Teenagers want to leave burnt out areas

But young adults with jobs are determined to stay on and help bring back to life their villages that were hit by fires

Ioanna Dimopoulou.	Argyris Thanassoulas.	Ioanna Alexopoulou.

By Maria Delithanassi & Eleni Karanatsi - Kathimerini

Junior high school pupils Theoni and Yiannis were born and raised in Artemida. They were in their village when it was encircled by fire, terrified as the flames trapped them and their grandmother in a house without water or power. They cannot forget the people who sent them clothes, water and food. But their faces are expressionless; they have still not got over the shock. The only thing they are certain of is that they want to leave. “I want to go and live in Athens. What can I do here? What future do I have? There’s nothing to do here after school,” says Theoni.

“We might want to leave the village,” Yiannis explains, “but it isn’t possible now. Our grandmother isn’t going to move; there’s no way she’ll leave the village, so we two will stay here and look after her.”

Teenagers from the burnt-out villages of Ileia prefecture have no intention of spending their lives in their devastated home towns; their minds are on Athens. But some young adults who already have jobs seem determined to support their villages.

“We aim to bring the village of Makistos back to life,” Ioanna Dimopoulou tells Kathimerini. “We’ll keep struggling until the village comes alive again. We’ll collect money and we’ll fix it. It will rise again from its ashes. My heart breaks when I think of the children who grew up here since they were babies in the peace of the mountain, and now...”

At Kallithea in the municipality of Alifeira, the active young deputy mayor, Ioanna Alexopoulou, hastens to record the aid that is arriving by truck. Not yet 30, she is also a mother, but has practically forgotten her maternal duties now that the local people afflicted by the fire need her more than ever. She is determined to stay on and work in her native town.

“We have to rebuild the villages. We need anti-flood works at once, because it is not just crops and livestock that have been affected by the huge damage but also a chain of jobs that depend on them directly or indirectly. We’ll stay here and do whatever we can,” says Alexopoulou.

The grandmother of 30-year-old Argyris Thanassoulas has just come out of hospital where she was treated for burns on the face and legs. She is glad that her grandson has decided to stay and work in Platiana. “I lived in Athens for several years but I decided to come back to the village to work with my father on the earthworks. There’s no way I’d abandon my family now at this difficult time,” he says.