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When we get to Kaloni it's like another world.
The main street is full of auto and pedestrian
traffic. Shops are open and the cafe's are
full. While Pam, Andrea and Amarandi go about
their business I search the market area for a
fresh fish store that with any luck will have
sardeles pastes. There are two shops but they
are both closed. Apparently they open very
early and close whenever they run out of fish.
I am disappointed but still wander around the
town thankful for level ground beneath my
feet.
Kaloni is built in an enormous valley that was
once part of the bay of Kaloni. Unlike the
traditional mountain villages, anything goes
here architecturally and the town is a complex
of modern apartment buildings crammed in
between old stone houses and tumble down huts.
Traffic is chaotic. It is the central village
for this part of the island and has a city
like feel to it.
I run into the girls again on their way to a
hardware store and I take Amarandi off their
hands and to a park where she has me push her
on every swing because each is in the shape of
a different creature. She lets me escape to a
cafeneon next door where I have a Turkish
coffee but when she rejoins me, she spills it
while helping me try to assemble a plastic
robot Pamela has bought her. I'm noticing the
people passing by. The girls are very pretty
and in style. There are lots of soldiers who
have come for supplies. There's a man who
sells cheese pies from a cart mounted on
bicycle wheels which he has parked outside the
cafeneon while he goes in for a drink with his
friends. A man stops his car in the middle of
the street while he stands at the cart waiting
for the proprietor to come serve him. This
causes a minor traffic jam, but nobody really
seems to mind. They just accept it as the
normal course of events, and he does not even
acknowledge them as he walks back to his car
eating his tiropita. To him life is simple. He
was driving. He saw something he wanted to
eat. He stopped his car and he bought it. He
never thought twice about the fact that he was
parked in the middle of a busy street and that
his tiropita was going to inconvenience other
people. They were not his concern. His concern
is the tiropita.
Andrea comes to get me and we pick up Pamela
and her hardware. While they go back to the
tile store I drive to the town of Skala
Kaloni, on the bay. It looks like a tourist
trap. Post cards, bicycles for rent, and signs
in English, but I find an old fish restaurant
that might have possibilities. I return to
Kaloni to pick up the girls but on the way
pass a beach full of umbrellas and fat German
tourists in bikini's. Opposite the beach is a
hotel with a swimming pool full of men whose
bellies hide the fact that they are actually
wearing bathing suits. The place starts to
horrify me and I begin thinking of
alternatives to Skala Kaloni. Maybe a trip to
Skala Polichnitou across the bay. Andrea and I
had incredible sardines there a year ago. I
look at the map but it appears to be a long
way off. Parakila seems like a better
bet. I know there is at least one restaurant
on the bay because we had gotten ripped off
there last year. Maybe there is another, or
maybe they've changed owners and we can get a
decent meal and maybe even some sardeles.
Anything but going back to Skala Kaloni which
I am convinced has been hopelessly lost to the
tourists.
But I can't resist taking the girls there to
show them what the town looks like. The second
time through I am less put off by it and the
Medusa Taverna looks like it has
possibilities. Pam says that if we don't eat
now we could spend the rest of the afternoon
looking for a decent restaurant. She
volunteers to go in and check out the menu and
comes back all smiles.
"It looks really good and they even have
sardines!" We can't get out of the car fast
enough. In the refrigerated glass case we see
two trays overflowing with fresh sardines'
plus a variety of other fish. We are so
excited we can hardly wait to order. Then as I
am gazing into the kitchen I see on the table
a container of what looks like sardeles
pastes. I ask the young owner.
"Of course we have sardeles pastes", he
assures me. I order a plate full and a bottle
of ouzo. We also order two plates of fried
sardines, a stuffed zucchini flower and beets
with garlic sauce.
They bring the ouzo first, a small bottle of
Mini, with a bowl of ice, some bread and four
glasses of cold water. I pour the ouzo but
control myself waiting for the sardeles
pastes. I am rewarded for my patience when
they arrive at our table already peeled. I am
surprised that they are not in oil or seasoned
but I assume that perhaps this is the custom
in Kaloni. No embellishments. Just plain raw
sardines. This is the moment I have been
waiting for and I sip my first ouzo in
preparation. I take a small sardine by the
tail, but stop short. I have forgotten. Do I
eat the whole fish or do I pull it between
half closed teeth, leaving the meat in my
mouth and pulling out the tiny fish skeleton.
I can feel the pressure mounting as everyone
awaits my move. Even the foreign couple at the
next table have taken an interest. I can feel
my heart beating and the blood rushing in my
ears.
"This is it", I tell myself and eat the whole
fish, bones and all.
