The Olive Pickers
At the Processing Plant
... ready to rock-'n-roll...
Ready to rock-'n'-roll...
... a little nibble to go with the ouzo or tsipouro...
All the olives had been gathered and the bags were carefully stacked in Bakis’s yard and along the outside wall by the entrance gate, just sitting there, waiting. The fat, mostly green olives destined for home consumption had been collected some time ago and were now happily swimming in their marinade, soon to be added to the meze dishes that preceded lunch.
Every morning when I raised the kitchen blinds those waiting bags bursting with olives were the first thing I set eyes on and each time I wondered when they would finally be transported to the factory. When asked, Bakis was rather vague – he was waiting for them to be picked up and taken; after all it was the olive picking season and the local transporters were quite busy. But, he added with a grin, I shouldn’t worry, he’d let me know in plenty of time. Now let me warn you here, when anybody mentions to you “don’t worry” in Greece, it generally speaking means Trouble... with a capital T! Likewise, the notion of “plenty of time” might mean anything from a day or so to “Where are you? We’re ready to roll!” Needless to say, I did not have too much faith in this statement; still, what else could I do but wait.
And then it happened all so quickly again that I had barely time to put down what I was doing, leaving hubs to take over as NCO in charge of Home – something which he’s rather good at, I must add – and get ready to go out again. In fact, it was hubs who called out to me that particular late afternoon – it was past 5pm already, when any self-respecting Greek would still be having their mid-day equivalent of a Spanish siesta, “Emm! Hurry up! Get your camera and get your bum on the balcony - they’re here!” Oh, he can be so subtle, my man! Makes me smile, even now...
Said camera is on permanent standby, neatly packed, sitting on a chair by the front door, ready for action. In this instance, I had to dash down, pick up my tools and get onto the front balcony which affords a clear view of everything that takes place outside our house. When I got up there I saw a cluster of people milling outside Bakis’ gate, while a big truck, stuck in reverse gear, was trying to negotiate the steep incline of the road that lies between our two properties. Pick-up time!
I recognized the men whom I had met at the olive groves a few days earlier and when they saw me on the balcony, complete with camera around my neck, they gave me a cheerful wave and asked how I was. When we first arrived in this area 20 odd years ago, I had always been surprised to hear people greet me with a “Yassas, kala eiste?” – loosely translated into “Hello, are you well?” and more often than not you’d be asked to share the latest update of your family history before they would get to the business at hand. Things are quite similar in Bulgaria, come to think of it; must be a Balkan thing. However, I’m diverting again. Back to the olives.
Every morning when I raised the kitchen blinds those waiting bags bursting with olives were the first thing I set eyes on and each time I wondered when they would finally be transported to the factory. When asked, Bakis was rather vague – he was waiting for them to be picked up and taken; after all it was the olive picking season and the local transporters were quite busy. But, he added with a grin, I shouldn’t worry, he’d let me know in plenty of time. Now let me warn you here, when anybody mentions to you “don’t worry” in Greece, it generally speaking means Trouble... with a capital T! Likewise, the notion of “plenty of time” might mean anything from a day or so to “Where are you? We’re ready to roll!” Needless to say, I did not have too much faith in this statement; still, what else could I do but wait.
And then it happened all so quickly again that I had barely time to put down what I was doing, leaving hubs to take over as NCO in charge of Home – something which he’s rather good at, I must add – and get ready to go out again. In fact, it was hubs who called out to me that particular late afternoon – it was past 5pm already, when any self-respecting Greek would still be having their mid-day equivalent of a Spanish siesta, “Emm! Hurry up! Get your camera and get your bum on the balcony - they’re here!” Oh, he can be so subtle, my man! Makes me smile, even now...
Said camera is on permanent standby, neatly packed, sitting on a chair by the front door, ready for action. In this instance, I had to dash down, pick up my tools and get onto the front balcony which affords a clear view of everything that takes place outside our house. When I got up there I saw a cluster of people milling outside Bakis’ gate, while a big truck, stuck in reverse gear, was trying to negotiate the steep incline of the road that lies between our two properties. Pick-up time!
I recognized the men whom I had met at the olive groves a few days earlier and when they saw me on the balcony, complete with camera around my neck, they gave me a cheerful wave and asked how I was. When we first arrived in this area 20 odd years ago, I had always been surprised to hear people greet me with a “Yassas, kala eiste?” – loosely translated into “Hello, are you well?” and more often than not you’d be asked to share the latest update of your family history before they would get to the business at hand. Things are quite similar in Bulgaria, come to think of it; must be a Balkan thing. However, I’m diverting again. Back to the olives.
