Well, almost three months have passed since my last entry here, and all kinds of things have been afoot. I'll start how I always seem to, with the weather. Shortly after my last post, we had a massive country-wide snowstorm that cancelled nearly all flights to and from anywhere in Greece for almost a whole weekend. Crete, especially the western part of the island, was in on the fun in a big way, resulting in the above landscape behind our house and shrinking my brother's already short visit to just over 24 hours on Greek soil. He still managed to make some friends though.
March was full of sun, blooming flowers, and trips to the beach... until a few weeks ago, when winter woke up from its nap and returned in full force. The locals (who, like locals everywhere in the world, consider it their duty to do so) grimace and complain. I have a suspicion that it's really going to be spring now, though, because the wild orchids and tulips are starting to show themselves. The local Late Minoan cemetary supposedly boasts a dozen rare varieties of orchid. (Where else in the world can you say that?)
The city of Rethymno has for some reason become famous throughout Crete and indeed even further afield for the Carnival celebrations that historically take place here; people come from all over the island and beyond for the weekend before the beginning of Lent to dress up in strange costumes, get drunk on incredibly overpriced booze, and take a few giant strides towards deafness, complements of the malfunctioning loudspeakers set up in every corner of the old city and pumping out the worst that Eurotrash techno has to offer. I suppose the judgemental tone of that last sentence tells you what I think of the whole affair, but judging from what we saw the few times that we ventured into the city, what was started centuries ago by the lusty Venetian occupiers in the spirit of their homeland's famed masquerades seems to have degenerated into a mostly characterless college block party that would probably look, sound, and smell the same anywhere in the Western world (although probably at Halloween everywhere outside of the Balkans). I say mostly characterless; the presence of the various clubs and their floats, like this charming couple, does lend a community atmosphere to the proceedings (the floats, by the way, begin randomly appearing in seemingly random locations of the city two or three weeks beforehand, surely puzzling the chance visitor), and the definite highlight is the appearance of King Carnivalos, a bizarrre greenish dolphin-like creature, who addresses the assembled multitudes at the start of the parade and satirizes with withering honesty (and not a small amount of obscenity) the various local foibles of the past year.
By the way, Carnival season in the Orthodox world starts with Tsichnopempti, the "Thursday of Roasting Meat" - technically the last day of red meat before the Lenten fast (very widely observed in these here parts, I can assure you), and more or less analogous to Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras on the Catholic calendar - although really Fat Tuesday is actually the Catholic version of the Orthodox Clean Monday. Got it?
Clean Monday (Καθαρά Δευτέρα in Greek) is the true beginning of the Lenten fast in the Orthodox world, when all non-aquatic meat and cheese (I know, there's no aquatic cheese. Hmmm, maybe in Japan?) - as well as other carnal activity - becomes off limits until Easter. In practical terms it's actually a holdover from pre-Christian times, a fertility ritual tied to the change of seasons and the banishing of winter. Rural communities throughout Greece and the rest of the Balkans traditionally celebrate Clean Monday in, well, the dirtiest possible ways, both figuratively and literally. In my grandmother's village of Galaxidi, the climax of the festivities involves everyone running through the streets pelting each other with colored flour (as one old man said to me, "The next day you sneeze and purple bread comes out."). In most places people paint their faces black and dress up in costumes - particularly involving the skins, horns, and bells of goats and sheep - to scare away the evil spirits of winter and invoke the famed virility of the billy goat. Many places in Greece still preserve customs that are outright pornographic, involving shocking pantomimes with giant phalluses, and there is almost always something involving gender role reversal, from temporary gynocracy to mock marriages (and sometimes public mock consummations of said marriages!) between two village men, one of whom is generally done up like a Chattanooga whore, lipstick, garter, and all.
And the music of Carnival... all over Greece, especially on the mainland, the villagers shun the more sophisticated, urban sounds of the violin, clarinet, and lutes, and demand the primal sounds of bagpipes, shawms, and percussion to incite them to the Dionysian ecstasy demanded by the occasion.
