FESTIVALS

The microphone and sound system obviously became a fixture at the annual summer festivals only in recent years. The microphone itself is necessary to allow the singer's voice to rise above the music produced by the loud instruments in the band, particularly the clarinet. The real drama starts after midnight, when those who have - by this point - had quite a bit to drink continue dancing, while others go home to try and sleep, despite the blaring megaphones in the village square. If the festivities continue past midnight, the police rarely intervenes. There is no such thing as "disturbing the peace" during a village festival!

New additions to village festivals include DJs and even female singers, whose job it is to spice up the musical menu with more modern "rembetica" or "laika" songs. Beer is also a new addition to the tables laid out in the square; in past days, "kokkineli" wine was the only alcoholic drink available, but now younger generations of Peristians demand beer as well.

TOURISM

There is no real "tourism" in Perista, as far as the typical meaning of the word is concerned. But there is a small wave of "internal" tourists - tourists from other parts of Greece, or Peristians living abroad - who visit the village in the summertime. It is during the summer months when one most easily notices the tension between the women who live in the village permanently and those women who left the village at a young or marriageable age to live in abroad or in Greek cities, but who return to the land of their birth for vacation. The city women go to great lengths to "lose" the traditional dialect used by Peristians, but after a few months back in the village, they forget their city ways and return to the ways and customs they knew as children.

AMERICAN CUSTOMS AT PERISTIAN WEDDINGS

There is a certain custom which made its way to the village from Peristians living in America: the public kiss. The adopted custom has been integrated into the traditional Peristian wedding in the following manner: On Sunday afternoon, the "reception" is held in the village square. Large, long tables are laid side by side, with the bride and groom in the middle and their families on either side. Guests are seated all over the square, at other long tables. There is plenty of food and drink. As the band plays wedding songs, the first sounds of forks clinking against glasses and plates become audible. The sounds become louder, and more demanding, and the groom appeases the gathering of guests by kissing his bride. The custom has also become popular at other villages in the area.

OLD CUSTOMS

Old customs were filled with rich, historical and religious symbolism, but at present they have been altered or simplified to the extent that they have almost completely disappeared. No one person has managed to completely embrace and practice the customs kept by our ancestors, and if one is ever found - a rarity indeed - then he or she is made the object of ridicule and criticism for being too "backward." As a result, a new mother today will refuse to remain locked up in her house for forty days after giving birth, as the custom requires. She will wash her clothes before the forty days have passed and may not even take her newborn to church. In the same vein, the customs surrounding funerals have changed or completely disappeared. They have been streamlined to the point where only those practices dictated by the church are followed. Thus, old customs die out or are adapted to a more modern way of life, while new ones are slowly becoming entrenched in the village way of life.

SOCCER

Even small villages have their own soccer teams. The soccer team now has special uniforms, their own equipment and soccer balls, and even wooden goal posts (but without nets!). Often there are meets between different village soccer teams; for instance, Perista's team "Proschiakos" often plays against the "Soccer Association of Platanos."

THE LITTLE RADIO IN THE KAFENIO

In order for a city person to even conceive of the huge social importance of one little radio in the village coffee shop, or "kafenio," he or she would have to imagine times of Nazi occupation in Athens, when entire families would gather around one radio to listen to the BBC report worldwide news. Like them, villagers would gather around the radio in the kafenio to listen to news, church services, election results, popular music, and more. The kafenio owner was always careful to take note of the times when shows featuring popular music were on, so that he could be sure to have the little radio blasting for his customers. The kafenio-radio phenomenon began to disappear, of course, after the widespread availability of the transistor radio and television allowed villagers to listen to news on their own, in their homes.

SUING FOR DAMAGES

It doesn't happen often, but when it does, someone has to pay. One villager's wandering livestock can cause extensive damage to another villager's crops and carefully cultivated fields. A villager with a complaint of that sort will present himself and his story to the local officer of law enforcement, who tries to mediate, differentiating between one villager's contradicting story and another's. The end result? The officer continues his "investigation," but the law suit that is eventually filed lists "unknown persons" as the defendants...