Author: OnTheRocksZA

I like to read, write, walk with my dogs, garden. Cooking also makes me happy.

The Traveller by Afrodykie

A is for Abundance
WHEREVER you look, there is soooo much to see!
Fruit, flowers, butterflies, bees. Seagulls. Swallows and swifts.
A big big sky so blue it baffles the eye.
Olive trees feed their dangling offspring, new oblong olives — sort of light green — they grow bigger every day. They cling to their nurturers.
The old branches bend, weighted in their burgeoning bounty, winter’s harvest savours summer.
Grapes hang in heaving bunches, they swell to meet their potential sweetness.
And the valleys, oh the valleys on Madame’s sea rock walk, they’re dressed in polka dots of purple and pink. The vivid colours sprinkle brightness on a canvas that’s Karoo-like in its sameness: stubbly bushes, rocks.
Here though, there are mountains too, jutting monuments to their earth’s convulsions, an upheaval that shaped the island and gave it its healing waters, its shape.
The flowers!
Exquisite, tender, so delicate are they, so pretty.
They open slowly, something like love. They take a while to reveal their fulsome unique beauty. Patience. Every day they show a bit more.
Their faces wave in the wind, bow and bob. Slowly they lift the veil, curl from closed to open.
There’s a yellow carpet of fallen petals, a trim of goodbye on the side of the road.
Then a sight you didn’t imagine — hundreds of butterflies, hundreds of them on a mound of bush that resembles giant lavender.
The butterfly wings clap, quicken in their delight. They hover on the lilac, suck on the quivering spikes.
They are there for only one day, with the bees their companions humming to make honey.
Abundance.
Even now the cherry truck is in the square and the plums fall to the ground.
Everyone’s popping them into their mouths.
Despoina at Kafene gives you some, and so does one of the old ladies you met last week.
She’s sitting on her wall picking the fruit when she sees you with your packets of seedlings for her. She pops them into your hand, kindly mutters you feel you understand.
Abundance.
You hear so much too!
Cicadas at full throttle, the vendors shouting over their loudspeakers, the horses hooves that sound like soldiers marching on the cobble stones, the sheeps baas and bells, the hurrahs from the square when Greece scores a goal.
You love the laughs and cries of the neighbourhod children, the Greek music that sometimes plays loudly from one of the houses.
Then there’s the silence. It sprinkles quiet on the hot nights. It lulls you, holds you in its arms.
You smell the fresh air, the horse shit, the sheep shit, the dizzying fragrance of blossoms and blooms.
The food spreads it flavours into the air, the aromas drift lazily along the alleys, all the way to your ignorant nose.
You don’t know what’s cooking but you want to know. Sometimes you lick your lips.
Your teeth crunch into the crisp fresh fresh vegetables you buy at the greengrocer; flavours tickle your tongue.
And touch?
There’s the sand on your feet, yes, you feel that.
But you wonder … who will reach for the abundance, the love bursting in your heart.
Who will touch you.
(ends)

 

The Traveller by Afrodykie

Just another day in paradise
THE closed fences open like the sea of whatsit — it’s easy when you know how — and you, your hunting dog Vento, and her friend Ermie, you dance on the gravel road to Madame’s sea rock in the sky.

Skippity hop bee bop a loola.

It echoes, that rock. You shout Ela Vento, Ela Ermie. It talks back to you.

Yooohooo reverberates too, in a voice as old as the centuries.

The echoes spill from the mouths of millennia.

The dogs’ floppy ears flatten and fly behind their heads as they chase each other and jump for joy.

They brake and skid, and arch their backs in sudden turns that raise the dust, their robust bodies melt into the mists of eternity.

The sheep stop their side-ways munching, and stare. But they have very short attention spans.

The bells around their necks go klonk klonk as they drop their heads to feed again.

Yes, it’s a blue blue sky a loud cicada day. The wind breaths gently on your skin.

Is that a kiss, dear air?

You meet Lista from Sappho Estates.

You’ve fallen in love with a village wreck with no roof, ok a roof, but it leaks.

A grande dame this, once, in need of some urgent TLC — tender loving care. You can see she’s good-looking, even in her dishevelled dress.

And the garden! It’s a jungle of door-high grass and rose bushes stretch into forever.

Shrivelled fruit hangs from hungry trees.

Yet, dreams whisper there. They beckon shyly. They dare you, the winikng blighters, to embrace them.

Time will tell, of course — she always does — whether this audacious flirtation will grow into a happy marriage.

I do I do I do. Adieu?

For now, you cling lick a tantalising perhaps …

At home, you tie your red and white umbrella to your bicycle, with a plastic bag.

