It was a pun that needed to be made. I make no apologies.
Today 16 of us went to harvest olives. Jean and CYA arranged to visit the olive grove of our bus driver from last weekend Cristo. He picked us up at 8:00 and took us to the countryside an hour and a half outside Athens. Once arriving near the grove, Cristo informed us that we would need to get out and be transported to the grove in something smaller than the large bus we were in: "it is not so safe..." We all cheered like 8 years olds when Cristo's brother pulled up with a trailer. It was just like a hayride- minus the hay.
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| Nice and cozy |
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| The olive grove |
Once we arrived in the grove, we met Cristo's fabulous family including "mama Alma"- the happiest old greek woman ever. They put us straight to work raking the olives off the trees. The olives would fall on tarps and then after picking out the branches, we would put them in buckets and then into huge bags. It was hard work reaching some of the higher branches, but the work went by so fast! Sporadically Alma or Marina would arrive with snacks (I wish I knew what they were. One was a cheesy pie and another was these potato things dipped in honey.) and at one point raki (an alcoholic drink similar to ouzo but less licoricey- not my favorite...).
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| Kind of like combing really tangled hair... |
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| Taking out all the branches and leaves |
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| So many olives |
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| Mary, Mama Alma, and I |
Cristo's family provided us was an amazing lunch with fruit, bread, feta, tomatoes, sausage, pork, and homemade wine. We were so full and sleepy, we were glad Cristo was only joking when he said "now you go work 6 more hours."
As if the experience and the food wasn't enough, we were each rewarded with a huge bottle of their homemade olive oil! On my bottle it says "Olive oil homemade by Dana. A gift from Greece." I almost cried. It was such a wonderful experience and we really got to see how loving and kind the people of Greece are. It was by far one of the coolest things I have done so far on this trip!
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| Our reward! |
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