ABSTRACT
I was sitting at the parakouzino1 of Mr Yiannis’s house working on my field notes and waiting for his wife, Mrs Sophia, to return from the market. First I heard her shrill voice describing to her kouniadhos (her husband’s brother) who lived next door what she had been doing – what she had bought and how much she had paid. I then heard her slippers shuffling quickly in the yard. She paused briefly to put on her apron which she had hung from a branch of the gib lemon tree on her way out and entered the parakouzino holding a plastic bag with fish in one hand and two loaves of bread in the other, still struggling to tie her apron strings around her waist. Her face was red and sweaty from the warm early August wind. She was wearing her everyday robe, not having bothered to change for the trip to the market – who bothers to change for things like that anyway? – although she had to pass through the main street and the square of the village where most of the coffeehouses are situated and where the men pass the time of day. Now, in the backyard, cleaning the fish and feeding the entrails to the cats, Mrs Sophia excitedly told me whom she had met in the market. Mrs Sophia loved going to the market, but she could only do it when Mr Yiannis was away for he was the one who did most of the household shopping.2
