I don't know if it was (and is) the search for that innocence that made me run to the evening celebration of the plaque presentation to our elementary school teacher (and his partner) by their old students; and to speak, for the first time in my life in public, about him. But surely it was gratitude for a teacher who was what all teachers ought to be and ought to be; and the honor of being able to say this, having him across from me, a little hunched over from years, but with the same teenage gleam in his eyes, in a communication of mutual - I felt it - nostalgia and emotion.
His name is Evangelos Tsebelis, and he is the man who taught us letters. Language first and foremost, its meaning and harmony, its magic, its syntax and spelling; from him I learned, for example, that October is the only month that doesn't take an "m" - as if I could see him with chalk in his hand, tall and imposing in front of the blackboard, writing and rewriting it, saying it and saying it again until it became ingrained. Still, he is the one who taught us what work, discipline, rigor with justice, who motivated us, encouraging any appeal, rewarding generously our every effort; and who instilled principles and values in us, because he did not parrot them but believed them.
Leaving us with the image of a man priestly dedicated to what he had chosen as his duty; and the certainty that anything can be possible if you practice what you have chosen to do with honesty, responsibility, hard work and unceasing love. Face of our lives - who defined them - as long as we live, he never ceased to ask for one of us, to care for us, to be like a good shadow beside us. A myth of our tenderest years-here, in this little village with the proud mountains all around and the blue sea ahead-that has not been denied, having opened as many windows as it could to the dream and to the world. Thank you, teacher.
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After 1964, many remarkable teachers served at the school of Poulithra, who deserve to be congratulated for their contribution to the later students of the school.
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Today the school is silent, but it is not difficult to revive it, as long as the competent authorities take care of its proper use, perhaps turning it into a place for cultural events, where the photographs and archives from its long history can be permanently housed.
Text of the Olga Bakomaru - journalist of Eleftherotypia, originally from Poulithra - dedicated to the teacher Evangelos Tsebelis.
(published in Eleftherotypia on 2/5/2009 )
