1603-1640: THE GREAT MIGRATION
Every life writes its own Work of Fiction (anonymous)
From 1602 to 1620 when the Mayflower sailed, 81 ships (probably more, but those are the ones that have been recorded) crossed the Atlantic, some to found settlements there; most of these failed and the passengers either died or managed to return home. Many of those to make these first journeys were single men. For example, the Concord left Falmouth, England on May 15, 1602 but carried no settlers. In 1603, the Speedwell and the Explorer left for the territory known as Virginia to evaluate its commercial potential. They arrived instead on the coast of Maine in June of that year, were attacked by Indians, and returned to England by October. In 1606, the Richard left Plymouth in August also heading for the North Plantation of Virginia with supplies; they returned in March of the following year without ever having made it to their destiny. This is just a sample of what would turn into an incredible criss-crossing of the Atlantic Ocean.
Saturday, December 30, 1606, 150 passengers left Blackwell, London in three ships: the Susan Constant, the Goodspeed and the Discovery. After 6 weeks at sea they landed in Cape Henry in Virginia and were attacked by Indians. It was the 105 survivors of the original 150 men and boys that founded Jamestown in May of 1607. Of that group, only 38 or 40 would 
survive to see the second landing in January of 1608. This ship arrived carrying only 100 of the 120 original settlers that had set out from England.
In the late summer of 1609, 200-300 more colonists disembarked at Jamestown, many of them women and children. The death rate in the colony had risen to 70% by this time. But mortality due to disease and starvation was to go higher, reaching almost 80% during the winter following their arrival, a period that came to be known as the “Starving Time”. Scientific proof has been found that the colonists –during this time- even resorted to cannibalism[1] eating the flesh of those who had died before them in order to survive.
In May of 1611, the Starr left England headed for Virginia, accompanied by the Prosperous and the Elizabeth. Amongst them they carried 300 people, much needed supplies and horses, cows, goats, rabbits, pigeons and chickens. The men aboard were listed as 
“honest, sufficient artificers, carpenters, smiths, coopers, fishermen, tanners, shoemakers, shipwrights, brickmen, gardeners, husbandmen and laboring men of all sorts.” Jamestown was being seriously populated and every kind of artisan and builder was needed to insure its growth.
And so it went: the Treasurer sailed in 1613; the Blessing with 100 passengers in March of 1614; the John and Francis in the first week of November 1614 with 34 men and 11 women and other necessaries for the rest of the Colony. The George departed in December of 1617 and took five months to reach Virginia with its supplies mostly lost and some 400 men, women and children in a sorry state. In 1618 a ship called Gift from God sailed to Virginia with 250 settlers. About 180 to 200 people crossed also in 1618 aboard the William and Thomas and some 30 to 130, according to varying reports, died on the way. The Bosa Nova and the Diana both sailed in 1619 carrying 120 persons and 100 children between them; only 80 children survived the crossing. And more, the Margaret of Bristol and the Sampson sailed in 1619 carrying 36 and 50 settlers respectively. In 1620 there were several trips over, all to Virginia, carrying more settlers in what was by then the most important colony in the New World.
In that same year, the Mayflower set sail from Harwich, England on the 6th of September and arrived on the 11th of November in Plymouth Harbor. During the crossing, two people died and one baby was born (it died shortly after landing). Of a total of 102 passengers, 54 either died on board over the first winter when the harsh weather obliged them to stay on the ship, immediately after gaining land or over the first year. At the end of that period, only 45 survivors were counted in the budding Plymouth Colony. The Mayflower was but the first ship to take emigrants to what would later be Massachusetts and it therefore has been marked as the signal founding voyage of the future New England.[2]
Between the Mayflower and the Winthrop fleet, 66 other recorded ships made the crossing, founding settlements in Plymouth, Braintree, New Amsterdam, Salem and Charleston bringing the grand total of known crossings to 147 ships with varying numbers of passengers and rates of mortality. These were not pleasure cruises and one can barely begin to imagine the courage it took to embark on them.
