Mykonos and Delos

The eyes of Mykonos

I came to Mykonos with reservations, both personal and fed by mocking comments from Lesbosians (not sure that’s a word but the alternative is confusing). “It’s very different. It’s very white” There were things they didn’t say but I inferred from their attitude -“superficial” “loose living”. The one thing I remember from my hitch-hiking twenties is the whiteness. Every single building looked and still looks as if it has been iced as for a wedding-cake – square, with little blue shuttered windows. Now however there are so many more little and indeed huge houses, tier upon tier of them - and no donkeys, just fast lawless cars and curious four wheeled bikes hired out to the tourists which make being a pedestrian a bloody nightmare because there are no footpaths..

I didn’t mean to get off on a negative note. Actually, in its way this place is a joy. So many people of all sorts enjoying themselves. So many businesses making proper livings. Glamourous little shops in tiny white lanes selling exquisite “objets”. One we investigated was a pair of golden seals balancing on their noses decahedrons made of semiprecious stones. Grant nonchalantly enquired about the price and it was ninety thousand euros. Not that the golden seals would quite have blended in with our Thomas Street décor but they were amazing for their outrageous and frivolous decadence and we admired them. And there are ice cream shops with thirty seven flavours and tavernas with fish and meat on spits and lots and lots of people to eat them. There is an exciting mixture of languages in the gaudy little lanes. Gay guys hold hands unafraid and all the bar folk have trendy hipster little beards.

Vangelis Taverna in Ana Mera, Mykonos

Bread puppets in Hora, the main town of Mykonos

Now I think about it I lied about the absence of donkeys. There is just one on the edge of the traffic free network of lanes but it is made of plaster. A lovely thing we saw as we arrived was a group of young girls with coronets of silk flowers in their hair and Greek flowing dresses all shrilling with laughter and larking about and taking photos around the donkey. It was a hen party and perhaps as is always the case, the bride, whose coronet was a contrasting halo of pearls. looked solemn. It seemed ancient and modern at the same time.

Today we took the small ferry ride to Delos, the sacred island where the twins Artemis and Apollo were born. It has been a magnificent place in its time. Now it is lots of marble and stone square enclosures that need explanation. Underfoot still are shards of ancient pottery and who knows what. Our guide’s husky Greek voice cut through the ruins “Delos Tours, Delos Tours come close to me” A cheeky American gave her a kiss “Not that close” she said laughing. She showed us rich villas with olive oil jars sunk in their kitchens. Huge reservoirs for rain water. She tried to explain the origin of drama as we sat under the hot sun in the massive tumbled amphitheatre but it slightly got lost in translation. I admired her courage taking on the job of guide with such spirit and energy and decidedly dodgy English.

Most ancient places retain a spirit of something – a quirky row of toilets holes, for instance, in Pompeii indicates perhaps communal and convivial defaecation. On Delos I sensed only defeat and destruction of a one time pretentiousness, (even perhaps including golden seals with semiprecious decahedrons balanced on their noses).

We finished with the museum in which was a stone hand the size of a  bar fridge,  the remnant of a statue of Apollo that towered nine metres tall, we are told. There those fingers curl, all by themselves in a corner.  All around are a crowd of other statues, a beautiful young man with half a leg and his poor little genitalia all gone. Stone heads with snakey beards and bits of bodies. Lots of robed people with no heads which have been looted by collectors with not too much luggage space.  A pitiful pair of feet on a pedestal.   One or two heads however, have withstood the ravages of time and looters but I can’t get what they are saying to me.  Their spirit has been slain.

