Story:

They were made by my great-grandmother. Considering I’m 73 years old and my mom gave them to me when I was 5 years old and my grandmother was 83 then, they are several years old.

Tzena was born in Bucharest, Romania, but her parents are from Iasio, Moldova. She explains that these items are made on the loom.

These are made on the loom, every housewife used to make the trousseau, which would be made from the time you were born until the day you would die. It might seem simple but is really important. These were supposed to be for my mother, my great-grandmother have them to her and then my mother have them to me in turn. My mum would also make macrame, which I would also make later. You would make a braid with the needle and then you would put a plastic on a paper, on the paper you would have made a design and then on the plastic you would put the braid with the design, fill it in and then cut what you would have combined on the plastic and the macrame would be what came out of it. It’s immortal, they still make them. I was also making them until recently.

She continues by explaining the role of these items in the afterlife.

When someone dies, in our culture, they believe that in the afterlife, the soul has a room and that you have to dower the room where the soul will reside. They give a bed, a chair, a table, they make food and on every anniversary, the novena, the 49th Day after death, and so on, every year, they make food that they believe the soul will consume. They share towels so that they have towels in the next world, but also to be remembered by people, so the towel comes at birth and follows you into the afterlife, and in celebrations, such as the baptism, we don’t give the Jordan almonds, we give towels, which are made by the housewives.

You can wrap your baby, you can eat on it, you can use it as decoration. Now, housewives don’t use them anymore, I’ve also removed most of them, but you decorate your home with the towel. You wash your face, wipe your body, it follows you to everything.

Tzena tells us that she arrived from Romania to Greece in 1992.

I fell in love with a Greek man who lived here, I also came here for a little bit, I met him, I left, then he came, met my parents and then I fell in love with him and we got married.

She explains that she brought with her other items, like woven sheets that have melted after several years of use, mats, and other objects.

The mats were also among my dowry, which, in reality it’s not that they endowed me, because I was a modern child, we no longer had dowry, but there were items that I wanted to keep, because, for instance, they remind me of my grandmother that would make them on the loom, in the house, so this is what it reminds me of, you know, the whole process of making them, buying the materials and scrubbing, shearing the sheep and scrubbing the hair and making blankets. Everything was handmade, the whole process, and, you know, all of this brings me a kind of warmth.

Most people who lived in the cities had roots from other places, as happens here. So at Easter and Christmas, we would go back to the villages. There were such celebrations, even though we were Communists. It’s like, you know, the forbidden apple, I remember my youth, when I was a baby, at school, and the teacher used to say, I’d better not see you at church, because we were Communists and supposedly you don’t believe in god, and we’d say, okay mister, we’ll pretend not to see you.

It’s strange, many people tell me, you were going through tough times, you did this, but we didn’t have a tough time, I didn’t have a tough time, to be honest. People who were lazy or alcoholics would have a bad time, not people who would work. My parents weren’t Communists, my mum was a bit liberal and would go and lecture everyone, we never had a problem, even later, that my sister had an Iraqi friends, there weren’t any issues.

You know when issues would arise? When people were jealous. One time, a Securitate had come, for instance, who was supposedly looking for someone, and he said I’m looking for this person, my mum would say, but he hasn’t been living in this building for many years now, and he would be like, ah okay, and my mum, as always, would be like, come in, I’ll make you a coffee, give you something to eat, why are you looking for him, we can find him. He sat on the table and was observing and wouldn’t leave. We fed him, we gave him to drink, and then the evening came and he told us, you know, I came for you, actually. And we asked him why, and he said, because a neighbour made a complaint about your daughter having a friend in Iraq and I came to see what was happening. I was a little kid then, so it left a big impression on me, because I was wondering how is it possible for a neighbour to say something like that and, okay, the man was fine, he told us nice to meet you, we didn’t face an issue. Only if you wanted to harm your country would you have a problem. I remember my childhood in a very nice way.

Many people, Tzena tells us, when they think of Romania, they think of people working in industries and factories. Contrary to that, her grandmother, for instance, would work in the fields.

My grandmother had a bad experience with Communists.

She narrates that her grandfather was a carpenter and used to make engraved furniture, with flower patterns, as well as artworks, which have not been saved.

All the money he made as a carpenter, because he was really stingy, for example my mum would tell me that she left for Bucharest and didn’t have any clothes, even though she was a little girl, because her dad would spend all his money for the fields and would buy fields. When Communism was established, the fields were taken away from him, so you know, they had some bitterness. But other than that, we didn’t have a bad time as kids.

She explains that her grandmother, who made the towels, died years ago, at 92, and would now be 107. She narrates that in her grandmother’s family there were 4 children and her grandmother married when she was 17, with a man much older than her, 35 years old, who already had a child, from a previous marriage. They had 7 kids together, out of which 3 died and 4 survived, together with the husband’s first child.

