My first cultural impressions in Chios

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Category: Experiences

Published on Monday, 01 November 2021 15:57

 What new things draw attention to you when you travel to a new country? In this case, I will talk about to you about some things that impressed me in my first month of living in Chios.

I never expected Greece to be much more different than Spain. In fact, I always talked to my friends about how it would just feel like being at home. But then I took my first steps in Greece and some things felt different. The weather is almost the same, and the landscape is very similar to where I live. When I wake up in the morning and look through the kitchen window and see mountains far away after a bright sea, they remind me of my city’s bay and mountains. But then I remind myself that what I am actually seeing is a whole different country, Turkey, and then it hits me, how far away from home I truly am.

Vrontados, the village where we live, is a small and very community-oriented place. The port reminds me of home, but specially seeing the elderly men drinking a coffee in the afternoon and having long conversations under the sun. I am always happily surprised by the elderly people wherever I go. But specially here in Chios, they make you feel at home whenever you greet them, and they greet you back with a big smile and some complimenting words.

So, by far both the landscape and the people didn’t really shock me when I came to Chios. As I said I always expected it to be like Spain, giving the fact that we are both countries from the south of Europe, we do share a lot of similarities (the same goes to Portugal and Italy) and I always feel at home when I visit them, so it’s not a surprise that I feel the same in Greece.

But I have experienced some cultural shocks that I didn’t really expect, and they were the ones regarding religion. The first time I went to the kindergarten It was also the opening day, where all the children came accompanied by their parents (most of them, the mothers) and they had a little ceremony with a priest. More than a shock it was actually very curious to see and be a part of it. The priest, whose attire was very different from what I am used to. In Spain the main religion is Christianity, but here in Greece is Orthodox Christianity. The ceremony started, and the priest read some passages from the bible and said some prayers, to which all the children replied with the sign of the holy cross. After that, he put some basil leaves into a bowl of water and blessed both the school and the children.

The strong importance of religion in Greek society continued to amaze me during my daily work at the kindergarten. Before every class, the teachers sit the children and teach them how to do the sign of the holy cross correctly. After that they continue with their day, but right before they do their little break to have breakfast, the pray one more time to bless the food they are about to it. Besides that, in the school and in very much every corner of the Island you can find some type of religious object or decoration. In this case, at the school they have some images of Jesus in the classes. It is safe to say that the impact of religion really shocked me, especially as I see it every day at school, and specially in comparison to Spain, that despite being quite a religious country, you would never see something like that in a public school, where if you want to study religion, you have to choose a special subject to do so.

Continuing with the kindergarten, but jumping to a whole different subject, the way they deal with Covid-19 also shocked me. All the teachers and kids wear masks, obviously, and take all the necessary measures to be safe. But it’s the way the kids act about it that shocked me, because for them is just like a normal thing. If you think about it, they are 4 and 5 years old, so they have basically grown up with this situation. They are always very careful with their masks and quickly notice when someone else is not wearing it. They go to wash their hands every time they are about to start a new task or eat, and always put some hand sanitizing. 

As of today, I have only been in Greece for over a month, so I have not really experienced that many cultural impressions, especially being Spanish, but I am looking forward for what the next month’s bring me here.

B.P.