Departing Lesbos

We have just boarded the huge inter-island ferry that towers over the little town of Mytilene. I feel sad to leave Lesbos but also guiltily relieved. The sadness of the refugee situation is pervasive and it is awful not being able to do anything. Even on the dock at six o’clock this morning a group of haunted looking dark skinned people were clustered together watching for the ferry. We thought for a moment they had got permission to leave, but no – an official gestured for them to hunker down in a bunch whilst the tiny number of passengers boarded. I suppose they will have to walk back to their camp. As we moved to board, one of them objected to his treatment and was sternly rebuked by a policeman. Our last day on Lesvos was fairly full on. We had a mission. I had put out a call, on the conference excursion bus to the Petrified Forest, for books in English as the Afghani refugee man I had got to know in Mytilene had expressed a longing for something to read and said English was fine for him. Grant suggests that I call my short-term friend “Alex” as he had blond hair and blue eyes, suggesting that deep in his past is the 5th century BC visit of Alexander the Great and his troops. Alex told us that where he was born there are many people with blonde hair, light skin and blue eyes; his homeland lies in the mountains, where it is cold. He declared in the hot Lesbos mid-day that he likes the cold, the snow.

We were given about eight books by the people at the conference – thrillers, good novels and a book of philosophy as well as a Lonely Planet guide to the islands which I decided to leave in the bag for its cultural content. We bought a big bag of cherries and apricots for good measure and set off for the closed camp Moria.

We managed to get to the camp in our rather beat up rental car by going the opposite way to the steady trickle of migrants walking in their ambling way into Mytilene for the day. Groups and individuals had a way of taking short cuts through the olive groves that confused us so I got out and asked a group of Africans which way to go. “You speak French?” said a guy. “I speak English,” said another and I thought what a weird polyglot the camp must be.

The way to the “Camp”, was indicated with crudely hewn and painted signs as one got closer. It was a horrible looking place with three razor wire fences, one inside another, and a huge gate. Little cafes and businesses had sprung up untidily outside. A sign said no cameras. Another showed coins falling on to a hand, with the circle and slash across it. No donations? No beggars? There was a smell of sewage. 

The camp

People were going in and out in groups and as the gate was open we drove in only to be stopped by a policeman. “You have a permit? This is a closed camp.” I explained about the books and my destination of tent T51 but it was no go. “You call your friend and he can come out and get his books”. I tried calling but there was no signal and I thought I’d be damned if I was going to carry all those books and cherries back and so waited until the guard’s back was turned and walked in with an authoritative air. Inside was squalid. Limp low tents lined the razor wire fences, each one with one or two people huddled inside. A guy with a plastic bowl was washing clothes at a feeble tap. A mix of people were milling about, some with volunteer organization uniforms on. Nobody took any notice of me.

I found an official looking hut with a blonde girl in charge and enquired for tent T51. She consulted a map and gave me directions down an alleyway of mixed low tents. I started asking people and was eventually

taken to the right tent . 
 It was a big one and, praise be, Alex was inside along with eleven other men. I was ushered in to sit on a pile of grey blankets. It was a bit like a cave. I was welcomed by the startled group.

  An older man reminded me to remove my shoes and a young one gave me a bottle of water. It was clear that they were pleased to have a visitor and very glad for the bags of fruit. I took the books out one by one and said what they were – Tim Winton, Australian, very good, Stella Rimington – thriller – I gestured throat slitting with a wicked grin and they laughed. Philosophy, very serious I said with a solemn face. It occurred to me this it was rather like a version of my book swapping club that meets in the Art Gallery of New South Wales from time to time. The men took the books eagerly and riffled through the pages although later Alex told me that only two of them could read English. We talked for a bit and he told me more about the camp – how there was an inner section that could only be accessed if you had a special bracelet. This was for women and children who needed protection. He told me about his volunteer role – troubleshooting on the food lines and organizing food for tent bound people. I realized he was a rather remarkable person, only twenty-three and coping with the recent murder of his father by the Taliban in Afghanistan as well as being trapped on Lesvos with no certain prospect of moving on thanks to the deals made by politicians in Brussels. “I must handle this,” he said.

