It took me many, many years to realise that there was something wrong with my favourite island. If I am to be completely honest, I must have known that there were things unusual and specific to this place from early on, but I was not prepared to look even one bit into them; so taken was I by the beauty and uniqueness of the island, that even if someone had spelled it all out for me then, I would have completely ignored them. What made my encounter with the place even more amazing, is that I was completely unwilling to go on a holiday that year (as recounted on TV Dozing), I arrived there with a completely negative attitude, no expectations whatsoever and with an overwhelming feeling of wanting to be in my own house in Athens. I can only describe my immediate attraction to the place as a kind of "love at first sight" people sometimes talk about, one that takes you by surprise and hits you over the head when you least expect it, and I guess as such, my whole attentions and all my senses were focused on experiencing the place and all it's details, as I was seeing it and as I wanted to see it, blocking out everything that might have distracted me from my vision of it. And so the years passed and my connection to the island grew deeper and stronger every year, but so did everything else, and now slowly slowly as my step became less quick and my gaze lingered, I could no longer miss the ever growing plights of my beloved island.
My biggest attraction to the island was always connected to its landscape and its atmosphere. I realise that this is a very difficult notion to convey to someone else who might have never experienced a physical and mental attraction to a place. I have often been told that it is the people that make a place, therefore I must be really connected to the people there and not the place itself. I myself believe that it is the place that makes the people as much as it is the other way around, and people can and do behave differently in different places. From my experience and observations I have seen places "moulding" and "shaping" people as much as people do to their land and surroundings. The uniqueness of the landscape of my island is something that I had never and I am yet to experience anywhere else. There is no dramatic views and high hills there; no great peaks and no intense colours in the land. But instead there are low, rolling, soft hills, like waves on land, the colours pale and velvety, the land dry and sweet and the harmony, mellowness and tranquillity of the earth and sky are completely unique to the place. The smells and the atmosphere at night is more or less magic, the lights tremble, the sea whispers and the air smells of eternal summer. I knew the first time I was there that if I ever were to build or own a house anywhere, this would be the place. I have never felt like settling down anywhere but there. And how hard could that be, for this is such a remote place, so cut off from the popular tourist destinations, hidden in a corner of the Aegean sea that sees one boat a week in the summer and one boat a month if lucky, in the winter. All I ever dreamt of was a tiny plot of land there. One day I could build a little house on it.
Greek people are a very funny bunch when it comes to their own country. They have travelled the world and migrated to the ends of it, and yet Greek tourism within Greece did not exist till more or less the beginning of the 21st century. The main reason for this is that most people originate from a village or an island, so that during the holidays if they live in a city, they would go there. Each family has one "village house" or "island house" from the side of their mother and one from the side of their father, so they would alternate their holidays between those two places. In the worse case scenario they only have one "holiday house", basically the grandparents' house. When my mother, my Grandmother and I travelled in the Greek islands each summer in the 80's and 90's, we very seldom came across any Greek tourists, unless they originated from the island we were visiting. Instead we met many, many foreign tourists who had come all the way to these remote places from their own, most commonly Northern countries. My island did not have any Greek tourists then, it does have a few now, but it had an overwhelming number of Italian tourists. The Dodecanese islands were under Italian rule during both world wars and that might be a reason as to why. Many Italian tourists must have felt about the place as I did, and already by the time I first arrived there, there was a substantial number of Italian tourists who had built houses on the rolling hills surrounding the one and only settlement of the island, overlooking the port.
The houses built by the Italian tourists were so beautifully made, in total accordance with the local traditional architectural style of the region, that they were jewels on the hills of the island. The shutters of the windows were on the inside as is the old tradition, the sea-blue colour on the windows just right, the double stone walls as thick as the locals used to make them, with a quick-lime washed exterior, small size rooms and low ceilings. Even the gardens were as they should be, full of local plants, trees and herbs. Some have gone as far as to maintain the red-earth rubbed exterior of old farms, if they had bought one and renovated it. When I first laid eyes on the hills of the island no one could have convinced me that these houses did not belong to local people. The Italians with the beautiful houses slowly bought the land surrounding their properties, seemingly to stop anyone else building near and blocking their view, or in order to maintain their privacy and extend their gardens. I soon realised that the land of my beautiful island had a price, just as everything else does. Its rolling hills with the low stone hedges dividing them into sections now had a different meaning. Every year the land was carved up, its sections up for sale according mainly to their view and proximity to the village. I felt it like the land and its markings were a butcher's map of a cow, some cuts more expensive than others, but up for sale nevertheless, the cleaver falling on the bench, faster and louder each summer.
