10 May 2014
This morning the tall black man who seems to go to his work along the marina road, passed the boat; I waved and said good morning whilst Bob turned and shouted ‘Peperuka’ to him, at which he took a little skip and waved his hands as if they were rising in the air. He kept walking and looked quite funny, so neat and light on his feet for a tall, well-built man.
It seems he had asked Bob the previous day what language the name Peperuka was from, to which the reply was, ‘Swahili.’ The man had then made this rising hands gesture. He’d known the meaning. And now it had become a joke.
The German couple who we met before the winter have left for Crete this morning saying, ‘See you around.’ We intend to leave tomorrow. We don’t know their names either or the name of their boat.
The boy from Bangladesh sped by me as I was walking to the showers, flashing his wide and very white smile at me.
We decided to take a bus to the market which is about two and a half miles away. While we were at the bus shelter looking at the timetable the bus sped round the corner and didn’t stop. It wasn’t a help that I was looking for it to my right or that we were not sure how to stop it. A Greek family came along, the mother sat on the seat in the shelter while the daughter actually stood in the road to make sure the bus would stop.
For the first time we bought beetroot complete with leaves which I have boiled and it’s very tasty. The colour makes it quite exciting to peel and cut. I thought it would make such a mess but cleaned up quite the thing. We also bought a large bunch of broccoli (about nine inches in diameter), fruit and meat but no fish as we wonder about making a mistake and there being too many bones; we are too used to buying fish in packets.
The boy from Bangladesh asked me if we ate fish and I replied that we did. I asked him if he was a fisherman but he said no, not here. It doesn’t take long to get to know people in a new place.
Palo Stickland 