I took a photo of the group in the hut with my phone and tucked it in my bra thinking the police, even if they stopped, me wouldn’t suspect a contraband camera was lurking in the ample bosom of this old lady.  Alex escorted me through the camp and we met Grant outside. We all had a cup of coffee in one of the Greek run kiosks.  Alex looked so tired.  He said he’d had toothache all night.  He said he could get painkillers in the camp but dentistry?  I doubt it. It was a wrench to leave him.  He refused the offer of a lift into town as it was coming up to lunchtime and he’d be on duty.

We go the archaeological museum. No wonder I couldn’t find it as its signage indicates that it is the Ministry of Culture. I’d walked past it on previous days and dismissed it as a government building. Anyway it’s lovely. All the ancient bas reliefs and pottery soothe my jangled feelings. Looking into the blind eyes of statues from 200BC puts the current sadness into the context of eternity and as always art is a consolation. There is a room full of bas reliefs of “Dinners of the dead”. Their detail has been rubbed away but a spirit of something potent remains. The English sign says“The dinners of the dead in their imagery are united the primordial popular beliefs about the dead with the zest of the living, the tragedy of the final departure and the submission to fate”

What a fine aspiration for a sculptor or any of us for that matter.

A mortifying incident on this ferry just now. A man has come up to me with my passport which I must have dropped. Grant is aghast at my incompetence and so am I. He gestures smoking which I think is a request for remuneration. Grant gives him a twenty euro note and many thanks. How very lucky I have been.

After the museum we drove to the birthplace of Sappho and I had sardines for lunch. Oily and crunchy with slender cats watching my every movement. Grant wisely abstained and didn’t suffer my urgent need for a toilet half an hour later. Driven by desperation I successfully trespassed on my second camp of the day – a sort of English Butlins by the sea and gratefully used their facilities. Like the other one this camp is totally cut off from the world. Everyone here is English and having a nice time here – bikinis and sunburn, buckets and spades, drinks at the bar with little umbrellas. Apparently they come for four days from the UK by plane and bus and return again without having to tangle with local tourism at all. And sadly they probably contribute little to it.

Well I’m going to have a little nap now as we have eight hours more of chugging our way to Mykonos, allegedly the Sodom and Gomorrah of the Greek islands. Who knows what adventures this place will bring.

Petrified tourism

Yesterday was excursion day for the conference and I decide to join the group going to visit "The petrified Forest" on the eastern side of the island.  I tend to be wary of conference events because I become "the wife of Grant" and inherit his history which probably includes controversy and I know not what else.  It turns out I'm not wrong.  "I wondered what kind of animal could marry Grant McCall" quips a lady colleague.  I smile and say "A tough one."

But the prospect of the petrified forest is alluring.  I have come to love Mytilini town with its narrow main street and busy people, but a day out of the sun and with no effort required from me would be good.  We pile into a big bus which has even less space for legs than Qatar Airlines and I am again grateful to be short.  We are all sorts of nationalities and ages brought together by an absorption with issues pertaining to small islands.  Not big ones, though apparently every so often a member of ISISA will plead the case for an island of indecent size and be put in their place,   It all seems a bit like Gullivers travels to me - surely an egg is an egg whether you start eating from the small or the big end.  Grant will explain why I am wrong no doubt.  Anyway it is fun to hear the ripple of Spanish and Greek and Dutch all around.

It is a long trip trundling along the narrow roads in and out of villages and past huge plantations of olive trees, some of which look like old, old people, gnarled and arthritic with flaking skin.  Apparently they can live to 500 years, and, I understand from a conversation going on behind me, the government protects the really old ones which can be a pain if you own an olive grove, as in fact the speaker does.  I nod approvingly to myself though.  It is good to look after us old ones and very Greek too.

