Yiayia (Grandmother)
My Grandmother
grew up between two wars in Greece
lost her brother Christo to the Germans
and named my mother Christina after him
Rare for a Greek woman
she had a divorce at fifty
and has lived for thirty years by herself
with his photos still in the spare room
she is a green thumb
She makes cordial from her own mandarins
drinks tea from her own chamomile bush
and picks tomatoes from her garden
whenever I say I feel like a σαλάτα
she hardly went to school
But one day
when talking of my time at University
and admiring all three different types of basil she has
growing in her garden
She says to me:‘Luka, eat two leaves basil every day
good for the blood
good for the brain
they don’t teach that University’
And when my brother
Eliah says to her:
‘You know Yiayia– you know a lot; you’re really smart ...’
She always replies:
‘Yees Eliah, I’m a very education.’
So recently I decided to ask my Yiayia
what she thought about racism
and whether it was okay for Greeks to still hate the Turks
for what they did to us in the past
and she said:
‘Racism? No.
Just because some people naughty,
doesn’t mean you throw
the rest in the rubbish.’
Her name is Katerina Batounas
but her maiden name is Sarandavga.
And Sarandavga
literally means ‘forty eggs’
and as the story goes
one of her great-grandfathers
was challenged by another villager
to see if he could eat an omelette made entirely with forty eggs
without getting sick
And anyone that knows my appetite
will know that I’m proud to say
he won that bet
and so his nickname ‘Forty Eggs’
then turned into the family name
and was passed down the generations
to my Yiayia
And today
it’s her birthday
so I tell her what we always do:
'Να εκατοστήσεις: May you live to one hundred’
but she is 83
so instead of thanking me she says:
‘Oh God me!!
A hundred??!!
No thank you, I have enough
maybe couple more years – then I go to sleep’
'Where will you go to sleep Yiayia?'
‘In the cemetery – I already buy a “lili” house there ...I don’t afraid!!'
Until then
she will keep calling me to see if I am too cold
when I’m visiting Melbourne
keep stopping me from doing the dishes
after she cooks us a meal
keep trying to slip me a fifty dollar note
every time I visit
and keep telling me:
‘Eat two leaves basil everyday
good for the blood
good for the brain’
They don’t teach you that
at University.
-Luka Lesson