What were the ships like on the inside back then? -We didn’t have ships back in those times. We would travel on fishing boats. And when the weather was bad, the boats could not sail out. And all the goods brought to the grocery stores, they would bring them on the boats. The ships came…
I will talk to you about a favourite pastime. We would gather together in the evenings, there was no television, or radio, or cinema. Coffee shops were only for men. And they would gather at the homes, in front of the fireplace and have the so-called ‘veggera’. That is where they would tell their stories,…
-Where are you from? -From Syneti. A village behind that hill. -As you look from your school at the church across, and then at the mountain, behind it there is a village called Syneti. -What was your house like? – Our house was very old, in Syneti. Made out of stone. The roof on top…
How did you take baths? – Do you know how we would bathe? (laughing) We would wear these little dresses and a shirt on top. We wouldn’t bathe naked. -At home? -Oh! At home! We had these tin tubs, metal ones. Our mother would heat up water on the fire and put us in the…
School those years was both in the mornings and evenings. We would go in the morning and go back in the evening. The only day we didn’t go to school in the evenings was Saturday. All the other days we would go both mornings and evenings. -How was the classroom inside? – The classroom? It…
-What were the ships like? – What were the ships like, dear… Back then, honey, these big ships would come on Sunday, from the port here. There weren’t any ferry boats like there are now. – Didn’t you have the Blue Star Ferries? – Here, at the port, we had ships. They weren’t super ferries.…
-What jobs did your mother and father do? -I’ll tell you. My mother was a housewife at home because she had five children. My father had a small fishing boat. He would load it up, go to Porto Rafti and load up food and bring it back to Andros. We didn’t have a lot of…
-How did you go from one place to the other? We were in Niborio, have you heard of Niborio? Do you know the spring, where you walk up and find the stream? That is exactly where we lived, in the part behind. We went to school on foot. -Didn’t you have cars then? -Dear god!…
I was the fifth child of my parents. When my father had to give his mother’s name, Smaragda, his sister called Haido had died. And he called my sister before me Haido. When I was born 5 years later, the fifth child, he told the priest “We will name her Smaragda”. But the priest said…