You freewheel, mostly, to DaLuz, through Skala to buy some water, and then you bounce over the turtle bridge, to the sand around the corner.

Your umbrella blows into the sea while you’re floating wallowing on your back in the embracing Aegean.

It glides along the water, a striped boat sailing bobbing to better days.

You chase to retrieve it, to return it to you spot on the beach.

It’s marked by a kikoi, a rucksack, a tuna salad from the DaLuz beach bar, and your book — the The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt, perfect for the beach.

You try to insert the flighty thing into the sand but oh no, you’re an Eressos amateur, a rookie in the ways of this wonderland.

Let me learn you, says a dark-haired French woman.

She takes a rock and bashes the stem of the umbrella into the sand.

She has beautiful eyes and dark black hair. It curls around her smile.

Merci. Mercy.

Plastic water bottles filled with sand, they’re tied to the umbrellas; they anchor them and the lilos the women use to soften their sleepy sojourns on the sand.

They leave them there, day after day, night after night.

Just about every one is naked, of course, on this stretch of beach: the lesbians, the straight couples, some children.

Everyone’s comfortable in their birthday suits. Cocks, tits, scars, folds and fat. Cellulite, mastectomies, anything!

People bend over and happily show their where the sun don’t shine. But hell! Why not?

In Skala there’s tolerance and acceptance, and nobody stares.

Besides, many people have their noses buried in a book.

Yours is too, until you meet some friends, and chat and laugh. Fulsome frailties bared in mirth.

You try to follow the German …

It’s nearly 7pm when you ride your bike to the centre of Skala, where the taxis are.

But the drivers laugh when you indicate that they must load your bicycle in the boot for the trip up the hill to the village.

The prefects don’t co-operate, so you phone the headboy, Babis.

That gets them going.

Gregoris and another driver put the bike on some roofracks.

You laugh.

And so does Gregoris. 

(ends)

 

 

 

 

 

The Traveller by Afrodykie

Ch-ch-ch-changes
BREAKING news!
Your hunting dog Vento and you have been stymied by the unexpected appearance of not one, but two fences.
There you are, on your Sunday afternoon walk to the sea rock in the sky, and vaboom. Halt.
OK, they’re not exactly the sturdiest fences on the planet, and we get through one, but the main one, the one on the way to our favourite gravel road, it is impassable, even as rusty and rickety as it is.
Sheep are the priority here, cleary. Because now we hear the bells and the ba-ba-baas all the time.
The grazing lands have changed, obviously, and the sheep are so close we can smell them.
Never mind, Eressos is full of surprises. Nice ones.
The other day, you’re walking with Vento and her bouncy friend Ermie — the handsome short little chap in white socks and a black collar with silver dog bones on it — when a very old woman crooks her finger at you.
Kafe, you eventually understand her to say.
She’s pointing at a double door in a wall. She’s smiling, so beautiful.
She hands over a fragrant flower, one of several in her hands. You nod your head as you lean your nose into the bloom.
Yes, please. Thank you, you say (in Greek).
Inside, there is another wizened woman, and two younger women, one of whom is Ermie’s mom.
They’re all sitting in an intimate grotto, an outdoor kitchen.
You get slices of a light white bread, a boiled egg and triangles of a delicious hardish white cheese, from Mytiline, you’re told.
One of the younger women, an Eressian who lives in Australia, she makes a cup of coffee for you, homemade Greek coffee. It’s delicious, and so is the food.
If you get food, stay. If you get unkindness, go, says the older of the two sister who lives there.
She’s 94 and not the oldest person in the village — her eyes are clear bright pools.
She slides her skirt up to her breasts. You see milk white skin, smooth. Flawless.
No sex, she says. And her sister laughts. She disagrees.
She’ll enjoys sex anytime, she says, and laughs so heartily her gums shine.
Her age, however, is her secret.
Her sister gets a look of admonishment on her face. She’s pointing at your tattoos on your legs.
No, the church doesn’t like that, she says. And leans back into her chair.
Your body must remain as it was when you were born. Oh yes.
She wags her index finger at you.
They are deaf, the sisters, so the translator is shouting, we’re all shouting.
The 94-year-old, tattoos nothwithstanding, sings love songs to you, the old folk songs of love, says the translator.
They’re about you and your beauty, the translator says. You and love.
The singer knows many many of the folk stories, the songs, the jokes.
She sit there reciting poems too. Her facial expressions tell the story.
There’s a round loaf of bread rising in an oven just big enough to hold it.
The single kitchen tap starts leaking. It needs a new washer.
Someone will come and fix it, later.
The younger sister puts a basin under the tap while the older one knocks the bread out onto the counter, and pops another loaf into the oven. Their backs are bent, and their steps are small.
Ermie’s mom and the translator leave, to cook lunch for their husbands, they say.
You indicate to the sisters that you’ll bring some seedlings you’ve got growing at Miss T’s place, and plant them in their vegetable and herb garden.
Kindness resonates.
(ends)

