Writing about Living in Greece

Writing about Living in Greece

 

Travel Writing and Escapism

Some travel books are associated with tourism and these include guidebooks meant to educate the reader about the destination, provide advice for visits, and inspire readers to travel with their beautiful pictures. Other travel books try to do this using words and paint word pictures for airmchair travellers. This is what, in the mid-15th century, Gilles le Bouvier, in his Livre de la description des pays, saud was his reason for writing about his travels: ‘Because many people of diverse nations and countries delight and take pleasure, as I have done in times past, in seeing the world and things therein, and also because many wish to know without going there, and others wish to see, go, and travel, I have begun this little book.’

 

I too have ‘begun a little book’

Like Gilles de Bouvoir I too have written a little book. ‘Because many people of diverse nations and countries delight and take pleasure and …wish to know without going there.’

I have tried to paint word pictures of the old runined house, the disused garden, and the gradual creation of the beautiful house and garden we now have on the island of Lemnos. Beside stories about the renovation I have also included stories of those inbetween times, when we’ve travelled back to Australia. And, of course, I’ve also included  something about the interesting people we’ve met, our neighbours on the island, Takis’ extended Greek family, and family and friends that have come to stay with us from time to time, from around the world.

Writing about the Reality of Living Overseas

The experience of living in Greece for me, an Anglo-Australian following her Greek-Australian husband back to his homeland, began twelve years ago. It began as a different adventure for each of us; he was dreaming of a homeland and I was attracted to the adventurous nature of the proposed change.  Takis wanted to rediscover Greece, and get an answer to that question that afflicts so many of the Diaspora, ‘Am I really at home in Australia?’  While having made up my mind about that, and knowing that I did not want to return to live in England, my dilemma was basically about leaving my home and family in Australia for such long periods.

So, while Takis wanted one last project, and to go back and experience life in his old country again,  I wanted to see his homeland, and have one last adventure. All I had to go on when imagining living in Greece was the Greece of travel pamphlets, and some studies about Classical Greece.

I think that Takis imagined he’d be returning to the world as he once knew it, but that is not how my husband and I found the experience of returning for, like the rest of the world, Greece had changed. When reality hit home Takis had to absorb the discovered that the ideas he’d been holding onto were myths, no longer a good fit for the Greece he found. And, while some things resonated there were others that grated. Like Odysseus, he found things ‘back home’ were not the same as they were when he left. As for me I found not a continuously adventurous life for I now had to commit to a specific house, in a specific village, and a life that was in many ways more restricted.

When writing about our experiences in Greece I’ve wanted to point out this, that the project has in many ways been different from our first expectations, that although we have vastly enjoyed living half our life these past ten years in Greece moving between two very different cultures has also been difficult at time. However it’s also been enlightening and so I wanted to convey both the excitement of having some wonderful travel experiences and something about the effect it had on us.

Not just a Travel Book, a Memoir

Thus, my book is a memoir, it covers ten years and details our slow discovery, and growing understanding, of the life we’d taken on. I wanted to share our delight and pleasure in Greece but also include the fact that the experience has been a learning curve, teaching us life lessons about the divided life, the life of the diaspora who will always feel torn between life in Australia and life in Greece.

We found that living in two countries leaves you always feeling a hyphenated citizen – Greek-Australian. In Greece, though meeting and making friends with many Greeks, we were still regarded as Australians, even Takis who spoke Greek, and whose parents were Greek. So, often at social events we’d find ourselves more at ease associating with other ex-pats and non Greeks.

However, there are benefits, we found we could observe each country from a certain distance. We could stand back and observe both groups that we were part of and as resident observers we could compare. For example, when Australians complain about the number of illegal immigrants we point to the vastly greater number that come (so easily) into Greece each year. Or when Greeks tell us it’s no use paying tax to a corrupt government we point out that though they think this means they have more money in their pockets it also means they have live without the infrastructures that makes life more enjoyable.

It Began with a Watermelon

The book, It Began with a Watermelon, will be launched here in Australia next week and I’ve dedicated to Takis without whom this project could not have begun. And I’ve also dedicated it to my three Australian friends, one who encouraged me to begin writing, one who encouraged me to keep on writing, and the other who carefully edited the final manuscript.