Loading...
Earlier that day, the Roma workers had been summoned to come help load the olives onto the truck during the afternoon. It's perhaps interesting to point out here, that a Greek afternoon goes on long after we have entered the evening in our northern countries, which means that it is not unusual to be invited for afternoon coffee somewhere between 6 and 7 pm, following the afternoon nap! As the saying goes "There's nowt as queer as folk!"...
It was decided that work could only commence after Bakis and Kostas, the truck driver, had been given their afternoon coffees which were duly prepared by Bakis's wife -Greek style, of course! Angela then came down to join the men in the yard, while loading commenced. Under the watchful eye of Kostas, the men were instructed as to how the bags had to be positioned onto the pallets so that the load would be evenly distributed while at the same time making sure that whoever was standing on the truck bed would still have sufficient room for manoeuvring when the last couple of pallets had to be loaded. I would have never dreamt that loading a truck bed required so much calculated strategic planning!
It was decided that work could only commence after Bakis and Kostas, the truck driver, had been given their afternoon coffees which were duly prepared by Bakis's wife -Greek style, of course! Angela then came down to join the men in the yard, while loading commenced. Under the watchful eye of Kostas, the men were instructed as to how the bags had to be positioned onto the pallets so that the load would be evenly distributed while at the same time making sure that whoever was standing on the truck bed would still have sufficient room for manoeuvring when the last couple of pallets had to be loaded. I would have never dreamt that loading a truck bed required so much calculated strategic planning!
The final touches...
At some point, daylight had faded to such extent that it was no longer possible to take any decent photographs from the safety of our balcony, and so I asked Bakis if he had any problem if I came down to join the group. Of course I could come, what a silly question! And did I want coffee or tea – we’d already converted him to our Anglo-Saxon habits in the tea department, as you can see- but I politely declined the offer, advising him that as a woman drinking too much tea on this mission was going to have a distinct disadvantage. He didn’t understand at first what I meant, and when I had to spell out that it would be rather difficult for me to answer a call of nature amidst a group of men, he just burst out laughing and slapped me on the back. He thought it was hilarious. I didn’t.
Almost done...
... no picnic in the garden, this is!
An
hour later the job was finished; no mean feat really, considering that
there had been a fair bit of chuntering and Mediterranean waving about
of arms and hands as well as vociferous protest when a bag had not been
deposited exactly where Kostas had wanted it. Those bags were
heavy; I remember asking Bakis at some point how much they weighed, and
where I had been told by the pickers at the olive grove that they
estimated each filled sack to be about 35 kilograms, Bakis told me they
were more in the vicinity of 50 kilos. These men needed some serious
muscles and sturdy, strong backs to handle that lot, I thought, no doubt
about it! Still, the job was done, the truck satisfactorily loaded and
the guys had left after bidding me a particularly big-smiled “leka
nosht, Gospozha” which is Bulgarian for ‘good night, madam’. Having
seen Kostas off with his truck-load full of our neighbour’s olives I
asked Bakis, ‘what now?' He explained that the olives were being taken
to a processing plant about 10km away and invited me to join him in his
pick-up to go and survey their handling there. I made a counter-offer
and proposed to take him in our car which he readily accepted with a
huge grin. He’d hoped as much, I could tell from the way he responded to
the invitation. Suited me fine! That way, I thought to myself, I would
be absolutely sure that the driver of the vehicle would be sober for the
return journey. I had no idea what lay ahead of me, but I strongly
suspected that where there’s a congregation of Greek men involved, some
tsipouro or ouzo would be doing the rounds. I had long since learned
that in Greece you are expected to do as the Greeks do; for the most
part I was more than happy to oblige; we love this country and most of
its customs, but as far as drink-driving was concerned I had very
simple self-imposed puritan rules: zero tolerance. And I really didn’t
give a monkeys as to what anyone thought of my abstinence. I valued life
too much to play Russian roulette on the roads here in the dark!
It had become rather chilly – it was nearing the end of November, after all – and I told Bakis to hang on a minute, I’d go pick up a warmer coat and we could leave. Inside I informed my better half of what lay ahead, adding that I had no idea what I was going to find there, nor how long it would all take, upon which he advised me that I had better go to the bathroom before I found myself in a predicament among “that lot down there, you never know!”... Wise advice!
