The West Meets Corfu

It looked like a very large circular, wooden table-top with holes all around its perimeter, a piece of metal or leather..we couldn't tell which from such a distance...dangling below each hole.  This wheel-like structure was resting on what seemed to be a barrel. But what would it be used for? We stood beside our scooters in the hot Greek sunshine, at the edge of the small country road, studying the strange device and trying to imagine what it could be.

Everything else in the picture before us had become familiar over our one-week stay in Corfu...the small farmhouse, the olive, fig, orange and lemon trees, the yucca, the garden planted with beautiful, ornamental cabbages, the chickens pecking at the soil...nothing out of the ordinary.  But that "thing"...what was it? It looked like an ancient instrument of torture.

As we were speculating, a tiny, elderly Greek woman appeared.  Dressed in the usual black garb of mourning, she came out of her small house. Without breaking stride, she grabbed one of the chickens by the legs and carried it squawking and struggling, feathers flying, toward the "wheel".  Once there, she placed the upside-down bird's head through one of the holes and tethered it with the strap beneath to prevent its escape.  She then turned her back on the captive and proceeded to pluck more unsuspecting fowl from their early-afternoon snack, quickly filling the wheel with upside-down chickens. Why didn't they try to escape?  They just continued to peck at the ground, oblivious to their comrades' peril. Except for some minor complaints as the woman walked among them, there was no reaction until they themselves were chosen. That got their attention and evoked the same full-blown response that we'd witnessed with the first victim. The wheel full, the granny picked up a long, sharp knife that rested on it.  I braced myself, knowing that nothing good was about to happen.  I wanted to jump on my bike and tear off down the dusty, dirt road, but instead found myself unable to move.  Like in a nightmare, I was glued to the spot and could not tear my eyes away from the ensuing spectacle.   With swift, efficient movements, the crone began beheading the birds, spinning the wheel with her free hand, to bring each one steadily closer to its demise. She had it down to a science. Even at such a distance, we could see the blood and the freshly decapitated bodies still performing their death dance. We stared, transfixed, aghast at the macabre display, not able to say a word, as we witnessed the final extermination.  When we could, at last, will our legs to move, we mounted our scooters and, shaken out of our innocence, left the scene of the slaughter behind.

Try as I might, I couldn't stop flashing back to the carnage and had to remind myself that those chickens had been raised in relative freedom, had enjoyed the outdoors, had not had to suffer the inhumane treatment inflicted on caged chickens. They'd enjoyed their lives up to the final insult, but had at least been allowed to live normal chicken lives.  

Forcing myself to focus on the present, I turned my attention to the road lined with stately cypress trees, and to the air filled with their beautiful, light bouquet released in the extreme heat of the afternoon sun. This helped to temporarily erase from my mind the gruesome scene we had just observed.

Rounding a bend in the narrow road, we found ourselves approaching another small farmhouse, this one surrounded by a white fence.  Standing at the gate was another yiayia, this one a good twenty years older than the previous one. Due to extreme scoliosis of the spine, she looked to be about four feet tall.  It was easy to imagine her bent over a washboard year after year, scrubbing her family's clothing.  Her spine had frozen in that hunched-over position. Her crooked fingers were rife with arthritis, the swollen knuckles painful to look at. The years had not been kind.  

The old woman smiled a toothless grin at us, her eyes twinkling in the bright sunlight, and with her right hand, palm up, she made a beckoning motion with her fingers. (*See below) What could she want?  We stopped.  I got off my moped and walked up to her. The top of her black babushka reached my lower chest. Up close, the years of hard manual labour were even more apparent.  Her leathery skin was crisscrossed with deep crevasses. I greeted her. "Yeia sas." "Yeia sou," replied the elder.  That and parakalo, efcharisto and antio were the only Greek words I knew at the time, so conversation came to an abrupt halt.  We stared at each other for several uncomfortable beats, then she looked down and pointed to one of the many silver rings that, in those days, adorned my hands.   Impulsively, I removed the piece of jewelry and handed it to her thinking that it would not even fit the tip of her stubby, baby finger. She flushed and blinked slowly several times. Looking up, she said in a gravelly whisper, "Efcharisto para poly." Smiling and feeling warmly satisfied by her surprise, I bid her "Antio."  

That night, we were invited for dinner by Manolis and his wonderful, nurturing wife Victoria, the owners of our hostel. Victoria, our newly-adopted Greek mother, had promised us a treat: a local delicacy.  After our long day in the sun, we were famished and couldn't wait for some traditional food: moussaka or pastitsio, perhaps calamari. We took our places at the round table under the heavily-laden grape trellis and smiled at Manolis in hungry anticipation. Glowing with pride, Victoria made her entrance into the courtyard carrying a huge, covered platter. She placed it carefully in the middle of the table.  With great flourish, her husband uncovered the piece de resistance. It's been said that presentation is half the meal and I just knew that something incredible awaited us under that lid. I was right. There, lying on the tray, were dozens of tiny cooked birds, their beady, dead eyes staring vacantly into space. 

For the second time that day, I was traumatized by dead birds.  The merit in the old crone's spinning wheel of decapitation became clear.  Without heads, there is a lot less eye contact with one's food, and it turns out that for me, that is a trait that is quite desirable indeed.

                                                            ***

4 feet = 1.2 metres

* Later that evening, we learned that the old woman wasn't beckoning us to come closer; that's how the people in Corfu wave to each other.

yiayia = grandmother 

babushka = headscarf

yeia sas = formal way to say hello (to an elder)

yeia sou = informal hello 

parakalo = please

efcharisto = thank you / efcharisto para poly = thank you very much

antio = goodbye

moussaka = Moussaka is an eggplant, or potato-based dish, often including ground meat.

pastitsio = a Greek baked pasta dish that contains ground beef and bechamel sauce

calamari = squid