Many of the travellers on these first voyages returned with tales of their hardships, but also with stories of the unimaginable extensions of choice land to be had for the wanting, of the possibility of founding communities based on their dreams and of the freedom from tyranny. In 1630, right before the departure of the Winthrop Fleet, the Mary and John sailed with approximately 140 passengers from Dorchester, Dorset, England that arrived at Nantasket Point and, just a few months before the founding of Boston, founded one of the first New England towns: Dorchester, Massachusetts; three years later, on the 8th of October, the first town meeting in America was celebrated there. Dorchester would later become the home of Baker’s Cocoa, which has formed a part of almost every American child’s diet since then. It was annexed to Boston in 1870.
In spite of the fact that so many had already made the crossing, the so-called “Great Migration” began in honest in 1630 when the Winthrop Fleet of 11 ships gathered and crossed the Atlantic carrying more than a thousand emigrants, mostly families, to the future ‘New England’. The Fleet consisted of ships named the Arabella, the Ambrose, the Charles, the Hopewell, the Mayflower (a different one), the Jewel, the Success, the Trial, the Whale, the Talbot and the William and Francis. It landed near what would later become 
Salem, Massachusetts during the year of 1630 and constituted the first mass exodus of Puritans from England. Their dream, expressed by their leader, John Winthrop, was to found “a city on the hill” so that in sight of all who saw them they would be a model of goodness and light lived on this earth. Of the thousand settlers in that first group, two hundred died that winter and two hundred more returned to England the following spring. But, over the next ten years, more than 20,000 persons –mostly from East Anglia (Suffolk, Essex and Norfolk) in England and mostly of the Puritan philosophy– migrated to America to form the backbone of New England.
The difference between this migration and previous ones is the fact that it was realized by whole families who –pulling up their roots, selling or giving away or storing with others everything they had, saying goodbye to whatever family stayed behind perhaps to never be seen again– packed in grand trunks what necessary possessions they could not make anew on the other side (the metal parts of farming instruments, for example, a small store of pots and pans, the family bible, basic linens) and set out on an adventure that they couldn’t even begin to imagine. Most of them had never been aboard a ship before; some had never even seen the sea. Perhaps, if the real hardships of the trip and the new settlements had been known, the colonization effort might have been set back for many decades. But news did not travel fast then, mostly it did not travel at all and what ill tidings did manage to reach the coast of England, rarely continued inland or, if they did, were promptly overridden by dreams of barely imagined possibilities. The stories of over 100 acres of land being allotted to each settler; of communities making their own laws and governing themselves in a new and freer way, of prayer and religious gatherings being held in what for them was the true way… all this told of a ‘new beginning’ where anything was possible.