By the time we left, it was pitch black outside, the skies were overcast. In the car, Bakis told me that tonight we would only check in the olives at the plant, which meant they would be logged and stacked somewhere locally after having been registered. Since there were only a few processing facilities in the area – the local plants were rather small – and there were many olive farmers in the surrounding villages, he would be put on a list and would have to await his turn like everyone else. ‘What?’ I thought rather unkindly, ‘no backhanders to jump the queue...?’ That certainly makes a nice change in this corner of the world! When I asked at what time the plant closed in the evening, he told me that during the olive processing season the place worked round the clock, and this would be going on well into December and possibly into January, depending on how much they had to process and how late the farmers left the olives hanging. Made sense to me when I thought about it.
By the time we left, it was pitch black outside, the skies were overcast. In the car, Bakis told me that tonight we would only check in the olives at the plant, which meant they would be logged and stacked somewhere locally after having been registered. Since there were only a few processing facilities in the area – the local plants were rather small – and there were many olive farmers in the surrounding villages, he would be put on a list and would have to await his turn like everyone else. ‘What?’ I thought rather unkindly, ‘no backhanders to jump the queue...?’ That certainly makes a nice change in this corner of the world! When I asked at what time the plant closed in the evening, he told me that during the olive processing season the place worked round the clock, and this would be going on well into December and possibly into January, depending on how much they had to process and how late the farmers left the olives hanging. Made sense to me when I thought about it.
... a full moon breaking through the clouds...
It
was only a ten minute drive to the plant and we overtook Kostas in his
truck with “our” olives en route. I must have passed the slip road
leading to the factory hundreds of times on my way to town, never once
realizing where the road led to, even though the air in that area would
always be impregnated with the heavy fruity-olive smell that came from
the chimneys belting out fumes during the oil manufacturing process at
this time of the year. I had just never paid any attention to this,
apart from curling up my nose occasionally when the smell was too
overwhelming..
At the plant
...A great character, Yorgos, the forklift truck driver...
We had arrived at the factory grounds which lay bathing in the light of
dozens of strong halogen lamps, thus making it possible for people to
work around the clock. From a distance it looked like a nocturnal
beehive of activity, with vehicles and people alike moving all over the
place. Bakis told me to stop and drop him by the main entrance gate
after which I should park the car on the side of the road along the
factory fence. I did as instructed and as I got out of the car I noticed
that the clouds in the dark sky had broken to reveal the shiny face of a
rather pale full moon. Quite beautiful, really. A full moon always has
a magical effect on me. I grabbed my camera, popped the spare battery
pack in a pocket of the sleeveless top that I’d put over my thick
cardigan and set off to join Bakis, although ‘find’ Bakis would have
been a more appropriate way of putting it in this melee. The noise that
hit me as soon as I approached the gate was incredible – Greeks are so
vocal! And then came the smell. Rather pungent, but not totally
unpleasant, to be honest. What fascinated me were the clusters of olive
farmers hanging around the place, a couple of women too, all warmly
dressed against the chill of the night, excitedly chatting away in their
loud voices. I received a few strange looks – nothing new, as a
foreigner in this country I was used to it – and greeted people as I
passed them on my way to try and locate Bakis. I eventually found him
talking to a moustachioed man perched high on the seat of a forklift
truck. I joined them and Bakis introduced me to ‘o filos mou, o Yorgos’
– my friend George! I learned that George would be taking care of
offloading the truck and stacking Bakis’s olives somewhere safe. Safe as
in: ‘a place where they could not get mixed up with someone else’s
crop’, either accidentally or deliberately! You could no longer really
trust anyone these days, could you! As we stood there chatting, Bakis
interrupted us and told me that Kostas was just driving the truck into
the yard and would need to be told where to go. George drove his
forklift truck to the side and joined Bakis in guiding Kostas toward the
dark side of the building where it was left until discharging would
begin.
I looked around the yard. It was full, literally full with stacked
crates, bags, and all sorts of containers holding their precious loads
of olives. I couldn’t begin to understand how they managed to keep track
of what belonged to whom here. It all looked so chaotic – in a way
comfortingly familiar and Greek. I joined Bakis in the office part of
the building to sort out the paperwork involved in having his load
registered and was introduced to the manageress who, it turned out, was
the daughter of the owner. Bakis had previously spoken with her and she
confirmed that I was more than welcome to take pictures. I had already
been asked by a couple of people who’d seen the camera around my neck
whether I was a photographer working on behalf of a newspaper or
magazine, or so – if only! - and I explained that it was actually simple
curiosity about what was involved in the olive oil producing process
that had driven me here. The people appeared to be pleased that a
foreigner would show interest in their life’s happenings and several had
asked me to take pictures of them so I could include them in my shoot.
