Almost Like I’m One of Them: Lost and Found in the Crowd
My debut on the Greek stage occurred on the last day
of May. Okay, it was actually on a slab of concrete outside a community center,
and it was really a demonstration of kung fu self defense moves, but it really
was in Greece. As an American immigrant here who doesn’t know the system,
customs, or language well enough to contribute as much to school, community, or
political affairs as I did and would in the U. S., I enjoyed participating in
something for a change. I could have just watched the children’s precise forms
and stances and the teachers’ awesome sparring, pole maneuvering, and sword
slashing routines. But I’d readily agreed to take part in the demonstration
with my kung fu teacher, whose parents had come to Greece from Russia, as my
father’s parents had gone to Canada from Russia. Although I was startled by the
audience’s collective gasp at my kick to the head of my teacher, I was also
pleased by that proof that I was finally a part of the action here. Eleven
years of sitting on the sidelines has often felt frustrating.
On
the other hand, it’s sometimes nice for someone who came to Crete as an
outsider to feel like one of the crowd here. One night in mid June, I was one
of a few hundred family members at the annual elementary school end of year
celebration, where the children dance and present theatrical skits. While my turquoise,
pink, and white Asics sneakers contrasted with the dressier, less practical
shoes on most of the women, it was one of the two days of the year when I both
had my hair cut and styled professionally, and was wearing makeup, so that
helped me blend in with the Greek mothers. When I speak, whether in English or
Greek, I sound foreign, especially if I compliment someone’s dressed-up appearance,
which is not something Greeks do. (Today someone asked where I’m from and
whether my children speak like me.) But when I’m silent, I sometimes look like
one of them, now that my hair is darker than it was in my first year in Greece over
twenty years ago, when I stuck out as a blond foreigner in what was then a far
more homogenous country. Now, I better resemble the Greek parents who edge
forward toward the roped-off part of the paved schoolyard, crouching in front
of the audience to photograph our children’s costumed dances. I can mingle with
the crowd as one of them, greeting friends, chatting, and photographing groups
of our children, a few of them offspring of American, Italian, or British
immigrants married to more or less Greek spouses, a few of them struggling to
make friends and to read, write, and speak Greek well, but most of them just
kids together at our school. That’s not the case for all children of immigrants
in Greece. For example, one Albanian’s Greek high school teachers don’t feel
obligated to help him with his lessons, telling his mother he can learn when he
returns to Albania, and his brother doesn’t feel that he fits in well with his
classmates. We are lucky that my kids usually do fit in.
“Expatriates” and “Immigrants”
My
cheerful, friendly Scottish friend, whom I’ll call Emma, is one of the most
open-minded and content of the well-off, first-world immigrants I know here;
she suggests that there’s no use getting worked up about what we cannot change,
however different things are here from what we’re used to (the educational
system, careless drivers, power outages, and frequent strikes I complain about,
for example). She has taught English as a foreign language and seen her
children through the Greek public schools, where (as she points out) they fit
in, although we never will. My thoughtful, courteous Greek-Canadian friend
“Sophia” (I am changing all names) more openly shares my frustration with the
ever-present cigarette smoke, the hours of sitting in doctors’ waiting rooms,
the high incidence of car and motorbike accidents, and the lack of concern
about bullying at school, as she takes walks with me and cares for her home and
family. Like me, Emma and Sophia are married to Greek men, which gives us an
edge when it comes to fitting (part way) in and helping our kids through
school.
My
North American and Western European friends can be critical of what bothers
them here, but they tend to end with the rather Greek question of “τί να κάνουμε,”
TEE na KAnoomeh, or what can we do?—except for the one who decided to move back
to the U. S. Another American acquaintance at the military base here provided
my first warning that “it rains mud” (all over the cars), and she was quite
ready for her re-deployment elsewhere. On the other hand, a gay
British/American couple who started teaching English to Greeks and ended up
teaching online for an American university seem quite happy to remain here into
retirement, in spite of the lack of gay rights. And some Dutch neighbors came
here to live, work, and adopt a child because they like the area. The stories
of North American and Western European immigrants here are more varied than a
few sentences can suggest, but generally we are here because we (more or less)
want to be; usually, we are here legally, with jobs or at least partners with
jobs, and we have what we need. Most of my blog entries focus on my own life
here in Greece; this month and next, I want to look into some other lives as
well.