It's
sad how earthly pleasures can never live up to
the desires that drive you towards them. I
suppose that is the motivation for a life of
the spirit, the belief that God or self
knowledge is the only thing that will
ultimately satisfy. All other goals and
desires will end in disappointment. This is
how I feel as I eat the first sardine and look
woefully at the whole plateful before me. If
they don't taste any better then this it will
indeed be a long journey. The setting is
perfect: the large bay, surrounded by green
mountains, with the small fishing boats which
had brought in these very fish this morning,
bobbing gently in the small harbor before us.
What had gone wrong? I eat another, but still
no beating of angels wings or trumpets from
heaven. Andrea smiles with enjoyment but I can
tell it's not a smile from the depths of her
soul, but one with a touch of sadness. A smile
that says she is happy because I am happy but
she's not that happy because these are not
that great. I smile back weakly, not wishing
to shatter her fragile happiness. Several cats
have begun prowling the periphery of our
table, like demons come to taunt us for our
fruitless love of the flesh. I sacrifice one
of the precious fish and give it to Amarandi
to feed to one of the cats, but it turns up
it's nose and looks at us with undisguised
amusement. By now the other food has arrived
and is truly delicious. I use it as a reward
every time I have eaten a sardine, and it
seems to work. in a few minutes my plate is
littered with tiny sardine tails. Finally
there is one left. I take a small sip of ouzo,
leaving one mouthful left in the glass.
Picking up the final sardeles pastes I put it
to my lips, and slowly eat it down to the
tail. Then I wash it down with the last of my
ouzo. It's delicious! That last morsel was
everything I had hoped it would be, like the
unexplainable sweetness in that last bite of
an ice-cream sundae. Either the aura of
sardeles pastes was completely psychological
or I had been eating them incorrectly. I try
to review the previous bites to see what I had
done wrong. It must have something to do with
the little ouzo ceremony I did for that last
sardine, I am convinced. Once again I am
caught in it's spell and I go into the
restaurant to bargain with the woman in the
kitchen. I must have more. How much will she
sell me? She tells me to come back in an hour.
I spend the time on the end of the dock
looking out across the bay of Kaloni.
"How many sardines are out there?" I wonder.
the sea is surprisingly rough for such a
closed area. I turn towards the inner harbor
and look at the fishing boats, all ten to
fifteen feet long and brightly colored, their
nets piled on the decks. How exciting it must
be when they come into port each morning full
of sardines. I imagine their sailors calling
out their prices to the people on the
shore.
Then
my eyes fall upon a very strange boat. In
design it is like all the others, traditional
Greek caique, except instead of the simple
colorful painted hull, this boat is painted
like an African disco. On one side of the bow
is a strange mask where it's name should be.
On the small cabin is written 'Peace', and the
designs are wild and zigzagged. It is the only
non-uniform boat in the entire Kaloni sardine
fleet and I wonder about it's captain. Is he a
black African who has made his home here and
been accepted by the locals? Unlikely. More
likely he is a free spirited young man,
probably considered crazy by the other
fishermen, with a taste for reggae or African
pop. But it's as strange a sight here as John
Lennon's psychedelic Rolls Royce must have
been to London in the sixties.
When I return to the restaurant the woman
gives me a container of pastes. She charges me
a thousand drachma.
"Do you know why our sardeles are so good?"
she asks me. "Because they are full of
phosphorous. The Doctors of the island
prescribe them for children who have trouble
seeing at night." This sounds reasonable. More
so then the olive oil washing into the bay
story. I thank her and put my precious cargo
in the car.
Kaloni
2 (from In Search of Sardeles Pastes)
Pamela and Andrea are going to paint today. My
job is to occupy Amarandi. After yesterday I'm
sure that Amarandi would rather be occupied by
anybody else but me. To test the waters we go
for breakfast. She's another person. I teach
her that if she says yassoo to people, they
smile. She tries it once and it works. She is
happy with the results and tries it on every
old person who walks by, eliciting gigantic
smiles on everyone as they say yassoo in
return. She even eats all her eggs. Just as we
are leaving, a gypsy woman and her child, a
boy Amarandi's age walk into the cafeneon
begging for food or money. The woman says
yassoo back to Amarandi but does not smile.
Amarandi wants to know why gypsies don't smile
back when you say yassoo to them, and we
embark upon another dialogue about these
mysterious people with such good ears. I tell
her that maybe she is not happy because she is
so poor. We continue the conversation on our
way to Vatousa where hopefully we can change
some money at the post office. On the way we
pass the gypsy families camp on the outskirts
of Xidera. They have taken a clear plastic
tarp and stretched over a corner where two
stone walls meet, and layered the interior
with blankets. Amarandi again tells me she
wants to be a gypsy and live in a tent with
lots of blankets.
