Gifts

i visited the uncles today at the village, they were sitting in the tv house (house = room; in the past, rooms were added to houses one by one, and each room was called a house, because they did not communicate with indoor doors), with the wood fire going

it's raining, they said, and we cant go out to the fields today, have some chestnuts (which were roasting on the wood stove)

so i ate some chestnuts, and one uncle said 'dont forget to pick up these cans of peaches' - i asekd him why he was giving me 5 cans, and he said, i bought them for you, i know your kids like them

then the other one went into the other 'house' and came back with a bag of eggs - we have just five chickens now (the others were slaughtered and given to the athens side of the family who is now facing very hard-stricken times), and they lay an eg or two a day, he said, i dont know what to do with them (dont worry ,i said to him, i do)

and just as i was leaving, they said, oh, take some mandarins, won;t you, we dont eat so many these days

and when i went home and husband saw me carrying all these gifts into the house, he said, well, you ar their favorite, arent you