My Home, My Village
A Village in a Greek District
When Greeks meet each
other they will often ask each other where they are from. If Takis is asked
where he is from he’ll probably say, ‘I’m a Greek from Alexandria,’ and then is
questioned further he might say that his mother is from Lemnos and his father
from Ioannina. If I’m there watching I’ll notice a look of warm affection cross
the face of the listener as they respond. And then I listen while they tell
their association with one or both places.
 |
| Ioannina, Northern Greece |
 |
| Alexandria, Egypt |
There are few large towns
(Comopolis and Megaloupolis) in Greece and yet many, yet many small villages
(Horios), plus hundreds of inhabited islands. The Greeks particularly enjoy
village life and even though they may have moved to live in cities and each
family has their ‘own’ village that they return to for Easter and for summer
holidays. Because the village may
not be know it is easier to identify the district in which the village lies,
for instance, from the Peloponnese, Macedonia, Crete, Ioannina. Lemnos however,
being the 8th largest island will be known. So a neighbour might
say, I come from Lemnos but my parents are from the Peloponnese.
English Counties
If I’m asked that
question, ‘Where are you from?’ I’ll probably first say England and then add
some of the counties I’ve lived in, ‘I was born in Kent but went to school in
Surry, Hertfordshire and Hampshire, so I suppose I come generally from the
South of England.’
 |
| Bournemouth in Hampshire |
 |
| Canterbury in Kent |
The county you come from
is quite important to an English person and most counties are very distinctive,
in dialect and history. (That is why it feels very disturbing to find out some have
recently been realigned and renamed)
The definition of
‘village’ is very much about place, though often we do take the ‘cozy’,
‘secure’, ideas associated with village lifestyle and apply them to other
situations.
Towns
and Cities and Villages
In England,
that land where they call surgeons, ‘Mr’ not ‘Dr’ they often call the larger
cities ‘towns’. Especially when living in a nearby small town, and talking
about going into the city one often says that you are going ‘up to town for the
day’. Probably indicating that you are going to the center, an area that was
once the whole town, (and in many place once surrounded by a Roman wall), but
now is this center will be surrounded by a greater area (e.g. Greater London).
And sometimes even if you live in a town you’ll
affectionately call the center, where the main shops are located ‘the village’.
In Australia the term ‘village’ is often used in
reference to small planned communities such as retirement communities, or
shopping districts, and to tourist areas such as ski resorts, while small rural
communities are usually called ‘townships’ and the larger settlements are know
as ‘towns’.
I’m calling Myrina and Emerald ‘villages’,
only because there are similarities, and the cities and towns in both Australia
and Greece are much larger with more permanent facilities. However, while
Myrina is known locally as a ‘town’ and the ‘capital’ of the island, and
Emerald is called a ‘township’, in the Australian sense of that word by labeling
both these places ‘villages’ I’m indicating they are not towns in the full modern
sense of that world, neither are they hamlets.
Choosing Myrina, Lemnos, Greece
Lemnos is the 8th largest
island of Greece. It covers 477 square km. Myrina is its principle settlement.
Myrina population in the 2011 census
was 5,711, but when outlying smaller hamlets of Kaspakas 792, Platy 785, Thanos
451 and Kornos 267 are added to the municipal unit this number swells to about
11,006.
In Myrina there was the appeal of the
natal home for Takis, the familiarity of having visited family there
previously. This was an important reason for taking up the project of
renovating the house, to discover the basis of those memories and of those that
had been passed on to him by his mother.
Some original hopes have been
frustrated (like an original plan to turn the house into a small hotel) and
some have been fulfilled, especially that of offering a yearly adventure, and
the chance to see the world from another perspective,
Choosing Emerald, Victoria, Australia
The choice of Emerald accommodates our
present needs, we live close enough to family that we can regularly entertain
those living nearby, it has room for a garden I will see develop over the
years.
Emerald has become ‘home’ as it is now
where we mostly live and increasingly it is where we can look after ourselves
in old age. There are difficulties. Takis find it
cold in winter (always four degrees cooler than Melbourne) and I question if I
can cope with garden as I age. But it has opportunities, spaciousness,
with old friends able to visit, plus new friends.
