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Far from the political rivalries going on in Athens, the people of two villages in the north of this island in the Dodecanese archipelago, Diafani and Olympus, are restless. This summer, the elementary school that currently has two students can close permanently.

“We are angry! Without a doctor who stays for over a year, without a pharmacy, and soon without a school…we are considered second-class Greek citizens!” Gale Manolis Melisses, retired sailor.

In his cousin’s cafe there is a black and white photograph of his class of 1961. At that time, there were about sixty pupils.

The island of Karpathos, with a population of 6,500, is located between Crete and Rhodes. It takes more than 15 hours to reach Athens by boat. The link is provided only twice a week.

Here, we live mainly from farming and, when the good weather returns, from tourism.

No bank, no post office

Diafani has no bank, pharmacy, post office, or even a gas station. From the island’s capital, Pigadia, the road built in the 1980s is winding, often bumpy and poorly lit.

Every morning at 8:30 a.m. the bus drops off for Diafani, Vassilis, 11, and Marinos, 8, who live on Olympus. Their teacher, Theodora Kokoriko, is waiting to take them to their institution which is perched on the heights of the village overlooking the sea.

“These schools on isolated islands are a breath of life for small communities. Once they close, there will be nothing left of Diafani or Olympus…it will only be a destination for tourists in the summer!” , regrets- old, named in September.

At the beginning of the next academic year, Vasilis will go to college on Olympus and will join the eight students who have been educated there. Marinos could have done the same despite his young age.

Clinging to windmills, pastel-coloured houses and chapels, Olympus has managed to keep alive its skill, dialect and music.

“But for how long?” Sophia Chatzibaba asks in her café. , who wears the traditional dress: a flowery apron, a long black embroidered blouse, and a headscarf on her head.

On his desk hung flyers of the candidates for the elections. septuagenarian gains.

“MPs, the prime minister, the president, they all passed by here admiring our beautiful village,” she jokingly adds. “They take their pictures. Then, once in Athens, they forget about us, us and our problems…”

For some residents, the future of the completely isolated villages is in question. Diafani and Olympus now has a population of just 500, compared to 1,250 in 1961.

“In the 1960s, most of the population left to work abroad, and few returned,” Yannis Hatziphasilis denounced.

“The younger generations who aspire to a more comfortable life keep leaving. Our villages are an open wound that no government has succeeded in closing!” he explains.

Beautiful country

Together with his father, he carved the school’s façade with bas-reliefs evoking mythological scenes. “We have a beautiful country but not the leaders we deserve,” he says, animated.

Hiding behind her stove in the tavern she runs on Olympus, Marina Lentakis, mother of little Vassilis, is worried: “If the primary school closes (…) it will increase the departure of all families even though” there are still a few small children .

Yannis Briris has a son who is only two years old, but he already knows that if the school closes, he will have to leave Olympus.

He is the last cobbler to make the leather shoes that are part of the traditional costume of the women of Olympus.

He pleads, “We demand a doctor, a school, safe roads, public transportation, basic services that any country should provide to all citizens.”

The artisan would like to stay on Olympus: “My grandfather, and then my father, did this work. If I leave, the whole craft will disappear.”