The Traveller by Afrodykie

Sizzle sizzle, it’s the solstice
THERE she is, again. The blonde. The striking blonde.
You’ve exchanged knowing smiles at Kafene, for about two/three days now.
Souls speak all on their own, you know. They light up faces.
She sits and writes outside, in her notepad. Neatly and with no deletions.
You sit inside and focus on your computer. Type type type.
But on Thursday afternoon she comes zooting up the hill on a flashy fast scooter.
She turns off the ignition and swings her right leg over the seat, over the handlebars, you swear.
Black silk underwear — a titillating triangle — it gleams and pauses; it lights up the slow Eressian sunset.
Vaboom.
It blinds you, and the shopkeeper.
Even the walruses at Kalones, their coffee cups hang in mid air.
You gasp and say Phew, That’s Sexy.
Oh, everybody’s sexy, believe me, says the shopkeepr, and lowers his eyelids to hand a packet of dog food to you.
Flashy walks towards us — no, she floats goddamit. Are those angels you hear.
What’s that singing, those sweet voices, so tremulous in their rapt desire.
Are you in heaven.
Flashy buys an ice cream.
We meet again, she says to you, and bites into her ice cold treat.
You and the shopkeeper crack jokes, you know, kind of bawdy lewd locker-room jokes.
Double entendre hits Eressos! Levity, at last! Fun!
We’re all circling each other on the pavement in front of his shop.
You and he, you try to outsmart each other, to get her attention.
You’re all flirting like hell and laughing so loudly the whole square stops, and smiles.
You’d heard her say she works at the community centre.
What community centre, you ask.
The Osho Afroz centre, she says.
And licks her lips.
Do you like men or women.
The words patter out over the chocolate chunks dotted on her tongue.
I like you, you say.
Ha ha and drattykins. Her boyfriend’s arriving in August.
Striking? What does it matter, when it’s strike out — for the shopkeeper, and you!
(ends)

The Traveller by Afrodykie

When the going gets tough, the tough get going … to the beach!

YOU sit on your terrace and wave, and say yasou, and smile.

Your dog lies snoring at your feet.

You’re crying for the sea, the tranquil Aegean.

The village is hot. HOT.

And the temperature keeps rising. Rising.

Sweat hot. Suffocating.

No wonder everyone skedaddles to Skala for the summer.

No wonder the village is the winter village.

You’re finding it difficult to settle down. 

Things aren’t as you imagined, hoped they’d be.

You’ve got to do what’s best for you: put yourself in a place where you have company and a chance to swim every day; walk and talk, maybe.

Learn Greek, consistently.

You catch a wake up, to coin a particularly South African phrase, when you’re dancing with the Shake Your Toosh Sisters at the Flamingo Beach Bar in Skala on Friday night, full moon.

There’s no reason to isolate yourself in a house on the hill, far away from summer’s searing soaring passion.

You’re shaking your money maker, thanks James Brown. You’re thinking: enough of this self-imposed social exile.

Enough!

Dancing frees your mind, your soul.

There is no reason to be living like an imprisoned princess in a hilltop castle, no, not when you could be getting down and dirty at the seaside.

So!

You’re moving. And not only to the music.

You’re going back to the Kouitou Hotel.

Back to Vasi and Alex and chili con carne. And the art on the walls. And the cats, and the visitors.

And swims to the rock (with the wimmin), and walks and just about everything you can think of.

You’re going to immerse yourself in Summer in Skala.

Burn baby burn.

Stoic is one thing, but stupid is quite another, and you’re not stupid.

You’ve played your cards in the village, and you didn’t come up trumps, that’s for sure.

Shuffle shuffle.

You’re dealing a better hand for yourself. You have to.

Sooner or later, you’ll ace it, that’s for sure.