It still did not bother me that much, that the land was sold to the Italians, I guess because they seemed to respect it and build on it like they loved the place. On top of that some of them were my close friends by then. When it did start to bother me, is when it started to affect me in person. It became clear very soon after one started to dig just a little, that it was almost impossible to buy anything there if you happened to be Greek. Not any land or an old collapsed side building, or an abandoned farm; you could not even buy an olive tree. Nothing was sold for a normal price for Greece. Not even for a premium price for the Greek standards. The prices of everything when it came to buy anything that touched the land were set by the standards of what a rich Italian tourist was prepared to pay. That was the minimum price, and that price was way out for any ordinary Greek person, even a wealthy one. "Why sell my land in it's real value, when I can get three times that?" a Greek man told me, "what the Italian pays me for it, that is the real value". And a few men that refuse to sell to Italians for their own reasons, just don't sell at all because they feel they will be "ripped off" if they did. And so the island not only survives financially, when most of Greece is in darkness, but apparently flourishes. But yet again it is with external help and resources that this Greek crumb of land thrives, coming from the good taste and affluence of some middle aged, aristocratic neighbours. And I am here contemplating how maybe that is what Greece deserves for not having paid attention to its remote inhabitants, having forsaken them in cold winters, have never visited them in the long summers, have left them with no boats bringing water and no doctors or teachers placed there for months. Why then should the locals reserve their land for sale to someone who was never there? Especially when someone who took the trouble to get there from further away was offering so much more....
And it all comes back to me that long time ago, in the end of the 80's, the government was offering incentives to people to go and teach or work there. They offered free accommodation, free boat fares, double pay, paid relocation costs, for any teacher, doctor, pharmacist, dentist who needed a job. But no one went, and if they did, they only stayed for a few months. If one was willing to buy their first house there or permanently relocate there, then the government offered a special mortgage, more or less paying two thirds of the price of a house (real price, not Italian price). But no one went. And so my island was thriving in the summer, with its aristocratic Italians cleaning and taking care of their beautifully built houses from June to September, the atmosphere sweet and festive with local red wine and boats docking in from around the Mediterranean, fish glistening in the moonlight and children taking over the square. But by November all that is gone, the island disappears from the map, like it was never there, the population goes back to half a thousand, the beautiful Italian houses are shut up for the winter and the local people stay in behind their double glazed windows, of their city-like, three-storey houses which they have built with the Italian money, standing out like nails, in the sores on the low hills.
I know all this now, and for some years, and I also know that I will most probably never own a house on my island. Knowing all this makes me feel angry and sad at the same time, with many different things and people, but not angry and sad with the place. The place feels like the recipient of the actions of others, their victim in a way, and as such it has not lost any of its allure to me. It is the fortune of having fallen in love with a place, that it bares no responsibilities, for it can take no action. When I go out painting and walk on the hills and look back towards the port and village, I see everything, the old local traditional (Italian) houses, the big city-like dwellings, and I think they all co-exist in such a bizarre way. They wouldn't exist without each other. Would the locals have all left if it was not for the Italian tourists? Would the island re-emerge as if by magic from the sea every summer when they arrive, as it does now? Or would the locals have been forced to find another solution? I am approaching the house of my dear friend, an Italian who owns one of the first Italian houses built here, on top of a hill with a majestic view. His life has been entangled with the island so much and he has been here for so long, that the locals have given him an honorary citizenship. We sit in silence and drink some ouzo looking down at the hills, the houses, the village and sea. This is a place I love and I could have lived in this house forever. My friend says suddenly, "I'm sick of all these Italians and the way they have built up the island like this!" pointing down all the way to the sea.
My biggest attraction to the island was always connected to its landscape and its atmosphere. I realise that this is a very difficult notion to convey to someone else who might have never experienced a physical and mental attraction to a place. I have often been told that it is the people that make a place, therefore I must be really connected to the people there and not the place itself. I myself believe that it is the place that makes the people as much as it is the other way around, and people can and do behave differently in different places. From my experience and observations I have seen places "moulding" and "shaping" people as much as people do to their land and surroundings. The uniqueness of the landscape of my island is something that I had never and I am yet to experience anywhere else. There is no dramatic views and high hills there; no great peaks and no intense colours in the land. But instead there are low, rolling, soft hills, like waves on land, the colours pale and velvety, the land dry and sweet and the harmony, mellowness and tranquillity of the earth and sky are completely unique to the place. The smells and the atmosphere at night is more or less magic, the lights tremble, the sea whispers and the air smells of eternal summer. I knew the first time I was there that if I ever were to build or own a house anywhere, this would be the place. I have never felt like settling down anywhere but there. And how hard could that be, for this is such a remote place, so cut off from the popular tourist destinations, hidden in a corner of the Aegean sea that sees one boat a week in the summer and one boat a month if lucky, in the winter. All I ever dreamt of was a tiny plot of land there. One day I could build a little house on it.
Greek people are a very funny bunch when it comes to their own country. They have travelled the world and migrated to the ends of it, and yet Greek tourism within Greece did not exist till more or less the beginning of the 21st century. The main reason for this is that most people originate from a village or an island, so that during the holidays if they live in a city, they would go there. Each family has one "village house" or "island house" from the side of their mother and one from the side of their father, so they would alternate their holidays between those two places. In the worse case scenario they only have one "holiday house", basically the grandparents' house. When my mother, my Grandmother and I travelled in the Greek islands each summer in the 80's and 90's, we very seldom came across any Greek tourists, unless they originated from the island we were visiting. Instead we met many, many foreign tourists who had come all the way to these remote places from their own, most commonly Northern countries. My island did not have any Greek tourists then, it does have a few now, but it had an overwhelming number of Italian tourists. The Dodecanese islands were under Italian rule during both world wars and that might be a reason as to why. Many Italian tourists must have felt about the place as I did, and already by the time I first arrived there, there was a substantial number of Italian tourists who had built houses on the rolling hills surrounding the one and only settlement of the island, overlooking the port.
