Easter day of my Grandmother Naouma

"Why are you looking so worried my Grandmother? Why are you sighing? What do you need? You have everything. You have your children and grandchildren around you, and as you see, they didn't leave you alone in Siatista. You must be very happy here, in Salonica".

"I don't complain, my dear Zoina. I wish all of them to be happy and blessed by Virgin Mary. But, these holy Easter days I am always thinking of my birthplace. There, they all were different. Here, these days, everybody tries to escape. They take their cars and drive away. The house will be left empty. I will be alone. Of course you may wonder why I am not going with them. Well, this is not so simple, because I am able to move from my seat, since I have pains in my stomach and rheumatisms. Anyway, dear Zoina, the truth is that only at my birthplace somebody can enjoy a holy day. Here, in this strange city...you cannot enjoy anything at all. There, a lot of happy things were happening! Ah, dear Zoina, where are those happy years?..... Mutual visits, tasty food, violin music!. But here, in this place, when Easter days come, my mind goes back there. Ah, by the way, I'll tell you a funny story, which I recollect from those Easter days. Perhaps you may say that such stories are not to be told, but… I' tell it only to you"…:

As you know very well, during the second day of Easter the residents of Chora (place name of the Upper part of Siatista), used to pay a visit to their friends and relatives to Geraneia (the lower district of Siatista). And the day after that, the residents of Geraneia used to pay a visit to their relatives and friends in Chora. Well, that day we walked to Chora and firstly we attended the holy service in the church of Saint Trinity. After that we began our visits to relatives and friends. We all were about ten, including my friends Chichioula, Giontina, Lialina, Gavouleni.

We paid short visits to well known to us families, where the ladies of the houses offered to us coffee, sweets, a local sweet so-called  "courabies", plus a boiled red egg, (in some cases an egg with a kind of painting on its surface so-called "perdices"). I said "perdices" and I remembered your mother, who was of the same age with me and a friend of mine. She used to dye and paint the eggs, drawing very beautiful flowers on them. When your mother decided to do something she used to do it perfectly well.

Well, let me go on, my dear Zoina.

That morning we visited more than twenty houses of our relatives and friends. Perhaps you are wondering what kind of pockets we had in order to put so many boiled eggs and so many sweets. Well, we had sewed a big pocket at the front side of our underskirt. We pulled upwards our skirt, we put in the large pocket the new gift and then we let the skirt to cover the pocket back. And so we went on…. We had reached Garathka, when Gavoleni shouted:

"We've forgotten Anastasi, Tsiangou's husband".

 "Poor Leni, I said, "how can we walk up such a steep hill-road? There are so many stones on that road and we are carrying such a heavy burden in our pockets…"

"No, no, we must go" replied two or three ladies of our company. "If we don't, the housewife will be annoyed".

So, we decided to go and we began walking. But as we were walking uphill I stepped on the front end of my skirt and I fell down. It hurt very much. Lialina rushed to help me to stand upright. But, besides my pain I had another loss. Many of the eggs in my pocket broke. Unfortunately some of them were not boiled. I felt my underskirt and underwear getting wet…. I came to a very bad situation. Gavoleni saw me, she - the Satan - said something to the others and they all began laughing at me. What can I say now, my dear Zoina? I felt sick. I was embarrassed, shamed, blushed. Without delay I ran quickly downhill..., I entered a narrow street, I got rid of the broken eggs and I squeezed my skirt.

Then following side paths and avoiding the main street , I tan home like a wild animal.

klik on foto to see zoina's perdikes