(ends)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Traveller by Afrodykie

You’re up all night — with pussy galore

OH well, there you are minding your own business …
You’re walking to Madame’s sea rock, with Vento, your hunting dog.
You’re examing the cloudless sky while Vento has her nose to the ground.
You’re looking for clues about life in the blue yonder and Vento is off the leash, the one that extends.
It’s helped her learn to return to you and yesterday you also played your first game: throw and fetch.
She’s very clever is Vento, and it took only about three or four trial runs before she came back to you, with your Pooh Bear toy in her gentle mouth.
Yes, your Pooh. Such a cute one too, Pooh Bear dressed up like a bumble bee in a red and pink T-shirt with horizontal stripes. It wraps his torso.
He’s got little red wings on his back, and on his head, two red hearts on antennas.
Vento tossdes her head and throws Pooh into the air. She wags her tail.
We like this game and you wonder why you haven’t played it before.
Hello. It’s because today’s the day, duh, for it to be so.
You’re bonding nicely then …
What?
Pitiful little kitten cries.
Mew, mew, mew, in stereo.
Then you see them.
Tiny kittens, so small their ears are just about flat on their miniscule heads.
Their eyes are still closed.
Vento and you find them at the same time … one, two, three.
Oh, drat. One is dead.
Splat. It’s four paws are spread out on the gravel, and the ants and other crawlies are feasting on it.
Poor thing. How lifeless. Inert. History.
Your heart is racing. Vento looks at you.
One’s ginger, one’s black.
They’re still breathing, and crying.
For a moment, you hesitate.
Leave them be, you think. It’s the way around here. Leave them.
But you can’t.
There’s something about ebbing life that makes you panic; that makes you want to save them.
Life. So vital.
Breath. A heartbeat. A reed-thin voice.
Mew, mew. Help me?
They hang on to your lefthand fingers, these little things, it doesn’t hurt.
Their claws, spread in a kind of terror you think, they are transparent, opaque, so soft you don’t feel them.
You hold them close.
Vento’s back on the leash in your right hand.
You hurry, for the black one is struggling.
There isn’t any milk at home, so what.
You put some sugar in warm water.
Then you grab the NoyNoy, a kind of milk we put in our tea and coffee here.
You remember the syringes. They’re in a kitchen drawer ready to be filled with the scorpion bite prophylactic.
You tear open the packet and dislodge the needle.
Their little mouths are difficult to see. Your glasses have misted up and the openings to their tummies are tiny, tiny.
You squirt the mixture down their throats, one at a time.
You put them in a box, one of the boxes you’ve used to sort out your writing.
They crawl around on the kikoi.
And go quiet.
Miss G, of Gaga Animal Care, she tells you to mimic a cat mom.
You must rub their tummies after you’ve fed them.
Then massage their faeces and urine exit points.
Miss G tells you that if you don’t do that, if you can’t get them to eliminate, their bodies will succumb to toxins. They’ll rot from the inside.
The touch treatment works.
This morning they’re still alive. They spread out their pale pink paws with their see-through nails, and squeak.
When they open their mouths, you squirt in some of the mixture in the syringe.
They don’t seem to like it, the way they shake their heads.
You’re going to see if you can get a type of a teat or something. You don’t want to hurt their soft toothless jaws with the hard end of the plastic syringe. You pick them up again, for another feed.
Blighters. They’ve got fleas!
(ends)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Traveller by Afrodykie

Dreams are made of this – and so are nightmares

THE velvet blue sky leans into the hot earth.

It moves to kiss sunset’s orange pink skirts, and why not?

They’re billowing in carefree ribbons along the stark contours of the darkening and jagged mountains.

Night deepens its adamant ardour.

It clutches the elegant remnants of day, and throws them to the stars.

The full moon smiles and the plants’ fragrance — oregano you think it is, and/or that many faced plate sized thing that smells like honey — its sultry scent clings to your clamouring skin.

Ah, Madame X, where … where are you?

It’s been a long day; up at 7am to walk Vento (and yourself), then you drive a hired car 95km from Eressos to Mytiline, 100 or so from Skala.

No, no, no, you’re not looking for the most swankily dressed woman in Eressos. no.

You’re going to a meeting, to seek your fortune.

What’s that triangle of blood on the top of your nose?

You rub it off with some wet toilet paper, at Iliotropio, your favourite place on the shores of the Kalloni Gulf — thanks to a generous serving of indulgent sentimentality and very good food.

It’s the first place Madame X took you to. It’s the place where a melody all adagio played, on the Day of the Dancing Cloud.

But you don’t let this slothful this tedious emotional dross, you don’t let it stop you.

And one bloodletting slap in the face from the branches of a tree in a parking lot, it won’t get in your way.

You get into the car, brave courageous you; intrepid woman, beautiful woman.

You bang your left arm against the door trying to change gears.

Yes, the gear shift is to your right.

That’s what happens to me in South Africa, Mr V says later.

Your silver pinkie ring slams into the door again, and again.

Every time it shouts louder and louder auslander foreigner you’re in a new place.

Thanks gott you’re wearing your big girl panties.

You make way for shepherds and their sheep. You wave and smile.

Smile? More like a grimace you’re so alone.

The pine forests gather closely on the sides of the road. They conspire, so quietly, to tell you you’re close to the capital.

