Malahini in Greece and Turkey

By now you are wondering what I do every day and if I do different things on the weekend. I am wondering the same thing! I am not sure what we are doing this weekend. I can tell you about my daily schedule though:
At 7 am we go to the diningroom and have breakfast. Everyone is very quiet at breakfast. I will have to put a picture with people later. It is Sunday, so no one is in the dining room. At 7:30 everyone else gets up from the table and goes to work at the excavation. At the excavation they meet some Greek workmen who do the actual digging. All of the archeologists (doctoral students mostly) participate by writing notes and keeping track of what is being dug up. They also make decisions about where to dig next. There is a head archaeologist who supervises everything and makes the big decisions.

While they are working at the excavation I go and connect my computer to the Internet and send up my blog and the pictures. Then I go and volunteer in the museum. I have been taking digital pictures of everything they have on display in the museum and making a book that will be a record of what is there in digital form. By the way, what they have on display is only about 10% of what the museum has in it!

We all work until about 1:30 p.m. (with a break about 10 a.m.) and then it is time for lunch. We meet back in the dining room where the table is set and food is ready. After eating it is time for pottery reading. This means that all of the archaeologists meet in the pottery shed and look through all of the pottery shards that they collected that day. They sort them and decide what might be worth keeping. This is very difficult work and takes lots of practice. When they are done with that they go and record what they found that day into a computer. This takes until about 5 pm.

I took this picture of pottery shards to show you what the archaeologists are working with. I think I would have a very difficult time sorting this in any way that made sense.

During this time I sometimes do more volunteer work, write my blog for the next day, take pictures, visit with pot painters in the village, or read. I brough a drawing pad and pencils, so I might go and find something to sketch or take a long walk. So far I have not done these things yet. Then at 7 it is time for hors-devours and at 7:30 is dinner.

On Saturday the day starts a little later with breakfast at 7:30, work until 12:30 and then after lunch everyone is free. Some people travel, others stay at the site. Usually the work-week starts again on Monday morning, but this week Monday is a holiday. It is called Pentecost and is 50 days from Easter. It is an important church holiday, which is why we don’t celebrate it except in church in the USA. Greece is a Christian Orthodox country and celebrates religious holidays. They even have crosses and icons in their school classrooms.

It is Friday while I am writing, so it is a good time to have a blog on the topic of food. I have already mentioned proeno (prounounced pro-ye-NO). This is breakfast, but most Greeks do not eat much at this time. They definitely have Greek coffee (coffee grounds boiled right in the water) and maybe a piece of toast. Their real breakfast is at 10. It is a break. This is the one that consists of pasteries like I have in this picture. People often also drink Greek coffee again or have juice. It is a major recess in school and a break at work, but not like our lunch. In my experience this is a time when people bring something special to share if it is their birthday or name day (a day that the saint you are named after is celebrated).

Traditionally Greeks eat their main meal (It sounded like messmeriano when Maria said it.) at 2 or 2:30 because many of them have a long break from work at that time and that is when school is over. This is changing since many people cannot take a long time off to cook and eat in the middle of the day. This is usually a hot, cooked meal with salad and they often eat dessert (at least whenever I have been there!). Dessert can be pudding, ice cream, cookies, brownies, fruit or backlava.

Traditionally dinner (It sounded like thibno when Maria said it.) is a light meal in the evening about 8:30 or later. More modern Greeks who have different schedules have adopted the western idea of having their main meal at dinner, but they still eat later than we do in the US. Paniotis told me that sometimes he eats a heavy lunch and a lighter dinner and sometimes a light lunch and a heavy dinner. It depends on what food he is eating. Someone from John Muir asked about Giros and YES they do have Giros. Other food that is common is Souvlaki (meat cooked on a skewer), Mousakka (an eggplant casserole), Tzatziki (something you dip your bread in with thick plain yogurt, cucumbers, dill and olive oil-I like it). Something I do not really like, but many Greeks do is octopus! sHere is a picture that I took on my last visit of octopus. One of the best kinds of food here is grilled meat.

Greek Food.com can tell you more about Greek Food and is probably much more accurate than I am.

Your Greek word for the day is frappe (frapp-AY). It is made of Nescafe (instant coffee) and blended to create the foam on top. It is a cold drink that people usually drink with lots of sugar.

Greeks seem also to like snacks. There are several kiosks like the one in the picture in town that have lots of cookies and candy and ice cream.

I need to tell you a bit about where I am staying. The arcaeological dig that we are at is in a town called Old Corinth (Archaos Korintos). There is a more modern town called New Corinth (or just Korintos) about a half hour away.

Corinth was an important city in history for several reasons. It is on the coast of the Pelopponesian Island (the big bottom chunk of Greece). Because of that it had a port where lots of commerce passed through. Also, there is a huge rock outcropping called Acrocorinth that could be used as a place to protect the area if there was a war. Most of the time the people lived down in the farm land all around, but if they were under attack they could all climb up to the top of Acrocorinth. It was very difficult to attack because it was high and they built walls all around it. Anyone coming to attack could be seen from a long way off. An attacker would have a very difficult time getting into the walls.

The whole Pelopponese was only connected to the mainland by a small piece of land. The Mediterranian Sea surrounds Greece. Ships would come to the side called the Sea of Crete and rather than sail the whole way around to get to the Ionian Sea they could unload all of their goods, carry the boat from one side of the land to the other and put the ship back into the ocean, put all of the goods back into the boat and take off again. It sounds like a lot of trouble, but it was a lot safer than trying to ship around the land in bad weather. Later I will tell you about the digging of the Corinth Canal.

The archaeological dig is sort of like a fancy summer camp. There are archaeology students from the United States and Greece and also professors who come and work here for three weeks at a time. There are dorm-like rooms where most of the people stay, but Steve and I are staying in a little house right on the archaeological site itself! It is a very old house and not a good place to stay in the winter because it is too cold. I am putting some pictures here.

I have added a map showing where our plane traveled to yesterday’s post. Are you curious about anything? Please write comments so that I will know what to write about!