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Published: March 14th 2008
After buying groceries for the next three days, as Sunday all stores are closed everywhere in Greece and Monday being a holiday, we spent the day at Mirmingi village, home village to Christina. It is a small village with about fifty inhabitants, all of whom are over 30 years of age. Most young people have moved out into the cities and only return during holidays. Though there are bigger villages around Chios, Mirmingi has a simple charm. Quiet, quaint, the village is unassuming and is reminiscent of a simpler life before the craziness of modernity. Walking around the winding paths that billow up and down the slopes of Mirmingi, I felt a sense of ease and peace. Being away from the hectic rat race of the city, breathing fresh air, seeing all that green foliage, one cannot help but wish to settle there and enjoy the simpler pleasures of life. The villagers occupy themselves with gardening, cooking, preserving harvest fruits and vegetables from their garden and of course spend afternoons chatting with neighbours over a cup of Greek coffee. When asked, how the villagers sustain economically, Christina explained that normally, the husbands have full time jobs outside the village, as government
workers, marine officers, fishermen to support the family. The women are in charge of the harvesting, the cooking and cleaning. Some income also comes from the selling of produce from their lands. Most villagers on Chios have a plot of land where they plant olive trees, fruit trees and most importantly mastic trees.
Mastic is a major industry in Chios. Chios is actually the ONLY place on earth where mastic trees grow due to a combination of the climate, soil composition, and other factors that are not replicable elsewhere. Fortunately for Chios, mastic is very much coveted all over the world. The resine from the mastic tree has several application. It is used in food, is known to have medicinal use and is used in other products such as oil paint for artists. I had the chance to watch Christina's aunts clean some mastic which were harvested last September. Normally, in early May, the ground around the mastic trees are cleaned of debris from the previous season, a whitish powder is scattered underneath each tree. The trees do not require any attention until late June, early July, when the women use knives to scar the trunks and older branches
of the trees. To protect itself, the tree secretes a liquid that solidifies into a clear yellowish resine. The resine falls off the trees and in September the women sweep the ground around the tree to gather all the mastic that was produced during the summer. The mastic is then left to dry until December, at which time they are washed several times until they are clear of debris. The women then take the pieces of mastic one by one with a needle to further eliminate all signs of impurities. Once the process finished, the mastic is taken to a third party that washes the mastic with machines. Interesting, but quite a long process for resin that taste like pine needles.
After lunch, Christina and I took a nice long stroll around the fields and woods of Mirmingi, to my disappointment, we did not go mushroom picking, as the temperature was not favourable to mushroom growth. However, I did get to pick oranges from Christina's garden. We also picked tulips and purple flowers, which we gave to Christina's aunt and Rena, her friend, where we went for afternoon coffee.
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