At about 4AM this morning, the Church next to our hotel and worksite went up in flames. One of our dig-mates was up to get a glass of water, saw the flames, and had the hotel manager, Evangelia, call the fire department. The inside of the church is completely destroyed. We smelled the smoke during the night, but I thought it was our mosquito coil and went back to sleep. We are very lucky that it wasn’t the usual windy Samothracian weather, or our hotel would surely have burned.
The smell of smoke is hanging in the air even now, 12 hours later. The wind also carries the cries of sobbing of women just hearing the news or visiting the church. It is a small chapel, only used for private devotion or the annual patron saint’s festival. They had just whitewashed it for the saint’s day, coming up on Thursday.
We all hoped it was an accident, but the main church in the port town was burned this morning at 8 AM. What senseless destruction.
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