At 7 a.m., I stood
on the corner along the main street through Olympia, Greece, beside two
Albanian men and my traveling Swiss friend, Christoph. It was cold--even in Greece December
is a cold month--and I was shivering under my coat. Christoph and I had met here in Olympia
nearly two months prior at the only youth hostel in the town. Together, we had explored the old
ruins and the fantastic museum there. Neither of us had expected to stay longer than two days
in Olympia. But when we took a long walk through the neighboring olive groves on what was
supposed to be our last day, Christoph turned to me, saying, "Wouldn't you like to try that?"
He pointed towards a group of workers clustered around one olive tree, beating the branches
with long sticks. Christoph and I watched as thousands of olives fell to a tarp spread out
below. With the sun setting, the colors of the countryside brilliantly lit up, and the taste of a
foreign country on all my senses, I must admit the thought of joining these workers felt exciting,
romantic even. But, how in the world would we ever get such an opportunity? Christoph and I
laughed off the idea, and decided to walk back to town for some Greek coffee.
By the time we
arrived at the cafe, the sun was set, and the air was getting quite crisp and cold.
We thankfully received our coffee and looked around for other people withwhom to sit . Four
girls about my age were giggling in a corner, drinking ouzo. After introductions, Christoph and I
discovered that these girls, also from Switzerland, had been, three weeks now, picking olives in
and around Olympia. We couldn't believe our luck! Excitedly, we asked about how to get such
a job. Hanna, the friendliest of the girls, told us to go around to shop owners along the streets
of Olympia and ask for work. She told us that most of them had olive groves and were eager
to find workers to help out in the harvest.
So, two months
later, there I was at seven a.m., waiting for Kostas, the husband of Katerina
who owned a jewelry store in Olympia, to come pick us up in his truck and take us to the
fields. After two months already of olive picking, I knew the routine: pick-up was between 7
and 7:30 a.m., depending on the farmer's quickness in fixing any broken tools at home; then,
half-an-hour to the olive fields along bumpy dirt roads (longer if it had been raining because the
roads then become slippery with mud); once in the fields, we got straight to work, picking up
where we had left off the day before. We spread the tarps out below the chosen tree as Igor
(one of my Albanian friends, and fellow worker) climbed the tree with a chain saw. His job was
to cut down all the branches that were either growing straight up or laden with olives that would
not produce the following year. My job was always on the ground gathering the olives and
cleaning them (i.e., removing twigs and leaves from the gathered pile), or I beat the fallen
branches with a short stick so as to force the olives off their stems.
I was never allowed
to use any of the machinery or tools, besides the stick, mainly because, as
I determined, I am a woman. But, I never felt discriminated I against for being in the fields;
rather, being the only woman, the focus was more about the men intensely taking care of me.
Anytime I tripped over a branch or scratched myself on a sharp sliver of wood, I always heard
the words, "Prosoxi, prosoxi, Lisa," coming from at least one person.
I took great humor
in it all, though, and in the work, too, which was excruciatingly difficult. You
see, we worked from about 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. and then paused for breakfast, which usually
consisted of Greek coffee and a homemade sweet cake. Then, work again until about 12:30
p.m., which was met with a homecooked meal (lamb soup, for example), and bread with feta
cheese and onions and tomato. After lunch we rested for about fifteen minutes and were back
to work again. The day pretty much ended when the sun went down--around 5:30 p.m. But,
on days when the olives were to go to the factory to be made into oil, we worked until about
7:30 p.m. All this work, and my pay was between five and seven thousand drachma, a mere
$25 per day.
All those days
of being outdoors in an olive grove on a hillside overlooking the western
Pelopponese, dirt forever lodged in my fingernails, and scars from various cuts and scratches
streaking my hands--all of it was exactly what I had thought it would be when Christoph and I
looked at olive workers for the first time. It was a romantic dream come true, complete with all
the roughness of reality, and it was one of the most exciting experiences of my life.
1. Rafael
