A text about Prophet Elias of Yallou in Eressos, by Alexis Casdagli

The text that follows is written by a woman i met in my "Yallou" exhibition in Eressos this July. I asked permission from het to publish it in my blog and i am very happy to present it here. With it i post a series of photos from walks that i did to the chappel, in September 2006 and May 2007................................ "I came to see this fantastic exhibition in Skala Eressos when it opened.   My name is Alexis Casdagli and I live in England but I was born in Greece and my father is Greek.  I am writing a novel which has the church right at its beginning. I was on a boat trip on the hottest day of that year, 2007, a Sunday. The boatman, was talking about the church and the idea for my story came into my mind and it has never left me since. It is growing, every day, but slowly. The story has been my raft in the last four years since the idea for it came to me looking at the church and that raft has taken me through some very difficult times and has always kept me afloat and I would not have had it any other way. A few days after my return I wrote this to a friend on the island. I hope you have a moment to read it.   Something very strange and wonderful happened to me up in the village on last Wednesday night during the panigyri. The novel I am writing had its genesis in an anecdote about the church of profitis Elia tou Gialou (so beautifully photographed in the exhibition). I knew the name day was about the time we were coming but I thought it was on 21st,, the day we left, and assumed we would miss it. Instead, by chance, I was speaking to some Norwegians at Costas at lunchtime and they told me it was that very night and invited Gwen and I to join them at their table at Sam’s. During the meal, the lady said to me at one point that the local food had come in. Costas had mentioned this food earlier as well. And there, on the back of a small lorry, were two great cauldrons. A crowd, pushing and jostling, soon gathered round it. I went down and joined them. They were clamouring to get a share of this local food’, which I know now to be trahanas. I was patient and quite stubborn waiting for my share. I was passed over quite a lot but I stood my ground. I wondered if my determination to get some was from seeing people queuing for food aid on the news or it was some very early memory of being a baby in the civil war (1948 etc) with all its hardship. Then I was given, in a thick piece of greaseproof paper, my share of the trahanas. I held it against my belly and it was warm. I got a good portion, large, and as I held it I got something, something I have been looking for for all my life. I got that that large warm portion was mine and it belonged to me and that when I looked around at the square, I knew that I belonged. I have been thinking about the little church for four years and researching Elias and I felt this warm heavy certainty was his gift to me, that he gave me, like a warm kick in the belly, what I wanted more than anything else in the world, without perhaps even knowing it, which was my place in it the world. And then we went to the exhibition. And it filled in the mystery of what happens up at the church at the panigyri with its beautiful images and portraits. I talked to the photographer and he told me about the prophet. He was quite a guy – that is both Elias and the photographer too!’   I kept my trahanas. You should roll it into small balls, flattened each between the palms of your hands and leave the discs in the sun until they are quite dry. Then you store them for the winter and when it gets cold, crumble them into stock, adding vegetables and so on to make a rich and nourishing soup. But I won’t be making soup with mine, although I know that soup would be delicious. I have wrapped it in a plastic bag and put it in a tin and have it in my room. I want to keep it. Always."