The land that sustained us
Grandpa and grandma had the best house in the village. They were given it during the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, when all that remained of their own village in Fountoukli, on the Sangareios River, since they had been forcibly relocated to Melissia, Kozani, had to somehow find a way to stand, to live, to grow. The two-story house, with a veranda upstairs and the kitchen and living room downstairs. And in front and beside it, οpen land, with fruit trees and acres of fertile soil. And on the other side, everything my grandfather later built: the grain storage shed and a space to stable his horses. The house and its estate, set upon a raised fold of the land, overlook the village’s most significant landmarks. The church, with…
