Young Eleftheria turned 15 this year. A tall serious girl with flowing black hair and almond eyes, she is the oldest daughter of Crazy Mitsos, my Roma friend and first contact with Roma families in Greece. In Skopelos, that first summer in 2018, she always acquiesced when I asked to photograph her yet I felt she didn’t much enjoy all the attention.
On August 14th this summer, I went to Aliveri, the large Roma settlement outside Volos in the hopes once again of photographing a “gamos”, a Roma wedding. And once again, I was disappointed. However, the next day was Panagia, the Feast of the Blessed Virgin, second in importance only to Easter all over Greece. Aliveri is full of Greek Orthodox Roma and so feasts and festivities were just getting underway when I arrived at Mitsos’s family house, a rough unfinished structure on the edge of the settlement. By this time, Mitsos and Konstandina were living almost full time in Aliveri except for Mitsos’s regular trips to the islands of Skopelos and Alonossis to sell fruit with his cousin. Konstandina preferred living in Aliveri where she had her own house with electricity and running water. She loved the city water and had the outdoor hose running all the time washing clothes in plastic wash tubs, scrubbing dishes, cleaning rugs and even washing the cement outside her house—way better than the summer of 2018 when the family lived in the basement of a car garage adjoining the olive grove in Skopelos with no running water or electricity. In Aliveri she could enjoy the company of many friends and family members, all just a short walk down the street.
Mitsos greeted me heartily, “Yeia sou Vera, agapi mou,” he sang out throwing up his arms to show his love. Friends and family were just beginning to arrive but already the kids and Mitsos were roasting a lamb on an outdoor make-shift barbecue and Eleftheria—well, Elftheria had blossomed into a woman in my absence. Today, for the celebration, she wore 6-inch heels, a skin-tight, low-cut polka-dot dress with belly exposed and her face—her beautiful dark skin appeared pale and white, the result of either face bleaching (the Roma woman do this) or very light pancake make-up. Her lipstick shone bright red and her eyes were painted to beguile. Mitsos and his cousins were setting up huge speakers to project music but alas, the speakers broke down after 3 songs and no amount of tinkering could make them work. No problem. Somebody’s Toyota pickup was driven into the yard, doors thrown open and the truck’s CD turned up loud. Then the girls began to dance.
Eleftheria stepped out in her silver sequined gown (she had changed by now) and Zandoulai, the exotic 14 year-old with white face paint and a gown equally beguiling, danced in a show-down. Eleftheria laughed and wiggled and raised her arms up to the gods leaving behind all inhibition and all the family cheered them on. Eleftheria somewhere between the ages of 14 and 15 had become a woman.
The celebration continued in spite of the oppressive heat. There was shouting and dancing by young and old, beer drinking and eating the roast lamb and side dishes. When I returned that evening with dessert thinking the party would still be swinging, the crowds were gone and Konstandina opened the front door where Mitsos lay passed out on the floor. Too much beer, she said, taking the dessert I brought and stowing it in the frig.