Panormitis Visit Continued (part 2)
From Julia
Once I’d got over the sense of triumph at having arrived under my own steam, and seen the sights, I needed to re-stock my water supplies and buy a bit of food. I don’t eat a lot when I’m travelling, and the little shop at the Monastery had all I needed. On top of that, it seemed that all the people staying in the other ‘cells’ were older Greek couples with the usual Greek generosity, and the sweet lady next door to me, whose husband spent all his time fishing in the bay, kept giving me cups of wonderful Greek coffee, great delicious chunks of the slightly cinnamon-flavoured bread the monks make (I never did find out where to buy it, I didn’t see it in the little shop or in the souvenir place attached to the museum), and paximadia, which to me are the taste of Greek holidays. In return I gave her some little religious souvenirs I’d got in Florence – the fact that they were Roman Catholic and not Orthodox didn’t bother her a bit – as someone said to me in a church in Rhodes “We are divided by walls that do not reach up to Heaven”. None of the Greek people on either side of my cell spoke any English, and my Greek is pretty sparse, but when their radio started to play a tune I’d learned the dance for many years ago, and I jumped up and started to dance, they all got very excited and started to shour “Opa!” and “Syrtaki!” and clap their hands. Crazy English lady…
The sun moved around so that the verandah outside our little cells became less and less shady, and after a while I noticed that some of the ladies were having a swim in the bay, so I put on my swimsuit and joined them. They hung in the water, talking just the same as they did when they were sitting on the verandah, but there was one lady who had lived in Australia for years and spoke English, and she and I exchanged comments on the things women talk about: our children, our lives, where we came from and where we were going next. The sun went slowly down and little lights began to sparkle on the headland across the bay. It was all wonderfully serene.
And then came the kounoupi – the mosquitos.
Well, this was a monastery, not a five-star hotel, and the arrangements to balance ventilation with mosquito control were not all that sophisticated. Briefly, you either suffocated with the door and window shut or you got bitten. My solution was not perfect, but worth a drawing in my journal:
…and I only got three bites on my eyelid and nose. Next morning the lady next door showed me LOTS of bites on her ankles, and I felt ashamed to have been such a wimp.
A little later that morning I walked out along the left headland of the bay, past the moored boats (all sorts from little rowing boats to great beautiful Turkish gulets) and noticed a monk coming along with lots of plastic bags full of food scraps. I stopped and waited for him, to offer to help carry them, and asked him if I could take his photograph. He made a gesture: wait a moment, then put down the umbrella he was carrying and all the bags, took out his hat and put it on, straightened his clothes, and posed in various sober ways for my camera:
Then he took up his bags again and went on to the fence that keeps the goats off monastery property, and through the gate and around the headland, casting food for the goats as he went.
By and by the Poseidon arrived, I went and paid my bill, gathered my stuff, and joined the party on the boat for the trip home.