You park in the first available spot.

Where am I, you ask a man in a bookshop.

In the cetnre of Mytliline, he says.

Bonus!

You’ve stopped close to the harbour, this harbour that wears a fringe of significant shops and restaurants around its horseshow face; this harbour where fancy yachts berth; yachts from places such as Turkey (not far away, across the Mytiline Straight), the US and Italy among others today.

It’s also the harbour where the boat people from Africa land.

They stand in queues, docile. That’s where they begin the bureaucratic process to facilitates their entry in to Europe.

Delicious irony, fleeing African rule dot dot dot to seek refuge in the lands of the erstwhile colonisers!

They’ve paid three thousand dollars each to get here, says Mr V. They’re from Morocco, Libya, you name it.

They come with the GPS coordinates for the holding camps installed on their phones, he says.

You see them walking there, he says, looking at their smartphones.

The harbour sweats in the heat of it all.

Uhoh, your old Blackberry konks out in the phone shop where you’re buying air time.

You can’t believe it. You have to get a new phone, there and then.

Crumbs, the expense!

You meet who you’re meeting at a pizza restaurant. It’s across the road from a big grey frigate tethered to the quay.

You find, yes, there’s a possibility that a business could blossom but heaven forbid, the red tape, the research, the planning!

The taxes!

Mr V comes back and walks with you to a bookshop.

Yay! Your Greek books: English-Greek dialogues and a Learner’s Pocket Dictionary, with real Greek writing in them too!

The evening chorus of swirling swifts and swallows, it reminds you it’s time to leave.

You drive out and head for Plomari, the ouzo capital of Lesvos.

Mr V says his cousin, at Lesvos Estates, is selling a lot of property there, to Norwegians.

But you don’t get there.

You take the wrong turn-off and land up alongside the Gulf of Gera, one of the two gulfs of Lesvos.

You think about the refugees at the harbour, the way they’re clutching their prayer mats and buckets of hopes.

At Papados, there’s a load of wide-eyed Africans grabbing at the steel bench in the back of a police van.

You can see the whites of their eyes so wide open are they.

They look this way and that. They’re trapped.

You turn around and head back through groves of thickly set olive trees; olive trees so old their stems are entwined, they tear torridly into themselves.

They look like lovers in an oblivious ecstasy, panting for release.

Oh dear, you get close to Eressos, and veer off the road to fill up with petrol.

Later your realise: you’ve driven out the way you came in — back to Kalloni!

Tears blind you.

It’s late now, and the car’s headlights are brighter than the moon.

You drive, and drive. Exhausted. You’re afraid of how the road gives way to nothing.

You’re finished.

You can’t get home too soon, back to your cocoon.

(ends)

The Traveller by Afrodykie

Life’s a beach
FRIDAY and you’re in your office, Kafene, the wifi-spot and restaurant where you work in Eressos, The Village, say the locals.

It’s private there, and you can find quiet corners where there is no glare on your computer screen.

The whole week you’ve watched as the mother and sons walk in with packets of fresh produce: fish, vegetables, meat — any type of ingredient from around here.

Mama, Yannis calls, as Despoina swirls something around in a bubbling pan.

He’s getting the house speciality for a regular, spaghetti and shrimps.

He shows the serving to you, and widens his eyes.

Yum!

But you order the courgettes filled with mince meat and a short-grained rice.

They’re plump, these courgettes — about the diameter of the inside of a toilet roll.

They’re anchored in a pale yellow sea of lemon, egg and flour, a kind of lemon curd, only runnier, and much tastier.

You’d like some of that green stuff too that you saw Despoina eating, and it’s not spinach.

It grows on the farms around here, says Yannis, casting his eyes about.

He’s laying out a large paper cloth so he can bring the food to your table.

You tell him you don’t mind eating without it, and he shakes his head.

Greek rules, he says, and fastens it to the table top with a stretchy piece of rope-like elastic.

The wilted greens, bottle green they’re so nutritious, are served with a generous wedge of lemon.

Yannis advises you to squeeze a lot of the juice on them.

Delicious!

The next morning, Saturday, you toil in your new garden at the house you’re renting from July 20.

You plant spinach, and some lettuces, and plenty of dill for all the fish you’ll cook and eat in the height of summer. You sweep the yard and start to stack and sort the stuff that’s lying around.

Miss T emerges from her morning coffee and rollup reverie, the one she enjoys at the round table outside her front door.

A spurt of energy propels her to pull out some peppery-smelling tree-type things.

She even sweeps up garden debris, into a dustpan, and lobs it over the stone wall, into a plot with a ruin on it.

You follow her example, and away go all the garden offcuts.

