Saving Santorini: Students on a Summer Rescue Mission in Greece

Around the world, once isolated pockets of great charm and beauty are now routine tourist stop-offs.  And along with any resulting economic boost comes a rising tide of problems: environmental degradation, pollution, garbage, congestion, loss of traditional cultures and life ways as well as loss of economic diversity.

Santorini, a Greek island 110 miles north of Crete, is just such a place; however, the island residents are seeking to evade tourism’s traps with the help of a University of Cincinnati team of faculty and students.  Residents invited the UC team of five faculty and eight students to begin a multi-year project to aid their island after similar teams from the university had proven themselves on the nearby island of Crete.

The summer 2004 UC “Tourism Make-Over” team is led by Michael Romanos, professor of planning, and includes Carla Chifos, assistant professor of planning; Frank Russell, director, UC’s Community Design Center; Menelaos Triantafillou, visiting associate professor of planning; and Frank Wray, associate professor of biology.  The architecture and planning students from UC’s top-ranked College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning are Eileen Crisanti, Curt Freese, Hilary Fulmer, Edward Huber, Nicole Lopez-Stickney, Nora Luehmann, Andrew Meyer, Michael Steele and Hayfaa Wadih.

Throughout the summer, the students have been sending back reports about their work and all the adventures and challenges they’re facing along the way.  Here’s the latest update from student Curt Freese:

July 22, 2004
Can an entire afternoon at the beach be productive?  Yes, surprisingly it can.  The whole team decided to spend an afternoon on the beach administrating questionnaires to sunbathing tourists.  Some team members spent an inordinate amount of time administrating questionnaires to the many young, beautiful people that populate the beaches.  Hopefully, the results of their questionnaires do not reflect the results of their failed attempts at dates for the evening. In the evening, the entire team met with the director of Oia’s (pronounced “ee-a”) Development Corporation.  (Oia is a cliff-clinging, vividly painted village perched precariously at the very lip of a sheer, straight-shot drop of 1,000 feet to the sea below.)  

July 23, 2004
Another 15 hours of sunshine.  The group has calculated it has been at least a month since we have seen so much as a cloud in the sky.  When one gets up in the morning, one expects another sunny beautiful day.  The idea of needing to plan ones activities around the weather is quite ridiculous.  In fact, the job of weatherman in Santorini must be the easiest job in the world.

Today, we interviewed a group of farmers and the director of sanitation.  The interview with the farmers at a local farm was quite enjoyable, as it was the first time we had smelled dirt in almost two months.  For those that don’t know, Santorini has volcanic soil and rock, not a blade of grass is to be found on the entire island.

July 24-25, 2004
Our supposedly free weekend was spent working non-stop on our next written submission due on Monday. Each of the four groups individually finished from 30-90 written pages, along with maps and graphics.  
 

July 26, 2004

A day of relaxation – yes, vacation even.  The professors spent the entire day reading our voluminous submissions, and we spent the entire day at the beach, the pool, and well, just enjoying ourselves. 

July 27, 2004
Hilary’s birthday! To celebrate the special occasion, we all headed to the one Mexican restaurant on the entire island, maybe in all of Greece.  Its claim to fame was the largest cactus roadside sign in the world, a monument that was acknowledged by the Guinness Book of World Records.  Ironically, the cactus was actually torn down by the local government. 

The birthday itself was a bit of a return to America…enchiladas, salsa and tortilla chips.   It had been quite a while since we had experienced any of these foods.  To cap the evening and her birthday off, Hilary and some members of the group hit the town of Fira and its lively club scene after dinner. 

Nicole Lopez-Stickney writes:
Greece has been an interesting experience thus far.  I don’t know if I ever want to go back home. In fact, after seeing so many ceramics stores in Fira, I am constantly dreaming that I could open my own ceramics store there.  Ceramics is one of my passions, and I could think of nothing better than creating ceramics in Greece.   However not everything in Greece is perfect.  I am getting tired of the Greek food.  For the first two weeks of the trip, I was enjoying Greek food.  Now, after one-and-a-half months of eating the same things over and over again, I am ready to eat something different.  I think the big reason I am tired of Greek food is the fact that the Greeks use a quart of olive oil in every dish they cook.  I am forced to eat spaghetti carbonara every night, and I am constantly craving spicy food, which is non-existent on the island.  
   

The project in Santorini is funded by the island’s municipality and by UC’s Institute for Global Studies and Affairs.

Here’s more on UC’s 2004 efforts in Santorini:

• A Research Cliffhanger Awaits University of Cincinnati Team Heading to Crete
• Students Help a Drowning Island Stay Afloat
• Saving Santorini: Students Seek to Tame Tourism

For more on UC’s 2003 efforts in Crete: www.uc.edu/news/NR.asp?id=733
For more on efforts from earlier years: www.uc.edu/info-services/credef.htm