We have a break at a village with a very steep cobbled road up to its heart, and there's a sign which promises a gallery of local arts and crafts. We all, (except Grant who is untempted by the hike) set to clamber up the little road.  I wonder how on earth old people manage in these villages and why nobody thinks prudently of building on the flat.  In fact the Lesvos-wide  tourist blight has shut the gallery so we just startle the cafe people into serving us coffees.  I order a lemon juice and drink it and then realise to my horror I've left my wallet way down in the bus.  I could slope off and besmirch the reputation of ISISA or bring shame on the name of McCall by cadging off a stranger.  I decide less is to be lost by the latter, and approach a Dutch mayor and his wife who obligingly offer to pay for me.  In fact all ends well because at the next stop I explain the Aussie concept of "shout" to them and say it's mine and we all sip white wine together and talk about islands,  His is self sustainable apparently and hopes to host a future conference.

We lurch our way round umpteen hairpin bends and I use a meditation technique to quell my travel sickness.  The terrain is now absolutely barren with only the odd monastery popping up now and then.  As we approach Sigri (which means "secure" on account of the port which has always been handy in storms) we see luminous white phallic objects alongside the road amongst the grey rubble generated by recent construction work.  Our guide explains that these are petrified trees that have been preserved until they can be harvested by the museum.

On arriving at the museum we are given an extremely interesting lecture about how petrification happens.  The area is full of extinct volcanoes.  If lava lands on the trees they burn but if ash does they are preserved like the bodies in Pompeii.  Excavations have revealed layer upon layer of these petrified trees going back through millenia's worth of eruptions.  Only one animal fossil is displayed though - the jaw of an unprepossessing elephantine creature with its tusks on backwards.  "It probably died of old age judging by its ground down teeth" our guide tells us.  I suppose that in the middle of all these eruptions that's quite an achievement and one to aspire to.

We learn the wonderful word "autochthonous" which means basically in situ.  It seems that it is rare for petrified trees to be kept where they have once grown but in Sigri that is how it is.

We are given an incredibly delicate warning not to muck with the trees.  It ran more or less thus
"Alas, Sigri being a port, sailors liked to take home souvenirs, pieces of the trees and we lost many specimens."  He points to an octopus like formation. "The roots only remain for us to excavate.  However this crime has dropped since the law protecting the trees came in.  We are lucky being an island.  You can only get away by air or by boat.  People may take pieces but they will be caught."  He laughs merrily but we get the point.

The most interesting thing about the trees is the excitement and reverence which seems to surround them  - they look like, well, rather rotten logs. Not what you hope to see in your rafters. But when you touch them they are the quintessence of death, stony and lifeless. Embedded are fossilised olive leaves, even a fir cone from millions of years ago.  I'm glad our geologist guide loves them because they awake no nice feelings in me.

It was so good to tumble into our little flat when we got back to Mytilini.  My knitting on the sofa.  I discovered my earlier fear that I'd lost my passport was ungrounded.  Grant went out to buy some milk and I made us spaghetti bolognese with superb Greek olive oil.  I dreamt that night of sardines - a local delicacy, only I was one of them mutely squashed into a bus seat.

Limbo in Lesvos

I decided  this morning to try and find the archeological museum but failed. *There is no museum” said a man in a vegetable shop “There are many museums” said a man in the street “Which one do you want?”  The next person I asked was a blonde young man whom I took to be a student and likely to speak English.  He laughed and said he was a refugee and we got talking.  I invited him for a coffee along with his friend and he told me his story.  He was a policeman in Afghanistan but with American connections.  The Taliban came and shot his father because of this and then he knew he had to leave. He contacted a people smuggler who charged him four thousand Euros to escape.  His boat, meant for 45 had 70 on it “But I was lucky,” he said “We were picked up by a patrol boat."  His friend, an engineer, had a similar story – association with a US firm meant he was a marked man.  He paid five thousand Euros for his passage.  I asked if he could swim and he said no. Most people in the boats couldn’t. I asked them  how they got in touch with people smugglers and they both laughed sardonically. “It is very easy.  They are everywhere. They want nothing but money”

Both the men have been on Lesvos for about two months because they arrived after the closing of the Greek border.  They are both living in Moria Camp which is a closed facility except for people who have been given passes, either to go into Mytilini town or else have the freedom of the island (but not freedom to leave it}.  Apparently there is a hierarchy as far as assessing refugee status  is concerned – Syrians first with Afghanis fairly low on the list perhaps because they are viewed more as economic migrants than refugees.   This made Ahmud angry. “I had a good job, a good salary. They killed my father.  I am a refugee.”

