Island Apart

The seahorse-shaped island of Evia is the second largest in Greece - and most British visitors have never heard of it. Not so long ago the inhabitants were still walking to town to swap a goat for a pair of trousers, and the question of where a bus ends its journey is still largely contingent upon what takes the driver's fancy. Taking an idiosyncratic look at island life, this is an account of the author's five-month journey encompassing a goatherd's wedding with 250 revellers, Early Bronze Age excavations, sheep's heads in the sink, Coca-Cola and cold goat for breakfast, disastrous rendezvous with unlikely men, and theological persecution by Orthodox nuns bent on converting her. But it is a journey as much about time as place. The author's responsiveness to Evia's present is, on another level, a search for a way to preserve its rich history and rural traditions, as the island's fragile way of life is rendered increasingly precarious by Western culture.
 
The seahorse-shaped island of Evia is the second largest in Greece - and most British visitors have never heard of it. Not so long ago the inhabitants were still walking to town to swap a goat for a pair of trousers, and the question of where a bus ends its journey is still largely contingent upon what takes the driver's fancy. Taking an idiosyncratic look at island life, this is an account of the author's five-month journey encompassing a goatherd's wedding with 250 revellers, Early Bronze Age excavations, sheep's heads in the sink, Coca-Cola and cold goat for breakfast, disastrous rendezvous with unlikely men, and theological persecution by Orthodox nuns bent on converting her. But it is a journey as much about time as place. The author's responsiveness to Evia's present is, on another level, a search for a way to preserve its rich history and rural traditions, as the island's fragile way of life is rendered increasingly precarious by Western culture.