If they could hear themselves speak

"What you expect woman? Yes, just this! What you expect? Everyone live like this. There has been a war. Houses bombed. I know plenty people live worse than this. What you want? ... There has been a war here. Everyone live like this." Small Island by Andrea Levy)

The conversation that follows is based on a recent Associated Press article about the latest Greek pension cuts (see http://www.timesunion.com/news/world/article/They-stole-my-money-Greek-dreams-of-retirement-11158190.php). The conversation between the Greek pensioner and the non-pensioner Greek citizen chronologically follows the discussion in the article. I use the term 'Greek citizen' for the non-pensioner because I want to include the many non-Greek-heritage citizens in Greece (Albanians, Bulgarians, etc) who are also entitled to a Greek pension, in antithesis to the long-term exclusively Greek-heritage pensioners interviewed in the article, who have been paying into the Greek pension system (the one the Greek pensioners are getting their pension from) ever since the Berlin wall fell.

Greek pensioner: I began receiving a pension when I was 50!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: I won't receive a pension until I am well into my 60s.
Greek pensioner: Greece once had a generous pension system!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: The pension system was too generous to be sustainable, which is why I may not have a pension in the future.
Greek pensioner: I left Greece in 1964 and worked for 15 years in Germany!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: I am thinking of emigrating to look for a job in another country because I can't find stable work in Greece.
Greek pensioner: I have unemployed children!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: I am not in a good financial position to raise a family.
Greek pensioner: Rising taxes are eating into my lifetime savings!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: It's extremely difficult to save any of my income.
Greek pensioner: My pension used to be €998 plus €300 supplementary pension and I now get only €710 in total!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: My salary at the moment is about €800 and my pension will probably work out to just over half that.
Greek pensioner: I moved out of my small Athens apartment to give it to my son, and I now live in a single room on the last floor of the building!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: It's good that neither you nor your son have to pay rent.
Greek pensioner: I secured homes for my children!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: I really hope I can maintain the property my parents left me, otherwise I will have to sell it to avoid incurring taxes I cannot afford to pay.
Greek pensioner: I retired 15 years ago with a pension of €2400 and and now at the age of 71 it's been reduced to €1100 and with the new legislation I will end up €800 or less.
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: As I mentioned earlier, that last amount is what I get as a salary in a full-time job, and my pension will probably work out to just over half that.
Greek pensioner: I wasn't an employee of the state, getting state money!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: Neither am I. State jobs are harder to enter these days and they don't pay well.
Greek pensioner: I worked for 36 years!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: I really hope I will be in employment for that long, as all my contracts are short-term and I don't really know what work I will get after they end.
Greek pensioner: I'm burning through my savings just to pay taxes!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: I pay everything with my salary because as I mentioned before, I find it impossible to save any money.
Greek pensioner: Food prices have gone up, so I buy only the essentials and keep an eye out for special offers!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: Me too. That's how most people in Greece do their shopping.

Greek pensioner: I can't go out to dinner with friends!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: Thankfully, souvlaki is still cheap.

Greek pensioner: I am looking after my grandchildren so that my kids can go to work!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: As I mentioned before, I am not in a good financial position to raise a family.

Greek pensioner: It never crossed my mind that there would be a time when this carefree period — let's call it that — would turn into anxiety!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: I've never really experienced a financially carefree period in my life, and I can't envisage it in the near future.

Greek pensioner: After 36 years of working, I retired on a pension of €1800 that's been steadily cut to €1000!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: Your pension is a bit more than my full-time salary.
Greek pensioner: I wouldn't object to cuts of €100-300 if it was to help the poor, but an €800 reduction is too much!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: An €800 reduction in my salary would wipe out all my present income.
Greek pensioner: I pay higher taxes on the property I inherited!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: As I mentioned earlier, thank goodness we don't have to pay rent.
Greek pensioner: I can't go anywhere!So I shut myself off at home!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: I don't go on holiday often, and I only fly when Ryanair or Easyjet are having a sale.
Greek pensioner: One of the few pleasures I have left is my daily coffee with friends!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: When I go out for coffee, it's usually to those stand-up places in mini-markets where the coffee is cheap, with seating on the road where you hear the roar of the traffic as it goes by, so you can't hear yourself speak and you inhale a lot of pollution.
Greek pensioner: The new austerity measures are likely to cut my pension to about €600!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: Well, that's what I told you I get for working.

Greek pensioner: I will start having a very, very hard time now!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: I sometimes feel that my whole life will be very hard.
Greek pensioner: At the moment, thank God, I'm not hungry!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: Neither am I. But I worry about how I would be able to afford food if I dared to start a family.
Greek pensioner: The family silversmith business is struggling due to a dramatic fall in sales!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: On low salaries, we don't first think about buying unnecessary items. A smartphone is more useful than jewelry, for example.
Greek pensioner: I see the future in very uncertain terms!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: Most Greeks see the future in uncertain terms these days.
Greek pensioner: Whatever we had set aside is all gone on taxes!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: As I mentioned earlier, my salary pays for everything, including taxes.
Greek pensioner: I help my children with my pension!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: As I mentioned before, I am not in a good financial position to raise a family.
Greek pensioner: I used to get a reduced widow's pension of €780 euros, but that's been trimmed to €760, and the two annual pension bonuses I used to receive have also been cut!
Non-pensioner Greek citizen: Excuse me, but I think I've been repeating myself for long enough. I've already told you that a pension that size is what I get for working full-time, and I am not entitled to bonuses. And I also mentioned that my pension will probably work out to just over half that. So your whinging and whining is starting to sound very selfish. Everyone's in the same boat. 

Except perhaps for the εφοπλιστές. They swim amidst the bigger fish. More than 1 in 6 Greek pensioners are aged 55-62: see http://www.ekathimerini.com/218626/article/ekathimerini/business/under-500-euros-per-month-for-12-mln-pensioners

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People waiting!

