It's difficult to believe that 2009 is nearing a close; and moreover that the first decade of the new millenium is also nearly over.
My elder child was just a toddler when we saw in the new year in 2000, yet in a few months time he'll be a teenager. My daughter wasn't even a twinkle in her father's eye then, but is currently out on a bike ride on her own... I know it's an oft used comment, but the older I get the faster time seems to go.
Meanwhile, when I've had a spare moment in the last 12 months I've enjoyed a few good books (and a few awful ones!). I seem to have read a disproportionately large number that have Greek recent history, particularly the last war, as their theme. 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin', 'The Island', 'The Brass Dolphin' (actually set in Malta, but telling a very similar story to the Greek occupation) and most recently Nicholas Gage's true story of his mother's life, in 'Eleni'.
Each of these books tells a story of village life in the country in a time before electricity, running water, indoor toilets or motorised transport, let alone tarmac on the roads. As well as the main storylines of great heroism and vile acts, they also paint vivid pictures of life in Greece 60-70 years ago, well within the living memory of many of my neighbours.
These stories have helped me to understand why some things happen in our village even today. The segregation between men and women, whilst no where near so extreme as it was before WW2, can still be seen. Sunday evenings in the summer months when the men congregate on the steps to the platia, whilst the women sit on their front porches, the latter lacemaking or preparing vegetables and gossiping, the former arguing politics or football. The kafenions that are still strictly men only. Most now do see the occasional woman through their doors, but one or two remain exclusively male domains.
The books have also helped me to have a glimpse of what life must have been like before tourism discovered Corfu (and indeed all of Greece and her islands), when the seasons and the sunrise dictated the lifestyle, and people relied on the land, not the supermarket, for their food.
Only last week we were about to bottle some of our home made wine. Tony was warned, "only do it if the day is sunny." Bottle it when its raining and the wine will be cloudy. Is this an old wives tale, or perhaps because the air is damper on a rainy day, and the action of the wine being opened to the damp atmosphere makes it cloudy? I have no idea, but Tony bottled it on a day that was overcast, although it didn't rain. Result? Our wine has a good flavour, but could be clearer!
You may ask where all this is leading. Well, in early spring this year the rumours started. "It's going to be a hard summer this year," "there's no jobs about" and other similar comments. These are the same stock sayings as have been said every year for the last 6 or 7, and so I'm not sure how many people really took them very seriously. However, with the benefit of hindsight the doom-mongers were right. Tourism nosedived this year, thanks to the global credit crunch, European recession and other factors such as cheap long haul holidays to non EU countries, where the British tourist's (which have historically made up nearly 50% of summer visitors to the island) hard earned pound would stretch a bit further.
You probably know that Greece welcomed a new government earlier in the year. Since Pasok returned to power the community has been made far more aware of the true nature of Greece's debt. It's pretty massive and there is much talk of bankruptcy, devaluation, a return to the Drachma and various other possibilities. I'm not sufficiently well versed in the economics of the country to pass any comment, but have noticed a not inconsiderable amount of wailing and arm waving in certain quarters. "How are we going to manage?" "How will I pay for my new car/new suite/new house" etc etc.
The word on the street now is that there is plenty of work about, but no-one is paying. This certainly seems to be true. It looks to me that the generation who have enjoyed relative affluence over the last 20 years or so thanks to mass tourism haven't quite got their heads around the fact that they cannot continue to spend in the way they have been used to.
As an observer, it seems to me that the hierarchical nature of society here comprises the employers and the workers. The employers (aka the rich) are good enough to offer the workers work, and the workers should be grateful. Wages have always been a bit sporadic here, especially within tourism. Workers are often not paid quite when they should be, the employers waiting until the tour operator payments, or whatever, are received, before dipping their hands too deeply into their pockets. This year employers employed, workers worked, but nobody paid. I have friends who are still waiting for final payments from summer 2008 who went back to the same employer in 2009 and have worked all season without pay.
It begs the question, given that experience why do the workers work? I feel sure the answers are manifold, but at least in part it must be because they don't know anything different, and being essentially an honest race they presume that if they've been promised their wages they will get them eventually. Sadly though this touching faith isn't holding true at the moment.
Which all takes me back to the books I've been reading. It seems to me, and from conversations with some of my older Greek friends and acquaintances, that this recession is going to mean not simply a bit of belt tightening, but a complete change in outlook for many people. For the more mature who remember life before tourism it will be a return; a resumption of life not dissimilar to that described in the books. But for the youngsters who are used to having state of the art mobile phones glued to their ears, whilst driving a souped up Golf or Seat around or sitting in the bars of the coastal resorts until the small wee hours, trying to 'out-pose' one another, it'll be a huge culture shock.
I went to buy some chicken feed today, and was talking with the Greek shop keeper about just this subject. His words were quite prophetic if slightly dramatic. "We can no longer rely on tourism. We must move back to the land. The land will provide for us, and for those who do not know how to tend it there are others who can teach them. However, some people here are lazy and don't want to learn. They are the ones who will die."
A somber thought for a new decade. I hope and pray it won't quite come to that, but I suspect that things on our little green island will change out of all recognition over the next few years. Lets hope that Prime Minister George Papandreou and his government will succeed in making those changes for the better, not worse.
Personally, I was originally somewhat scared by the prospect of life without two brass farthings to rub together. I'm still not too keen on the concept of arranged marriages and eating boiled snails for dinner, but now I'm beginning to be a little less nervous and am even looking forward to the possibility of living life a different way. Perhaps I'm being naive, and I guess the fact that we have a few quid left in the bank, plus the knowledge that if the going got too bad we could return to the UK reassures me. But if Corfu starts to rely less on tourism and more on farming and local manufacturing it could be a fascinating experience and a wonderful, if rather basic place to live.
