A Guest Rant, Greek Style

What a ranting week this has been.  Actor Charlie Sheen revealed to the world that he’s exactly what people assumed, Wiki-Leaker Julian Assange took a big, splashy one all over himself, and mega-designer John Galliano decided to publicly circumcise his career down to mini.

I guess that’s why it didn’t come as such a surprise when a friend of mine from Greece—Athens to be precise—decided to tee off in an email to me on life these days in Greece.  But first, a bit of background:

At the foot of the Acropolis

We are living in interesting times, in the full sense of that Chinese curse: confusing, hard to grasp, and incredibly fluid.  No one seems to know where things are headed, so I take that as an opening for my unsolicited observations. 

Wherever I look there are severe public fiscal crises, virulent demonstrations, and endemic distrust of politicians.  Be it Greece, California, Wisconsin, or [fill in the blank].  And the bitching…complaining is far too weak a word…is endless.  And no place is the current state of the world more in evidence than in the eastern Mediterranean basin.

A street in Athens' Plaka

I can’t imagine anyone seriously lumping the U.S. into the Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, et cetera situations—for though they surely share outraged populaces, the reasons and degrees of dissatisfaction are very different.  But lying as it does just across the sea from those North African countries, Greece faces an unfair tarring by that eastern Mediterranean brush.  Greece is first and foremost a democracy and a member of the European Union, but one that allows what many consider beyond the pale public demonstrations.  Yes, Greece faces more serious challenges than it has in decades, but not to a change in its form of government. 

Against that background let me share my friend’s tale of her day in Athens...

My doctor wanted me to have a cardio-stress test, and referred me to another doctor who worked out of one of Athens’ prominent private hospitals—the sort supposedly offering better care for its patients than public hospitals.  It was raining when I got there and the parking lot was full.  I had to drive around for twenty minutes to find a space then walk a very long distance back to the hospital.  Admittedly, by then I wasn’t in a good mood. 

Not the doctor in the story

Smokers were massed immediately outside the hospital’s main entrance creating a fog of tobacco smoke for all to pass through.  So much for the country’s anti-smoking efforts.  I was directed up to the cardiology area, a place crammed with entire families offering support to their patient family members in a manner and volume reminiscent of a party.  I squeezed past the partiers to get in line.  In Greece, lines such as this often seem to require two employees to wait on one customer.  Why that is I do not know.  But it encourages those with just questions to step in front of everyone else and make the wait for those in line even longer.  Finally, it was my turn. 

Sort of.  The secretary told me I must first pay and handed me an almost illegible photocopy of a form to take downstairs to the cashier...and then come back and wait in line again.  At least she said it with a smile.

I went, but there was no cashier at the cashier station, only broken computers with plugs and wires pulled out.  I asked around and was sent next door to another building to pay.  There I found living, breathing people, but with two serving one and line jumpers asking questions.  Everyone seemed struggling for attention.  That’s when I wrote a SMS to the doctor who’d put me in the middle of all this—and who, by the way, did not give me a receipt for my cash payment of her fee (so much for Greeks paying taxes)—telling her, “I’m out of here.”  I wonder whether the experience itself was intended to be my true stress test?

But wait, there’s more. 

I left the hospital at 1:30 and hurried to the post office to mail a letter to the United States.  Post offices here close at 2 PM, no matter how long you’ve been waiting in line.  I was relieved to find it empty except for one customer and two postal workers. 

The free clerk was sitting in a chair and I asked if he could help me.  He seemed offended at that, and told me to “take a number.”  After my morning at the hospital I actually found what he said funny.  I took number 122.  The display screen read 119.   The clerk sat there doing nothing but watch his colleague wait on the other customer.  Number 120 came up—even though there was no 120 or 121 to serve in the place—and the clerk wandered off to make a joke to a woman in a backroom.  He walked back and sat down in his chair.  Number 121 came up, no one stepped forward but the clerk still did not move.  Finally, 122.  It was now my turn.

Not a Greek postal worker wave.

I walked over and handed him my letter.  He said, “Oh, you need stamps, and I don’t have any.  You’ll have to go to the other line.”  By now there were several people lined up at the other window and it was almost 2 PM.  No way they would let me ahead of them, my being number 122 or not.   The clerk reached to toss my letter over to his co-worker.  I grabbed it and said in English, “Stop, I have stamps!!!” 

Speaking English caught him off guard and he suddenly became more responsive (as if Greeks weren’t deserving of his attention).  He weighed the letter but had to ask his co-worker for the rates to the U.S.  Rather than telling him she took her time handing him a list of international postage charges.  He told me the price.  I stepped aside to let a young Greek man behind me take his turn as I put my stamps on the envelope. 

The poor guy asked for stamps.  He was met with the clerk’s “I have no stamps” line, delivered with a “why would you expect to find stamps in a post office attitude,” as the clerk went back to sitting in his chair. 