The exercise exhausts her. You’re caught in the momentum of the work.

Let’s have a nice rest, she says, and you sit and enjoy some more of the coffee she’s made.

At lunch time you pack your bags for a weekend in Skala.

You call Babis, one of the taxi drivers — you named him Babsi in an earlier blog … wrong! — you phone so he can take you to the beach.

Babis is also a fisherman; with a little boat, he says.

You’re going to go out with him on it, in a week or two. You’re going to chug out from the harbour at Skala, where antiquity’s mole is still visible. You’re going to go fishing in the Aegean.

We stop to fetch another woman, Stella.

Some visitors in a hire car back off down the narrow alley. Babis waves his hand out the window, to encourage them to squeeze in against the old walls, but they hurry away in reverse, out of sight.

Stella is also a fisherman, says Babis, as she clambers into the back seat.

But you can’t go with her.

Her boat is too big; it’s a commercial fishing boat, he says.

You pay him E5 for the fare and say the amount in Greek. You show off some of the other words you’ve learnt, just listening, just letting your ears let the sound in.

He smiles a big smile. You’re quick with Greek, he says, and his whole face settles into his cheeks.

You drop off the chicken and veg for the Sunday braai/barbecue at the Kaftan One’s place.

She lends you her little bicycle, and you feel quite happy riding around Skala on it, until you nearly pole-axe the Queen Bee, who’s a Busy Bee today, with papers in her hands.

I mean, you’re so intent on saying Yasou — and keeping the tiny-wheeled bike going in a straight line — that you forget you’ve got a loaded rucksack on your back, and it just about topples you as you swerve to miss her.

At the beach you swim for hours, far out into the sea; a nice slow swim, sure and strong.

You love it. Floating too. Just floating, in silence, with your ears under the water.

A womb with a view, of a blue blue sky.

You get out to find two topless American women sitting near you. They’re talking quite loudly about swimming: crawl, backstroke and the merits of each technique.

You pipe up: Errrr … I like breastroke, you say.

And laugh heartily. They look at you askance and you lie back on your kikoi.

You can hear the sheep bleating and the cocks crowing, even though Da Luz beach is packed with all sorts of people.

The younger Hellenes, in posses of male and female, they lean on their elbows and flirt with each other.

They adjust their beach wear and talk a lot. Ela this, and ela that.

That night you go to a party at Flamingo.

You’re just about to blub coz there’s too much dub, then Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Bum crack you up.

They’re nimble on their feet, as large as they are. They copy each others’ steps on the dance floor.

Cute. Tweedle Dee’s got some rythym, but Tweedle Bum?

Her wedgie seems to be cramping her style but she’s having a good time.

She doesn’t notice her slacks are caught in the pathway of her derriere.

You laugh with delight. You’re feeling daft tonight.

At Parasol, after midnight, you can’t keep still. Everbody else is sitting around, as if there is no music playing.

But you, you work up a sweat. Are you dancing to forget?

Where are you from, asks a young woman, when you sit down.

Afriki, you say.

We’re from Venezuela, she says, in halting English.

There are four of them, and they came from Mytiline for the party, Parasol’s 18th birthday.

The place is packed but you don’t know anybody there.

The moon turns into a burnt orange with a third of it sliced off. It’s sinking into the sea.

It lights a bright ocean path to tomorrow.

There are no answers tonight, no matter how thoughtful you are, sitting on a bench almost at the water’s edge.

You down your water from a plastic bottle and walk slowly to your friend’s flat.

You can’t sleep.

Nor can Skala. It’s noisy. At 5am there is still no rest on the short main street.

By 7, when you wake up (yes, two hours’ intermittent sleep), the LAPD is already open, and the waiter is carrying Greek coffee on a tray to the first of the rotund men to arrive.

Your friend makes breakfast, then you amble your lazy way to the beach again.

But you’re anxious to get home and the sun’s raking your back.

Mercilessly.

There’s no Sunday barbecue for you.

You have a big week ahead, and some outstanding business to attend to, (some of it is quite close to your heart).

Gregoris drives you to your hill house in The Village.

Peace and Quiet and Vento, they walk down the stairs to greet you, just as you open the big street door.

They wag their tails and whisper, they whisper at once the story you long to hear.

(ends)

 

 

 

 

The Traveller by Afrodykie

What a difference a day makes

AH, there she is.

At Last, with two short-legged dogs on leashes pulling her arms out in front of her along the boardwalk at Skala Eressos.

You’re looking good, she says, and stops and smiles at you.

Her face has brightened too, that’s for sure.

The antibiotics have kicked in and her flu has fled.

You stand together and chat.