The East Anglian families that made up the bulk of those crossing in the 1600’s were not starving, uneducated people. Most of them had good schooling for the times; they were established artisans in their communities; some owned houses and land which they sold to pay for the trip. A few could afford servants and often took them along, paying for their passage as well. Some, however, were yeomen, tenants subservient to the nobility who had little hope of ever owning their own land. Most of these could not afford the cost of passage for themselves and their families so they became indentured servants during the trip and upon arrival until that time when they could repay their debt and become freeman. And then, of course, there were the adventurers and the restless, men who travelled alone seeking fortune. There was even an occasional single woman hoping, perhaps, to form a family with one of so many single men. But for the most part it was families that crossed. The long lists of passengers –saved over time so that today we may read them in wonder on Google- include families called Abbot (10), Barnard (6), Belcher (4), Cheesebrough (6), Dudley (8), Gardner (4), Greene (6) … Hawes (5), Kemball (13), Longe (13), Swayne (6) and so on. These were whole families pulling up their roots, leaving forever the known and moving to a new land. [3]
On the Planter, for example, that made the voyage in 1635, there were 118 passengers registered before boarding. The roll does not necessarily mean everyone on it boarded the ship or arrived in America: “Some may have decided not to sail; some servants may have run away. And there usually was some loss of life among the passengers from disease and malnutrition during the passage.”[4] Among those registered to board, the eldest is a man 70 followed by a woman 65 (not related) and another unrelated man of 65; there are 11 passengers in their 40s, but most are in their 20s and 30s. 53 of the passengers are under 17; the youngest is 3 months old, Thomas Tuttell who, at least, would have been assured of his food as long as his mother survived. The incredible thing about these passenger lists is they speak not of strong seamen, foolhardy adventurers or rough-and-tough men of the world, but of simple, everyday families. William Beardsley, for instance, was a 30 year old mason travelling with his wife, Mary, who was 26 and his three children –Mary, John and Joseph- aged 4, 2 and 6 months; Thomas Olney, shoemaker, 35 and his wife Mary, 30, took two children: Thomas 3 and Etenetus whose age is not registered. Also on board there were several husbandman (free tenant farmers or small landowners), 2 shoemakers, 3 tailors, a linen weaver, 2 curriers, 2 glovers, a carpenter, a hostler (one who looks after the horses), a couple of millers and 2 sawyers. 9 men and 3 women identify themselves as “servants” and travel attached to one of the families. In other words, these were not sea-people. They had lived in towns, they had worked on land, they had housed their families in nice cozy houses, everything they knew was solid and controllable. Nothing jumped about and possibly sank the way a small ship in a storm was apt to do. So, what drove them to the sea, to the unknown, to the dangers and the possible death during the journey or in the new land?
One factor was religious persecution. East Anglia was, at the time, a hotbed of dissenters and, although not all of them were Puritans, all of them believed that theirs was the only true religion and the only road to salvation. They truly believed. Today, perhaps, we would find that kind of absolute belief only in the jihadists who fly planes into towers or blow 
themselves up in nightclubs or drive a ten-ton truck through a crowd of revellers. In those days, it probably could be found amongst most believers of any religion. After Charles I rose to power, religious persecution increased as the Established Church of England grew ever more intolerant of what they called “heresies”. It was, apparently, William Laud who –upon becoming Archbishop of Canterbury- tightened the laws against “deviations” and was not prepared to compromise on any aspect of his policy. He gave the Justices of the Peace authorization to arrest all non-conformists who met in private. The leaders of ‘deviant’ movements were forbidden to preach and often imprisoned. He made it a criminal offense to attend Puritan worship services in an attempt to squash any opposition to the Anglican Church.
When the Puritan dominated Parliament was closed by Charles I, the followers of Puritanism found all channels for change blocked. Believing that eventually God would smite England for its sins, they had no qualms about leaving the followers of the ever more “popist” Church of England to their fate and emigrating with their leaders to a land where they could worship as they saw fit. So, many of the trips over were commandeered by Puritan leaders wishing to establish the “true” religion in the New Land.
The Puritan dream was to reform human civilization through religion, to wipe out poverty, to allow women to be educated so that they too might read God’s Word and be saved, and to make a heaven on Earth in which everyone was free to discover God’s will for
themselves. In this way, Puritans would be able to live exemplary lives in every respect so that everyone else would see God through them and be converted to their beliefs. Therefore many left England to preserve that faith and to create a place where Puritanism could thrive, grow strong and eventually –when England had been smote for its apostasy- re-establish Christian civilization[5]
However, some economic reasons were just as compelling. The Crown, to support King Charles’ self-serving excesses, imposed heavy taxation and much of the countryside suffered. “We are being taxed into the alms house without so much as a voice,” said one such victim of injustice[6]. East Anglia, already suffering because of the decline in wool trade, found itself doubly oppressed. Large and small freeholders became victims of taxation illegally laid on their holdings. Many in the region began suffering from severe poverty. Hardworking men could no longer see the benefits of the land that had birthed them. The stories that managed to filter back from the New World, spoke so gloriously of endless opportunities for land and betterment that the dangers and sacrifices involved in migrating must have seemed worth the risks.[7] Even noble landowners such as John Winthrop found themselves taxed to such an extent that they feared the future of their families.
