Lots of years ago, I spent a lot of time in Greece, wandering around, and learning how the Greeks did things, and how they lived. This was in the 60’s of the last century….. Long before everyone went to Greece!
A lot of time was spent hitching around Greece. One of my favourite things was the concept of Xenia, not as hatred of foreigners, but of welcoming them to their lives.
The concept of Xenia was to welcome foreigners (which meant anyone from a different place, not foreigners necessarily), but anyone from elsewhere – but not the neighboring villages, they felt about them as anyone in the world did….
That was different to our meaning of that word, which is xenophobia, which means hatred of foreigners, they welcomed them….
In the north of Greece, when I went into a village, everyone ran out the other side of the village, as I looked like a bandit (I had long hair and a beard, which only bandits wore in that time), so I simply sat down in a cafe and waited. The civil war was very fresh in everyone’s memories.
In due time the village priest came back, as he was untouchable for bandits, and sat beside me, to find out who I was. Once he discovered that I was a foreigner, he signaled the rest of the village, and they all came back – well, the men came back, not the women. I never saw any women at all.
I was then welcomed in the entire village houses…. All of them! Each night I had to stay in another house – and I never saw a woman! As payment, I brought the kids presents, as they would accept no other payment, as being paid went against the concept of Xenia. But I couldn’t take endlessly and felt that I should pay for things, as they were poor, poor, and – relatively, I was rich.
This soon stopped as Hippies abused this concept, and made use of it, and now, if you go to Greece, you will search for Xenia all over the place, but you won’t find it, sadly.
One of the other things I found with hitching around Greece was that I was given rides in the most extraordinary vehicles….. Given lifts on a donkey was not rare. I sat upon the donkey’s back and found myself in endless villages, and in army trucks was not a rare thing. I really enjoyed myself in Greece, and loved the Greeks, particularly the country ones.
OZTHOUGHTS 