Insight: In Greece, A Painful Return To Country Roots

[John81]

Insight: In Greece, a painful return to country roots

KONITSA, Greece (Reuters) - Thirteen years after abandoning rural Greece for a career in graphic design, Spiridoula Lakka finds herself in the last place she expected to end up - watering a patch of lettuce and herbs in her sleepy village.
As Greece sank into its worst economic crisis since World War Two, Lakka had already given up her dream of becoming a web designer. Even waitressing seemed impossible. She faced a simple choice: be stranded without money in Athens, or return to the geriatric village where she grew up plotting to escape.
At age 32, Lakka, an office clerk who also juggled odd jobs, joined a growing number of Greeks returning to the countryside in the hope of living off the land. It's a reversal of the journey their parents and grandparents made in the 1960s and '70s.
Data is scarce on how many people have made the trek, but as people angered by austerity head to the polls on June 17, anecdotal evidence and interviews with officials suggest the trend is gaining momentum. In a survey of nearly 1,300 Greeks by Kapa Research in March, over 68 percent said they had considered moving to the countryside, with most citing cheaper and higher quality life. Most expected to move permanently.
"A year ago, I couldn't imagine myself holding a garden hoe, or doing any farming," said Lakka, as she watered the herbs she grows in the village of Konitsa, which nestles among snow-capped peaks near the Albanian border.
"I've always wanted to leave the village. I never imagined I would actually spend my whole life here."
Her experience has been far from idyllic. The arrival of young, city-dwelling Greeks is being watched with a mix of pity and hope by those who never left.
"Those who have returned are desperate. They aren't coming back because they wanted to," said Stefanou Vaggelis, a 50-year-old distillery owner as he threw back tsipouro - a strong spirit favored by locals - with friends in the village centre dotted with taverns.
This summer, judging from the queries he has received from city-dwellers on vacation, Vaggelis predicts as many as 60 people will move to Konitsa, where over half of the population of about 3,000 is aged 60 or over.
"They usually ask whether there are state subsidies for agriculture and for growing pomegranates, snails and aromatic herbs," he said, recounting how a 40-year-old acquaintance had returned to tend sheep in the hills. Greece's farmers mostly run small operations and rely on EU subsidies to survive. They complain that over the past five years subsidies have halved.

Rest of story:
http://news.yahoo.com/insight-greece-painful-return-country-roots-050300127--business.html

[John81]

What happens when the financial bottom falls out in America?

Thankfully I live in a small town in a very rural county. I have enough property to grow a huge garden that would provide more than enough food for my family. There is also plenty of game and fish in these parts, even if most people resorted to hunting and fishing for food the supply would last a good long while. Not to mention all the farmers one could buy or barter from.

You couldn't pay me enough to live in a city.

[JerryNumbers]

Depending on subsidies does not sung like living off the land.

Yes, what happens if the bottom fall out of America? Many people would starve, for there would be hardly any money to buy necessity's for the family. And there would be much stealing, killing. But even in very hard times some would get rich.

I might add, even those living in the country probably would not be able to afford electricity, if the bottom completely falls out.

[Oldtimer]

I might add, even those living in the country probably would not be able to afford electricity, if the bottom completely falls out.

I remember the days before REA set poles and pulled electric power lines across our rural area.

Water was pulled from the well, one bucket full at a time.

Mama cooked on a wood fired cookstove. She used a washboard and boiled clothes in a washpot.

Kerosene lamps provided light needed to eat supper before going to bed early, after setting the wind-up alarm clock.

Sometimes, in summer, there was a 25 lb block of ice in the icebox.

Mama used an old fashioned wooden dasher in a churn to make butter and REAL buttermilk. She ironed clothes with a flat iron that was heated on the wood cookstove. Grandma made lye soap and darned socks. (Wonder how many have a darning egg?)

A chamber pot was kept under the bed for use at night and emptied the next day in the little house at the rear of the yard.

When the temperature was right, usually mid December around here, it was "hog killing" weather. It was time to make bagged sausage and salt cure hams to go with the vegetables that were canned during the summer. Those were supplemented with fresh eggs, and once in a while a fried chicken Sunday supper.

Remember the 7 years of feast and famine from the scriptures?

There are oil lamps, wicks, candles, matches in the storage houses.
There are several castiron stoves ready for use, if needed.
Home canned venison is mighty tasty when served with rice (30+ year shelf life, if properly stored)

The handwriting has been on the wall for some time now, while we've been feasting. When the famine strikes, the pully needed to pull buckets of water from the well, will cease to be a decoration when it's put back into service. Along with other, long forgotten by many, ways of living without flipping a switch or pushing a button.

[JerryNumbers]

When I came along, born 46, I don't remember being without electricity. One light bulb in each room hanging on a cord with a string hanging down from it. Some people might not know what the string was for.

Our living room light was fancy, it had a wall switch, but it was in the bedroom that was next to the living room.

A friend of mine that lives back in the boom docks that's about my age, he said they had not electricity until he was on up in grade school. he still remember going to town in a wagon, stopping just before entering town, eating their lunch. And he said the1st job I remember father having was working for the outfit that clears out for the high-lines & installed the poles & lines. I believe he said he was about 6 or 7 when they started bringing electricity to them. Of course he lives so far back in the boon docks, in order to deer hunt, he has to go towards town.

I remember the wash pot & fire, & clothes washing day, that was a big chore done in the back yard. And I remember when father got one of those washing machine with the rollers on top, it set in the back yard too.

I remember when we got indoor plumbing doing away with the outhouse, & a hot water heater.

[Guest]

"Her experience has been far from idyllic."

Doesn't that quote fairly well sum up the world today. When we run after Satan's promises.


1 John 2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.