellfish. The olive trees have recovered somewhat thanks to the heavy rains that fell in the last few days. The summer dust is washed away, the rivers and wells thirstily fill with water and the much praised nature also recovers from the long dry spell.

If you publish a magazine about Greece, you would think that the editor has some knowledge about the Greek islands. Especially when this island finishes in fifth place in a readers Top Ten, an island that is the third largest in its country, an island that's known for one of Greece's best poetesses ever, that is known for its sardines and that produces the best Greek ouzo. I'll keep it a secret that the Lesvorian olive oil can easily be compared to the Cretan olive oil...

Copyright © Smitaki 2007

"Gods behaving badly"

When at the end of the summer the fires raged through the Peleponessos, the help only went smoothly when the fires reached the holy sites of Olympos, the mountains where the Greek gods used to live. Journalists from all over the world flocked to write about it and the site will be the first one to be cleaned up.

But what will the gods do at Olympos now? The population of Greece is 99% Greek Orthodox and they haven't believed in the Olympian Gods for ages. The temples are only useful to earn money from tourism and the country is full of chapels and churches that are built in honour of one of the many saints who are also woreshipped.

The English writer Marie Phillips made a successful entry to the literary world with her first novel 'Gods behaving badly'*. According to Phillips the twelve Olympian Gods have since 1665 lived in the north of London, in Hampstead, in a big house that's falling apart.

Artemis, goddess of the moon and the hunt, is a professional dog walker. Apollo, god of light, music and oracles, earns some money as a medium in a show on a lousy television station. Aphrodite, goddess of beauty and love, has a sexline. Her son Eros secretly discovered God and is hiding his wings under his clothes. Ares is the god of war and he looks upon it that in the world conflicts keep on happening so that wars still exist. Hermes, god of commerce and messenger between the different gods, tries to mediate in thier rows. He's also the one that brings the spirits of the dead to the door to the underworld of Hades, which is at an underground station in London. Dionysos, god of joy and wine, runs the nightclub 'Bacchanten' and produces his own strong wine. Athena, goddess of wisdom, is the diplomat of the family but lapses regularly into slyness. Zeus, god of the earth and heaven, is growing old and senile and has become dangerous because he's no longer trustworthy with his lightning. His wife Hera, goddess of the family, keeps him shut up in the attic and tries to look after the rest of the family.

But it's not an easy family. The gods argue over household chores and they bicker a lot. Nobody is really happy with life in London. They've known better times. Apollo is even a very naughty man. The story starts when Apollo asks a woman in the street if she will give him a blow job. She refuses and Apollo makes her into a rare Australian Eucalyptus tree. Artemis, while walking her dogs, discovers the poor woman transformed into a tree and gets so mad that she makes Apollo promise on Styx (the goddess of the underworld river) that he will not kill any humans in the next 10 years.

Aphrodite also has to settle something with Apollo. She makes her son Eros help her with the revenge, threatening Eros to punish him in front of his beloved pastor. Apollo has to fall in love.

The arrow of Eros causes Apollo to fall in love with Alice, a cleaning woman. Alice will not survive this love, because Apollo cannot behave himself, so that a big disaster threatens the whole world. Artemis decides that something has to be done and sends Alice's friend, Neil, to Hades and Persephone in the underworld to claim back Alice. Just as Orpheus once did for his Eurydice. Orpheus nearly made it, but at the last moment he looked back and that's why Eurydice had to stay forever in the underworld.

'Gods behaving badly' is a really entertaining book. An original story and written very light-heartedly. For people who have trouble remembering all the stories about the gods, it'll be a handy exercise in remembering who's who in the world of Greek gods. Because nobody believes in those Olympian gods anymore, their powers are decreasing, but Phillips gave them very funny characters.

It's a nice idea that the gods of Olympos not only left their mountain, but also Greece. And that Zeus became a little senile, is so obvious when you look at the changing climate.

While the streets of Athens have been flooded several times, while everywhere lightning was striking (not injuring anyone), here on Lesvos only the electricity poles gave off sparks above a very dry landscape. For days they were forecasting rain and clouds were gathering around Lepetimnos. For days I turned off the electricity when going out, in fear that the first lightning would blow up my computer. For days the clouds disappeared and Apollo made sure that the sun gave us beautiful autumnal days. It was sultry and warm, the air heavy with water, but not a single drop ever reached the ground.

On Saturday clouds were rumbling the whole day around the mountains. In the evening heavy thunderstorms besieged Turkey. In the north of the island we had a wonderful sight of this sound and light show. Finally after midnight the floodgates of heaven opened above the north of Lesvos and the heavenly rains touched the dry ground.

But I'm afraid the rains were too late for the olives. They're small and wrinkly, most of them have only a stone and no flesh. With the first signs of winter a lot of them fell off the trees. All of this might be thanks to Athena who's too busy with her household in Hampstead. She should have been nicer to her father Zeus, so that we could've had more rains. And Demeter, goddess of agriculture, probably spent all her nights at 'Bacchanten'. Lesvos is going to have a very bad olive harvest this year.

We'd better spring Zeus from his attic room in London. We could house him in Molyvos castle. They're restoring the old place so they can make sure that the castle is adapted to Zeus geriatric needs. And then Zeus can prevent temperature drops like we just had: from 27°C to 11°C. It's suddenly winter here! Or do we have to thank Apollo for this? Maybe he had a rough night with a woman and forgot to put the sunset on time. Anyhow, for Apollo there are enough women here on the island. It's the island of the Greek poetess Sappho, which means that women of all shapes and sizes come to the island.

For Dionysos I know of a very nice nightclub by the sea that's for sale in Skala Sykaminia. And it would be a challenge for him to make a new brand of ouzo. Artemis can take care of the boars that are released around the Lesvian Olympos. And she can set up excursions for bird watchers. Aphrodite can start a sexline here in English, for the tourists. And she could start a school for kamaki's (Greek Don Juans), because they're threatened with extension. And Hermes could make sure there'll be more ferries and that they run on time.

So there's plenty for the gods to do here on Lesvos and I'm sure they'll be so happy here that Athena will get the time to look after the millions of olive trees on the island, along with Demeter.

If we could make the gods come to Lesvos, we could also have plenty of rain. Look at London, where it often rains cats and dogs. And well, whenever Apollo changes a woman into a rare Australian Eucalyptus tree, that wouldn't be so disastrous. It'll just bring more tourists to the island...

*Marie Phillips - Gods behaving badly, ed. Jonathan Cape, London.

Copyright © Smitaki 2007