Tough times then, tough women, very tough, she did a lot of work and, after grandad’s death, she lived alone and would reap the grapes, make wine, tsipouro, hold the stamp, because in our village, the bread that was handed out in the church was not made in the bakery and my grandmother had this stamp. The priest would give it to the most worthy woman in the village and my grandmother had it. Every time I would go to the village the priest and the mayor would come to see me, and I was wondering why. Later on, Iliescu would come to the village, he was after Ceaușescu and all that, and he would visit my grandmother, so it was kind of official.

Tzena arrived in Greece by plane and brought her items in suitcases. She explains that when you have a civil wedding in Romania they endow the house, while when you have a religious wedding, they give you money. She also explains that in Romania she had a civil wedding and in Greece she had a religious wedding.

Lately, I haven’t been visiting Romania, because both my parents are old and have come here, and my sister is also here. My sister came in ’93, my parents came 15 years ago. They speak Greek, but only a little bit. There is a Romanian community here as well, but I’ve never been. They do dances and stuff like that, I don’t know why I haven’t been there, it just didn’t happen, I do have a lot of Romanian friends.

Tzena narrates that the first year was really nice, but, later on, as she started facing racist behaviours, she wanted to leave.

I remember being in a shop and wanting to buy clothes and this seller would stand next to me because I was foreign, so that I don’t steal. Meanwhile, in my family we have very strict rules, that made me feel really bad, I started going exclusively to big chain stores so that I would get lost among the crowd, so that people wouldn’t wonder whether I was foreign or not. Then my sister started working in retail and I saw that Greek women, even rich ones, would steal from the shop, so it wasn’t related to nationality. It’s just that because they saw I wasn’t from here, they would assume that about me. Eventually, it stopped bothering me, because I thought that, since it’s not true. there is no reason to let it.

She continues with the narration of another incident.

I would take my kids to the playground. My daughter was 2 years old then and I was pregnant with my second child. There was this boy that was waiting for my daughter to go down the slide and would then go after her and hit her with his legs. It would happen again and again, so I realised it wasn’t an accident. I told my daughter to wait for him to slide first. The boy said that he didn’t want to slide then and the girl could go first. He did the same. I asked him why he was doing that and a lady ten metres away started yelling out of nowhere, saying “what are you doing, I’ll take you to the police, foreign women come here and steal our men”. I told her we can go to the police together, but she has to walk in front of me so I can she her, and then she left. But you know, I was pregnant and all this made me really upset, I also had the kid and it was really bad.

When many years pass, you are a foreigner at your own place as well. Us migrants manage one thing, having both two homes and none. That is, you go to Romania and they say, a Greek woman. You already have a different air, not a Romanian air. I mean, I remember that when I visited after having lived here for two years, they told me I had a different air, but then again I always had a different air, they called me occident, I had a style of clothing that was not so common for my age, I would make my own clothes. Because I was the youngest, I would take my older sister’s clothes. This often happens here too. But I didn’t like my sister’s clothes, or they didn’t fit me, so I would remake them, I would take a fabric and pierce a hole through it, put on a belt and make it a skirt, I would take a sleeveless shirt, cut the bottom part of it, put on a rubber band and make it a bra top.

She tells us that her grandmother taught her many things, because as she would sew, Tzena and her sister would watch her and often help with the loom.

Moschato came up because my husband had a house here, ever since he was born his parents had built him a house here and that’s where we stayed. His mum was from Chios and his dad’s roots are from Asia Minor. His grandparents on his dad’s side used to live in Tavros and his grandparents on his mother’s side lived at the Sailing Club in Palaio Faliro. His mother’s mother had a taverna there and her father would go fishing with the king, and so my mother-in-law was a monarchist and was actually baptised by Loumidis, who was also a customer. He had a hard time finding a name, because they had already given all the names from the relatives, so he decided to give her the name of his own mother, because he wasn’t married, and thus my mother-in-law was named Theokanthi. A Minor Asian name.

My father was working in Bucharest as a construction worker, then changed fields and worked at something related to weapons. All these have dissolved now, everything has dissolved in Romania. He didn’t work here. My sister was working here at some point, we had a cafe – ouzeri at Piraeus and we worked together. At some point I stopped, because I had the kids, who were still little, and I couldn’t manage everything, I couldn’t find a woman to take care of them and I was also a bit weary of having strangers in the house. I did find this girl once but my daughter would complain to me that she didn’t spend time with her when I wasn’t there. So I asked myself, what do you choose, money or kids? Are you going to miss their best years?

Do you know where I felt like home? In Crete. My brother-in-law is from Crete and so, at some point, we started going with him to Crete. We rented of course, because he didn’t have a house then, he does now. We would go with him to Sougia, next to Paliochora, and when we would go there and eat fried zucchini blossoms and dolmadakia yalantzi I felt as if I was in my grandmother’s village, you know? Maybe I actually have roots in Crete, because, strangely enough, my grandmother’s name was Paraskevi and we don’t have that name. But I haven’t looked into it.