A personal story by Panagiotis
Since I was a little kid I remember myself to go with my father in the Yapapi field for harvesting. I was just playing around and running around the trees. At the age of 12-13. I started going with my father to the field to do the harvest.
At first, everything seemed very difficult to me. But year by year, I realised that this job had to be done. We didn’t have enough money to pay additional in workers, so we usually went to the field my father, my brother and me.
After a few years I realized that I have to learn how to cut the branches. This is the most important thing on harvesting. It has to be done with responsibility; it has to be strict, precise.
This "cutting journey" was fascinating. I started looking the trees and to speak to tolder people in the village about the cutting. I wanted to learn how to cut better than anyone.
I wanted to understand how the trees grows, how the brunches move around. So I started to climb on trees, standing on them and observing the view, the sun, the brunches, the workers.
I was pretending to be a bird sitting on the tree.
Every year, me and my brother, we are getting closer for 20-30 days while we are in the field to harvest the olives. We still go for a few days just me and him, to remember our childhood and talk about our plans, about the
trees, enjoying the peace that the nature offers.