We talked of many things – their aspirations, their homesickness and the extraordinary world of the camp where so many nationalities live in their groups.  They told me of disorderly queues for food, unlike the other big camp Kara Tepe where meals are delivered to the tents and people can come and go as they like.  Ahmud gave me his tent number and invited me to visit.  I asked if the refugees liked visitors and he said yes of course they did.   I will try and go before we leave.

We parted and I went on with my search for the archaeological museum and ended up at the huge rather desolate castle dating back to Ottoman times.  It is a solitary place these days overrun with wild flowers and grasses but with faded panels explaining its features both in Greek and English.  Rather unfortunately it was decided a ring road round the island was needed to mitigate the traffic problem and that has led to destabilization of the castle’s foundations and so one huge tower has lurched sideways.  It seems an undignified fate for what must have once been an impregnable fortress. 

Mytilinis leaning tower. It's a lovely old Ottoman castle but the ring road is doing what invaders couldn't

I wended my way back to my end of town through a wealthy area full of gorgeous Ottoman mansions and noticed a demonstration  happening on the town hall steps.  My friends from the coffee shop were there holding placards. “We are not animals.” “We want to go to Athens” .  Another said “Moria is a prison”.  A non Greek speaker was addressing them with an interpreter.  He seemed to be a media person and offered them encouragement and support.

At the demo

Such sad defeated faces

In my wanderings I have noticed the huge number of graffiti – mostly in Greek but some in English.  Some are mysterious THE EBOLA CREW, others explicit WELCOME REFUGEES, but also NO BORDERS NO COUNTRY.  The turbulent feelings expressed on the walls of the town do not seem to perturb the townsfolk however, who shop and chat in cafes and go about their business.  Only the trapped immigrants have a listless way of moving in their little groups because they have no money now and absolutely nothing to do.

Mytilini Housewife

It’s funny how metaphorical expressions come home to roost from time to time. You realize a stitch in time could actually have saved nine (or more likely ninety) when the side of your nightie splits from top to bottom because you didn’t do anything about the first loose thread.  Well my current metaphor turned literal is “It’s all Greek to me.”

I decided this morning to tackle our rubbish bins, one of which contains, to put it delicately “contaminated waste”.  (We do not flush toilet paper here). Our landlady has gone to work now, but when I enquired about the waste disposal system here,, gestured down the road to two dumpsters.  I feel a bit furtive as I saunter down the street with my plastic bags tightly tied – one full of normal scraps and the other more worrisomely unhygienic.  I survey the bins and it’s all in Greek of course.  Only one has a lid.  And that has faded pictures on the side which could indicate recycling only.  Would that include one or even both my plastic bags?  Yesterday it was overflowing with all sorts of things including tightly tied plastic bags like mine but it has been emptied overnight so no exploratory investigation is possible. The other has no lid and was empty yesterday depite the overflow of the lidded one. In the end I put all my stuff in the lidded bin and hope for the best.
Apparently one of the problems during the refugee crisis was getting people to do the right thing with the facilities provided. They simply didn’t understand. And nor do I.  It’s lucky there’s only one of me.

I’ve become rather good at turning peculiar bony chunks of lamb with long tails of fat attached into delicious stews.  The vegetables here are fabulous –the tomatoes are so full of flavour they throw you into a trance and cos lettuces  savour of the underworld from whence they come.  We have a tree loaded with lemons outside our door and have lemon and ouzo hot toddies before we sleep as both of us still have colds.  One thing that puzzles me is why Lesbos doesn’t have an obesity problem.  There are so many seductive pastry shops with trays of syrupy filo delights.  They must be much better for the health than MacDonalds which incidentally hasn’t made it here although the ubiquitous United Colours of Benneton has.