According
to Greek social scientist Dr. Irene Sotiropoulou (in an interview at Chania’s
impressively renovated public library this month), there is a “hierarchy of
immigrants,” from the perspective of both the native-born and the foreign-born,
which separates generally well educated, middle- or upper-class Western
European and North American “expatriates” from often less educated, less
affluent “immigrants” from such places as Eastern Europe and the former Soviet
republics, with more recent and more impoverished immigrants of color from
Africa and the Middle East considered even lower on the hierarchy, perhaps
along with Greece’s neighboring Albanians, and more susceptible to racist and
xenophobic violence. Those lowest on the hierarchy are probably most likely to
be rounded up and sent to jail or detention centers without committing any
crime beyond lacking certain pieces of paper. (More on that in next month’s
blog.) Those higher in the hierarchy, on the other hand, may enjoy a relatively
good life here.Working in Greece for a Better Life
I
met Ioana, an energetic, friendly, intelligent young Romanian law student who
had won tennis tournaments in Romania, when we were looking for a part-time babysitter
for our first child. Although we thought we wanted a Greek babysitter to help
our daughter learn better Greek when her father wasn’t home, Ioana was the warm
and caring one who immediately sat down on the floor to play with our toddler,
unlike the polite but distant Greek kindergarten teacher or the unkempt young
Greek woman who came with her boyfriend and apologized for not having had time
to wash her hair. The best person for the job, Ioana cared for our children and
other kids on and off for years, bringing her son along to play with mine after
our boys were born just months apart, working at a café’s play place, teaching
tennis to children at a private school, and studying her Romanian law books at
night, returning to Romania to pass her exams with higher grades than the
students who attended classes. We respected each other’s educational
attainments, intelligence, and drive to learn. Although we never discussed the
terminology, Ioana might have been called an expatriate, since (as the word
implies) she always intended to return to Romania by the time her son was ready
for first grade. And she did so, escaping the Greek economic crisis and
returning to a home she and her husband had bought and furnished with money
earned in Greece. They came to Greece to save for their home and future, then
returned to their homeland so Ioana could practice law there, and we lost
contact.
So
it’s not only Western European and North American “expatriates” or “immigrants”
like me who are here in Greece because we choose to be. However, our reasons
for the choice are often very different from those of people from other parts
of the world. Ioana chose to be here in order to earn money to invest in a home.
Some young Ukrainian and Russian women I’ve seen in shops lately, now that we
have more wealthy Russian tourists visiting Crete, must have chosen to come to
earn money. So did Irina, a calm, kind, pleasant woman in her thirties who left
her two young children with their grandparents and came to Greece from the
country of Georgia seven years ago, when war with Russia had made life
difficult. Irina fled from the relatively quiet capitol, where Russian goods no
longer filled the empty supermarket shelves, and staples such as diapers were
available only thanks to American and German aid. She passed through a war-torn
village with its houses on fire, then made her way through Turkey to Greece by
bus. Like many of those who have not suffered intensely from the political or
religious persecution or violence that could give them the official designation
of “refugee” or “asylum seeker,” Irina and her husband came here because they
could not earn enough in their homeland. Due to the war with Russia, they
couldn’t get the wood necessary to run the carpentry business for which they
had borrowed money using the one-room house where they lived with their two
children as collateral. If they did not find a way to earn money—which they
could not do in Georgia then—they would lose their house and have no place to
live. Yet there does not seem to be much inclination, either here or in the U.
S., to grant “asylum” to any “refugees” running away from poverty,
overcrowding, or potential homelessness. But what could Irina and her husband
do?
