ABC Foreign Correspondent journalist Phillip Williams was in Volissos in Chios, researching and interviewing people who have chosen to move back to rural Greece and change their lifestyle due to the economic crisis.

Among the people he spoke with on his day trip to Volissos, Williams took time out to speak with Chios native Yiannis Makridakis, acclaimed author and founder of Movement 18 – a citizens movement that aims at turning a new page in the island’s political and social history, by championing respect for humanity, the environment and culture. Neos Kosmos’ Greek correspondent Maria-Stella Papageorgiou got a chance to interview the journalist, however, the investigative reporter turned the attention on her.

Here’s the transcript of their chat: MSP: Hello! PW: How amazing! I wasn’t expecting to hear an Australian here! Well Australians are everywhere these days. MSP: We are all over Greece but many of us are going back due to the crisis. PW: Are you going back? MSP: Mmm, not yet. I love this place and I am willing to give it a go. (And then I start wondering who is interviewing who here?) PW: But in the meantime you live in one the most beautiful parts of the world! It’s not that bad.

MSP: So, what brings you here? PW: My name is Philip Williams and I work for the ABC, we work for the Foreign Correspondent, doing a story about Greeks leaving the cities because of the financial crisis and trying to find a new life in rural areas back in the village. So, it’s like a reversal of the way Greece has gone the last couple of generations. We have been meeting people for example breeding dairy sheep, we are about to go and see a snail farmer who use to be a food scientist and such people that are making a transition in trying to find a new way of living and for some perhaps a better way of living.

So I think it’s going to be a story ultimately about mixed results. Not everyone is going to adapt to country life, not everyone is going to make that transition well, but for many it will be life changing and if they come to a place like this I suspect they may never want go back again. MSP: In what other places have you been? PW: We’ve been in Thessaloniki and outline areas around there.

There is a lady that we followed into the mountains who collects herbs and makes a living out of that. PW: Now let me interview you. MSP: (Ante pali) We haven’t finished yet. What have you noticed from your observations, are they willing to change? PW: Yes, well in some situations. For example we spoke to an architect in his mid fifties desperate, virtually no money.

MSP: Would they migrate if they had that opportunity? PW: Probably, that’s another option but many people we spoke to are Greeks, they are proud Greeks and they want to live in Greece. And why not? They want to be in their own community and of course they can go to a place like Australia or America and find Greek communities there but it’s not the same.

But for Australia it seems to me that is one of the top destinations in people’s mind, for young people. Anyway the main sort of feature is two things that really came strongly through is the level of desperation for some people out of work especially, but also the determination to survive and find something better.

So these are people that are not waiting for somebody else to find a solution. They’ve decided they had to do it for themselves. MSP: So from what they told you their main problem is financial… PW: Main problem is financial but also the other thing that comes through very, very strongly is this deep anger with the government and the distrust and a sense of betrayal.

We even had a guy that yesterday said ‘I’d rather have a dictatorship’ and that upset him to say that because he said ‘here we are, we invented democracy and we have so little faith in our government that I would rather have a dictatorship’.

MSP: I hear that quite often lately and especially from young people, it’s really disappointing! And especially when you have organizations like Golden Dawn getting 8 per cent. It’s a reality, in desperate times people turn to desperate solutions. PW: So do you feel more Greek or Australian? MSP: (This bloody identity question has been haunting me since I was a child.

Greek or Australian? Greece or Australia?) It’s a tough question. (He can obviously sense my anxiety). Both (and I mean it), there are times that I feel very Greek and at times people remind me that I am such an Australian and that I shouldn’t be here.

My way of thinking is different and often find my ideas very romantic. PW: Aren’t Greeks romantic? MSP: When it comes to flirting they can be very romantic, but not as much in the everyday life as a state of life. I don’t know what went wrong there, the past 20 – 30 years they’ve lost touch with it. (And here is my final comeback) Are Greeks lazy? There is a common view that we get from the foreign media.

PW: The common thing you’ll hear is that Greeks are lazy and Greeks don’t pay taxes. The lazy question though would be completely unfair for me to observe, it’s too big a question, I’ve only seen a few people…but the taxation [he is interupted]…we’ve got to go? OK, Sorry! MSP: It was nice talking to you. PW: Nice to meet you!