Tom, June, 2012

 

Matala 1971

I dropped out of college in Memphis, Tennessee in 1969 and I put my thumb out and lived on the road for most of the next thirteen years. But in 1971 I took a job in a factory for 10 months to save money to get myself to Europe with money where my plan was to do nothing as I ran out of money and then do more of what I was doing in America... learning by traveling.

 

Icelandic Airlines got me to Luxembourg cheap and the kindness of strangers took me everywhere else for free. Nonetheless, the little money that I arrived with (an entanglement back home took most of the money a month before I left) was going fast as I learned the ropes of living broke in countries where I didn't know the customs, laws or languages.  It was September and I saw some of Germany and Austria but the weather told me to go south. I hitchhiked down to Graz, Austria and then into and through Yugoslavia. I stayed no where for more than a couple of days and even when I came into Greece I kept heading south. Saloniki to Athens where I took only a short time to visit the Parthenon and then out to Pireus to board a boat to Heraklion, Crete. There, I made my way to Knossos and then, with a Canadian buddy met along the way, hitchhiked to Matala. We’d heard road stories about this town and its caves. Someone along the way let us know that the tourist police were chasing people from the coastal caves but they spoke of Red Beach and so, when we arrived in town we got out of the car and immediately walked over the hill to that piece of paradise.

 

We decided that that was where we wanted to stay so, while he hiked back to town to get some supplies, I built us a rock shelter from the wind. We didn’t go back to see Matala for a week or so. Just red sand, big stones, the Mediterranean and the African wind. We would have day visitors from town so we picked up reports of the current scene, the police, the Greeks, the agricultural jobs for foreigners in Pitsidia and such but we mostly spent time in the water or out of the water, on the beach or clambering around the hills.

 

When we did head to town we easily fell into the company of travelers in the cafe, on the beach and in the rooms that they rented surrounding the bay. There were some people staying in one or two of the upper caves. They got away with it because the police didn’t like having to walk all the way up there all the time but so many of them had been used as toilets that there was no attraction to them except as a pretty background from a distance.

 

I stayed in Matala about three months. I had next to no money but I was a skinny 22 year old and I got by drinking grapefruit juice with yogurt for breakfast and a big fish sandwich for dinner. The occasional salad or potato omelette here and there added to it. I’d earn the money for that by walking to Pitsidia some mornings and sitting in the cafenion where the men who picked olives would gather for their morning coffee. I joined the foreigners, sitting apart and allowing them to look us over as they chatted. Eventually, one or another would point to one or more of us and tell us the price they would pay for a day of work with them.

 

I’ve heard from other people that picking olives can be difficult labor. It is ‘stoop work’ in that we had to bend down and pick the ripe olives off of the ground. In fact, the old man and wife who hired me did only that ... others would hang nets or shake the trees to get near ripe ones to fall but this old couple were content to simply pick up the ones that fell to the ground. We would toss them into a bucket and from there dump them into burlap sacks that the donkey carried when the day was done. Other than raking the ground a bit to make things somewhat smoother for the next time around, that was it.They were old but this was their life’s work and they were nimble and I saw that they were getting more olives than I was during the same time. So, I used my youth to hurry along, keeping up.

But this didn’t please him. He saw my efforts and came close so I could see his face while he explained with one word: ‘σιγά’ (pronounced ‘See-ga’). He showed me with his hands, with his body and with his eyes... σιγά... σιγά. He indicated the sky and the sun then he pointed to the olives on the ground and my hurried movements contrasted to his more gentle and slow picking up of fallen olives. The word means ‘gently’ or ‘slow’. This was my boss, the man who would benefit most directly by my additional work but that didn't really interest him. I got the idea that he wasn’t really interested in getting as many olives over the hours of work we were doing. He showed me the path of the sun in the sky and indicated that we would be here doing this work from this hour to that hour. During that time, we would pick up olives and then go home. It was not, for him, a matter of picking up as many olives as we could, only that we would be engaged in olive picking during this time. I slowed down and he relaxed... smiling to show me his approval.