Irina’s
husband applied for political asylum, since their country was at war, but due
to his lack of a good lawyer and connections, they believe, his claim was
rejected. So Irina paid a smuggler 3,000 euros to bring her to Greece—ironically,
that was considerably less than she would have spent to purchase a visa to come
here legally, as she would have liked to do. She did not have enough money to
pay the smuggler, but she was able to earn enough to repay him in Greece. I met
her when she was caring for the elderly, disabled parents of a Greek friend as
a live-in helper. She said she was grateful to have a job, clothing, and everything
she needs, glad to have the chance to earn enough to repay the bank loan and
purchase the materials to extend their single room into a comfortable house for
her family, and for another house for her children to use when they grow up. By
Georgian standards, Irina earned a very good salary here, enough that some of
her relatives complained that she was a rich person with an easy life, although
by Greek standards (never mind American ones!) she was a hard worker with a low
income and no vacation time. She sent almost all of her earnings back to
Georgia, where her husband had returned to live with their children and build
their house with the help of family and friends. While Irina missed her family
and was anxious to see them, she said she was content, with no complaints about
her treatment here. She came this far in order to be able to live happily with
her husband and family in the future, once she earned enough to provide homes
for them all.
Irina
said she was content, yet—even with my children here with me, not growing and
changing unbearably far away, even with far more of everything than my family
and I need--my own feelings are mixed. At this point, I consider myself an
American immigrant in Greece, and my children think of themselves as Greek,
since this is where they’ve lived all their lives (in spite of dual citizenship
and a few vacations in the U. S.). But if I had the chance to return to the
safe, peaceful, semi-rural, comfortably middle-class American life of roomy
houses and large, grassy yards shaded by giant sycamores to play under that I got
used to when I was growing up, I’d do it. (I frequently think about how much
difference it makes what we are used to.) The question is, does that exist any more?
If it does, is it accessible to me and my family, economically, professionally,
culturally, and socially? I know my memories are heavily colored by nostalgia,
and I am repeatedly, deeply disturbed by all the reports of shootings, bigotry,
inequality, drug abuse, and college debt (to name just a few) in the U. S., so
I am no longer sure where my place is—apparently a common problem for those of
us who live outside our homelands. And of course the question of the best place
for my bicultural, bilingual children and my multilingual, highly educated
Greek husband could be a different story—except that it can’t, right now, so it
has to be a story of compromise and continued adaptation. But not as extreme a
compromise as Irina’s; as I keep reminding myself, we are fortunate enough to have
the opportunity to work out our story together.
I
am fully aware that the country I grew up in and the peaceful, prosperous life
I knew as a youth remain far more accessible to me than any peace or comfort in
their homeland can be for most of the millions of refugees, asylum seekers, and
other less fortunate migrants fleeing into Europe these years. I felt isolated
when I came to Greece, in spite of my Greek husband’s efforts, but he, his new
co-workers, and my helpful new neighbors helped me adapt, while my previous
year in Athens and my earlier trips to Greece helped to train me for my life
here. My education helped prepare me for difference and change (as well as the
comfort of books and online resources); my class, new connections, and white
skin smoothed the way for a kind welcome from those to whom I was introduced.
(It took more time for me to befriend grocery clerks, mail carriers, and
neighbors with no clue about who I am, but some polite words and smiles and an
occasional introduction from a new friend eventually did the trick with many of
them.) It felt like a big deal to pack and prepare for my momentous move
overseas, and then to extricate myself from our piles of boxes in a
neighborhood where I could understand very little of what people said. But my
Greek husband D was always here to help me, and it wasn’t hard to get here.
When we came, a law granting financial support for the repatriation of well educated
Greeks like D even enabled us to pay for help with packing and fly business
class for once in our lives.Over the Mountains on Foot, With Small Children
For
Elisavet, a generally cheerful, hard-working, efficient Albanian, it was an
entirely different story. In 2002, Elisavet first crossed the mountains between
Albania and Greece on foot, with her husband, her year and a half old son, and
a group of other Albanians desperate enough to get to a country where they
could find jobs that they paid a smuggler 1000 euros to lead them through the
mountains, through the waist-high waters of a river, and to a bus—which Greek
police boarded to arrest them and take them to jail (even the toddler!) for a
day and a night before returning them to Albania. Their 1000 euros lost, their
passports stamped “entry forbidden for 5 years,” they were sent back to the
country where Elisavet’s mother received 50 euros for her monthly pension, a
total of 5 euros per day was (and still is) a typical wage for 12 hours of hard
work, a loaf of bread cost 1 euro, and a kilogram of meat cost 10. In that land
where electricity was available for two hours in the morning and two hours at
night, so winter heat came from burning wood, a sick, malnourished child told
the doctor that he’d last eaten meat at a wedding celebration years ago.