Delphi

I burst out laughing, and asked the young man if he wanted to buy stamps from me—and cut out the post office.  He laughed, too.  What else can you do in these times, enduring such everyday struggles for services that most developed countries take as a given.  There is much to love about my country, but my day epitomized what is very wrong with it.

***

Thank you for that front line report from Greece.  Now, back to Charlie Sheen…

Jeff — Saturday

 

A Greek Christmas Question

Christmas in Athens' Constitution Square (Syntagma)

“‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house not a creature was stirring not even a mouse.”  NOT TRUE!  My magic mouse, let’s call him Mac, was scurrying all over the Internet trying to come up with something appropriately Christmassy for my distinct honor of writing the Murder is Everywhere Christmas Day post.  So, take that Clement Clarke Moore or Henry Livingston—whichever of you actually wrote the poem—times change. 

A Christmas Tree and Christmas Boat

kalanda

Come to think of it, Greek Christmas is a perfect example of change.  Years ago in Greece, presents were not given on Christmas Day, Christmas trees were almost unheard of—though on some islands many would decorate a boat in their homes as a tree is today—and even the longstanding tradition of village children going from home to home singing kalanda to their neighbors has changed.  Still, though, at its heart kalanda remains the tradition it always was, but instead of being rewarded with sweets or fruits, the children play their little metal triangles and carol for euros.  Yes, “carol,” for the origin of that word is the Greek dance choraulein and it evolved over time, through the French, into caroling. 

melomakarona

christopsomo

Christmas Day in Greece also means feasting.  Although almost any occasion in Greece seems justification for food, Christmas is a true feast day, second only to Easter (see below).  It’s the end of a forty-day fast period for the observant from meat, eggs, and dairy.  Christmas dinner always means large, sweet loaves of christopsomo bread, melomakarona Christmas honey cookies, and kourabiethes almond cookie treasures that invariably lose their powdered sugar coatings all over your clothes.  But here, too, there have been changes.  The main course is no longer strictly the roast lamb, pig, and goat extravaganza it once was.  Roast stuffed turkey has made big inroads.  

The tallest Christmas tree in Europe

Perhaps the signal sign of Greece’s attitudinal change toward Christmas is what happened a few years back in Athens.  The mayor decided to erect the largest Christmas tree in Europe in Constitution Square (Syntagma) directly across from Parliament.  I heard it was quite a sight, even if an artificial tree.  Not sure what’s up there this year what with the area around Parliament being rather busy these past few Christmas seasons with other sorts of goings on (see my last week’s blog).  

So, here is my question: why does virtually everyone who writes about Greece and Easter say, “Christmas is not as important to Greeks as Easter.”  I have to admit I always thought the same way, but why?  It certainly isn’t that way in the United States.  In the Greek Orthodox faith Christmas and Easter are the big holidays (along with the Assumption of the Virgin on August 15^th), so why does Easter seem more important than Christmas?  Most Greeks tell me they consider the two equivalent days from a religious point of view.  And therein may lay the answer. 

Greek Easter is preceded by a week of serious religious practices and cultural traditions building up to a single climactic moment: the celebration of Christ’s resurrection at precisely midnight on the eve of Easter Sunday.  Ninety-five percent of Greece’s population is of the Greek Orthodox faith (or at least Eastern Orthodox) and that’s a lot of people firing up their enthusiasm toward sharing a single moment with the rest of their countrymen.

Kourabiethes to munch on if you're bored.

On the other hand, the only sort of buildup Christmas Day seems to share with Easter Sunday is that both end more than month-long fasts.  Yes, there are Twelve Days of Christmas, but they start on Christmas Day, and the observant days within that subsequent period, although important and filled with their own traditions, follow the day of Christmas rather than build up to it in the way Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, and Good Friday lead up to Easter. 

Greece's Santa Claus, jolly old Saint Basil

Saint Vasilis (330-379)

On the other side of Christmas the Orthodox Church celebrates the circumcision of Christ and the name day of Saint Vasilis (Basil) on January 1^st.  Santa Claus may have gotten his looks from Greece’s white-bearded patron saint of sailors, Saint Nicholas, but for Greek children their gift-giving Santa comes on Saint Vasilis’ Day.  And it is also the day when family and friends sit around the table and wonder which will be the one who finds the gold coin hidden in a piece of the vasilopita cake, for the one who does will have good luck all the year.

An Athens selection of vasilopita cakes

Epiphany in Tarpon Springs, Florida

 The Twelve Days of Christmas end January 6^th on Epiphany, the day of Christ’s baptism.  It is another major feast day for the Greeks, and in many parts of the world a Greek Orthodox priest performs the “Blessing of the Waters” at a river, sea, or lake, then tosses the blessed cross into the water launching many young men in after it in hopes of retrieving the cross and receiving a special blessing from the priest that will bring the successful diver good luck for the entire year.