The dogs leashes entwine and their tongues hang out as they romp and pant.

Nip. Yap. Nip. Nip.

You’re in Skala to do some shopping, buy air time, and draw money from the ATM.

Money? You can’t call rands money, not anymore.

You might as well have drachmas in your account for all the South African currency’s worth.

Better get out, fast, before Julius Malema and his Economic Freedom Fighters kick in.

They’re on the ascendancy, the men with their red berets and gung-ho attitudes.

Their policies mirror Zimbabwe’s — they’re all about Zanu-PF (101): land grabs, nationalisation, everything for all.

The tyrant and spectacular homophobe Robert Mugabe is their hero and mentor.

And, shock horror, they call the leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance, Helen Zille, they call her South Africa’s biggest racist, that’s how far out of touch they are; that’s the sort of lie they spin.

Enough of that, you think, as you count your euros. Ouch!

At the veggie shop, the one on the corner opposite Manos, you buy fresh fresh things straight from the young woman’s garden.

Mine, she says proudly, pointing at her chest.

She looks at her boxes full of produce jumping in juice and organic jolliness.

Crunch. They’re delicious.

It’s like entering another realm, being in Skala.

It’s a metropolis after the permeable quiet of your mountain village.

The place is popping, and the season’s not even in full swing.

Talk about a body buffet!

The shops are resplendent too, in their new coats of paint, and some are decorated on the outside with all types of art work in beautiful bright colours.

The beach caravans strain in their starting blocks and soon they’ll let rip too; they’ll open to sell their food and drinks.

My word, there’s even a blond-haired surfer type jogging along the shore.

His hair bounces in the wind.

Your Kouitou Hotel loves are sitting on the steps of their friend Sylvia’s Leather Shop in Skala’s cobbled main drag.

They’re a kind of beacon for you, Vasi and Alex, constants in the unpredictable sea of a burgeoning summer.

You ask the taxi driver to stop so you can run over to give them two kisses each; one on each cheek.
In Eressos, you start to prepare your stifado, beef stew Greek-style.

The phone rings.

It’s Miss T.

She’s sitting at Portakali sipping raki and ignoring a plate of Alexandra (the Great’s) mezedes.

The prowler scowler Mellie rushes at you. She’s talking talking, the little old thing.

Miss T is very protective and tells you to say hello, be nice.

You’re a stranger, after all.

So you tickle the dog and you are friends. Clearly it’s forever the way she’s wagging her tail.

Alexandra (the Great) fetches a key attached to a Vento pizzeria (and more) keyring.

She dangles it in front of Miss T, who takes it and hands it to you.

I suppose this means I trust you, says Miss T, for it is the key to her house, the one you will hire from July 20; the one you will share for two months with a Turkish sanyasa, Devi, you think it is.

It’s goddess, says the Kaftan One, at dinner.

She knows all sorts of things, the Kaftan One.

She loves your food, and your blog, and you can talk about books, which is what a librarian is about isn’t it, books?

The house is empty without Vento, who went to be spayed by the visiting vets.

The Pied Piper Miss G phones while you’re savouring the stew.

She has astonishing news.

The vets searched and searched but they couldn’t find anything in Vento — she’s already been snipped.

Mr T from Mytiline calls too.

There is not one Greek learner book in the four bookshops there. They have to order it from Athens, he says.

It will take a day or two, and that’s OK. You will see him on Tuesday, in the island’s capital.

After your meal, you take your friends on a walk, to show them the ruin you would like to buy and fix for the future.

Trust you to fall in love with a wreck.
(ends)

 