I made sure before taking any pictures of groups of people, I had their
permission to do so – no good finding out later, after disaster struck,
that I had upset some old farmer who would subsequently send me the
Evil Eye; messing around with The Evil Eye in Greece is not recommended,
it’s a dead-serious business!
Let the work commence...
... loading the feeder trays...
As Bakis returned to see his olives being offloaded, I walked around
the place in an attempt to find out how the oil was extracted from the
olives. The plant operated on a continuous pressing procedure which
started at the off-loading bay, involving two conveyor belts situated
either side at the rear of the building. These belts were divided up in
box-like trays that were constantly being fed from a large metal
receptacle, the bottom of which was a metal grid with openings that were
sufficiently large to allow the olives to drop through into the trays
on the conveyor belt, while at the same time holding back most stray
twigs or leaves. George, our friendly forklift trucker would bring the
pallets with the olive bags or crates as close to these conveyor belts
as was humanly possible where they would be emptied into these trays in a
seemingly never ending cycle of supply-feed-and-clean-out. The guys who
were feeding these trays were built like they’d had more than one
portion of bacon-and-eggs for breakfast, or at least the Greek
equivalent thereof.
... and here we go...
... the conveyor belt carrying its precious load to the hopper...
While the belt would carry the olives upward to a platform, our “feeder-man”, for lack of a better word, would make sure that the trays were kept fed, regularly bending over to pick out some debris, even using a broom to spread the olives and brush leaves and twigs toward one side where a helper would pick them out by hand and put aside, after which they'd be loaded into a wheel barrow and disposed off. The olives would travel upward toward some kind of container, called a hopper, where they would enter the second stage of their processing. They would be washed with running water in a machine that would also remove any remaining leaves or so. And then it would be the more serious part of the process that would be awaiting them. However, at this stage of the procedure, I thought I'd leave that until the day Bakis would be called by the plant manageress that his olives were due to be "done" and I'd make sure I would be present well before nightfall. The lighting was not exactly ideal and I needed to find my bearings, really.
While I was taking in all these first impressions of how everything took place here, I suddenly realized that offloading had begun at Kostas’s truck. Things were moving, finally!
While I was taking in all these first impressions of how everything took place here, I suddenly realized that offloading had begun at Kostas’s truck. Things were moving, finally!
It's OUR turn... Offloading begins
Finally! After nearly one and a half hours waiting, it's 'our' turn...
I nipped back into the yard where, contrary to what I was told, I observed how Kostas himself – obviously a man of many talents- rather than Yorgos, was handling the forklift truck, carefully manoeuvring it between the parked vehicle and the wall along which he was depositing the pallets loaded with the heavy sacs. The lighting was simply too bad here to make any decent photos, and I had not yet advanced to the stage in my photography world where I even knew what kind of lighting I would need, let alone how to handle it!
Tea ... ? ... or Tsipouro..?!?
The constant noise, both of people and machinery, the smells, the humdrum of activity all lent a very special atmosphere to this evening, and I was enjoying every minute of it. Contrary to what I had anticipated, I did not see bottles of tsipouro or ouzo doing the rounds, but had to smile when Bakis was holding a mug and told me with a big grin and twinkle in the eye that he was drinking tea. Like hell he was...!
YAMAS!
... and a big Yamas to you too! ...
With offloading now out of the way, Kostas came and bade his
farewell, promising he’d show up sometime in the summer to come and
enjoy a coffee with us. I told him I looked forward to that. After Kostas had gone, I just hung around the yard and observed people moving about, loudly chatting to one another, exchanging bits and pieces of their life - I had the impression that many people knew each other. It looked like these annual gatherings were the ideal moments to exchange the latest bits of village gossip or developments in family matters, moan and groan about how business had been, as well as any other incidents worthwhile recounting that that had occurred since the last get-together. At some point while I was standing in the yard, observing this theatre, I felt a hand on my shoulder; I jumped and almost had a heart attack - darn near frightened me to death! I swung around and stared into the laughing face of Dimitris, a good friend of ours. A valuable friend actually - he takes care of emptying the cess-pits in the villages in the area. It's always good to have friends who have particular skills in this country! That’s one
of those wonderfully amazing things about Greece; you meet people, and
the next thing you know you’re all sitting around the same table
munching away on some tasty bits, “yamassing” one another with
clockwork regularity, slowly getting kaylied...
(That’s it for today, folks... next instalment in the pipeline!)
(That’s it for today, folks... next instalment in the pipeline!)