All quotes and film excerpts come from "America America" (1963), by Elia Kazan, a Greek-American director, producer, writer and actor.
(Watch it here: http://putlockers.ch/watch-america-america-online-free-putlocker.html)

America is having her day today. Following the rage, through the media that has overtaken the whole world concerning the US elections, I can't help feeling a little heartened that Greece is not alone in having to make a bad choice about who to elect democratically to rule the country. The US elections have been revealing to the world the Emperor who wasn't wearing any clothes. Our world is very transparent now, and we are suddenly realising that politics is about grabbing hold of power by giving people just enough of what they want so that they feel that politicians really care about them. But they are lying. Politicians really don't care about you, they just care about holding onto power, as has clearly emerged with the ruling party in Greece. The UK is also another great example: by charging along with its agenda, with complete disregard for the country's judicial system, the Conservative party is making even non-conservatives believe in them, in their own attempt to hold power. It's all a case of giving everyone just a little bit of what they want, at just the right time. But it has come at a price:

"... the day came, here in Anatolia, as every place where there is oppression, people began to question, there were bursts of violence, sudden and reckless, people began to wonder, and some to search for another homeland." 

These words set the opening scene in Elia Kazan's "America America" (1963), set in 1896, in the cave dwellings of Cappadocia, in what is now modern Turkey. The United States has changed in many ways since the time period that the film was set in, but 120 years later, we find that the oppressed, like all those around the world, are again questioning, and this is accompanied by violence, while people are wondering not so much about a new homeland - we have discovered all the earthly ones - but what our homelands have become.

I'm going away... far away... to America! ... Hear me! You are my last hope.

If the world has turned full circle and everything that can be discovered has been discovered, then we have no more work to do here any longer. The working class is over - throughout the developed world, it has morphed into an employed class and an unemployed class. For perhaps the first time in a century, a lot of people are looking to the past instead of the future, in order to try to find a way out of this deadlock, and be 'great' again..

Τ’ αστέρι του βοριά θα φέρει η ξαστεριά - The clear skies will bring the star of the north
μα πριν φανεί μέσα από το πέλαγο πανί - but before it appears through the ocean, like a sheet, 
θα γίνω κύμα και φωτιά να σ’ αγκαλιάσω ξενιτιά - I'll turn into waves and fire to embrace a foreign land
Κι εσύ χαμένη μου Πατρίδα μακρινή - And you, my wasted distant homeland
θα γίνεις χάδι και πληγή σαν ξημερώσει σ’ άλλη γη - You will become a caress to the wound, as dawn rises in another land.

Can we really go back in time and let history be our guide to the future?

I don't want to be my father! I don't want to be your father! I don't want a good family life! A good family life? All those good people stay here and live in this shame! The church goers that give to the poor - they live in this shame! Respectable ones, polite ones with good manners! But I am going! No matter how! No matter! No matter! I am going!

But people have always found new solutions for all the problems that arise in the present time - as long as we have our health.

As of tomorrow, I will get one of those top hats that the Americans wear.

It's the bottom line; if you don't have that, you have nothing.

I have been beaten, robbed, shot, left for dead. I have eaten the sultan's garbage, and driven the dogs off to get at it. I became a hamal... but now I am here. Do you imagine anyone will be able to keep me out?

But you also need to have hope, and a lot more patience.

He saved himself... America America! He saved himself.

In some ways, our different worlds all seem alike now.

In some ways, it's not different here... But let me tell you one thing. You have a new chance here. For everyone that is able to get here, there is a fresh start. So get ready, you're all coming. 

But we continue to believe that we differ immensely form one another, and that there really is some kind of light at the end of the tunnel which will lead to utopia.

Come on, you! Let's go, you! People waiting!

We're all waiting, but we really don't know what we are waiting for.

I think you and I, all of us, have some sort of stake in the United States. If it fails, the failure will be that of us all. Of mankind itself. It will cost us all. . . . I think of the United States as a country which is an arena and in that arena there is a drama being played out. . . . . I have seen that the struggle is the struggle of free men. (Ciment, Michel (ed.) Elia Kazan: An American Odyssey, Bloomsbury Publ. U.K. (1988) p. 231; from Wikipedia)

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A year of the Greek left (Ένας χρόνος αριστερά)

A year ago to this day, SYRIZA was voted in as the government of Greece. Before Syriza, Greek politics was like a see-saw ride: green-blue, then green, and then blue again, and so on. Suddenly, Greece was flooded with the SYRIZA rainbow, whose 12-month 2-term office can be likened to a ride on a roller coaster. For most Greeks, 2015 will be remembered as a year of living a fairy tale in reverse: from happily ever after, Syriza now finds itself in the clutches of a wicked stepmother, unable to find any escape route.

SYRIZA's original campaign was based on Η ελπίδα έρχεται (Hope is coming), which gave it its first win in January 2015. During their first five months in power, SYRIZA failed in every respect to change the direction of politics in the country, breaking every single promise made during its election campaign. In trying and failing to negotiate a non-austerity deal for the Greek economy, SYRIZA led the nation to vote on an incomprehensible referendum question, where a NO (OXI) outcome won, but which was later reinterpreted by SYRIZA as a YES (to keep loans coming in). Despite the obvious incompetence of the government, it was voted in for a second term in a second general election in the same year. Global interest in Greek politics then waned, but the refugee crisis still keeps Greece in the front pages of the global press. 

Alexis Tsipras' initial impact on Greek society led it to believe that things can change, and they can change easily. Very little did in fact change, and change continues to come with difficulty, much greater than before. The two-party system that SYRIZA supossedly broke down didn't actually die; the former party of promises (PASOK(, was simply replaced by its newer version (SYRIZA), while the popularity of the main conservative party (ND) diminished in the face of the challenges. The unchanged status quo of Greek politics hasn't gone by unnoticed by the EU: the Greek newspaper ToVima recently published an uncomfortably long list of family-related appointments made during Syriza's time to various state bodies. The EU says this has to stop, which the present Minister of Finance (Euclid Tsakalotos) agrees with - all the while that his Scottish wife has been an adviser to the Bank of Greece since 2011, in other words since SYRIZA's rise. 