Christmas skaters in Athens

That’s two additional, significant upbeat holidays associated with Christmastime, yet Greeks still seem to hold a greater fondness for Easter time.  But if the explanation isn’t simply one of positioning—that Easter Day is the culmination of a celebratory season, while Christmas Day is the reverse­—what is the answer?

kallikantzari

Perhaps it’s tied into another aspect of those Twelve Days. For during that period virtually every Greek in one way or another engages in some superstitious practice—like wrapping a sprig of basil around a small wooden cross and suspending it over a bowl of water—or seeks a blessing from a priest, to ward off the kallikantzari, the half-beast, half human, bad-spirited gremlins who will slip into your house through a chimney to wreak havoc and mischief amid your home, livestock, and food.  BUT they only do so during the twelve-day period from Christmas to Epiphany.  

Could it be that those who subconsciously believe in kallikantzari also harbor an unconscious thought or two at what mischief might be lurking in wait for them beyond Christmas Day?  I wonder.  

A mischief maker

But whatever the answer—likely something very different—to each of you and my extraordinary blogmates at Murder is Everywhere I wish Kala Kristuyenna and Xronia Pola (many years). 

Ftew-ftew-ftew. 

Jeff — Saturday

An Open Letter to Pericles

Pericles, 495-429 B.C.E.

Dear Pericles,

You’ve been away 2500 years and that’s far too long.  Greece needs another Golden Age.  Please hurry back, all expenses paid.

Protesters gathered in front of Greek Parliament.

Your incredible Parthenon still towers above Athens, though it’s missing its marbles.  Come to think of it, I think your city might be too.  Have you been following the media coverage of what’s going on here?  Or are you tuning out, as seems much of the world, tired at hearing about Greece and its problems?   There’s a war going on.  No, not with the Persians or of the Peloponnesian sort, this one is of a more civil(ized) sort.  Where it is headed is anyone’s guess and everyone’s fear.  But headed it is.

Rioters attacking businesses

This is the third Christmas season in a row that Molotov cocktail and paving stone tossing demonstrators of disparate views have mortally wounded holiday shopping in central Athens.  Perhaps that’s the truest tradition of the Christmas season in that part of town.  Deck the malls with bombs and salvos…

Police confront protesters by Parliament

This week 20,000 or so largely peaceful citizens turned out in central Athens as part of a general strike across Greece to protest additional austerity measures under consideration by the Greek Parliament for addressing the country’s financial crisis.  If you haven’t heard about that fiscal meltdown, my friend, stop reading immediately and under no circumstances leave whatever state of innocent bliss you’ve found.

That demonstration answered a question I’d been asking my friends on Mykonos all summer: Why aren’t the politicians holidaying here this year?  They always did, but this year tipota, nothing.  My informal survey yielded what I thought a flippant rather than reasoned conclusion: “Because they’re afraid the people will beat the $#!^ out of them.”   I should have learned by now not to bet against popular wisdom or vox populi (if you prefer Latin).

Costis Hatzidakis, MP

During that demonstration a current member of parliament—who’d been a minister in the government that was at the helm of Greece’s economy when it drove into the rocks under full sail—tried to exit the Parliament Building and was pelted with stones and bloodied by a crowd of one hundred.  If you’re wondering what the police and other guardians of order are doing about all the goings-on, take a number and get in line.  Your question will be answered before the next 2500 years have passed.

There is real anger in the country, a pit of the stomach sense that serious suffering waits just around the corner, and one hell of a lot of finger pointing.  Perhaps the only thing the country appears to agree upon is that “all in government are corrupt.”  The second most agreed upon point is, “nothing will change.”

There is an old saying Greeks use when a fairy tale ends happily, “They all had a good time, and we did too.”  Perhaps that’s why so many Greeks let their politicians get away with so much for so long.  Everyone was profiting.  Now that times are bad, and the people want someone to blame for the unhappy ending, they’re pointing at the politicians they kept electing.

Whatever the answer, the solution is not going to be easy.  And it will be painful. I wish there were a magic wand to wave or a simple answer to the crisis.  But there is not, and the country seems desperate for a new Greek voice to listen to and trust.

The people would listen to you, Honored First Citizen of Athens; certainly those I know who act as if they had a personal hand in all the incredible contributions you helped bring to the world.  Think of them sort of like American baseball fans that claim because an ancestor happened to be at the third game of the 1932 World Series when Babe Ruth pointed before hitting his legendary “called shot” homerun off Charlie Root of the Chicago Cubs, that they’re somehow entitled to take partial credit for Ruth’s swing of the bat.  If you don’t understand what I’m talking about, wait until someone starts talking about cricket.

The great New York Yankee Bambino calls his shot.

In fact, even I would rather talk about cricket.  It’s so much easier to grasp than the sticky wicket of a relationship Greeks share with those they choose to govern them.

Jeff — Saturday