The position of women in the past and today (2nd interview)
The second interview (held in January 2014) regarded the position of women in the past and today, in the then local community of Halki and in the one today. In the interview the people that took part were the Elikoni Sfyrioy, aged 85, and Anna Livaniou age 25, both being Halki residents.
The following come as a result of their answers:
Young women at the time (around 1930) were entertained only by their relatives. They waited for events, mainly school ones, totake place in order to dance and have fun. ”We lived mostly at the upper part of the village. After the war, we came to Imporeio. Until then we were shepherds. We had oxen, donkeys, mules, sheep, goats. We were also sown barley and wheat”
As Elikoni states characteristically:
” The women then did the house jobs and not sat aside at all. Out in the fields, in April, we were all out to gather herbs and grass for animals in winter. In winter we dag and cultivated the land. We grounded in the mill, we all did the same. At the time it was an accusation working outside the family. The person who did that was a slave. We all worked within our families.”
” The girls from Imporio though were different. These girls embroidered all day. On Sundays they were coming to the village to give them foramina. Then the war came. From 1940 onwards. The people were hungry. But we villagers had the animals and alsongside the villagers the Imporio women could live selling tablecloths and sheets they made and we would then swop with barley, and with fava”.
” We were young women and we only did the housework. My father was a sponge diver, he went to America and came back and bought sheep. He died at 43 and I got married when i was 15 years old. The other girls would marry around 20 years old.
I owned animals and if I had not been married then there would be no-one looking after the animals . Then a boy named Alexander wanted me, my mother did not like him and was saying to him ” why do you want to get her, you want to put her in misery ?” Then Billy – he was also he engaged to another girl – came and asked to marry me . He was good too. Then we would not seek for beauties in our poverty ridden times. We ate meat three times a year. On Christmas , the Assumption of Mary and Easter. We used the animals in order to sell ’em to get other goods. My husband was a plasterer , bricklayer , musician , played the lyra and a farmer . We then mowned the fields in Katsias. We collected olives and produced oil. We were picking figs and prickly pears and dried them for winter for the children . Five thousand people lived at Halki back then. Many people dealt with sponges . And many others dealt with fish .”
” During the war we only went to school for two years, in Italian. On the day peace was sealed, came the Ierolochites Army Branch in Palarnioti (Panormitis), then gave birth to my daughter, Bahia. Then they started to coming vessels from Symi and unloaded food, flour, biscuits etc.
” Today things have nothing to do with the old days” says Anna Livaniou. Today, at 20 you want to study, you’re a kid, you got to live, there is no reason to get married. In Halki today there is not even any youth. There is no relationship between the life then to the one girls live today. Then, there was a meaning in life and the family, one had to feed the children and perform in all jobs. Today, everybody gets divorced, they are not even trying to keep the family together. When the time comes every girl asks for something more . She will not sit around today in order to save the situation but she will say there may be something better waiting for me further down. Today we have everything” .
” On the contrary, men have no money to maintain , not just a woman , but not even themselves. They usually stay with their mothers . Today they have even less chance of finding a job compared to women . Even as a waiter a woman is more easily chosen. All women are currently dealing with tourism. There is no other work here. They do not dealing with rural business or production of local goods. The reason is that you have got everything ready in front of you, you are not missing them. You see everything in the convenience store and buy them. Here in Halki, one cannot find a job easily. The girls leave and go to Rhodes and elsewhere. If they do not get a job anywhere else, only then will they come back.”
” We need to create jobs in Halki, otherwise the few young people there will leave too. I do not know what else could be done to keep the youth. Maybe the City could made available to them some land to cultivate. We need music, cinema, clubs, and other activities to keep the young people here.”