The left means many different things, depending on how we choose to interpret it. For me, the Greek left has always been defined by the people who shout the loudest and stomp their feet the hardest, always in support of negating any proposal made by the governing side. They haven't changed their tune while in power either - they still shout and stomp louder than their opponents, to negate what the so-called left government is 'proposing': in essence, the present left government is simply obeying to the demands made by Greece's creditors. Not that former right-wing governments were really any better: their campaigns were also based on making promises that could not be fulfilled, but they were more willing to compromise. Greek society has learnt the hard way now: no money, no honey. Which direction you lean to makes no difference to that particular rule.

The Greek left had never governed in a legal sense (ie by being chosen democratically) before 2015, so the left's first year in power was experimental. The experiment was not a success story, but it wasn't a failure either. Everything that was supposed to go wrong with a left government didn't actually go wrong in Greece: Greece wasn't thrown out of the eurozone or the European Union and I personally highly doubt Greece would ever have been thrown out of either, no matter how close 'expert' analysts insist it was to this point. Very few analysts looked behind the numbers: the mentality of Greek people would never push them to leave by themselves, while the creditors silently admit to themselves that their European project will also explode if they do the throwing out. What happened instead was that the Greek left veered off course: it went 'right' in a feeble attempt to get to the centre. Tsipras attended the 2016 Davos leaders' meeting where he wsa "brushing shoulders with bankers and billionaires", a far cry from his leftist origins.

Greece is still very much a divided society. Exacerbated by the European mess as things currently stand, Greece is still battling between her two extremes, neither of which presents a feasible solution to any of the country's economic problems. But I still believe that having Tsipras/Syriza in power was a good thing for Greece. Just like the EU insisting that there is no other way to save Greece but by a Memorandum, all Greeks have to admit that the former political facade in Greece had to drop, and it was Syriza that helped to do this. That doesn't make Alexis Tsipras the best politician - as far as negotiation tactics are concerned, he tops the list for having the worst negotiation skills according to an article from Harvard Law School. When he eventually goes (like all politicians do), he will have left behind some kind of legacy, however superficial it may be. Syriza/Tsipras' reign hasn't been characterised by total failure. Without it/him, the same-sex cohabitation law, supported by the present leader of the opposition party, would never have passed into Greek law, which helped to bring Greece one step closer to what is considered equality in the Western world. It should also not be forgotten that Syriza's handling of the undocumented migrants and refugee crisis was more humane than the previous Greek governments, and perhaps any other Western nation in the world. A million or so people have crossed from Turkey to Greece in 2015, and it should not be forgotten that since September, every single day, more than one child, as well as one adult, on average, has been drowning in the Mediterranean sea, and no one is doing anything to stop this.

Dawn rises above the hills - Γλυκοχαράζει στα βουνά
the jasmine smells beautiful - μοσχοβολούν τα γιασεμιά
the air is filled with birdsong - ραγούδι αρχίζουν τα πουλιά
as the sea smiles widely - γελά η θάλασσα πλατιά
while we dream of owning property and tv sets - κι εμείς οικόπεδα και Ι.Χ
fridges, furnishings and automobiles - ψυγεία έπιπλα TV
and as we pay for our sot weed - κουτόχορτο με πληρωμή
right next door to us, life departs - και δίπλα φεύγει η ζωή
Ξυπνήστε! - Wake up! by Panos Tzavellas, 1975

We constantly look to Western standards for justice and equality because we know deep down inside of us that our own Greek standards of justice and equality are deficient. So even though our feelings for Western style democracy are often ambivalent - at the same time that Western standards often present a sense of justice, fairness and good manners, they also contain elements of forced colonialism, and the superiority complex inherent in imperialism - we still feel the need to adopt the good sides of any foreign culture we come across. Unfortunately, Western culture has also been equated with consumerism, which leads to greed, an element of all societies, regardless of how fair or just they seem on the surface. Greed is partly to blame when we hear people (of any culture) lamenting the changes in society. They recall the 'better' times when there was more money in people's pockets, without remembering that there was less money in the treasury. Greed is to blame for the predicament that Greeks find themselves in. No matter which colour is governing, the result would have been the same. Syriza's naive politics are not to blame for the state of the Greek economy - I am certain that Greece would be in a similar situation now if the conservative coalition was governing, and social unrest would be much much worse than it already is.

I blame it mainly on the weather. I've said before on my blog that winter brings out the greatest pessimism among Greeks. But as soon as the weather brightens up, everything looks more manageable. In summer, we are either too busy or too hot to worry about the government's plans for the country. strike. In the dearth of the present winter, Greek farmers are protesting with their tractors on the streets, threatening to cut Greece into four pieces by road blockages. Come summer, they'll be planting cotton and tobacco, selling it and making good money in one season. Scientists, doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, engineers and notaries also went on strike recently, a novelty for Greece since it's rare to see white collar workers demonstrating. But the higher taxes and lower pensions that they are striking about are the same kinds of reforms that a conservative government would have had to commit to. They are all complaining about the inevitable.

