August 26 Difficult Days

It has been a very difficult four days. Kathy decided to join Theodosia on Aegina and went by bus and boat early Thursday morning. I took the city bus into Athens and went to the Goulandhris Museum of Cycladic and Ancient Greek Art, where I spent a couple hours viewing a special video exhibit and then the permanent exhibit of Cycladic and Cypriotic art of the Bronze age - an excellent collection. Then I walked down "tourist row", tried on a few clothes, bought a few trinkets and came back to the house. Almost as soon as I got home, the cold that I had been fighting for several days overtook me, my sinuses filled up and my nose began to run. I went to bed. Friday was a haze of medicated misery, drifting in and out of sleep and seeing the first TV reports about the fires. Friday evening Christos took the boat to join the others in Aegina for the weekend.

Saturday when I got up for the bathroom I noticed the door to the "kittens room" was closed. That puzzled me. We were keeping the door open so the mother cat could come and go. Perhaps Christos shut the cat in for the night when he left so she would not get locked out. Feeling a little less congested but still pretty weak, I lay in bed and watched TV recordings of the fiery holocaust on Peloponnese. There was little else on TV. At 4:00 the electricity went off. I got up and once again saw the door to the kitten room closed. I peeked in; they were crying. I checked with Aris. Where is mother cat? He hunted but could not find her. He did find another of Theodosia's cats lying dead in the dumpster at the top of the street. We feared the worst.

I fed the kittens. Maybe the strongest ones would survive. They are just three weeks old. Only a few of them took much milk from the syringe but I got some down most of them and they quieted. They are just starting to navigate on all fours and still do not see well. I fed them again at 8:00. Three of them are getting the hang of taking milk from the syringe. One still refuses the syringe as he has from birth. TV reported that fires had encircled a village in Peloponnese and the whole village was killed, 40 people. The heat must have been intense; pictures of cars showed nothing but the burned out shell of metal. The videos of the fires look like movie special effects - so huge and spectacular. All TV stations cover little but the fires, over a hundred of them, driven and spread by wind and temperature. Ashes fell over the city of Athens; the sun was blotted out by the smoke. I kept the windows closed. The electricity came back on in two hours, perhaps a planned outage to prevent a total collapse of power as has happened in the past. The government declared a state of emergency. No rain in sight. Fire departments totally overwhelmed. Many planes from other countries doing water drops. Nothing helps. The death toll goes to 52. I fed the kittens again at midnight. They are more frantic; about five of them could take a half syringe each. The stubborn one still would not eat. I don't think he can last long.

Still not feeling well, I did sleep all night and woke this morning, Sunday, to kittens squalling at 7:3o. More of them are taking milk better. The holdout still has had only a squirt or two. How is he still alive? They have now attached themselves to me, their surrogate mother. They know my smell, even though they can not see far yet. They swarm all over my feet, try to crawl up my leg, suck on my toes. I use a big box. As I feed one of the nine I put it in the box. When they have all had half a syringe I offer another, taking them out of the box one by one. Some will take a second syringe now. Then I clean their eyes and wipe the milk that has dribbled down them. I smell of milk myself even after I wash my hands. My clothes get soaked with milk. I rinsed the ashes off the balcony outside my bedroom so I do not track it through the house. I took a shower and went back to bed, spent by only that little activity.

When Violetta came home from church she saw the mother cat lying dead on the lower garage level. I fed the kittens again at noon. By now all but two or three are getting a fair amount of milk. I try to force some milk into the mouth of the stubborn one, but he fights me very hard. The fires continue to rage. Death toll now is 60. The satellite picture shows smoke rising from all of Peloponnese. I can not watch much TV; it is heart rending. People with garden hoses frantically facing a towering wall of flames approaching their houses. Police have blockaded roads and assist the elderly to leave; helicopters rescue the stranded. It goes on and on. It seems like all of Greece is burning. There is ash again on my balcony but not as much as yesterday. The southern sky above the city is still a great wall of smoke, but the wind now blows away from Athens.

I fed the kittens again at 5:00. Each feeding time I first pour a little milk into a saucer. By now they know the smell of the milk but they still want to suck so they get it up their nose and they back away. I hope they will begin to get the idea soon. They are gaining in ambulatory ability. They will not stay in their bed - their mother is no longer there. Their mother now sits in a chair in the middle of the room and sweeps them off the floor and shoves a plastic nipple into their mouth and dumps them in a box! The room smells of milk and cat.

I know Theodosia, Christos and Kathy are coming from Aegina today but I do not know when. At 9:30 I learn from Aris that they are returning on the last boat which leaves Aegina at 10:30 p.m. I feed the kittens again. Most of them are now taking two half syringes of milk, some greedily, but there is still the holdout. When Theodosia came at 1:30 a.m. she immediately fed them. Even if they did not want it, she held them up and squirted a whole syringe of milk into them, even the stubborn one. Sated and sleepy they quieted quickly as soon as we turned off the lights. I was very happy to relinquish my surrogate mother duties and amazed that all nine are still alive. I am feeling better but still do not have my energy back.