SUMMER HOLIDAYS FOREVER!

24.05.04


Monday. A great day. A reason to long for weekend and the summer holidays. Summer on an island. Under the sun, at the beach or in the water.

About three years ago, my friends and I (a big bunch of pals) travelled to Serifos. We had agreed to lodge at the island’s camping and put up our tent. I would stay with Antonis under the same tent and the others would stay under theirs. It really seemed a splendid idea to me, since until then I had never stayed under a tent. I knew that, in all likelihood, things would be kind of difficult for me but I really wanted very much to have this experience, and of course prove to myself that I am capable of everything. Well, things are not exactly like that.

First of all, after such an experience, I can officially state that I detest tents. Wrapped up in nylon, imprisoned just like a pig in a poke, sunk in dust and sand, shrunk in a very small space and wanting help even to turn around: Why should somebody undergo all this? I don’t believe this has something to do with my case. I can’t understand those who find this way of life cool.

Maybe it’s something out of love for nature, something out of our need to come back to it and let our primal instincts come through; to be dirty, sunk in mud, go to the ‘bathroom’ just a few metres far from the table with our lunch, only because we want to be close to Mother Nature. All right, if the prize is 150.000 euros, something comes and goes.

But suffer for nothing? Without any sort of motive ‘justifying’ your folly?
In the first morning, before everybody woke up, a kitten was scratching the open side of my tent. I am really as scared of cats as of many women who act like cats (Anna knows that). I open the hatch and I start yelling ‘Outta here! Outta here!

Antonis wakes up. ‘A cat’, I tell him, ‘is outside and is looking for something’. ‘Good’, he says, ‘tell her to come in’. ‘Are you nuts?’, I scream. I decide to wear my clothes but I can’t do that, because I am lying down and I can’t get up. The next day I get out of there and stay at a bungalow so as to be able to be happy with my holidays.

While we were still in Athens, we read in the magazine ‘Diakopes’ (= ‘Holidays’) that the aforementioned camping had all the equipment so as to be considered accessible from people with a disability – wheelchair users, that is. There was not a single ramp in the whole place. Stairs everywhere. Hills and slopes. The girls swear at every direction, because it is hard for them to push my wheelchair through so many obstacles. What kind of holiday is that? The owner hears us while going around. We tell him that he took us in, since he used to advertise the camping as one with appropriate adjustments for people with a disability. He is mumbling and promises he will have solved the problem by noon. He walks in front of us to open the doors and helps us lift the wheelchair wherever needed. He makes me feel like a rock star but I still haven’t forgiven him.

Later, at noon, when we come back from sunbathing, we find wooden ramps –roughly constructed, of course- all over the place that help us a lot throughout our stay there. But why should I be the bad guy again? Why should I be there once again in order to make those in charge feel responsible and do what they had to do in the first place? What would we have done without the boys in our group of friends, the only ones who have the muscular strength needed to come up against the difficulties they face every time with me? How long will they be able to ignore those difficulties and truly welcome me to their holidays, when they know that they are more likely to be tired than to have a rest if I go with them on holiday? All right, they love me and appreciate me and all this stuff but why on earth should they pay for the indifference of some people, whereas it isn’t their problem anyway?

In order to avoid setbacks, it would be good to work together and write a holiday guide comprising the places that are fully accessible from people with a disability. Come on now, let me not freak out and come out on television! Why do I even bother remembering this? Nonetheless, we had a great time in spite of all the obstacles.
In the evenings, we used to sit on the beach and look at the black sky. We watched the ships anchor and, luckily, nobody had brought any guitar. I am sick of all those who play only PYX LAX and the KATSIMICHA brothers and cry at a time when they should be laughing. Misery and summer don’t match, unless you have ended up alone in the metropolis, soaking in a bathtub full of water and with the headphones stuck on your ears, while wondering where else you could be, if not in your bathtub. But then again: do you have to listen to PYX LAX? Put on BOB MARLEY, man!