A selection of headlines from Greek websites today on the anniversary of a year of a leftist government in power (all sites are centre-right, except for 'avgi' which is left):

- The grapes of wrath (tovima)

- SYRIZA's celebrations a far cry from last year's grandiose election win (tovima)

- Tsipras: «We are proud of the struggles we have fought, we will continue» (tovima)

- Tsipras against ties, farmers and Kiriakos [the first name of the leader of the opposition] (iefimerida)

- Figaro on Tsipras: A year later, Greece is still out of order (iefimerida)
- Liberation: The candle for a year of Syriza looks more like dynamite (iefimerida)

- Everything is on the table: Political crash, elections and cabinet reshuffle (thetoc)

- Two worlds: The government is partying, while the streets are raging (thetoc)

- "The Syriza that changed (not)" (protagon)

- A year of Syriza: Could it have been different? (protagon)

- Al. Tsipras: "We will not become the hostages of blackmailers or vested interests" (avgi)

and one from the UK:

One year on, Syriza has sold its soul for power - Alexis Tsipras has embraced wholesale the austerity he once decried (TheGuardian)

Few people keep in mind that we have to constantly reevaluate our present predicament to see a better future ahead. No matter how much Greece changes, as it is sure to do over the coming years, the changes need to bring about more confidence among the Greek people in terms of understanding the state of their country: they need to be more aware of the fact that the salvation of their country is in their hands alone. Only then can they convince others that they are worth investing in.

We aren't really on the way to reaching this point. The traditional Western view to reaching it would be something like 'a lot of hard work is required'. Not quite the case in Greece: How you turn round a country like Greece has to do with the mindset. You need to get rid of the middle-aged generation (40s-50s age group): they are the ones that now run the show, and try to ensure the rules don't change (no matter what political party is in charge), just so they can carry on as usual. Of course, we can get rid of them easily by promising them early retirement, but the real rulers of this country's economy have ruled that out. So we are stuck with them for the time being. Education might help: we could try teaching children how to think for themselves for a start. But we need new teachers to do that; they won't be retiring too soon, though. So we are well and truly stuck for the time being.

Greeks may sound like loud rabble-rousers, but Greece is a peace-loving country. Greeks do not desire to go to war. They rarely take part in other people's wars. We may have problems in Greece, but we don't meddle with others' problems, so we are well liked in that respect, which has led to Greece being regarded as a safe holiday destination. I've often heard it said that tourism won't save us - such naive words, in my humble opinion. That will keep the economy going just long enough to give people some respite from the misery of a depressing local economic climate, which is highly linked to the even more depressing global economic climate - Greece isn't alone: it's bad all over Europe, and beyond. Unless of course you're rich, and in this world, the rich can still hide behind their money, as I've often seen rich Greeks do.

So what is left of the Greek left? The political left is quite a different concept in Greece compared to the Western concept of what constitutes left. We are now seeing leftist movements rising in the UK and US. But they haven't been tried: the West was never communist. Nor was Greece. Perhaps this is why we are now reconsidering what constitutes fairness and justice in the world. And all this is happening while former European communist nations are leaning gung-ho to the extreme right. The world is in a mess, not just Greece.

An American friend emailed me just yesterday to ask me if there was any coverage of Bernie Sanders in Greece. "Can it possibly be that we, the duped American people, are finally going to stand up and make a real change?" she writes. "It seems a dream. I have asked myself why has Bernie waited for 30 years to run for the nomination? I guess the answer is that finally the winds of change are strong enough and we are mad enough to try to throw out the 1 percent's power and let the middle class people speak."

No, I told my friend, there is no coverage of Bernie here. I've heard about Bernie from another American friend - had she not told me about him, I would have been asking 'who's he?'. Neither so we get any coverage of his UK counterpart Jeremy Corbyn. I only know about Jeremy because I read The Guardian. I think this is because the Greek left has failed abysmally. Its right-turn shenangians have made it look a complete failure. Apart from voting in same-sex civil unions and allowing undocumented people into the country without repercussions (which makes them stranded in a country that can't offer them any meaningful help), it has gone back on every promise it made in the election campaign that helped it to gain power exactly a year ago today. If the left had been successful in any way for the Greek economy, we would be hearing all about the struggles of the leftist parties in other countries of the modern world in our Greek news sites. But the Greek left has failed - abysmally, as I note above. It celebrates its first anniversary in power today by taxing the average Greek citizen very unfairly (for 'growth' purposes), supporting the European bourgeoisie (to keep getting loans), and placing family and friends connected to the coalition government in positions of state power (nepotism). One year on, the average Greek citizen now thinks that the left was a fraud. That's probably why we hear nothing about Bernie Sanders in Greek news. We have lost faith in the left. And because we don't trust the right, either, we have lost faith in all politicians, and we just trust ourselves.

I'm not at all pessimistic about the future of Greece. It's tied with the current global trends. If things are going badly in general, then it won't be easy to start up all over again anywhere. Utopia does not exist. Greece is challenging to live in, that's for sure. But the more I understand my people, the easier I find it to live among them, and just lately, the easier they find it to put up with me. "Will you ever get sick of us?" my family recently asked me. No, I assured them. No one gets sick of Greece. Even if I decide to leave Greece, I'll never be sick of Greece. I'll always be trying to find ways to get back. Greece is stuck with me for the time being.

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I had a dream (Ονειρεύτηκα)

I don't normally remember my dreams. They are forgotten almost as quickly as I wake up and open my eyes. This one contained elements of both my past and present life, and it married them so beautifully, which is perhaps why I can still remember quite a few details of that dream. I just related it to a colleague, and she thought it was quite symbolic of the times we live in, so I decided to write it down, just for the record.

I'm in the Greek Orthodox Church of Wellington. What am I doing here, I ask myself. I try not to make myself look too conspicuous. It's the moment when the δίσκο (THIS-ko - collection tray) is being passed around. 'I don't want to hear any clink-clink', the (now-deceased) Archbishop says (as I recall him saying once when I was still living in Wellington - he preferred to hear a gentle rustle, like leaves falling from the trees to the ground). 

The collection tray passes by me, but I don't add any money to it. I remember thinking that the church doesn't pay property taxes. But the old man passing it round stays rooted to the ground in front of me. So much for not wanting to make myself look conspicuous; I just shrug back at him. He points to the tray with his finger and nods towards me, making it obvious that he won't leave if I don't contribute. 

