Tales from Crete | 24

If you belong to those who regularly follow the weather situation on Crete, you have been able to see in recent weeks that the otherwise beautiful sunny holiday island has been transformed into an intermezzo of rain and debris, which has ravaged and destroyed to a degree , which has only rarely been seen before at those latitudes.

Roads have collapsed, leaving meter-deep holes, historic solid stone bridges have been washed away, cutting off some of the many small idyllic villages in the mountains from the outside world, and large volumes of water have caused flooding in houses and shops. No, it is definitely not the Crete we know right now, but still there is something very familiar about the Cretans' reaction. All the way up through history from the dawn of time, the Cretans have shown indomitable willpower bordering on the extreme. There is pretty much nothing that can bring down a Cretan and make them lose heart - this has been proven numerous times. I don't know whether it is due to fierce stubbornness or is simply a result of the fact that as a Cretan you do not want to be cowed by anything or for that matter let others decide over you, I do not know, but it is at least a fact, that is not about to budge.

I spoke the other day with Katie, who is the contact person at one of our wine suppliers in Crete, and the conversation automatically fell on the bad weather that has been in Crete lately. "Yes, it's a bit bad," she said, "but now we'll get some new bridges and the roads will be repaired, so they'll be fine again before the tourist season starts - it'll probably be good," she said full of optimism. In the same breath, she also told them that they had had neither electricity nor water for the last day and a half, but now that it had returned, there was no reason to go and be annoyed about it anymore.

The old historic stone bridge Kerriti in Alikiona collapsed on Monday and was washed away in pieces. But as early as Tuesday afternoon, the military's engineering troops arrived with a larger convoy of vehicles and a new temporary bridge, which they began to establish early Wednesday morning and would be fixed and ready as early as Friday. And then it is said that Cretans and Greeks in general are dull and lazy. They are certainly not if it is something that is important to get sorted out together and something that in any way damages or destroys the local area or the island. Then they quickly establish a huge volunteer work group, ready to do anything, to restore whatever may have been destroyed.

So with this little short story from Crete from last week, I can only say: Kalós ílthate (be saluted) to the Cretans and take my hat off to their ability to never let themselves be beaten and neither let others nor the weather decide and the individual Cretans. It seems to be what can rightly be called both freedom and courage.

Good weekend