The Vatousa post office won't change our money
so we have to drive all the way to Kaloni,
Amarandi questioning me all the way. We pass
through a huge black storm cloud on its way to
Xidera and the western part of the island but
it doesn't rain. When we reach the peak of the
mountain we look down upon a spectacular view
of the bay of Kaloni. The clouds leave shadows
that seem to be floating on the sea, while the
sun reflects on the waves. We descend into the
valley and then onto the busy streets of the
town.
The first bank is packed with people and we
search for an alternative which we find down
the street and is only half as full. We are
able to change five hundred dollars very
quickly, buy an ice-cream, and get out of town
in twenty minutes. We head towards the beach
town of Skala Kaloni and wander the streets
looking for a fish store so we can buy
sardeles pastes for the old guys at the
cafeneons in Xidera. I ask a woman for
directions and she tells me that there are
only fish trucks. Her husband is a fisherman
and has not gone out in several days because
of the weather. There is a very strong wind
blowing on the bay and many of the fishing
boats are missing from their berths, probably
taken ashore for the winter. We go back to the
Medusa restaurant where I tell the old woman
that her sardeles from last week were
delicious and then ask f she has any more. She
sells me a kilo for a thousand drachma, and
though I am not really hungry, we have lunch
there anyway. Amarandi eats a whole plate of
fried squid, while I eat something called
agragarides, which translates to wild shrimp,
but look like small deep-fried lobster tails,
except you eat the whole thing, shell
included. We are joined by one of the village
idiots, a shepherd who claims he has eight
children. Another village idiot sits at the
next table. The first is toothless, the second
has only two that look like fangs, protruding
from the side of his mouth.
An old British man shows us pictures of his
grandchildren and strikes up a conversation.
It's his first time in Lesvos but he has been
several times to Corfu. "Anywhere you go in
Greece is the same", he tells me with a voice
filled with authority.
Yes, it's the same if you are in a beach side
hotel where you spend two weeks basking in the
sun with other tourists, eating souvlakia
every night at the nearest restaurant and then
going for drinks at the bar which is as Greek
as your local pub in Dorset. Sure all Greece
looks the same when seen from a resort which
except for the menu and the help might as well
be Acapulco, Nassau or Portugal. But for the
most part, tourists don't want Greece. They
want somewhere they can relax, swim, sun,
drink, eat and maybe even get laid, and they
want it to be cheap. The fact that it's Greece
is irrelevant.
But he wasn't a bad guy, just a little naive,
like many of his countrymen who swim in the
great big murky shallow bay of Kaloni, unaware
that beyond the mountains are beaches with
clear blue waters that look like the travel
brochure pictures that attracted them in the
first place. In comparison this beach could be
Blackpool on a good day.
Amarandi and I take a walk on the pier where a
small ferry from Mytilini, the Eressos II is
docked. We speak to the owner who tells us
that once a week he goes to Turkey. Then he
does a three day trip around the island,
staying overnight in several places. They are
stuck in Kaloni because with the wind blowing
in through the straights they can't get
out.
After stopping to buy some pompom evzone shoes
we get back in the car. I have promised
Amarandi a trip to a playground and rather
then a return to the sun baked one in Kaloni,
we drive back to Vatousa where it is shaded by
giant pine trees. We pick up an old man
hitching to Rhema and drop him off on
the road to Vatousa's upper village. Amarandi
is confused, remembering the priest we picked
up yesterday. "Why did he not look the same?"
she asks me. I explain that this is a
different man.
We had been discussing war. She had asked me
what soldiers were for and I was trying to
explain the concept, using her and her friend
Natalie fighting over a toy as an example.
When big people do it and there are a lot of
them, it's a war and then they get the
soldiers to fight for them.
We arrive at the playground which happens to
be next to the old church and the graveyard
which we visit when she tires of the swings. I
explain that there are bones under the marble
slabs. Some of the graves have photos of the
deceased and I tell her these are the people
whose bones are in the vaults beneath our
feet. There are three small buildings that are
filled with boxes, each with the bones of the
dead. I explain that in Greece, because there
is not a lot of land, they only let people be
buried for a few years. Then they dig them up
and put them in boxes so someone else can be
buried there. The doors to the church are
locked but we find an entrance to the upper
balcony where we are able to look down at the
old icons and wall paintings. It's a beautiful
old church made of wood and stone with murals
on the ceiling. It must have been a marvel of
it's time. Now they use the large cathedral in
the center of the village.
"Why are the graveyards next to the church",
Amarandi asks.
"Because they think that they will be close to
God if they are next to a
church".
"But God is everywhere." says
Amarandi.
Then she asks, "Is God even in Yew
Nork?"
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