slenderbeak: The Good Shepherd and the Bad Shepherd - A Little ...

slenderbeak: The Good Shepherd and the Bad Shepherd - A Little ...: On a fine, balmy late September evening I was sitting on the veranda with two friends when a shepherd appeared silently at the garden railin...

The Good Shepherd and the Bad Shepherd - A Little Tale from Kefalonia

On a fine, balmy late September evening I was sitting on the veranda with two friends when a shepherd appeared silently at the garden railings. His flock were milling around under the big olive tree across the road, some straying onto the road in different directions. He didn't seem to care about gathering them in. He asked for coffee twice. We said no twice but offered water. He grudgingly accepted. After drinking the water he handed the glass back through the railings without saying thank-you and turned. What I heard come out of his mouth I can only describe as a gurgling sound like coffee percolating from his lips - a private language spoken only between shepherd and sheep. He swiped his staff down on one of his flock and they started crowding away down the hill.

On the day of the big storm here I had seen the same shepherd herding his sheep up the hill outside my house. The road was a running river. I heard their little clinking bells and looking out my window, saw them trotting ankle deep in the water. I jumped in surprise when I noticed the shepherd standing still under a large umbrella on the opposite side of the road. I had never associated shepherds with having things like umbrellas. It unnerved me because his gaze was so focussed on my house

When I told Vangelis about him he explained that there were two shepherds in our village, one good, (καλος) and one bad (κακος). The bad one is the one I have described; the good one is Albanian. This good shepherd has a very old car without number plates. He is very poor and lives with his family in one of the semi-derelict buildings that were built many years ago to house the school teachers in a nearby village. He never bothers anyone or asks for anything. He just looks after his sheep and his family, in that order.

To Vangelis this is all black and white but for me? It has haunted me. Our village is populated with Siemens cookers and Samsung televisions, Fiat cars and wifi but we only have two types of shepherd.