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eplied, that he had no choice, as there was no doubt about their ownership of the land. She
and Kosta had to put a lot of effort in removing bottles and disposing them away from the
village. When I asked her where they left the bottles, Ariadne replied impatiently: “Probably
on one of the curves of the road between Drimades and Vuno. I don’t know for sure”, and
continued with a critique of local officials who should in her opinion took care of the garbage
disposal long time ago. Although they put the rubbish containers by the village road they are
definitely too small for the rubbish the villagers produce. Besides she cannot be sure if the
local communities are going to keep their promise and organise regular rubbish disposal for
the summer months when the coast is full of tourists, who leave a large amount of rubbish
behind them. “They only promise while often they do not do anything… What do you think!
Afto einai Alvania. Monoha pseumata. Mia mera etsi ali mera anapoda”. At that point she
found a piece of broken glass and nearly cut herself. This caused another outburst of anger
directed to the Albanian government and Kosta’s cousin. “How bad and dirty they are”, she
continued, describing the cousin’s irresponsibility as he did not take care of rubbish that was
left behind his bar. Her flow of angry words was interrupted by Flutura’s two and a half years
old son Dimitris, who came to see us at the back of the fast food restaurant.
Dimitris’ mother Flutura and father Lolo 88 just arrived at the restaurant together with their
seven year old daughter Sofia. Flutura was born in 1969 in Vlorë. She originates from the
family of Christian Orthodox religion. She cannot speak or fully understand the local Greek
dialect. In 1998 she moved to Dhërmi/Drimades, from where Lolo originates. They live in a
house of Lolo’s elder brother, who together with his other siblings lives in Greece. Flutura
teaches in the village’s primary school, while Lolo is unemployed because of his health
problems. Lolo’s father was born in Ioannina and moved to Dhërmi/Drimades when the
“Spanish flue” epidemics affected Ioannina. Consequently, Lolo was eligible to apply for a
Greek passport in 2004. Thus Lolo and his children have Greek passports, while Flutura still
has the Albanian one. He showed me this proof of his Greek nationality in one of our first
encounters and jokingly added that he and his children are Greeks while his wife is Albanian,
smirking at Flutura, who smiled in a somewhat ashamed way. His joke was not so much about
the mixture of nationalities in his young family, but more about the value of Albanian
nationality, being in his eyes perceived as inferior to Greek.
88 Lolo is a shorter name for Theodor. As small children cannot utter Theodor, they use Lolo.
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