- Wed Aug 24, 2011 7:45 pm
#3076
Greek economic crisis: Timeless values help villagers
Roger Jinkinson, a British writer who lives in a remote village on the Greek island of Karpathos, reflects on how the profound economic crisis is affecting his small rural community more than 400km from Athens.
Although times are hard, he believes that a long tradition of thriftiness, a thriving barter economy and the return of young people to work on the land will help the village weather the crisis.
The older generation in the village are thrifty and hard working; they are used to a frugal existence and times of extreme hardship.
Hundreds of thousands of Greeks died of starvation and the complications of severe malnutrition during World War Two and the Civil War that followed.
Memories of those times can be seen etched in the faces of the old people and the habits handed down to their children.
Women are in charge of the home, a loaf of bread is kept until it is used and, if you could see the effort it takes to produce, you would understand why...
Click here or on the image below to read the full story:
BBC
Tales from a Greek Island
Roger Jinkinson, a British writer who lives in a remote village on the Greek island of Karpathos, reflects on how the profound economic crisis is affecting his small rural community more than 400km from Athens.
Although times are hard, he believes that a long tradition of thriftiness, a thriving barter economy and the return of young people to work on the land will help the village weather the crisis.
The older generation in the village are thrifty and hard working; they are used to a frugal existence and times of extreme hardship.
Hundreds of thousands of Greeks died of starvation and the complications of severe malnutrition during World War Two and the Civil War that followed.
Memories of those times can be seen etched in the faces of the old people and the habits handed down to their children.
Women are in charge of the home, a loaf of bread is kept until it is used and, if you could see the effort it takes to produce, you would understand why...
Click here or on the image below to read the full story:
BBC
Tales from a Greek Island
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." R.Buckminster Fuller