I take out my purse and open it. Then I turn it upside down over the collection tray. The clink-clink sound can be heard as a few coppers fall onto it. Nothing silver comes out with it. The old man is now both annoyed and embarrassed. "I've just come from Greece," I say, "and we're still under capital controls!"

A lady turns and looks at me very sympathetically. She disappears for a moment behind the μπαγκάρι (ba-GA-ri - candle counter). When she returns, she is holding an EFT-POS machine. 

I don't know what happened next, because at this point I woke up. According to a Kiwi friend, there is indeed an EFT-POS machine now in Wellington's Greek Orthodox church.

Καλή Χρονιά!

Happy New Year!

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Gatherings (Συγκεντρώσεις)

One of the topics that came up in my interview on Radio New Zealand about the Greek referendum was Greek demonstrations. I immediately pointed out to the interviewer Wallace Chapman that Greeks are no longer 'demonstrating' or 'protesting'. They are now congregating in focal locations of their towns and cities in the form of 'gatherings'. These gatherings are not violent, and the special forces only returned back tot he streets once

Start listening at point 5.30 to hear about the gatherings

I personally don't go to any of these gatherings myself, but that does not mean that I am inactive, it does not mean that I am not taking a stance. We need to think about what kind of people go to these gatherings in order to understand my absence from them.

During the one week that we had to think about how we will vote in the referendum, I happened to pass by a NO gathering taking place in the town. My daughter was playing basketball in the town's stadium and the times coincided with the gathering.

Hania is pretty much an OXI/NO town. This doesnt mean that I know the outcome of the plebiscite (which we do not know...
Posted by Maria Verivaki on Wednesday, 1 July 2015

I took photos (something I always do anyway), and I didn't think too much about the whole thing, as I had made my decisions about which way I would vote anyway. I also took a video (something I don't usually do), just so I could post it on facebook, to give people outside Greece a feel for what was happening. More importantly, I took the video so people could see that a gathering is not a violent outburst.

here's a glimpse of what the OXI/NO camp looked like in the town - music of a political nature is always boomed across the town in such cases
Posted by Maria Verivaki on Wednesday, 1 July 2015

Two days later, I got an email from a YES supporter urging people to turn up to a YES gathering. I decided that it was very important for me to get myself down there, in the same casual way that I had gone to the previous gathering, so that I could see what was happening, and to understand what the differences were between the two gatherings.

I had a quick look-see this evening of a NAI/YES rally. A lot fo people say that the YES folks are richer. Perhaps they...
Posted by Maria Verivaki on Friday, 3 July 2015

These two gatherings took place at the same location, and they started at the same time. I managed to get to the YES gathering an hour after it started, whereas I was at the NO gathering at the time that it started. I leave it to readers to draw their own conclusions about the differences in the appearance of the  participants of each gathering.

Now why don't I go to these gatherings? I do not live far from the town, so in theory I can attend them easily. They are peaceful, so there is no fear whatsoever of violence. Greeks are talking in these gatherings, not throwing stones. (In fact, they remind me of what is often mentioned in analyses of Ancient Greece, that people would gather at the main square of their town and debate for hours. I try not to think about this too much because I fear that I may fall into the trap of bragging about my glorious heritage and its continuity in modern life.)

I am a rural resident. Gatherings do NOT take place in a village square. Gatherings take place in a prominent position of ... an URBAN centre. For a gathering to have momentum, it needs to be well attended. Villages are small, towns are big, and cities even bigger.

Hania had the biggest
NO count in any Greek
constituency.

What does a middle-aged woman living in a Cretan village do in her daily life? Whether she is in paid employment (like myself) or not makes no difference to one of her main priorities: cooking. If you live in a Cretan village, not only will you cook a lot, but you will also do a lot of food processing, because in all likelihood, you will have access to a very productive garden. You will get your hands dirty, your body sweaty, your clothes smelly, and to a certain extent, your kitchen will also suffer from the detritus of garden soil. Once you've finished (a misnomer, as the Greek saying suggests: οι δουλειές δεν τελειώνουν - jobs never finish), you need to clean up both yourself and your kitchen. And once you've done that, you need to relax: a woman in particular must find a way to do this because she is the one who maintains some sense of calm and saneness in her house. The man of the house, while appearing calm and sane, boils more easily.

By the end of all THAT, you can understand why I don't go to these gatherings. I can't stand around a square all afternoon, after I've been standing around in my kitchen all day. It makes more sense to me to hit the beach on a hot day rather than face a long evening spent on my feet again.

But that by no means is a sign of apathy. I went along and voted, and I made my voice count.

After voting, I drove away from the polling station (the local school), taking the only road out of the area, a circular...
Posted by Maria Verivaki on Sunday, 5 July 2015

And after the vote, I had the satisfaction of watching my vote count. Watch this 4-minute video of feisty Greekness at its best.



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Staying in control (while others panic)

You've probably heard me say the same things before, about three years ago when Greece faced another Grexit crisis. We're experienced in these things now. 

"In central bank circles it was discussed why the Greek government had not yet introduced capital controls. The Governing Council and the Governing banking supervisors would feel better if there were capital controls to prevent bleeding of the banks." (Translated from this German link).

I'm no longer worried about when Greece runs out of money, as this is already a well established fact about Greece, a country so desperate to find money from anywhere it can, that it's practically begging (non)tax payers to pay their taxes, by allowing people with unpaid tax dues up to 31.12.2103 to pay just 50% of what they owe if they pay half what they owe up front (or: they can pay whatever they can, and the same amount will be forgiven, while the remainder can be paid in small amounts over a long period of time). As for those who paid all their tax dues on time, like myself, well, they can revel in the knowledge that they simply don't owe anything, it's that simple. (So if you are the 'paying' kind of person, you are the true loser; if you were a true believer of the ΔΕΝ ΠΛΗΡΩΝΩ movement, you  have just been vindicated.)