Mytilini is a pretty and modern little town with lots of coffee shops all full of people but alas not tourists who out of delicacy or squeamishness are eschewing Lesbos as a holiday destination.  Perhaps it seems poor taste to be recreational alongside people who are trapped here.  Anyway the little tourist villages are suffering badly.  We went to Ayassos over the weekend – a lovely mountain village with narrow cobbled streets and old houses cleverly hanging on to the steep hillside. There were lots of little pottery and souvenir shops and cafes as is the way with such places but no bustle of commerce.  There were three idle tourist buses and many cafes closed with chairs tipped up against the tables.  The shopkeepers eyes seemed defeated by the collapse of their economic world.  I had a fancy for a stuffed tomato like the ones I had when hitch-hiking in Greece in my twenties.  The café owner sighed. “Why make a big tray like this” he gestured “when nobody comes”.  He was bitter about the way the island had become a non tourist destination.

A street in Agiasos village, in the mountains.

Mytilini, however is a lively town with little shops selling everything there is and it is fun to wander the narrow streets, though it pays to keep alert.  There are next to no footpaths and cars seem to have priority so moving around involves a fair bit of ducking and weaving.  There is a wonderful bay that I can gaze at for ages while sipping lemonade in a cafe. The sea is a particular  Mediterranean blue and little houses line the hillsides on both sides. It feels like an innocent happy place.

Grant came back from his conference at one am this morning and we didn’t get to bed till two so I am going to have a nap before going to the supermarket to find some little delight for our dinner – a glorious aubergine maybe and some mince if I can mime mincing to the butcher….

Mytilini - and the puzzle of voluntourism

 

Grant and I were oddly surprised to see each other at Athens airport and went to the airport hotel as we had to get up at 3am to fly to Lesbos. We had an ouzo and then a good dinner in the restaurant where which had two other customers and a pianist who sang plaintive Sinatra songs.  I felt like an advertisement for a retirement fund. And why not? I thought to myself.  I’ll be a cat going round doing good in Lesbos tomorrow – delivering little koalas in home knitted scarves to refugee children at the very least.

Little did I know that by the end of the day my pleasurable complacency would be shaken to the core.

We arrived at Mytilini airport at 6am.  It smelled aromatic and the sea lapped darkly at the edge of the airport but it looked very cold to be rescued from.

 We had a small blue rental car and set off for our AirB&B flat and quickly learnt to decode Greek script into something we could pronounce.  Nevertheless it took us ages and a couple of mimed encounters to find our place.   We got there and our host’s sister waved to us from the street clearly in deep distress. “A terrible thing has happened.” She and her husband, Christos, gesticulated as though to indicate an earthquake.   In fact there had been a break in over night and both our flat and theirs had been turned upside down in that brutish way that hunting thieves have. Cupboards open, vases sideways on the floor.   Our hosts had been asleep in their beds whilst it had all gone on.  “How did they get in?” we asked.  And then we understood the gravity of what had happened to this couple who were rapidly becoming our friends.  The keys had been in the doors as was the way in Mytilini.   Always a peaceful island where people trusted each other.  Their world had changed overnight.

Our little basement flat looked like the more serious crime scene because the thieves had scrounged breakfast there and spilled tomato sauce by the sofa and in the kitchen. They’d burnt a bit of bread on the stove’s electric hotplate in their haste and hunger.

 Mitzi and Christos expected us to refuse to stay but of course it was OK with us and, despite the oddity of having to unpack avoiding the evidential hot spots of tomato sauce and empty cans for the police we grew to like the place –old and quirky with a bin for used toilet paper so as not to challenge the plumbing too much.

