Paneyiri

At the paneyiri, I returned to a lesson of my dissertation:  traveling when you don't know the language well is all done through the eyes.  We gaze, viewing everything through the lens of our own experience.  My last night in Greece, remembering Paneyiris we've been to in Corinth, I expected activity at the church, a few trinkets, mostly religiously focused, like icons and other things, and loukoumades and paper-wrapped big slices of pork cut from a whole pig roasting on a fire.  What we got instead was the entirety of Agiou Ioanniou cordoned off for the benefit of the street vendors.  There was a lot of cheap American, Chinese and European goods (knock-offs of designer goods, plastic toys, cheap jewelry),

Familiar Tee shirts!

Knock offs sold by immigrants

 a few things that looked "eastern" (belly dancer costumes and nargile),

Nargile in front, belly dancer costumes in back.

 two vendors from Crete (cheese, raki), lots of places to buy socks, underwear, dresses, shorts, kitchen equipment, and a few icon sellers.  An American friend suggested we skip it as it was J-U-N-K. 

But this was an authenically Greek celebration, junk and all.  The church was packed with lines of people waiting to buy and light candles.  

Lighting candles...promises are made to the saint, or thanks given.

The patron saint for the neighborhood is Agia Paraskevi, the patron saint of eyes ailments, because she cured the Roman emperor Antoninus of the blindness caused by steam from the cauldron in which he was boiling her.... 

There was a loudspeaker, so you could hear the service from outside the church, it was so packed.

There was a service going on and people were listening outside and waiting to get in.  The street market was packed, and most sellers were doing a brisk business.  This is what Greek people were buying.  It was curious – I’d seen so very much junk sold to tourists, I was excited about a street market for Greeks.  But it was a little disappointing because so much was STILL junk, and so much was FAMILIAR junk.  That is where the eyes come in.  There are always the comparisons with home.  What catches the eye depends on how secure and comfortable the traveler is.  When secure, what catches the eye is the unfamiliar, the exciting.  When uncomfortable, what catches the eye is the familiar, the thing one can make sense of.  I see this phenomenon even when I travel in the US:  when we drive up and down the coast it is natural to look for familiar stores or restaurants.  I need something for a pharmacy, so I look for one of the national chains I know, as I won’t easily recognize an independent store or local chain as a pharmacy.  Same goes for food – if you aren’t sure of the quality of the restaurant, it can be very tempting to find a familiar chain (I’m not even talking fast food here!) rather than take one’s chances at a unfamiliar place.

So I’m pretty comfortable here, and an experienced traveler – I’m looking for difference, and the sameness was disappointing.  My eye was drawn to the few stands that seemed to be selling something “authentically” Greek, not American or pan-European.  But they were few, and not particularly busy.  Karaghiosis figures, and Cretan Raki are not what was popular,  curtains, bedsheets with Disney characters, kitchenwares were.  I had to look hard to find differences, like the meat grinders and the brikis.

Meat grinders in front of the pots.

Brikis for making Greek coffee

  Always, always, Greece has to mould itself to visitors’ expectations, always, always, the travelers demand differences here (particularly in what you can buy), even if they bemoan the lack of difference in key areas (food, toilet paper, showers…).  I think my disappointment says as much about me as it does about Greece.