You might have been wondering if the Symi Festival is happening this year, and the answer is yes. It begins on Saturday with a concert from Dimos Anastasiades, and this will take place in the town square in the evening.
Also going on in Symi this weekend, a two-day conference at the Cultural Centre, starting on Saturday. With a rich program of presentations covering Symi’s journey from mythology and antiquity to modern history, its maritime tradition and its cultural heritage, the 2nd Annual Symi Historical Conference entitled “Symi through the Ages” will take place next Saturday, August 1st and Sunday, August 2nd. Article from Real Voice.
Other events from the only programme I’ve seen so far include, the festival of Ag Sotiris on Tuesday, a concert by Χριστίνα Σάλτη on Monday 6th, a performance by the Symi Theatre group on the 8th translated as: “Romeo and Juliet…for cheers and laughter,” and on Sunday 9th, Traditional dances by the Symi Women’s Union accompanied by musicians Michalis and Iakovos Missos. These will also be in the square in Yialos.
That’s just the start. If you want to see all events listed, click here for the PDF program. It is in Greek first, and then in English.
This next part rambled out of control, so I went back and dropped in some random photos.
In other news… Er… Plumer visited again yesterday, but this was for the house over the road which draws its water from the same mains feed as ours, which is in our courtyard, so we played host, but not, for a change, the patient, and the problem was diagnosed: not enough pressure for the feed to reach the tank. I know this water business is a recurring theme, and some may wonder ‘What’s the problem?’ In this case, the problem is this:
Imagine a tree upside down.
At the top sits the reservoir, and the trunk is the mains feed, the large black pipes you might see following the edges of paths around the village. For around four hours on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday, our tree trunk is opened, and the water is allowed to flow from the top to the bottom. On the way, it branches off to the properties on its route; this it does via various smaller branches, each one of which leads to a sterna beneath a house or a water tank like ours.
Let’s say there are 100 houses on this route (I don’t know the exact number, I’m not that much of a nerd). In the winter, half of those houses are closed up and their water intake turned off, or their sternas are full. Therefore, the pressure from above is fine to push the water back uphill if needs be – as it needs to be to fill ours and the one over the road, which is slightly higher in altitude than ours. However, when summer comes, and the other properties are let to tourists, opened for visiting families and so on, the same water pressure has to do all 100 tanks, and the pressure is simply not enough. It’s a clear illustration of the island’s water issues in the summer.
Too many visitors? (Need the income they bring.) Not enough water in the reservoirs? (Let’s build bigger ones and really blight the scenery.) What’s the answer? (I don’t know.) What I do know from firsthand experience, though is that when someone who usually lives in, say, Athens, comes to stay in their once-a-year holiday home, the first thing they do is fill the sterna. Fine. The next thing they do is get through the same 300 litres of water a day as they might back in Athens without thinking – and that’s why our other neighbours got through 600 litres of water in 48 hours last weekend. For those of us used to saving, not wasting water, that amounts to roughly five days’ worth. Slightly more, actually.
Anyway, the property opposite is still without water and has been for over a week, but there is nothing we can do for our neighbour other than offer buckets of water drawn from the mains as extra on water days and offer her to use our shower, if the lady from the mainland downstairs hasn’t got through the whole 1,000 litre barrel again by then.
Today’s message? Be aware and turn it off!