Once she knew I wanted to offer my services to the refugee camps Mitzi rook me to one of the two on the edge of town – the open one called Kara Tepe, as Moria., the other one, is now a closed detention centre.  On arriving I was given a severe lecture in English by a Dutchman about how this camp was like a family and everyone was treated with respect. I realized he probably did that a lot to inappropriate people of good will.  It seemed scripted. He then handed me on to two women who were nicer and said five days was not enough to do anyone any good.  She offered me to two banana distributors who wore special banana badges but they too turned me down, “voluntourist” that I clearly was.  I totally understood and was in fact glad to be unnecessary.  They told me to take my koalas and doll to a place run by Caritas called the Silver Bay Hotel where vulnerable women and children had been placed.

Grant and I set out for this Caritas run resort and a sea rescue bus was parked out front.  I went inside with my plastic bag and a little boy ran up to me before I had managed to find any official person.  He pointed immediately to the doll in the bag.  I tried to give him a more suitable koala but he mutely insisted on the doll so I yielded her up and he scarpered with her. Gradually more kids turned up – well dressed but drawn and wild looking and each insisted on picking their own koala out of the bag.  It was nice to let them choose. I gave one to a little girl but her mother laughed and put it back choosing another with a pink scarf and showed how it matched her clothes.  I went to the playground where there were more kids and they took on the rest, one boy grabbing two.  “My babies” he said with glee as he stuffed them in his pockets and crowed at getting two.

When I got back to the car a strange little boy was in there sitting with a quiet Grant and systematically exploring his pockets all the while making a strange hissing sound.  He wanted to see everything –even the Lonely Planet guide.  He emanated longing and need.

We left, shaken by this tiny sample of the refugee crisis, children alive but so hurt by what they had been through.  As we left I saw a tiny girl cuddling my dolly  I think her clothes had gone. For a second I felt like an irresponsible mother letting her child go and then I pulled myself together.  She was now a refugee dolly with an uncertain future, but oh how much harder for her new little mother.

When we got back to the flat the police had been and the tomato sauce was wiped up.  We popped in on Mitzi.  “I feel terrible” she said.  Laconically Christos added “my old life is finished.  This is the first day of my new life.  You are my first friends” A break in is always a violation and a trauma but it took until the evening to understand just how bad this incident was for them.

We were invited upstairs for pizza and almost didn’t go as we’d been up since 3am and had sort of let down our hair with an ouzo or two and I’d tossed my bra aside – liberated and exhausted.  But we went because we liked them.  Two other friends were there and gradually we got talking about everything they had been through in Mytilini the previous year.  Tents absolutely everwhere even on the footpaths.  No sanitation so everywhere smelt of urine and faeces.  The fear of cholera and typhoid. How they tried to help offering showers and food.  But then at least the people were in transit. Now the doors to Europe are closed and although the refugees had their camps they were angry and running out of money.  I asked how they felt about the refugees now and in chorus Mitzi and Maria her friend said “Mixed feelings”.  Reluctantly Mitzi considered the possibility that the thieves had been refugees .  The things they took (and didn’t take) seemed to suggest it – food, money, mobile phone – nothing else.  It must have seemed an awful betrayal. 

We got to talking about us and I ruefully said I was not needed now.  I was a “voluntourist”.  They roared with laughter and it was clear that the concept was familiar.

 “Things are much more organized now” said Christos.

But there are no easy answers for Mytilini, already reeling from the financial crisis and a sub prime mortgage blowout that have left the hillsides speckled with huge half finished buildings.

The last irony of the day was we, not being trusting Mytilineans had locked our door but unfortunately left the key inside.  Christos had to muster a housebreaking kit to try and let us in.  Fortunately just before breaking a window Mitzi produced a forgotten spare key so we were able to fall into bed and a sleep full of dreams of complicated suffering and useless good will.