Fear of the plague was another incentive to get as far away as possible. Death was a possibility even in the homeland especially since the bubonic plague continued to claim lives. Although the devastating epidemic of the 14th century had not since been repeated, people continued dying in the thousands from this disease. In 1603, there had been 30,000 deaths in London, in 1625 more than 35,000 died and again in 1636 the deaths reached more than 10,000 individuals. Even though it was known to hit hardest in cities, the plague also spread to towns in rural areas. There are, obviously, no numbers for smaller urban areas. In the New World there were no overcrowded and filthy cities to attract the disease, and one could safely hope it would not find a way to propagate there.
And then there was just simply hope or greed. Among other restless spirits were those whose land hunger was not satisfied at home. They heard of the great continent across the Atlantic where a hundred acres would be given to each and every settler –an expanse 
almost beyond their conception of reality. Farmers who had long lived as tenants to landed gentry dreamed of finally being landowners themselves. Small landowners who envisioned their properties decimated amongst their many offspring, hoped to be able to allot to each child a just amount. And, for some –the young, the unattached, the endlessly curious- it was simply the spirit of adventure, the dream of a land where everything was yet to be done, the creative challenge of establishing the perfect society, the thought of freedom from all constraint and the need for doing everything anew that pushed them up the boarding plank onto the waiting ships.
The eleven ships of the Winthrop Fleet were followed by 40 more recorded ships between 1630 and 1634. Afterwards, from 1634 to 1639, 98 more registered ships sailed across the Atlantic to the New World. According to Anne Stevens, who has carefully researched the matter[8], over 7100 families on 290 ships went to America between 1602 and 1638. And, then, it was over. There was hardly any further migration into New England until after the Revolution. Virtually all growth of the colony after 1640 was by natural reproduction. Those who had gone and stayed were founding –without knowing it- a new and incredible nation that would eventually come to be the most powerful in the world.
[1] (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-22362831)
[2] There is a TV miniseries called Saints & Strangers illustrating marvellously the struggles of these first settlers.
[3] On the internet site founded by the Winthrop Society we can view the lists of passengers by ship, and the names and ages of the passengers. http://winthropsociety.com/ships.php#passname
[4] http://winthropsociety.com/ships.php
[5] (https://thehistoricpresent.com/2008/10/27/the-puritans-and-freedom-of-religion/)
[6] Contentment, A Novel of New England’s Birth, Raymond E. Sullivan, 2006, IUniverse, Inc. USA.
Living in my little French community is like being in love. Every day I leave my house in the morning and have my heart broken wide open. On the way into town to have my morning coffee, I meet the elderly lady with the walker. She stops me to have a chat about her latest problem with her diabetes medicine or simply to comment on the most recent weather; a few meters further on, the overly rotund man in the automatic wheel chair motors out of his house and stops to say hello and smile, proffering a pat to Salomé’s cocked head. The very thin lady with the glasses and the large hooked nose, walking the shaggy red-haired dog that is friends with Salomé, stops to say good morning while our pets sniff each other cosily. A little further on, Loic from the Realty office where I rented my apartment drives by and honks hello from his car; I wave. Michelle, shapely and dressed to a T as if she had been invited to breakfast by the Mayor of Salies, greets me head-on half way to the Café and we exchange a kiss on the cheek and a few words. Right around the corner before I arrive, Jany who lives in the big house is usually outside to greet me and tell me the latest gossip about people I’ve never heard of or met. Her neighbour, with the cute dog that shares a sniff with Salomé, asks me how I am and I return the pleasantry. On the corner, the young, short round guy who cleans our streets informs me that the dog-poo bags have not yet arrived and smiles and shrugs his shoulders to make sure I know that their absence is not his fault.