I wish Greece had introduced capital controls ages ago as it only seems sensible. (My husband says that the reason it hasn't is because we live in a very democratic country - there is no other explanation.) I no longer care if I run out of money - I just don't want to run out of food; it's time for me to stock up on pantry basics. Voting in a new government has resulted in people being irresponsible about how to handle money, and we often hear them blaming Germany for everything that went wrong in Greece. It's hard for me to like the new government when I am surrounded by spoilt-brat behaviour and misled rhetoric.

Our wood supply is protected from the
weather with all sorts of bricabrac.

As long as no one takes the food
out of our mouth, we shall never starve.

Let's take a moment to imagine that capital controls to stop people taking money out of the bank are finally put in place overnight, just before the upcoming three-day weekend celebrating Kathara Deftera (Clean Monday, the first day of Great Lent before Christian Orthodox Easter):

We buy onions
every summer
in braids which
last nearly all year.

Don't look at the brown
bits on the cauliflower.
Boiling water blanches
them.

I've got plenty of beans in the pantry, some sorry-looking (due to the weather) broccoli, cauliflower and spinach that needs to be picked, plenty of onions, garlic and spices for flavour, and enough pasta and rice for bulk. I'm running out of flour, which is very important for me as I make a pie every week. I've just stocked up on some protein (from the German discounter supermarket chain LIDL, who gives Greeks what they want: apart from cheap imported food, they also sell cheap made-in-Greece food), and I also remembered to buy some petfood - our dog and cat have to eat too! There's plenty of wood for the heater till this temporary freeze goes away. I may not be able to buy petrol for the car if I can't use my credit card, which means that I will have to work from home, or simply take time off work. I've been wanting to do that for a long time.

Work at home is the same as in the office.

But I'm definitely not stocking up on cash. I hate cash. I can't stand the idea of taking money out of the bank just to make myself vulnerable to burglary, attacks, etc, which has already happened to others: a couple was robbed of 60,000 euro in mainland Greece, and only last weekend an elderly couple was murdered in a remote village in Hania, all because they were known to be keeping large stashes of cash in their house.

Reduced and non-reduced chicken wings.

It's not a war with starvation, blood and bullets, but it's definitely a war, and I know I'm one of the innocent victims, along with many other ordinary people like myself. Take for example the Bulgarian man in the supermarket who saw me picking up the last two sticker-special packets of chicken wings. He asked me if there were any more with a 30% reduction sticker, and when we realised that there weren't, I gave him one of the packets, so we could share the savings, and when he wasn't watching, I picked up another packet of chicken wings at the full price. That's what I call solidarity. I could have made another early morning trip to the supermarket to see if there were any more discounted chicken wings, but who wants to fight through the last-minute shopping rush before Clean Monday?

Clean Monday?! Oh gawd, the shellfish. I may not feel the need to buy or eat it myself (the family doesn't call me Merkel for nothing), but the rest of the brood won't be too happy to hear that we will be eating beans again. Another shopping trip is in order after all, in order to contain the masses, and maintain an appearance of being in control. Now, where do I find cheap seafood and halva*?

*LIDL sells cheap halva and seafood, but we are used to higher quality in this line of goods, since we rarely buy them.

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The privilege of advanced studies

Having understood the stress that the students were under when we told them that they would not last longer than Christmas at our institute if they did not show signs of improvement in their English tests grades, Omar from Syria (a second-year student) came to find me, to tell me about how he went from scoring a very low grade to obtaining not just a passing grade, but something higher than that, in just two months. He asked me to tell the first-year students to find him and he would tell them what he did. I asked that, instead of students going to find him (which they wouldn't do anyway, mainly out of neglect and - dare I say it - laziness), Omar should come to my class and tell them what he did. He agreed.

What did Omar do to attain such a grade? Here is his story:
"I would go to bed every night at 9.30. I didn't attend any of the social events that the students organised. Then I'd get up at 4am, splash cold water on my face to wake me up and take my laptop and notebook downstairs to the computer study room (so that I didn't disturb my roommate). I would start studying at 5am, never before, because I wanted to treat myself to waking up slowly, so I didn't tire myself out. I studied English systematically for 3 hours every morning, never less, never more, for two months. I used the teaching materials provided (ie my materials), and a book of exercises, all on the computer, nothing on paper. If I didn't understand any words, I'd write them in my notebook and look them up. I made an effort to learn three new skills every day. In the first few days it was hard. After the first few weeks, it got easy. By the end of the two months, I was simply practicing - and answering successfully - everything I learnt."

At the end of the 20-minute seminar, Omar pointed out that this was his way to improve his English skills, and it won't work for everyone, but everyone should be able to tweak the program to find one that suits them. While Omar was speaking, I would interrupt him (we had agreed on how to do this) to reinforce some of his points, eg you don't really need paper tests, you can work on the computer; you don't need to learn things off by heart, you need to study at the RIGHT time, with the RIGHT materials and in the RIGHT way; you don't need to spend hours in a classroom studying English with a teacher, you need to know what questions to ask your teacher when you see her, or better still email her with your query. Teaching and learning is not like in the past when we had a teacher, and books, pens and paper: it's more dynamic now - and much much faster.

At the same time, I had to ask some of other students to stop talking amongst themselves while Omar was speaking. I also had to remind them (while they laughed, especially on hearing 'no socialising' and 'wake up at 4am') that, actually, they have their meals cooked, their rooms cleaned, and their expenses paid while they are here, so there is no excuse for not being a hard-working student. 

Studying is a privilege these days. You need to show some good results to those who give you that privilege. Otherwise, we can bestow the privilege on other more deserving people.

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Weekend cooking spree

A week has gone by and I have not updated my blog. I guess I'm busy. Here's what I got up to at the weekend.

