"Gkini vinish, tsi phatsi?" (welcome, how do you do?). This is the Vlach greeting Stella Kratsiotis used as she welcomed us into her home. "Gkini, voi hits gkini?" (fine, how are you?), answered my Vlach friend, who set up the interview with Stella. 

There is always some yeast in her kitchen

After greeting us, Stella ushered us to the "undoulu chia bunlu" (the nice room). As she always has some yeast ready, she fried us some "lalagkites", similar to pancakes, and treated us. Lalagkites are also offered to new mothers after their children's birth.

Another "fast food" prepared by Stella, is "btuta", which smells like something out of this world. First, she puts the hull on the fire, then she adds the mush made of water and flour and on the top she spreads cheese and sheep butter. When it is cooked she adds one more layer of dough, more cheese and butter, and she bakes it again.

Stella has weaved countless rugs, she doesn't even know how many. "Back in the day I was admirable, but now that I am old I feel like I was never young. Since I got sick I stopped making rugs,  I only knit. I keep saying: 'Oh I should make just one more', but the closets are full and I don't know where to put them. I have clothed four children with my knitwear, but they now prefer ready-made clothes from the shops".

There used to be great poverty in the village and Stella found it very difficult to raise her children. "I raised them without milk, just with some semolina mixed up with water. I used to let it boil in the fireplace and if ashes fell into the pot, my children didn't mind, they ate it regardless. Despite the difficulties, though, my door was never closed. The fireplace was always burning. There were so many people in here that some of them had to sit on the nooks (wide window ledges at the corners of the room).

She won't leave her village

"Mom, come and live with us in Katerini" her children say, but she prefers her own nook and her own fireplace and will never leave the village. She has many relatives and friends there and she could never leave them. And what will happen if she goes into the city and is mocked for wearing a headscarf?  She hasn't taken it off her head ever. She has an informal headscarf -which she calls "kalemi"- for when she does the housework and sits in front of the loom  and a formal one, called "skepi". When she was younger she used to wear a traditional headband called "kairouki" on Sundays. The headband is held in place with hairpins and in a Christmas night she couldn't sleep, being afraid that they would come out.

When Stella was young, she used to go to the "three founts" to wash the clothes, which she carried in a "koupana" (wooden trough) on her head. There, she used to scrub the clothes into a "valie" (pit) with a hot "plokari" (sheep wool tuft). So as not to get hurt by the trough's weight , especially when she returned with the heavy wet clothes in it, she used to put a "krouna" (towel) like a pillow on her head.

As evolution has abolished a large number of the everyday items used by the Vlachs, the words describing those objects have been lost. Only the old men remember them, but they are not going to live forever.

TEXT-PHOTOS: GEORGE ZAFEIROPOULOS
SOURCE: www.greecewithin.com

 MORE PHOTOS 

Livadi of Olympus is a beautiful village with many traditional houses.

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