By the time I arrive at the Café after so much social life, everyone is already there. First I wave to Rose (Madame Ça Marche, to everyone because when you order anything she cries out “Ca marche!” or “Coming”) and blow her a kiss. Then I join the table where there is always laughter and fun. Chantal, the woman with the short white hair who always arrives first so that she chooses the table, sits with her back to the sun. I used to get irritated because I don’t like to sit with the sun in my face but little by little we have turned our disagreement into a standing jibe: When I ask her to change places with me she says in an exaggerated tone:
“Ah, Brianda, tu toujours avec ton problem du soleil” and I shrug my shoulders and answer that one could just as well sit at a table in the shade, with which –laughing- she gets up and gives me her place. Then there is Eliane 2 (Eliane 1 is my age whereas 2 is much younger) who is married to a sculptor and every day brings Josée (who will be 94 in November) to the Café; she fascinates me. I have never seen her in the same pair of earrings and she must have at least 25 different decorative watches. Eliane 1 is the only person I know today who still smokes and she does so with her coffee every morning. Her husband, Bibi (Jean Claude Bidegan), also comes and there is a standing marital play where she recovers the money she has put on the table for her coffee telling her husband that, now that he has come, he can pay for 
her’s too. Josée, of course, is a special treat. Small and a bit round, with dyed red hair, sun spots on her white skin and glasses, she reminds me of my grandmother and she has the same spark. She often greets Bibi jokingly with “casse pas mes bonbons” which literally means: Don’t bust my balls. Then there is Gege (Gerard) who is one of my favorites. He has long, fine white hair which he wears pulled back into a skinny 
ponytail that droops halfway down his back, and a bushy white beard and moustache. He is always joking and teasing someone at the table, sometimes me, but mostly Josette, the Laotian woman whom I envy because of her “petite taille”. Isabelle, my Spanish friend who has lived in Salies for over 45 years and whose ex-husband, Jean Louis, frequently joins us, is in Spain at the moment, visiting her 86 year-old mother and won’t be back till the end of September. She is the “dame elegante” that I spoke of in one of my first posts about Salies. She always dresses with everything matching: bag, shoes, purse, umbrella, earrings and necklace. Everything goes with everything else, making her look as if she were going to a luncheon along the Champs Elysées. When she laughs, it is 
extremely loud and often accentuated by a heartfelt thump with her hand on the table. Occasionally, Yvette Andres joins us. She is an artist (painting and sculpting) who frequently exhibits in the local gallery and whom the group often chides for her lack of sense of direction; she is known to more than occasionally take the wrong turn when driving somewhere. Sometimes YaYa comes (don’t know his real name). He is a teaser, and loves to get my gall giving Salomé more croissant or cookie than Iwould normally allow. She, of course, thinks this is just fine and the moment he arrives he has all her attention. I get and give kisses from everyone, wondering why it is that most of the men have nicknames while none of the women do. C’est comme ça, would be what they would answer if I asked: That’s the way it is.
Heading back through town, I go by the restaurant where I will have my meal later and the man with the German Sheppard who has coffee there each morning looks up and smiles. I say hello and he responds with a wave. Melanie, the chef, is at the cash register and I signal to her that I will be back in a while for lunch; she calls out “A tout à l’heure”, which is like saying ‘see you in a while’. Next door, the artist who sculpts in aluminium, large interesting figures (a flying owl, Michael Jackson, the head of a elephant), says ‘bonjour’ as I lean down to pet his little Yorkie that is in love with Salomé. Salomé, herself, stays well away, not at all interested in the little 
whippersnapper trying to get her attention. Under the arches, the policeman who never smiles nods in my direction as I, in turn, say good-morning to him.
