Reunions in a Traditional Greek village

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Reunions in a Traditional Greek village

        Ceremonies take place all over the world.  Ceremonies are defined as an act or set of formal acts established by custom authority as proper to a special occasion” (Webster’s New World Dictionary third college edition, 229).    In this case, the “proper” occasion was the reunion of villagers which lead to a celebration.  Celebrations are related with food for it is “establishes relationships of give and take, of co-operation, of a sharing, of an emotional bond that is universal” (Haviland, 43)

The celebration in the village was among families and relatives, who have come from the village. All of the people gathered at the reunion were related to one another either by kinship or by friendship.  They all were there for a reason, to celebrate the sixth reunion, and these celebrations take place every three years.      

Over the summer I had the opportunity to take part in this tradition in a rural Greek village. My grandparents raised my father, his brother, and his sister in that village. It is located in Peloponnisos, which is located in the southern part of the Greek mainland.  The village is called Levidi.  I interviewed my grandparents and they told me that the reason why they left the village was because they wanted a better life for their children.  They left in the year 1972 by airplane when my father was fifteen years old.  I also interviewed my father and he told me that he was very excited to change environments. In Chicago, he went to a public school and also had to work.  It was a “hard life” he says but he worked hard and did the best he could.    

As I observed my surroundings Last summer in Levidi all I could see were older women and men sitting at cafeterias in the square and children playing in the parks located by the village’s main church. It was the seventeenth of August, 2001.The town was never as busy as this time of year.  Now is when all the families that have grown up in this village get together and celebrate.  This celebration happens every three years and is usually in mid-August.  The event lasts for about one week and every night there was a special kind of entertainment for the townspeople. The mayor, Mr. Kavourinos gave a few speeches as well as other political members.  They spoke of how the village had progressed in the last years and what future plans will be made.  From my point of view, this speech was a persuasive technique that the mayor used in order to convince the people to live there or at least come back next year.  The night continued with more speeches from the secretary, and some other politicians. These authority figures informed the people about the recent renovations in the village.  The City Hall had just been remodeled as well as a new cultural center, which I will describe later.    

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 The next morning, Saturday, there was a special church service.   I went there with all of my family. This service was special to the people there because it was a ceremony to remember the men in the village that had died in war.  Their names were written on a monumental tomb.  The ceremony continued and the priest’s, the mayor’s, and the political member’s names were called and they each placed and olive wreath in front of the tomb.  After this was finished there was a minute of silence in remembrance of these patriots.  Dieing for one’s country is very ...

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