Daniel Hutto: Go the Good Road

“Of all the beautiful places of the world, surely Rhodes stands supreme. Surely.” The legends of the Greek fishermen and merchants certainly hadn’t lost its penchant for bravado and pride in Greece over the last 8000 years; with just one look out to the port and sea from which all history seemed to wash ashore, the truth of this claim became irrefutable.  Fort Saint Nicholas seemingly thrust out of the crystalline Mediterranean, cannons and catapults still aimed at the ominous spires of Turkey’s mountains mere clicks east, after all these years. Ft. Saint Nicholas was merely the outermost lookout, an arm held up as if halting those foolish enough to bring transgressions to Greece. No, the true body, the somatic process of this great island was centralized in the great, walled, ancient city known fondly as “the Old Town.” Within this great world heritage site, descendants of the knights of Templar, families of prestige, and good, hard-working families continued to scurry back and forth about their daily business with the most indolent slothfulness of worries. The fiercely self-sufficient nature of Greek men and women is only fully understood by observing the chaotic order that emanates from their incredible ability to tolerate eustress. The activity…that was what was so novel and appealing about an ancient port at the fringe of all history.

The boat sputtered to life, thanks to a slew of expletives and a firm kick to the black-scuffed panel below the deck crane. This was the fourth time this ship had been out to Sea just that day; it was 7 in the morning at the time. Part of me pondered if the fisherman had nets spread across the entire Mediterranean, the other half contemplated the fact that he probably seized any opportunity he could to sail out to the center of the world. “Paideia, climb aboard. We are late!” Paideia. Such a kind term of endearment that a Greek father would use towards his children delivered in such a gruff, proud, and matter-of-fact manner. Even this man’s voice was sunburnt and leather. We, the students from all over the United States, nine in total, climbed aboard the research vessel to fetch nets and examine sedimentary samples. The fisherman began to reel in the 1.5 mile long trawl, never once losing his pace or grimace or cigarette. A colorful and vast array of fishes and octopi and creatures swung on to deck and wriggled madly, nearly a hundred in total, but he was greatly troubled by this draw. With a knotty and buckled hand, he drew up a particularly ugly fish that was abundant in the net. “Paideia, this fish alone is why Greece…she suffers.” He explained that this particular species of fish was not native to Greece, passing silently through the Suez Canal and violently outcompeting the native fish for the precious resources of the marine landscape. This fish was severely toxic, completely inedible and commercially useless. It became apparent that he had not been out to sea four times just to appreciate the history; he was in a fight for his livelihood with a particularly ugly fish. Still, Greece, she is resilient.

The Rhodes Hydrobiological Team then took us to the sea bass and sea brim harvestries that spanned the entirety of a small island, the Greek government’s brilliant response to the invasion of the Suez. Within these massive nets were enough brim and bass to easily feed the entire island for months, raised from birth in a well regulated environment. The boat stopped, close enough to leap to the outer rim of the nets. The outer rim was barely wide enough to step on, a tightrope suspended in the middle of the sea. We shuffled carefully across the outer rim, colorful dashes of dolphins and squid and skates skitting madly beneath us and the nets, waiting for the unfortunate small fish to slip through the nets. We reached a floating platform where a team of men and women inoculated each fish for the upcoming harvest. Those still healthy were injected with a vaccine that prevented many aquatic illnesses. For those not healthy enough to survive, a thumb was jabbed up beneath the neck and the head ripped off as the body was sent out to sea for the ravenous blue-finned tuna propelling beneath the water’s surface.  The entire affair was utterly foreign, an odd dance between humans and sea monsters with one common goal; to eat and to live.

The city all at once roared into life as the total blackness of night cloaked town, a wild, nightly party that would send shivers down Dionysus spine. Waitresses filled just as many glasses as they dropped delivering drinks to the wily crowds, a sardonic “opa” generated from the crowd with each sound of shattered glass. The players yelled and ripped chords of the bouzouki to songs that sent the whole of Old Town into a frantic moment of cultural reveling. This was a nation of lovers, fighters, poets, priests, workers, and bums gathered together by their collective unconscious, the entirety of Greek history and culture, every period of proud, invincible revolution and macabre, ravenous depressions could be heard in the rising and falling chord of the bouzouki. We dined atop the impossibly positioned restaurant snugly fit into the wall of the highest ramification; below, the still, calm, waters that shone a beautiful olivine every night gently lapped against my left ear, whilst the exuberant, harmonious melodies of town boxed my right ear. Yet, my mind in the middle remained utterly silent, seeking for just one word to describe the unique beauty of this land and her people. The Grand Maester’s Palace, an imposing, beautifully white-marbled guardian, stood boldly atop the highest spire of Old Town, a harkening to a time of kings and empires of old. To my left, an ornate bronze statue of the boxer Diagoras, lifted upon his two son’s shoulders, watched over the bay.  A former Olympic champion himself, mighty Diagoras lived to see his two sons win the Olympic Games in the same year. The boys took their father and hoisted him upon their mountainous shoulders, and in the purest and most human moment of history, Diagoras peacefully passed away on his son’s shoulders, having witnessed the highest of sublime peace and joy.  My mouth ceased to gape and, for the first of countless times, a wry smirk etched its way across my mouth. I gulped down the last of my satin red wine, said “opa” from under my breath, and returned to my colleagues’ heated and drunken discussion about the Greek alphabet.

Fort Saint Nicholas was an Atlantean spire amongst the sea, her only connection to Old Town being a thin sandbar that disappeared with the tides. Three windmills curved out to where the sandbar jutted above the water. This had been a place of war, a place of strife and constant preparation for the next ship of pirates, marauders, or killers to flex their might a little too prematurely. However, this was also a place of solitude, comfort, and where I would sit and watch distant ships with no specific course. What had led me to this foreign place where every shred of human emotion was encapsulated in each arch and fort’s walls? The more I visited this place, the more concrete my answers became. I was here to learn the Greek language, a skill that proved critical to converting an “understanding” of biology and medicine into a mastery. I was here to meet new people from distinct walks of life and to understand the root of economic affairs in the Mediterranean. I was here to be a part of the most exciting and prolific culture to ever grace the earth. I paused. I was here because I, a biology major, had been removed from what it meant to be human, to be alive and shock the senses with feats of both nature and man. Simply breathing the air of Greece amongst an ancient temple overlooking the islands dotting the coast filled me with renewed vigor and desire to explore and place myself in adventurous situations to which I had grown numb at home due to the routines of walking from class to class. I was here to better myself as a student of biology through understanding the root words and to come to a deeper understanding of how my skill could be implemented around the world, but I was also here, in this place, my space, simply to be HERE. The world is not small, and surely that is the most exciting aspect of life. Surely. A great heat overcame my heart, my hair generated static that tingled as it brushed my scalp, and the vibrancy of this land exploded against my eyes. I took my shirt off, placed it on the rocks, and dove into the water. For how long I swam, I do not recall.

Daniel Hutto studies molecular genetics at Lander University, and intends to graduate with honors in 2018. Daniel studied classical Greek literature and history at the University of the Aegean, Rhodes, Greece, in 2015.