The houses built by the Italian tourists were so beautifully made, in total accordance with the local traditional architectural style of the region, that they were jewels on the hills of the island. The shutters of the windows were on the inside as is the old tradition, the sea-blue colour on the windows just right, the double stone walls as thick as the locals used to make them, with a quick-lime washed exterior, small size rooms and low ceilings. Even the gardens were as they should be, full of local plants, trees and herbs. Some have gone as far as to maintain the red-earth rubbed exterior of old farms, if they had bought one and renovated it. When I first laid eyes on the hills of the island no one could have convinced me that these houses did not belong to local people. The Italians with the beautiful houses slowly bought the land surrounding their properties, seemingly to stop anyone else building near and blocking their view, or in order to maintain their privacy and extend their gardens. I soon realised that the land of my beautiful island had a price, just as everything else does. Its rolling hills with the low stone hedges dividing them into sections now had a different meaning. Every year the land was carved up, its sections up for sale according mainly to their view and proximity to the village. I felt it like the land and its markings were a butcher's map of a cow, some cuts more expensive than others, but up for sale nevertheless, the cleaver falling on the bench, faster and louder each summer.
It still did not bother me that much, that the land was sold to the Italians, I guess because they seemed to respect it and build on it like they loved the place. On top of that some of them were my close friends by then. When it did start to bother me, is when it started to affect me in person. It became clear very soon after one started to dig just a little, that it was almost impossible to buy anything there if you happened to be Greek. Not any land or an old collapsed side building, or an abandoned farm; you could not even buy an olive tree. Nothing was sold for a normal price for Greece. Not even for a premium price for the Greek standards. The prices of everything when it came to buy anything that touched the land were set by the standards of what a rich Italian tourist was prepared to pay. That was the minimum price, and that price was way out for any ordinary Greek person, even a wealthy one. "Why sell my land in it's real value, when I can get three times that?" a Greek man told me, "what the Italian pays me for it, that is the real value". And a few men that refuse to sell to Italians for their own reasons, just don't sell at all because they feel they will be "ripped off" if they did. And so the island not only survives financially, when most of Greece is in darkness, but apparently flourishes. But yet again it is with external help and resources that this Greek crumb of land thrives, coming from the good taste and affluence of some middle aged, aristocratic neighbours. And I am here contemplating how maybe that is what Greece deserves for not having paid attention to its remote inhabitants, having forsaken them in cold winters, have never visited them in the long summers, have left them with no boats bringing water and no doctors or teachers placed there for months. Why then should the locals reserve their land for sale to someone who was never there? Especially when someone who took the trouble to get there from further away was offering so much more....
And it all comes back to me that long time ago, in the end of the 80's, the government was offering incentives to people to go and teach or work there. They offered free accommodation, free boat fares, double pay, paid relocation costs, for any teacher, doctor, pharmacist, dentist who needed a job. But no one went, and if they did, they only stayed for a few months. If one was willing to buy their first house there or permanently relocate there, then the government offered a special mortgage, more or less paying two thirds of the price of a house (real price, not Italian price). But no one went. And so my island was thriving in the summer, with its aristocratic Italians cleaning and taking care of their beautifully built houses from June to September, the atmosphere sweet and festive with local red wine and boats docking in from around the Mediterranean, fish glistening in the moonlight and children taking over the square. But by November all that is gone, the island disappears from the map, like it was never there, the population goes back to half a thousand, the beautiful Italian houses are shut up for the winter and the local people stay in behind their double glazed windows, of their city-like, three-storey houses which they have built with the Italian money, standing out like nails, in the sores on the low hills.
I know all this now, and for some years, and I also know that I will most probably never own a house on my island. Knowing all this makes me feel angry and sad at the same time, with many different things and people, but not angry and sad with the place. The place feels like the recipient of the actions of others, their victim in a way, and as such it has not lost any of its allure to me. It is the fortune of having fallen in love with a place, that it bares no responsibilities, for it can take no action. When I go out painting and walk on the hills and look back towards the port and village, I see everything, the old local traditional (Italian) houses, the big city-like dwellings, and I think they all co-exist in such a bizarre way. They wouldn't exist without each other. Would the locals have all left if it was not for the Italian tourists? Would the island re-emerge as if by magic from the sea every summer when they arrive, as it does now? Or would the locals have been forced to find another solution? I am approaching the house of my dear friend, an Italian who owns one of the first Italian houses built here, on top of a hill with a majestic view. His life has been entangled with the island so much and he has been here for so long, that the locals have given him an honorary citizenship. We sit in silence and drink some ouzo looking down at the hills, the houses, the village and sea. This is a place I love and I could have lived in this house forever. My friend says suddenly, "I'm sick of all these Italians and the way they have built up the island like this!" pointing down all the way to the sea.
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