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 I snapped this photo March 31, the day our group hiked through the Diktamis Gorge outside of Provarma.
I spent the entire afternoon carefully carving a trail for myself, stepping gingerly among the large stones and boulders that obstructed my path.
After several hours of visually examining the terrain I was walking upon, I realized that I had barely lifted my head to look at my surroundings. While I knew well the contour and color of the rocks beneath my feet, I had not examined the steep walls of the gorge or the mountains that towered beyond, dwarfing the mere crevice in which we found ourselves.
This observation is one of the major reasons why I took this photo, as this was one of the few times in which the group stopped to take in the entirety of the gorge: not only did well feel the uneven floor beneath out shoes, but we saw the vegetation that crept far above our heads and listened to the braying of small kids as they lagged behind their mothers.
This photo is in a sense a refreshing exception to a common occurrence, as I believe that this phenomenon of “inattentive existence” may be extended to other activities in our lives while participating in the Credo program in Greece.
As time has passed, our ability to absorb the details of our surroundings and to comprehend the importance of the structures and experiences that we have been shown has dwindled. As this program has continued, I have found that although abroad experiences provide an immediate sense of the vastness of this world and a sense of awe for ideas, histories, and traditions unfamiliar to me, it has over time also created a thirst for an understanding of the personal and the particular. Furthermore, it has created a need for introversion. I have found that it is increasingly difficult for me to “view the entire picture,” as I have become exhausted in attempting to put all the pieces of a foreign nation together, a puzzle where I have no familiarity with the picture I am trying to create.
Instead, I have found it much easier to focus on small pieces of the culture in which I may relate more strongly. Just as I examine the stones of the gorge over which I tread, instead of looking to the massive natural structure that closes in on me from both sides, I now prefer to listen to a conversation between a Greek woman and her child, as opposed to walking through a giant archaeological museum.
The comprehensiveness of the whole of Greek history is too much without the comfort of particularism and personalization. It is only after a thorough examination of the particular and our personal relationship to it that we may start to view the larger image without being overwhelmed by it.
It was after several hours of hiking, as our journey was coming to an end that this photo was taken. The students were finally starting to look beyond themselves to their surroundings.
After I had scaled up a giant rock a few meters and sat in a fracture seemingly created for me to sit, covered with dirt and drying sweat, I looked at the tired people below and found myself happy at being able to feel at home in the gorge. After eating beneath its trees, stumbling over its terrain, and laughing at its goats that I had accidentally herded, I felt I could finally connect with the gorge, something I could have never have done if I had simply driven by in a bus and snapped a picture.
What made me more excited was that I could witness others feeling the same way.
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