Elisavet
rightly laughed at my complaints about being crowded with a family of four in a
three-bedroom apartment, lacking the study, guest room, basement play areas,
and large yard I grew up with. Her amazingly tolerant response was so good
natured that I only belatedly learned the details about her past that led me to
realize just how foolish and ignorant my complaints must have sounded to her. Before
Elisavet left Albania, she and her husband and two sons slept in one bedroom,
while her in-laws slept on couches in the only other room in the house. And
that was better than Elisavet’s previous living conditions, where eleven
extended family members slept in a one room house at night and worked in a
taverna all day, or her sister’s situation, where their family of eight slept on
the floor, and the father had to cross the border to earn money to pay for the
flour, salt, and rice bought on credit, so their children could have something
to eat. Some relatives in Greece--even those who relied on donations of
clothing and lived in what looked like relative poverty here--sent money to
help them buy food. Another hiked over the mountains to earn money to buy
clothes for the children which he then carried back to them on foot—I have no
idea over how many kilometers or miles. So what were they supposed to do?
In
2004 Elisavet and her family tried again to enter Greece, climbing into the
mountains by night, sleeping all day in a bean field, then hiking through the
mountains for another night with a group of Albanians that included their five
year old son, who struggled along on his own little legs most of the way (and
had trouble walking for months afterward, after all the strain on his small
body). Their twenty month old son had to be carried all the way, making it
impossible to take more than a few of the boys’ clothes and a pack of cookies
for the journey. (I cannot imagine having the strength to carry a child even a
fraction of that time or distance, even in the best of conditions.) Whenever a
vehicle approached, they jumped into the ditch to hide. Eventually, the
Albanians hid behind a herd of goats in a stinky truck. Elisavet had to cover
the mouth of her youngest son when police stopped the truck so they wouldn’t
hear his crying, which could have led to the loss of another 1000 euros that
could have been used to buy clothes and food, as well as another return to their
land of poverty. Elisavet was afraid she’d smother her son, and also afraid they’d
all be sent back again, as she nervously held her young son’s nose closed, then
held his mouth closed, then his nose, then his mouth. Before the police waved
the truck on so he could resume his constant, panicked crying, his face had
turned red. But he was all right, his brother’s legs recovered, and this time,
they made it into Greece. This is not a sob story or melodrama. This is real
life.
They’d
mailed their passports to Elisavet’s husband’s cousin in Athens to be sure to
avoid having them stamped “entry forbidden for 5 years” again. Making their way
to Athens, they picked up the passports and were able to take a ferry to Crete,
where her husband’s brother was already living, having found her husband a job
working with marble. Her husband was able to secure a work permit when he told
the authorities that his wife and small boys were here. She thinks they assumed
the family must have been here legally, not imagining they could make it over
the mountains with such young children. That was 2005, a year when some
immigrants “already” in Greece were given residence permits if they could
“prove” they had entered earlier--a year of the “regularization” of some
immigrants’ status--and that’s why many Albanians came over the mountains that
year. They were desperate to take advantage of the regulation, they wanted to
be legal residents here, and they needed to find jobs that could support not
only those in Greece, but those family members still struggling to survive in
Albania.