The zournas, a wooden oboe-like instrument with eardrum-piercing volume, is the favorite in many parts of northern Greece, particularly where Roma (gypsy) people live; it's always accompanied by the daouli, a large bass drum. The gaida, the Greek mainland bagpipe, is also favored in the northern reaches of the country, particularly near the Bulgarian border. On many islands the tsambouna - the primitive goatskin bagpipe whose praises I've previously sung here - makes its presence felt and heard at this time of year. On many islands and in Athens, I should add, as a very serious revival of the instrument is underway in the capital.Here in Crete there are a few places where the Clean Monday festivities retain their old, rural character, and the locals re-enact the same rituals that their grandparents and great-grandparents did. One of these places is the village of Meronas in the mountainous Amari region south of Rethymno, where we went with our friend Manolis, one of the five or so people who actively play the Cretan tsambouna, or askobandoura (ασκομπαντούρα). The event took place in and around the village hall, revelers spilling out into the flagstone-strewn courtyard, dancing to the sounds of the lyra and bagpipes, and devouring huge quantites of traditional Lenten food - stuffed grape leaves, fava beans, halva, lagana (a sesame and poppyseed-topped flatbread), homemade wine, and, of course, that Cretan specialty famous the world over: garden snails pan-fried in olive oil and rosemary.
I was surprised at how many rituals the very organized locals acted out over the course of the day, from the undoubtedly archaic custom of young men dressed in animal hides and wearing goat-bells (plus gorilla masks, for a modern touch) running through the crowd making noise at random intervals, to the more topical "arkoudiaris" or traveling bear-tamer pantomime and the obviously historical skit/ritual dance involving a Turkish bey being made a fool of by his serfs.
One event that drew my attention was the local version of the "Piperi" dance, well-known in many other parts of Greece, during which the dancers are instructed at intervals to simulate "grinding the pepper" on the ground with various - and progressively more suggestive - parts of their bodies. You can easily imagine the hilarity that ensues, as it is patently impossible to preserve even a shred of dignity while engaged in such an act. The spectacle is rendered even more gut-wrenchingly ridiculous by the fact that the leader of the dance patrols the perimeter during the grinding intervals, belt in hand, and lashes away at any of the participants who aren't performing the task with the appropriate enthusiasm.
By far the tragicomic highlight of the event was the mock wedding. The bride, a grotesquely transvested fellow complete with imposing mustache, pot belly, and messily applied hot pink lipstick, rode in on a terrified donkey, which, after the groom was chosen and drunkenly hoisted up to ride beside his beloved, fainted. The passengers tumbled to the ground amid shrieks, shouts, and cries of mixed character, and there were a few awkward moments while the assembled crowd wondered if the poor beast had breathed its last. But, fortunately, the formidable Cretan knowledge of animal husbandry came through in the form of a few old fellows who successfully resuscitated the donkey to the lusty cheers of the crowd, thus saving the villagers from any serious contemplation of what they had just witnessed.The celebration ended with us playing our bagpipes and the last remaining revelers singing along, arm-in-arm, as they so often do here in Crete. Και του χρόνου!
March 25 was Greek Independence Day, when the country celebrates the 1821 revolution against the Ottoman Turks and honors the daring heroes who pulled it off (a great many of whom were of Albanian descent, by the way). What better place to celebrate this holiday than... Istanbul?
We went to the City (as the Greeks call it, referring to its status for a millenium before the Turkish conquest as the absolute center of Greek intellectual and artistic life) for a few days, and despite the pollution, strange weather (it snowed), and ubiquitous Spanish tourists, had a wonderful time. Not that I have anything against Spaniards, or think that they shouldn't be allowed to travel wherever and in however large numbers they please; it's just strange to be in Turkey and be accosted at every turn by restaurant touts shouting "bueno, bonito, barato!" at me. Luckily we took the time to visit a friend who lives far away from the center of the city in what amounts to, as he described it, an unspoiled Anatolian village near the old ruined Bosphorus fortress of Anadolu Hisari; he lives in an old Ottoman mansion with a terraced backyard garden the size of a football field. The last thing I expected to see in that chaotic city of 12 million people!
The other highlights of the trip were our discovery of a sweetshop that only sold baklava-type things made entirely out of pistachioes; several visits to mosques during prayers (with some really astounding chanters); and a sufi ceremony: swirling robes and Rumi.
Things move slowly here; as I type these last words, April is ending and the Easter lamb has been digested (not by me, but anyway). Stay tuned for more...
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