Profile of a Greek Woman: Zoe

She’s an artist who’s shop in Methoni, Peloponnese is open 7 days a week, leaving her “very tired.”

Zoe has the help of her daughter Maria and husband Nicholas, but she’s really the wheel that makes things go round in their business. Most everything in her shop she makes herself.

They seem over worked right now. Though their English is not rapid or smooth, they speak very well and have a large English vocabulary. Her black hair is pulled back smooth against her head.

She has lively Greek music playing. They turn it up and her daughter and her know each word and sing and dance around the shop putting out new supplies. I am offered Ouzo and when I say yes, they get very excited. “Oh, Ouzo, my Ouzo! Come drink Ouzo,” Zoe says delighted.

Her daughter looks at her longingly and she says “okay, but a very little sip” Maria sips and rolls the potion around in her mouth as a wine connoisseur would concentrate on a fine Cabernet.

We sit, I ask questions, we tell stories that are half pantomime and half English. We understand.

I try to explain the word “burn out” and she does not understand this word. We are interrupted by a customer and I look at her and remember that only 4 short months ago, I was on burn out.



Why don’t you sell on the Internet? : “I don’t want to be rich,” she says, “just live. I want to feed my animals, my family. I want to buy some clothes now and then. I want freedom.”

On her Relationship and Family: Even though her husband and she joke about their rough relationship, it appears her second marriage is a good one.  Trying to juggle 3 children, Maria, who at 13, lives at home while another daughter and son live out of town. Two dogs, two houses and plans to open another smaller shop in a nearby village makes her life overflowing. Later I found out that, both Zoe and Nicholas are from Athens and met in Mykinos. They moved back to Athens for 8 years and one day she said "I want to buy land," Nicholas recalls.  Through a chain of events, they bought in the Peloponnese. After a couple years living in a nearby town, they moved to their land and built a one room structure with only a generator. They lived there for 4 years! Their daughter remembers it as good years. Close family bonding. Maybe too close for a relationship but they later moved to Methoni.
“Men in Greece are horrible. They want a women to wash and clean, to f*** and sometimes they hit. I am lucky with him, he does not.

We are all alone. We must find happiness in ourselves and be free. Freedom. “


How do you feel about the Turks?: “We believe in God. We are all brothers, not the government but the people. We do not hate anyone. If you believe in God then you believe in love and it’s all one. Christians, Muslims, Buddah…all one, only love. “


When did you start as an artist?: “I am 45, she says. I have been making things all my life. I had my first shop at 17.”
Do you worry about the Greek economy now?: “We are not afraid because we do not need much. We can get by. We have land and gardens, animals for food and the shop will continue.”

How is business?: “‘People come and they buy. They take away my pieces and leave me money. But then
I need to make that again. I am very tired, very tired. I am jealous of you. You go be free. You don’t know what you have: Freedom.”

She says, “What if someone said spend the rest of your life in Greece and live like us. We live for today. We live for now. Yes, we think about how we pay and work today so we can pay for tomorrow. But I want time to see the stars, smell the sea, go fishing with my husband. And some time to be alone too.”