By Karolina Tagaris
ATHENS (Reuters) – In her tiny Athens condo, 93-year-old Ioanna Matsouka has knit 1000’s of brightly colored scarves for youngsters in want from Greece to Ukraine – and he or she has no plans to give up simply but.
“Till I die, I can be knitting,” Matsouka stated. Her knitting needles clicked by means of her skilled fingers, her nails painted crimson. “It brings me pleasure to share them.”
Since she took up knitting within the Nineties, Matsouka has simply revamped 3,000 scarves, her daughters estimate.
Within the hallway by the door, procuring luggage crammed along with her newest creations await their new residence. A knitted patchwork blanket is thrown over the couch the place she spends her days.
At first, the scarves had been gifted to buddies. As inventory grew, they had been donated to kids’s shelters throughout Greece. Then, by means of acquaintances, they reached kids in Bosnia and Ukraine. The most recent batch of 70 went to a refugee camp close to Athens this winter, by way of the U.N. refugee company UNHCR.
“The truth that we give them away provides her energy,” stated her daughter Angeliki.
She recounted drawings and mail her mom obtained over time: “Thanks, be nicely, preserve going. You gave pleasure to kids, you gave pleasure to individuals… That is her solely reward: a letter, a number of phrases.”
Matsouka knits one scarf a day, now with small imperfections. Her imaginative and prescient is impaired and he or she suffers from bouts of extreme facial ache, a situation often called trigeminal neuralgia.
Angeliki says her mom is an instance of resilience and optimism.
Matsouka wakes up each morning, drinks a glass of milk, places on her pearl earrings and will get to work. She takes a break for lunch and a nap, then painstakingly knits into the night time.
She could have even discovered the key to an extended life in it, she says.
“It is the happiness I get from giving,” she stated, sitting beside a giant blue bag brimming with yarn.
(Enhancing by Ros Russell)