The simplest things in Sigri

By Quynh Nguyen

What do you know about life?
What do you seek for in your life?
You may work on top of skyscrapers
You may be successful and high
But do you know the sunshine?
Can you really feel the breeze?
Do you see the sparkling smile
of people of Sigri
Where you come, you find a slow life
And you don’t ever want to leave…

The first person who brought Sigri to us was our professor Mikael Backman, who once came to Sigri and kept on coming back to stay for longer. When I asked him about his one top reason for such frequent and excessively long vacations in Sigri, our professor seemed to have quite a difficult time to justify that one choice, and finally came up with many reasons, “the people”, “the atmosphere”, “the peaceful life” and also “the good food”.

When we later came to one of the most original sunny beaches in the world - Faneromeni, I talked to the KAFE PAP ETSI bar owner Nonas. He turned on the music, told me about his many adventures to America, India and many other countries and his decision to settle down in Sigri. He said he found the slow and simple life that he wanted here. It indeed may require one to travel, to see many cultures and experience many aspects of life to be able to truly appreciate Sigri.
For me, the village can be felt from the simplest things. I still remember when I went shopping to buy some snack from a mini-mart; both I and the shop owner were short of small change. The fair lady assured me to leave and come back and pay her the short amount later. I would not have done such thing to a stranger in town.

Sigri to me is also connected to the graceful senior people resting on their chairs in front of their houses, who usually smiled at us when we walked by. Sigri was also reflected on the cutest face of the little girl waving to me when I was sitting on the balcony of our hotel. Or when it was late at night, we were sitting next to each other by the sea, listening to the turning sound of the fish, and watching the glittering golden moonlight on the water and felt the most peaceful moment in life.
Now I am back in my city in Vietnam with the noise and the busy life but still usually think of the beautiful and slow memory of Sigri. I still can close my eyes and feel the rocks, the sea, the blue sky, the generous sunshine and also the magic moonlight and the fish sound at night. I still can be carried away by the Mediterranean music - the music so easy, so relaxing and so touching. And furthermost I can still see the smiling, genuine and friendly face of Sigri people which makes my heart feel much warmer. It might be hard to describe what exactly is so unique about the village but I know that I have found and learned the most intangible and deepest values of life from the simplest things in Sigri.