By the time I get home it is almost lunchtime so I barely have time to check in on my computer and answer some e-mails from friends and family in Spain, Mexico and the USA, and I am off again. As it is seldom that I walk to or from town without running into someone I know that says hello or someone who stops me to admire my dog, the usual interchanges take place again on my way back to the restaurant.
more than frequently coincided in noon-hour meals out. We used to see each other in the restaurant of the small hotel around the corner from my building before the Grignotine existed, but now have changed, both thankful for the healthy food including always veggies and salad (something seldom available in the other place). André and I kiss on the cheek, he fondles Salomé’s ears and I usually inquire briefly about his health and the menu de jour as he almost always has finished by the time I arrive. Anika is someone else usually eating alone there. When I first met her she was depressed, having recently lost her husband, according to her, although it had been more than five years. Since then she has definitely recovered and we always ask about one another’s day. Ludovic and his mother (from South Africa) often are there and always say hello. And invariably someone from the English colony in the area whom I will be more or less familiar with will be there too. Occasionally a middle-aged woman called Françoise will come and she has once or twice asked if we can sit together. She is a talker who can make my meal hour absolutely uncomfortable after ten minutes so I try to avoid looking available when she comes. If I meet her on the street it is the same story; after about five minutes of shifting from one foot to the other I make some excuse and run off. Occasionally I have company for lunch: my American friend Janice from Rive Haute; Annie my favorite English friend or my once-in-a-while visitors, and this is a special treat.
My walk home seldom encounters interruptions as most people are in their homes or in restaurants eating, and the rest of the afternoon –except for a short stint with Salome, throwing the ball for her in the garden- I spend at home. In the evening, before going to bed, I take Salomé out for her last walk and pee. It is usually between 9:30 and 10:30. Many nights I run into a neighbour who also walks her Cavalier King Charles spaniel, Archie, at the same time. When this happens, we walk together and I get to practice my French. And every once in a blue moon, my dear friend Christophe passes by cycling to his new ecological house on the hilltop. When this happens, he stops and we talk. I can sincerely say that I love 
Christophe. Apart from the fact that he fixes my computer and my smart phone when the need arises, he is a very special person, one of those rare specimens not interested in money, totally committed to the enjoyment and the betterment of life in all its areas and as kind and generous as they come. He is not much older than my son so I consider it a privilege to be included amongst his friends. When I do run into him, the day or night time walk becomes a special event.
Interestingly enough, I didn’t even realize I had a bucket list until I started checking things off. I guess one of the first, if not the very first, was living in Madrid. When I thought about it before it happened, my response was: “Well, I guess it won’t be in this lifetime.” But, it happened when I least expected. I can’t remember what the second was, but it will come back… or not. The third was going to Machu Picchu; I was certain that I would not do it in this lifetime. I was getting too old to take the altitude and then there was no one to go with until, suddenly, when my son turned 50, it occurred to me that I could give him the trip as a birthday present (birthday present for me too, I guess), so we went to Machu Picchu: me, my son and my lovely daughter-in-law. Once the way to do it was discovered, the fourth item on the list was easy. The Galapagos Islands were seen and enjoyed with the most wonderful company of my daughter, my son and once more his wife.
things in life. I opened an email from my English friend, Tamara, and it was an invitation to Kalikalos, in Greece, for a workshop of the Byron Katie Work. I had received that invitation several times before because Tamara does this workshop every year, but suddenly something in my body said “yes”, and I immediately wrote my friend an e-mail asking if she would accept me as a helper or staff. She agreed, I got my tickets and on the 25th of August, flew to Thessaloniki via Athens. There we were to meet in a hotel in order to drive to Mount Pelion the following morning.
Thessaloniki overlooks a bay in the Aegean Sea so that evening I sat on the porch of the hotel restaurant enjoying a Greek salad and finding it hard to believe that I was actually in Greece. The night sported a sparkling necklace of multicolored lights adorning the land-face and separating it from the black bodice of the bay. From pool-side speakers Latin-American music permeated the atmosphere mingling with laughter and conversations at other tables. I might have just as well been in Las Brisas, overlooking the Acapulco Bay. Even the gentleness of the waiters and the hotel staff’s willingness to be of service reminded me of Mexico. I wondered if the rest of the trip was also going to be this sweet sliding into nostalgia.
