I love bringing students to Epidauros.
Sacred to Asclepius, this site was an ancient spa that
people went to in order to receive physical and spiritual healing. It is also home to the most preserved ancient
Greek theatre in existence today. Theatre was not entertainment to the Greeks.
It was a chance to learn from the lessons of great men who fell great heights
after demonstrating hubris. Oedipus teaches us the folly of attempting to avoid
one’s fate, Orestes helps us understand the benefits of moving away from
kinship wars and towards the courts of law, and Agamemnon reminds us that it is
never to lie to your wife saying that you are marrying your older daughter to
the hero Achilles only to sacrifice her to the gods by dashing her skull
against the cliffs in order to achieve favourable winds to Troy and then
staying away for ten years to fight another man’s war only to bring back a
trollop half your wife’s age and ask her to clean up a room for the new guest.
You know. The simple things.
I had some of my students perform a scene from Oedipus Rex.
Afterwards I told them to look around and realise that almost three thousand
years ago other actors said those same lines with the theatre full of people
listening with great interest. I wanted them to hear the applause they received
as echoes of what once occurred in this place. Epidauros is a theatre that
still produces, still embraces the audience, still performs.
Afterwards we went to Agamemnon’s city of Mycenae. Runs
clinging to a high hill overlooking a lush valley, it is a harsh approach and a
brutal walkabout in the afternoon heat. The refreshing lunch enjoyed only a
half hour ago is long gone. The ancient cistern, a cave with ancient steps hewn
into the rock from which water was plentiful, used to be a scary proposition to
my students. They were tentative and unsure entering into the thick darkness.
But not this group of girls. By the time I arrived to patiently escort them
down the steps, they were already returning from the earth into the light.
“Cool,” a couple of them said. Then they moved on as I stood
there sweating and panting. George, our guide, shrugs his shoulders and mutters
something about changing times.
A few days later we went to the sacred space of Delphi. Home
of the oracle of Apollo, this place was an opportunity to commune with the gods
themselves as you attempted to ascertain your future. Sprawled along the steep
side of Mount Parnassus, this holy place is becoming more and more closed off
as the years progress. My first time here we had access to the tholos temple
across the highway, the purifying baths and the stadium perched at the top. Now
all of these are closed off. They are in need of repair and protection, but
there is no money to do it. The ancient Greek legacy suffers along with the
modern Greeks as the financial situation continues to be dire.
We have lunch that day in the lovely Arachova, one of my
favourite places to visit. Then we head off to the little village of Delphi
where we will spend a few nights before our stay in Mykonos.
Jackie Onassis made Mykonos famous and the LGBT community
made it fabulous during the 70s and 80s. This trend has receded somewhat, but
it is still a party place that is expensive, glossy and showing no signs of
austerity.
My room was a tiny house in the resort in which we stayed. I
had no view but I had privacy. I also had noise. If the shuttle bus didn’t
distract me, the many cats fighting over my doorstep did the trick.
Lydia, my fellow teacher, and I get along really well. We
laugh a lot and we seem to have the same general outlook on travel and kids. We
immediately fell into a comfortable ease that I think created a sense of
security and balance for our kids. We
have an easy repartee that allows us to give each other the space we need while
making sure we spend quality time together. We talk of many things, including
our lives and our family.
I found myself on this island still famous for its gay
connections having lunch with Lydia and two of our students. It was pleasant
company and the view was beautiful. We
all laughed as I made the realization that never had I been in a place so
famous for being gay while feeling so very straight. It was like I was in an
alternate universe.
The days we spent in Mykonos were filled with classes, work
and marking, but it was also a nice respite from the bustle of the first two
weeks of travel. We returned to Athens for one night and said good bye to
Greece by seeing a cultural show where all the dancing happened with the men
while the women seem to just shuffle in the background holding hankies.
At one point the restaurant owner wanted to know what I
wanted to drink. I said Fanta Orange and watched the usual reaction of
confusion and disdain that I wasn’t ordering alcohol. He then gestured to the
girls. “Soda?” I nodded and gave a
similar gesture so that he may go ask them what soda they wanted. After a short while the man returned with a
Pepsi and placed it in front of Lydia.
At first she looked bewildered and then she looked at me. “Did
you just order pop for all of us?” I looked down the table as soda was being
placed in front of each of the girls.
“Um..I think I did.”
The Patriarchy is still alive and well in 2016.
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