Let’s talk about err … lessons, baby

AG, shame. At Last’s face is all puffed up and her eyelids hover around her cheeks.
She’s sitting across Eressos Square, on Sam’s stoep, waiting for the pharmacy to open — just about everything stops for the siesta, everything that’s not a taverna or a cafe.
You’re at Kafene, on the internet, but you walk the 20 or so steps across the square when she posts a picture of a tea cup with a tea tag hanging out of it.
Tea? She really is sick!
You feel her forehead with the back of your hand. It’s clammy and feverish.
Eressos life, she says, and looks ruefully at her ashtray.
The rain and wind accelerate and subside; they whip and lash, and retreat again.
Parts of the Kampos are swamped, the gravel roads are almost impassable and water hurries down the village’s narrow alleyways.
The weather is a talking point.
Even Madame gets a bit animated telling you about the ice balls that hammer Erresos and send everyone scurrying to stare from their doors.
You should see the basilicum, she says, and pegs some laundry to the line.
She’s quick to move in a gap of intermittent sunshine.
You phone your friend in Mytiline.
It’s like winter here, says Mr V.
He sounds surprised and dashed that he can’t do anything about it.
It’s very unusual, rain and cold at this time of the year, he says.
The weather report predicts that it’s going to get warmer only on Saturday.
You don’t know what day it is, but you calculate about three/four sleeps until the weekend.
Then you get down to business.
You need a book that will take you from the Alpha to the Omega in basic Greek (is there anything basic about Greek, hello).
You also need an English-Greek-Greek-English dictionary.
Madame says so.
You’ve had your first lesson.
Madame is teaching you and the first thing you do is go through the Greek alphabet, all those squiggles and wiggles and dippity do; you write and pronounce them, sort of.
Like this, she says, like a Greek, not a foreigner.
Can’t I write in the English letters you ask as she points out dazzling phonetic conundrums among the twirly whirlys.
She looks at you. Deadpan.
She’s a master of measured indifference.
You want to read Greek don’t you?
And leaves it at that.
Your homework is to practice until you can spontaneously write out the alphabet, and recite it without any furtive glances at the page it’s printed on.
You have to find and write words that correspond to the exercises she has given you; how the letters change depending of where they are in a word, etc, and also masculine and feminine.
Aluta continua!
Of course, you’re delighted when, for the first time, you understand what a vegetable vendor is saying over the loudspeaker on the roof of his truck: Oranges, lemons and potatoes at ???? a kilo.
You don’t get the price a kilo because you can count only to five… Humbling it is, this learning a language.
So! You finish your breakfast in the drizzle on your terrace and think maybe you should have bought a patata or two to celebrate.
You’re quite chuffed though, by your progress.
Your vocabulary is improving and you can say Sit Down Now in Greek!
You say that to Vento, your hunting dog.
Anyway, you can greet in Greek and say thank you and please, and some other arbitrary and friendly things.
Truth is, you know more words than you can summon at once but thank heavens there are Eressosians whose English is much much better than your Greek.
You find a way.
You like meeting people and talking with them, mainly the shopkeepers.
They seem friendlier, more open to a good old chat.
The butcher, the baker, Mr D in the hardware shop.
You ask what construction’s like.
He draws thoughtfully on an elegant silver and black cigarette holder and crosses a reed-like leg over a knee that makes his jeans look jagged.
He contemplates his shelves of stock.
It’s gone down everywhere in Greece, he says. Here too. It’s going down, not up.
The crisis, you know. He looks embarassed, and his cigarette goes bright red at the end.
Mrs H is what your dad would’ve called loquacious.
She’s very forthcoming as she tries to roll a cigarette on her desk.
I don’t smoke, she says, battling to get it to close.
The cigarette slides back and forth, in stubborn resistance.
The tobacco wriggles out of the paper but she’s got the answers you want, and she knows the women you’ve met, and your landlords.
She advises about who you should talk to to help you get this, and that.
Wood for winter is one thing.
Where does it come from, you want to know, because there are mainly olive trees on the island.
The mainland, she says. It’s cheap. Much cheaper than petroleum.
Mrs H also tells you the name of the man who’s servicing your rusty old bicycle, the one that’s on loan from the Kaftan One.
Adonis, she says, and tucks some stray hair behind an ear.
He and you, outside his bicycle/motorcycle/quadbike repair shop — where the mulberry trees start on the flat part of the road to Skala — you and he communicate in single words and puzzled expressions.
A kind of sign language predominates.
You ask the price by saying euro, and moving your thumb and forefinger over each other, as if you’re trying to get rid of some dust between them.
You shrug your shoulders to indicate you don’t know what it might be.
Twenty, he says, as you point at the brakes, the gears.
That’s not expensive, says Mrs H, shaking her head.
You think so too, and traipse up the hill to the square.
You’re on your way back to your comfortable rented house, luxury for you with its smart this and that.
You peer into the shop at Miss E. She’s busy in the mini market metres from the verandah of the taverna where the walruses sit.
Me-sell, Me-sell, she says, and beckons you inside.
There are two other people in the shop but she stops serving them to give you a piece of paper with a hand-written recipe on it.
It’s for the beef stew mix she sold to you the other day; the stifado that contains black pepper, cinnamon, cumin, coriander, bay leaves, aniseed, cardamon and chilli peppers.
The other one was the kokkinisto (red sauce) mix: black pepper, allspice, small peppers, bay leaves, cardamom, onion and salt.
The brand is called Aegean Flavours and it is a product of the island.
She points out the label, in English and Greek, and looks at me.
It’s traditional, she says.
Like the time it will take Adonis to fix your bike, Adonis with a cigarette swirling smoke into his screwed up eyes. They rest on a swathe of two-day old stubble as black and as stout as scrub on a hill.
(ends)