Tamara arrived just before midnight and I was almost asleep so we didn’t talk that night. The following morning after a satisfying breakfast, we climbed into a small blue Fiat Panda, picked up two lady passengers who were also attending the workshop and set off down the modern highway towards our destination on Mount Pelion, 
a mountain forming a hook-like peninsula between the Pagasetic Gulf and the Aegean Sea on the southeastern rim of Thessaly in central Greece.
After driving past Mount Olympus we continued for hours on a straight motorway bordered by flat terrain, the unaesthetic forms of warehouses and the usual highway clutter; then we suddenly turned off onto a local road, passed the port city of Volos and began to climb. Immediately the landscape gave way to cliffs and lovely white and beige Greek houses huddled in the crevices and clinging to the mountain side like nesting doves. The road narrowed as it curved its way through township after 
township, each offering its produce for passing tourists: pottery, basket ware, honey and marmalades; hats, beachwear and inflatables bursting with colorful temptation. Then the forest began to thicken and the road seemed to narrow even more, hemmed in by tall trunks and mountain on one side and deep crevices on the
other. Beech, oak, maple and chestnut trees competed with each other for room on the steep slopes, and stretched tall, harvesting their share of Greek sunshine. According to Wikipedia, the Pelion is considered one of the most beautiful mountains in Greece, and after driving up and down it various times, I can confirm that it is indeed beautiful. It is also a very popular tourist attraction, offering hiking trails, stone paths, springs and, of course, incredible coves and beaches, both sandy and pebbly, with the white, white stones that Greece is known for and that tourists like 
myself collect to bring home and sport in our household flower pots. During the winter, the highest peaks gather a good covering of snow and two ski lifts take the enthusiasts up and down. So tourism is the livelihood of many mountain dwellers all year around.
Mount Pelion took its name from the mythical king Peleus, father of Achilles and became the home of the Centaur, Chiron, tutor of many Greek heroes (Jason, Achilles, Theseus and Heracles). The symbol for Mount Pelion today is the centaur and this image can be found all over.
We climbed up to 500 meters above sea level to a lovely little village called Kissos. The center of town consists of three enormous plane trees, a small church, several restaurants, a few shops, a neighborhood supermarket and a pharmacy. Saturday night we were treated to the music from a Greek wedding held under one of the plane trees, to which possibly all the neighbors had been invited, because it went on until 4am. Sunday, it was the voice of the priest and his second in command singing the mass over loudspeakers so that everyone (not in the church) could, or was 
obliged to, tune in.
workshop, a facial-lift massage, reflexology and guided hikes up and down the mountainside. We were all invited to make ourselves part of the community by helping in diverse chores throughout our stay: cooking, cleaning, keeping the gardens, etc. This insures that every meal becomes a communal affair with laughter and conversation all the way through. Dinner, which is the main meal, is preceded by forming a circle holding hands and listening while the cook-in-turn announces the evening’s fare and wishes everyone a healthy and happy meal. The clean-up crew gets to serve themselves first so that they may begin their duties as soon as they are finished. Every chore has a ‘focalizer’ and 
several ‘helpers’ so the work is done rapidly and efficiently. The community is set up in May and lasts until October (
favorite –as far as Greek food- was the tzatziki dip, made with yoghurt, cucumber, garlic and sometimes quite spicy. The fried cheese, which somebody raved about, was a bit like eating a tasty breaded piece of rubber, but the veggies were great: aubergine, zucchini, tomatoes and onions… my favorite, and quinoa –no matter how it’s made- I can just die for! All in all I loved Kalikalos and there was something about the whole atmosphere that just invited me to
‘space out’ which I did.
Writing a life 