Dusk is actually falling because the Tsirigoti and her partner Nikos – in addition to a great physics teacher – arrived at my hotel, and now we cam regarding the lawn courtyard, under a beneficial bougainvillea which is only a trace lighter than Tsirigoti’s magenta-coloured tresses. Regarding the faces off each other Tsirigoti and you may Koulianos I am able to discern outlines of your own good options that come with the maternal grandma, because the seized in an image pulled by the Australian musician Cedric Flower, exactly who registered Clift and you can Johnston to your Kalymnos for many days during the summer from 1955.
Exactly how true is that?
Georgia Tsirigoti, a beneficial physics professor towards the Kalymnos, claims that now towards the isle, as with this lady grandmother Sevasti Taktikou’s day, “the women are definitely the boss of the property”. Credit: Nadia Wheatley
“I’ve too many photos regarding the lady – wry, sardonic, romantic, smooth, raffish, unfortunate,” Clift published away from Taktikou. “But live, all of them, enjoying and you can respiration and you may real time.”
Rightly, for the Cedric Flower’s photo, Taktikou are ready in order to Clift a plate of fruits, since if she have been the fresh archetypical Planet Mom; it’s clear that on the Australian woman, freshly arrived in a bewildering, alien people, the new old Greek lady try the latest surrogate mommy just who educated the woman to search and you may prepare and keep maintaining domestic on local manner.
Georgia Tsirigoti spent simply annually away from the lady youthfulness toward Kalymnos; their dad’s profession as the a police caused him to move their members of the family regarding, within isle away from Rhodes, the newest Peloponnese, plus the city of Thessaloniki. Given Tsirigoti’s comprehension of the rest out-of Greece, I’m especially interested to locate the woman deal with the fresh new island’s public organisation. I initiate: “About publication, Charmian says you to definitely, in electricity that Kalymnian guys seem to have . ”
“Yes! Since most of the males was in fact travel, of the sponges. Even today, many men are working while the mariners – captains or auto mechanics. It take a trip a great deal. ”
We recount my prior day’s dialogue which have Hatzismalis along with his spouse, and i also offer Hatzismalis’ denial that “We Kalymnian guys are very happy.”
Once again, Tsirigoti in an instant believes. “Sure. As they have absolutely nothing to bother with. The tough choices try removed by the ladies – the fresh new spouses – not by boys. This new guys are free to disappear completely to be hired, and to go back to Kalymnos and real time a little while having their friends, and then leave once again. And this is the way it was, even today.” I come across Tsirigoti’s partner, who is Athenian, silently agreeing.
“All difficult decisions try drawn by the girls – the spouses – not of the men … This is 
how it’s, right now.”
This offer between men are expressed maybe not inside the a beneficial created pre-nup but in a thing that is normally practically real: a house. Immediately following detailing the fresh ongoing power of your own Multiple Deity, Clift produces inside the Mermaid Singing: “Brand new apparent reality of men supremacy must be set from the earlier and extreme undeniable fact that property right here descends from the women range, off mom so you can oldest daughter.”
“Sure.” Immediately following specific talk for the Greek having Nikos, she explains: “Right now – not too strictly now, however, right now – it’s tradition provide all of the girl a property.”
Therefore the ladies are the manager of the property
Which home is the brand new bride’s prika, the woman dowry. Pursuing the matrimony, this new groom movements into the. And when the marriage can not work, Clift informed me, “that isn’t their who is turned out of your house”.
Little inquire, I think, one into Kalymnos, some one chat endlessly out-of households, however once we would in australia, just like the a matter of value. Right here our home is the source of an excellent woman’s energy, within the real terminology.