Return where you belong

F.Τ.: Yes, because where you grew up, and where you were born, and where you lived, and where you know you belong, it’s very difficult to forget it, it’s in your DNA, it’s in your blood. You even see children, you, who haven’t been born there and still there is that Greek element which draws you. You say, I’m Canadian, I love Canada, I support it as much as I can, but I’m Greek at the same time and my homeland is my homeland and it will always concern me. Anyway, so we decided to go to Greece in ’82. At some point in ’82 I wanted to see, before I open and do anything down in the island, I wanted to see whether I could indeed stay there and whether it was something my children could live through and so we stayed for two summers and one winter. I was working as a guide in the island, day-trips in various islands and in the island itself to archaeological sites for two years.
RE.: And what did you think of that job, when you came back?
F.Τ.: It was easy because my English was very good, it was fluent. In the island, due to tourism, they needed people who spoke the language and they were to serve, let’s say, the English tourism. Therefore, it was easy for me to take up some lessons and learn the history which I somewhat knew but not as fluent as to be able to act as a tour guide for the group they would give me from the offices. At some point in the second summer, I understood that it wasn’t that easy to survive in Greece, because even though the time I was in Canada was only ten years, when I went back twelve we had already attained a different attitude compared to the one these people had and I didn’t like this, to see my children grow up with an attitude, which was entirely different from the one we had lived with here and I regarded the future as difficult for the children, that’s all.