I am sitting in the village square of Mesta; small girls on bikes, stray cats slinking, birds singing (Laurie, I do not know what kind), a frappe on the table for me. This village is amazing. It sits on arid hills on the south west side of the island of Chios. It's history goes back well over 700 years. It is a double walled village - which means, i think, an outer wall of stone structures (today homes) and an inner wall within which the rest of the village sits. All the streets and small alleys twist in a labyrinth like plan, some dead ending, others folding back on themselves, others diverting you to outside the village walls. All this to thwart attack and invasion by pirates after the valuable mastic. It's early success came about because of this mastic production (resin from the mesta tree) which was one of the first gums and during the late Ottoman Empire was worth as much as silver, by weight. It's value to the Ottomans afforded the citizens of the island, who were Christians, special privileges under Ottoman rule. In 1821, as the Greek mainland pushed for independence, they came to Chios to launch an attack and enlisted the help of Chians. The Turks trounced them and the Greek population of the island suffered horrible slaughter as punishment for participating.... after they had been granted special favors. Some estimates I've read say 5/6 of the islands 120,000 population was killed, enslaved or fled.
The village we stayed in in Turkey, Sirence, was a Greek village until the Greco-Turk war. During the war, by choice, and after the war by force, an estimated million Greeks fled Turkey and a million Turks fled Greece. The "population exchange" it is called. Whole towns transformed in the process. It is a process repeated over and over throughout history. It is a process we have the chance to divert everyday.
We are in the last few days of this extraordinary journey and I am trying to hold onto the wonder still before me instead of forfeiting these days to the tasks of next week.
O.K. So I wrote this 4 days ago, when I had some reliable Internet, which died part way through. Ugg.
The village we stayed in in Turkey, Sirence, was a Greek village until the Greco-Turk war. During the war, by choice, and after the war by force, an estimated million Greeks fled Turkey and a million Turks fled Greece. The "population exchange" it is called. Whole towns transformed in the process. It is a process repeated over and over throughout history. It is a process we have the chance to divert everyday.
We are in the last few days of this extraordinary journey and I am trying to hold onto the wonder still before me instead of forfeiting these days to the tasks of next week.
O.K. So I wrote this 4 days ago, when I had some reliable Internet, which died part way through. Ugg.