There isn't much in the garden at the moment that is actually edible, save the artichokes:

We got our first taste of zucchini, care of friends:

The vine leaves are now at their best - they need to be preserved:

At the same time, what is in the freezer needs to be eaten, to clear the freezer for the new growing season - spanakorizo with a dollop of tzatziki (again, the first we made this year, with the new season's cucumbers):

I also found some octopus, a leftover from my Lent purchases. It was cooked in wine and olive oil; it went well with the spinach rice:

This pumpkin waited a long time on the balcony for me to get to work on it. I wondered what its secret world inside its heart would be like... 

Here's what I found - a whole army of sprouting seeds:

All the pumpkin was chopped and par-boiled, to be frozen and used as mash where needed:

Pumpkin galaktoboureko is a favorite in my family, hence the pumpkin's first use:

Frugla cookinginvolves saving time, not just food. The bag of frozen spinach that I used in the rice was enough for a spanakopita (made with the extra filo pastry from the pumpkin galaktoboureko): 

The cooking spree has ended with a batch of koulourakia, made by my daughter (hence their perfect shape). 

I guess we really were busy.

All this food was cooked at the weekend. Sunday lunch was chicken in wine sauce - that just got eaten up too quickly to be photographed.

All recipes/preparation methods can be found on my blog by using the search engines provided on it.

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NO day (ΌΧΙ)

Pindos mountains, 28 October 1940, 5.30am - The Greek Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas denies the Italians' request to enter Greece in order to service the Axis (Nazi Germany). The Italians break through the Albanian-Greek border, entering Greek territory. It was freezing cold and the heavy rain turned to snow by the evening.

Greek soldier's letter to his wife:
My dearest Helen, Don't worry, things are going well here. My plan is going according to schedule. Don't believe anyone who refutes this, because they are spread malicious rumours. We are holding out well. In a short while, we will have dealt with the enemy, as required. I kiss you, Haralambos

Italian soldier's letter to his wife:
It's raining continuously. Everywhere. On the bed, on the sleeping bag, on the wooden table. The blankets are wet, so are all my clothes, and I can't light a fire. Oh for a little bit of fire... The cigarettes are also wet, and I can't light them. Those Greek pigs! They start shooting as soon as it stops raining, with very few breaks. My feet have frozen. My God! Send us some rays of sunshine! I hope I get a letter from someone, anyone, I don't care who! I can't take it anymore!

(from the 2011 SKAI documentary Greek Wars, 4th episode)

The video shows Greek cartoons from the WW2 period - click on the youtube link to see them.

Greece entered WW2 in this way and suffered great casualties with almost total destruction of all its infrastructure. At the end of WW2, it went through a civil war, but after 1950, it began to show signs of economic recovery. By 1962, it attained succession to the EEC (now known as the EU) which it formally entered in 1981.

So it is rather perturbing that on October 27 2011, the Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou gave the OK to the French-German request that Greece give up her sovereignty to pay for a haircut. 70 years later, we lost everything that we had gained, with little hope of regaining it. It could not have happened at a worse time, so close to an important historical date when Greece sought to express her right to govern herself. There really is no such thing as a free lunch.

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Food bank - Community grocery (Δημοτικό παντωπολείο)

At the first parent-teacher meeting at the junior high school, the first person to take the floor was a local town councillor, who explained the desperate need of the local municipality to procure πρώτης ανάγκης food items (ie food considered  basic and essential) to stock the community grocery needs for the area. In Greece, most of these organisations are run by state bodies at a local level so they aren't really food banks - they don't operate by charities, they aren't privately run, and they nearly always operate on behalf of the state.

In the rather messy world that I live in, my kids' school belongs to a different municipality from the one that I live in. I sensed a tone of desperation in the representative's pleas: councils' state funds have now been reduced given the times we live in, but municipalities are still obliged to have a community grocery (a very new crisis-related concept in Greece) to look after the needs of - in this particular municipality - 84 families in the area, approximately 220 people in total, in a region with a population of approximately 18,000. The woman explained that if each family (not each child) with children in the school could bring just one packet of an essential food item per month (eg flour, sugar, coffee, pasta, rice, beans, tomato paste), that would be a huge saving for the council, who would have to buy these foods to hand out (I think monthly, for a period of 6 months, to eligible families meeting the criteria, which I do not know).

Food constitutes the biggest expense in our house at the moment. Gone are those summer days when all we did was pick a zucchini and tomato from the garden, and add some farm-fresh eggs to it (even the hens where I got my freebies from have stopped producing now with the cooler weather), or pick a bunch of fresh beans and vlita greens, and call that food. We buy most of our food needs now (those brassica aren't quite ready yet, and they won't be until it gets chilly).

2L soya oil – 3.45 (olive oil was more expensive)
250g filter coffee – 1.50
820g tinned peaches – 1.09
300g bacon – 1.99

380g Gouda cheese 20 slices – 3.00

160g ham (8 slices) – 1.00
200g fresh cheese – 1.00
180g Greek coffee – 1.39
800g canned mushrooms – 1.85
500g salt – 0.19
410g tomato paste – 1.02
3x85g crushed tuna – 2.75
4 x 410g canned milk – 0.60x4 = 2.40
2kg rice – 2.36
1kg flour – 0.69
1kg sugar – 0.98
3+1 semi-sweet biscuits – 3.29
500g spaghetti – 0.45 
3x300g canned corn niblets – 1.95
5x72g rusk slices – 1.14
500g dried yellow split peas – 0.97
500g dried black-eyed beans – 0.95
500g dried lentils – 0.75
500g dried wheat grains – 0.57
500g dried beans – 0.94

TOTAL: approximately 39 euro (all bought from Carrefour Marinopoulos)

I am imagining the things IU would cook with these foods. My only regret is not adding some chocolate powder to the donations: if the parents are drinking coffee, the kids could at least be adding a tablespoon of chocolate powder to their milk. Some items are not essential, but they are not so expensive that we cannot enjoy them.

