Gloomy Greek

by Isidora Jevtić (Serbia)

Making a local connection Greece

Travelling to a small village in Greece called Kokkino Nero, beside clear sea and vivid nature, residents were quite frendly and really helpful. Kokkino Nero is well known for its healing mineral-rich water, which is considered to cure rheumatism and pain in the wrists. It doesn't have live and fast-paced atmosphere, so it is suitable for elders and people who want to rest. Most people are from that place or some little town or village that is near to it, but also people from around world can be seen. Every night of my stay there I was going downtown in hope to find out more about the place from people that live there almost whole their lives. One old men, who looked like he was in his eighties, with long white hair and beard, always wore same clothes and was sitting next to sea, calmly watching lights from ships that were so far from him. First, I thought that he might be tired of something so he is gazing in distance alone. But one night I dared to go to him and ask him something, whatever it was I just knew that there was something interesting with that man. Luckily for me, he knew how to speak English, and he was willing to have a conversation with me, just like whole this time he was waiting for someone to ask him anything, no matter what. He wanted to talk, he needed that, it could be seen in his smile and his sparkling eyes. From his stories I discovered that lofe had been brutally cruel to him. He said that he was born in some village on the other side of the country, and as he was growing old he and his family moved around because of his father's job. He knew Greece up and down, in nearly every town they lived he made friends but unfortunately with almost no one left in touch. Then his parents and his little sister died in a car crash, that was the moment when I couldn't hold my tears anymore, he was twenty years then and he could take care of himself but he only wanted to run away and find escape as he said. He went to Russia where he met his wife, with who he has one son who was, as he say very silly and adventurous that he came to Greece to see where his father lived. His wife and him moved to Greece after ther son and not much later his wife also died and that moment his son started sailing because 'sea is much more safer than the land, there aren't any people there'. After all that he came to this little village as he heard that it is good for old people. Now he is just lonely human with no one around to make him company in everything he does, he is just gazing in the ships on the sea hoping that his son is on one them. Constantly he was repeating that Greece is cursed but he loves it, just like that. Since that night, I can say that we became friends. Until my last day of holiday I spent time with him, making him company and trying to make him look at things positively, because he still is in one on the rare places that has its nature quality saved. We stayed in contact and every time I travel to Greece I call him as he became my personal pathfinder.