Dohar Doldrums

For complicated reasons Grant and I only shared the first 14 hour flight on our way to Lesbos and even then I lost him quite quickly to another bit of the aeroplane. It was fine for both of us. On last years harmonious odyssey in the campervan  we worked as one on the road.  Air travel, however has always tended to be taken separately and we  have got into solitary ways in airports.  We choose different places to sit when waiting for planes.  We have different rituals at security.  I bundle my inspected stuff back any which ways whilst Grant likes to glower at officials whilst he meticulously puts his belt back on etc. 

I waved goodbye when he, along with hundreds of other milling people made snakes along the ribbon passageways for additional security checking.  Being at a loose end I had a go at manouevring my way on to Grant’s plane.  A lovely sheik like man with dark chocolate eyes was sympathetic to my plight of having to wait five hours for my plane alone but couldn’t help because of some codeshare issue.  But he consoled me. “ I’ll give you three seats in economy so you can spread out”

  There are huge numbers of rather splendid looking security people in Doha Airport. They don’t bristle with weapons but look like sexy bodyguards.and all of them are very nice to old ladies like me.  “Are you all right?  Are you looking for something?”  I find things to ask for- a cheap food place and a place to sit and that’s how I ended up in the Quiet Room’

 It is a rather ascetic place with lines of moulded plastic banana chairs and a big clock above them.  The light was dim and it was indeed quiet except for gently snoring men.  It felt intrusive to settle into one of the chairs and I worried about showing the soles of my feet but there was no easy way to do anything else.  My shame was compounded by my grubby airport socks  when so many people looked marvelous in white robes or graceful black chaddors.  I was glad anyway I’d got a good haircut yesterday and I put my red knitted beret as a stab at modesty.

This airport has an enormous yellow, home made looking teddy bear as a centerpiece but otherwise is sleek and glittering with expensive shops.  I think as the hours chug by like a slow train that I used to live in this life and maybe one day there may be an afterlife but airport life is something qualitatively quite different.  It is in between life, vapid, devoid of desire even in the face of flaunted luxury and shot through with the ticking anxiety of never getting away.

Why oh why oh why oh

We are heading for Greece this afternoon and as usual before travelling, I am full of reluctance to leave home.  It is so lovely here.  My beanstalks are full of little beans on the roof and it is a magically sunny autumn day. A crazy narcissus thinks it is spring and has a flower. I have a row of red beetroot seeds and one of leeks.  Will they wait for me to come back and plant them out? And two loofah seeds have germinated in their cotton wool.  What will they do without me?

The ridiculous packing is done.  I'm taking twelve little koalas for whom I've knitted tiny scarves for any refugee kids who might like them.  I have taken their little "I love Australia" jackets off as they didn't seem likely to cheer up kids stuck in Greece. I am undecided about whether to let them keep their little boomerangs.  I have also packed a doll which bewitched me in a charity shop.  It had a naked cloth body and solid pink hands and feet (and a head of course). I bought it baby clothes and got a rush of love when I cuddled it just like I used to have when I was a scruffy little girl.  I hope I'll manage to give the dolly away.

 I am just a bit ambivalent about the Lesbos week now. I was hoping to help the refugee situation somehow, working in the laundry or whatever.  But there's a nasty new word out now - "voluntourism".  Much money is made by entrepreneurs out of voluntourists who apparently sometimes create problems instead of helping. They skew the local economy. I must be cautious and thoughtful about anything I end up doing.

The song from Bernstein's Wonderful Town which we sang last week in the Festival Chorus keeps running through my head

Why oh why oh why oh
Did I ever leave Ohio
Why did I wander
To find what lies yonder
When life was so cosy at home

I hope I'll be able to answer my own whyohwhyohwhyoh question with confidence and delight over the next few weeks.  Meanwhile I'll have a last cosy cup of tea and get the butter and cheese out of the fridge before the Vegan part of the family takes up residence. And I'll put on my elephant T shirt for luck.