Shortly
after Elisavet’s arrival in an apartment next to the village supermarket, an
elderly Greek woman who’d seen her cleaning her balcony came to ask if Elisavet
wanted work. Elisavet didn’t know any Greek then, so she rushed to find a
pencil and paper and gestured to the woman to write down what she wanted, so
she could find out from her sister in law later. Learning that she’d been offered
work the next morning, Elisavet locked her small sons in the apartment with a
few toys, a blanket, and a sandwich and apprehensively entered the car with the
elderly couple, complete strangers whose language she could not understand. Well
before the end of the half hour drive to a hotel they owned, where they wanted
her to clean, she began crying with fear and uncertainty about what was going
on (as she told me later, laughing then at her understandable ignorance). Once
she understood her task, she cleaned all the rooms with an efficiency and determination
that must have impressed the Greek couple. That evening, when she was brought
home and paid for her work, she found her sons curled up in a blanket, asleep
on the floor together. Coming in and discovering that they had no furniture or
kitchen equipment, that grandmotherly Greek woman sympathetically touched
Elisavet’s cheeks and cried, “αγάπη μου,” agapi
mou, my love. And she did more: she soon found them much of what they needed,
and continued to employ Elisavet for four years, until she was well established
in Crete. I wonder if it was that same good, kind woman who led me to
Elisavet’s apartment when she learned that I was looking for someone to help me
with cleaning, after my mid-thirties pregnancy left me too tired to hold myself
to the high Greek housekeeping standard on my own, and I was fortunate enough
to be able to afford to pay for help.
Elisavet
and her family fared better here than many of their compatriots, but it wasn’t ever
easy for them. While her husband usually couldn’t find work, Elisavet worked
all the time. Like many of her compatriots, she cleaned hotels and houses, cooked
in a hot taverna kitchen, and worked in a shop—often all on the same day in the
summer, when she slept very little and only saw a beach on her way to work.
Although she could not afford to buy her son both clothes and shoes for his
birthday—only one of them--she spent thousands of euros a year to obtain the
documents necessary for her family to live and work in Greece legally. I asked
her how things were in Albania recently, compared to Greece, and at first she
said about the same: many, many Albanians who’d come to Greece returned to
Albania when they could no longer find work here due to the Greek economic
crisis. (News reports suggest that “about 20 percent of the Albanian population
in Greece returned [to Albania] between 2007-2012” [Some 180,000 Albanians left Greece for home in five years, report says]). But
then she revised her view, adding that the only place jobs were available in
Albania was the capital, Tirana; elsewhere, Elisavet said, there was nothing.
So while many mothers and children were returning to Albania, many fathers were
remaining in Greece, hoping to pick up at least some work now and then in order
to send much-needed money home, where families mostly ate what they could grow,
but couldn’t grow shoes for their children.
I
write at my desk in Crete, with the cicadas’ varying humming buzz in the
background. Their chorus can crescendo to a roar, but it is sometimes overpowered
by the fighter jets that drown out all other sounds on their extremely
expensive practice runs to maintain their readiness to defend Greek air space
in this world of constant wars, violence, crises, and poverty from which
migrants flee. Last week, when our electricity had been cut off for four hours,
I informed a friendly, elderly Greek neighbor who was surprised that he couldn’t turn on his air conditioning (in
that first week of temperatures into the mid and upper 90s) that the outage had
actually been planned and announced this time. He responded with the usual “υπομονή,”
eepomoNEE, patience. I nodded and replied with uncharacteristic, Greek-like
tolerance, “τί
να
κάνουμε,” TEE na KAnoomeh, what can we do? We
finished our Greek conversation with the usual “καλημέρα,” kaliMEra,
good morning; “στο
καλό,” sto kaLOH, literally to the good; and “να είστε
καλά,” na EEsteh kaLAH, may you be well. I know the
usual commonplace phrases among Greek neighbors, many of them related to
people’s health, since these neighborly comments are often directed at me. I usually
have electricity as well. I don’t have to flee for my life or that of my
children. Sometimes I succeed in feeling as fortunate and grateful as I should,
and sometimes I don’t. Appropriately grateful or not, next month I’ll write
about more migrants who have faced more difficulties than I could ever expect
to endure myself. Acknowledgements
I
am grateful to the Greeks and migrants who helped me gather information for
this blog, the Greek friends who took the photos of the kung fu demonstration
and of an immigrant caring for an elderly couple, and the Americans who
commented on a draft of this text. They know who they are. All migrants’ names
have been changed on my blog to help protect their privacy.
