I am very fortunate that I was raised and lived in this
place. My home town, Vrontou Pierias is a small city with not over five thousand people, located at the feet of the tallest and biggest mountain in Greece, the great mount Olympus
where the twelve Greek Gods lived, and Poets wrote Greek mythology. I can easily
say that my home town was blessed, everything is beautiful and the plants
are growing fast in the fields. Most of the people there are farmers or they
have big fields with kiwis, grapes and tobacco.
Mount Olympus has many secret places that you can visit or
even climb. There are so many paths that I can follow and lead me to amazing
places. Churches have been built at the edge of a big rock, at the gorge of the mountain
or near a small river. There are so many places in this mountain to describe to you
but if I do that it will take me two days of typing. Sometimes when I wanted to
relax, to clear my mind and get some fresh air I went to the mountain with
my bike and I sat on a rock with the view of my town and the sea. It was so
quiet the only thing that I could hear was the music of the birds.
From the other side of the mountain we have beautiful seas and
plazas with crystal clear water that you can swim and enjoy the sun. One of the
greatest feelings that I’ve ever had was when I was swimming at the sea with 90
degrees and I could see the top of the mountain full of snow. I felt excitement
with that beautiful view in front of me.
In my childhood me and my friend were free; we had
that freedom that the kids in a big city don’t have. We were ridding our
bicycles or playing soccer in the middle of the street without a problem or
fear that a car could hit us. It is a friendly environment
to raise your kids, but you have to work hard at the fields to be able to feed
your family and that’s the hard part of the story. Fields of kiwis, grapes or tobacco
are hard, you have to be there all day working hard. All that is summer time
work with the sun above your head and burning your back, it’s hard to do work
under that situation.
Now I am here at the United States, everything here is different;
kids here don’t have that freedom and the people are not enjoying life. They are
living to work not to work for living and they dont do anything to enjoy
their life.
I left paradise because of the crisis in Greece and young
people like me don’t have future there. The only place that I could work over there
was the fields and I didn’t want to spend my life working hard in a field to
earn a small amount of money to feed my family. I wish everything was different; I wish I could
stay there, find a good job and stay at this paradise with on my right hand the
mountain and on my left the beautiful seas.