In Greece, basic food need not be expensive. Basic essential 'primary' ingredients (ie stuff you can't eat as they are, but which become edible when they are cooked) can be found very cheaply in supermarkets. By essentials, I mean ingredients that you can use to cook something from scratch: oil, beans, rice, pasta, flour, milk, tomato paste, sugar, etc. Food banks in Greece stock mainly this kind of very basic stuff; we are a nation of cooks. Greek food banks generally do not stock things like tinned soup, pasta sauces, rice pudding and sponge pudding (they are not in our culinary culture). What is considered an essential item in one country may not be seen in the same way in another country. This also applies on an individual basis. Sugar is a controversial example; but if you are cooking most of your food needs 'from scratch', you will need sugar to make plain biscuits or a simple cake, for example. The morning starts off better if you can have a cup of tea or coffee with sugar if you take it sweet. I don't use sugar myself in my hot drinks, but I'm one of those who needs a spot of milk in them. I will simply not have any if I don't have milk on hand, and I suspect that those who like their hot drinks sweet will also not bother to have any if they are out of sugar. I remember my poorer days when I was renting in Athens - making instant coffee the way I liked it was one of my luxuries.

Most supermarket chains (which are found everywhere) are always running some kind of special on basic items. Pasta is a classic example; there always seems to be a pasta special going at all chains. You will also find cheap rice, beans and flour sold under private labels, which most Greeks have turned to these days, having shunned them for a long time until the crisis hit them. Tomato paste is also very cheap - and most of the time, it's made in Greece - and a little goes a long way. Sugar, while relatively cheap, is rarely sold under a private label in Crete these days - this is because the national sugar manufacturer was sold and since then, most sugar that enters the country is imported. Although you can find cheap food in Greece, it should be noted that there is no way that you will be able to eat on 1-2 euros a day if you don't produce some of the food yourself. Our supermarkets never ever EVER sell food cheaply in the way that you can find heavily discounted items in UK supermarkets. (I recall a bin close to a cashier at Tesco's in Lewisham where I often shopped when I was staying with freinds - there were all sorts of packaged items in it - I even saw a loaf of sliced bread in it once - being sold for as little 15p.) Then there are also some foods that, however cheap they can be procured, would never be regarded as essential food - or even 'real' food - in Greece: glancing at the home page of this discounted food website, I can imagine a public outcry in this if this were being given out at a food bank in Greece.

Food banks/community groceries accept only dry goods. This is because they don't have cold storage facilities (which have running costs), fresh goods have a short lifespan, and deliveries to the eligible needy are not made frequently. For this reason, I could not donate any fresh food (I bought some private label bacon, ham and cheese, but had to take them out of the packet when I delivered them to the food bank). But I did include some canned corn, mushrooms and peaches (to substitute for fresh fruit and vegetables), and some canned milk and tuna which have a long shelf life. Meat is a little difficult to organise for a food bank - I thought about adding a packet of soya chunks/mince, but the price for fresh pork was cheaper...

I comfort myself with the knowledge that the municipality concerned is mainly rural which means that there are fresh products available, and most people are able to harvest something located close by to them. They are also probably being supplied fresh food by friendly neighbours, and they are also growing some of it themselves. So they are probably not going completely hungry. The food problem is mainly a low-income problem: after paying the bills, the people concerned will not have enough money left over for other basic needs, such as ingredients that are needed to cook with the fresh foods that are available to them. People in this area do not have the same kind of food crisis that urban people have. The word 'poor' does not denote the concept well - poverty standards are different according to landscape differences.

What troubled me most was when I visited the council to donate the goods. The food bank was closed, but I could peer through the window, where I made out a shabby arrangement of packaged goods. There was really not much in it, and the premises looked dusty. The main council offices were located across the road: large rooms, freshly painted walls, new furniture... and hardly anyone in the building. Many of these buildings were being built/refurbished at a time when the small regional councils were about to be merged into larger units (in an attempt to stand their own ground, according to the conspiracy theory) - and then everything was thrown up in the air when the crisis came along: bad management all the way. Now there is no money to employ people to fill up the vast empty spaces, while some former employees will be/have been made redundant. As our ancient ruins remind us of our glorious past, these buildings now stand as relics of unfulfilled dreams, the crumbled remains of a future that never took place.

The westernisation of Greece didn't happen overnight, but we still can't cope with Western 'urban diseases', which did seem to creep in overnight to some extent. Nevertheless, Greeks do show compassion to the poor by sharing thier food. For the last two years now, there are trolleys placed in prominent positions at most chain supermarkets where shoppers can place packets that they've bought which they wish to donate to food banks/community groceries. I recently read that this is about to start soon in the UK - so Greece is well ahead on this one.

I left my donation as anonymously as I could, which was easy, because, for a start, I am not from the area. An employee told me to sit and wait until she came back to take down my details, by which time I had disappeared. I won't be going back there too soon; I don't want to be faced with the same sight again: it hurts to see the shambolic state of the last remaining threads of a system fighting to stay upright. For now, I've done my bit for the food bank for the year all at once. Give a man fish and he will eat, but he needs to learn how to fish to eat forever, and there is little of that kind of eduation going on at the moment in the state the council is in. My donation will help this particular food bank to keep ahead of their needs: I wouldn't want to be down to my last packet of pasta myself.

As for that teacher's meeting, it took place last week, a month after the school opened since the end of the summer holidays. Only yesterday (nearly six weeks after term started), the children got their daily timetable to tell them what they are doing from one day to the next - all information before that was handed out by word of mouth. The headmaster had some 'good excuses' for this: there were strikes (!) and not all the required staff had been assigned to the school (apparently, he was waiting for some more teachers) to be assigned by the state authorities for his school. He complained that first year junior high schoolers were very immature, not obeying instructions, showing little heed for the teachers, and being unable to organise their studies. Why is he so surprised that the kids seem so disorganised? The school was not much better!

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