Nothing is Certain Except Death and Taxes
Our
dressers and beds have been buried under piles of summer and winter clothes
lately. Greek closets are divided vertically, so one must shift all the winter
and summer clothes up and down as seasons change, and—for kids’ clothes—check
what fits and what doesn’t. Meanwhile, laundry never ends, with much of it hung
out to dry since many clothes sold here are not designed to go in dryers, and
many families don’t have them. Wall to wall carpeting is a rarity, possibly
because of all the blowing dust. So Greeks use large area rugs in the winter
and then wash, air dry, roll up, bag, and store them in the summer. Lots of
fun, generally for women. Of course, as an Albanian woman correctly pointed out
to me, such endless housekeeping projects are proofs of prosperity. Many of her
relatives have just two outfits, one to wear and one to wash, with so little
electricity in many villages that they have no washing machines, no
refrigerators, no irons, and hence less housework. Their challenge is to find
enough clothes, shoes, and food for their children.
Since
I have been spared that challenge, I feel obligated to read the news. Most of
us here in Greece are sick of hearing it, especially since so many articles
sound nearly the same. (If you don’t want to hear another word about it, go
ahead and skip to the next section; if you don’t live here, you don’t need to
know what I do.) Here is a one-paragraph summary of the news about Greece over the
past several months: the Greek finance minister and Prime Minister are
optimistic that Greece and its creditors will agree on reforms leading to a
final disbursement of bailout funding soon; the friendlier elements in the EU
say everyone is working hard to reach a good solution; the German finance
minister and those who agree with him assert that the Greeks must agree to more
reforms and cooperate more and faster; sympathetic commentators in the U. S.
and elsewhere point out the mistakes of the IMF, European leaders, and bankers and
say Greece needs leeway to reduce its humanitarian crisis and enable its
economy to grow; Greeks blame creditors for unreasonable demands, the lenders
blame the Greeks for failing to reach an agreement, different members of
Greece’s governing coalition make incompatible claims, and the IMF and the EU
seek different changes from Greece; Greece is struggling to pay its next debt
installment as well as public sector salaries and pensions; without another
loan disbursement, the government will run out of money in one or two weeks or
months; Greeks who still have savings remove more money from their bank
accounts; Greece will or will not default on its debt and will or will not remain
in the Eurozone. Nothing is certain except death and taxes, but ordinary people
go about their business as well as they can, feeling powerless to determine the
course of their country’s future.
As
Pantelis Boukalas wrote, Greeks find it irrational “that they are being forced
to continue, with little change, a course of treatment that has already been
proved to be responsible for sky-high unemployment, frozen growth, the cancer
of business closures and a rise in suicides, acknowledged by international
organizations” (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly). A
disturbing New York Times article
describes the tragic circumstances facing many Greeks. For example, at the
nation’s largest (125,000 student) public university, three quarters of the
budget has been slashed since the crisis started. In Athens suburbs, the
wealthy are paying the police for protection. And at least one surgeon worked
20-hour days for a month until his exhaustion endangered his patients. His
hospital’s director, Theodoros Giannaros, works similarly long hours for 1,200
euros a month rather than the 7,400 he used to receive, with a hospital budget cut
from 20 million euros to only 6 million and 200 doctors treating twice as many
patients as 250 did in the past. Greek public hospitals got just 43 million
euros from the government in the first four months of 2015, as opposed to 650
million during the same period a year ago. The cheap surgical gloves used at
one hospital sometimes break during surgery. “Greece has been forced by its
creditors to cut spending by €28 billion — quite a sum in a €179 billion
economy,” equivalent to $2.6 trillion in the U. S. economy. As Mr. Giannaros
says, “Maybe the crisis makes us better people — but these better people will
die if the crisis continues”—like his son, who committed suicide recently (With Money Drying Up, Greece Is All but Bankrupt). Enough
is enough. This austerity is literally killing people. I do not want to hear
any more talk about the “sacrifices” of the Greek people; human sacrifice
belongs to ancient times, not the present.
I
am often reminded that Greeks are so right to emphasize the importance of good
health in their daily lives and their most common greetings: they say “ya,” or
“γεια,” which also means
“health,” for hello, hi, goodbye, and bless you (after a sneeze). They tend to
say “may you be well” instead of “you’re welcome” in response to thanks, they
constantly ask if you’re well, and they often end discussions of how things are
with “let us have [good] health,” clearly emphasizing that that’s what’s most
important. When I talk with a neighbor whose struggle with her aging husband’s
emphysema-related infirmity and complete dependence on her ended recently in his
death, or with an elderly woman who doesn’t know whether her legs will support
her when she needs to stand up and walk to the bathroom, or if she’ll fall
down, and when I read of thousands killed in Nepal earthquakes and “Five billion people [who] 'have no access to safe surgery,'” I see
how much the Greek emphasis on health makes sense. Of course, since the current
economic crisis has reduced many Greeks’ access to adequate healthcare and
medicine, the importance of good health becomes even clearer: let us be well, να είμαστε καλά, because if we’re not,
we may be in serious trouble here.
In “Suffering Being a Greek Taxpayer,” Thanos Tsiros provides downright shocking statistics
about the high taxes and social insurance contributions required of Greeks,
starting with the highest contribution among OECD countries for a worker of
modest income (earning 1,440 euros gross per month) with two children, who is
taxed at a rate of 43.4%, and leading up to the taxes on gasoline (62.66%) and
cigarettes (up to 90%). (The article is in Greek; use Google translate if you like.) With businesses facing a sales tax (called VAT here) of 23%
on their products, plus an income tax of 26%, they end up losing about half of
their “income” to taxes. The OECD calculates that a worker with two children
who smokes, drives, and is supposedly earning 40,000 euros per year actually
returns 61% of that to the government, once we add in taxes on property, car,
gasoline, and cigarettes, on top of the general sales tax. These taxes, some of
the highest in the world according to experts’ studies, provide tremendous
incentive for both extensive smuggling and the world-famous tax evasion in
Greece—which is actually not that high, comparatively speaking, as I wrote last
month. Yet Greece’s creditors want the Greek government to raise taxes even
more! Are they really looking at the numbers they claim to want to see? For most
of us here, both statistics and true stories about human beings continue to
confirm that Greeks need more relief and hope rather than more or higher taxes.
On April 9, also known as Holy
Thursday, I was astonished by two things: a brief, very rare hailstorm here in
Crete, and a report that “the IMF has made €2.5 billion of profit out
of its loans to Greece since 2010. If Greece does repay the IMF in full this
will rise to €4.3 billion by 2024” (IMF has made €2.5 billion profit out of Greece loans)! Was
that the goal? To impose misery on Greek people in order to build up International
Monetary Fund cash reserves? I’d never thought of the IMF as a for-profit
organization. The other week, Greece used IMF money to pay the IMF, and the
government has been trying for months to get the last installment of the
bailout funds so it can pay back a few more installments of a debt worth about
180% of its GDP. This is ridiculous. Greece needs debt forgiveness, since its
debt is way beyond sustainable.
So
far, life in Crete, a relatively prosperous island far from Athens, has
continued almost as usual for those of
us who still have adequate income—but not for the new beggars outside the
supermarkets, those who have closed their businesses or lost their jobs, or the
refugees waiting here in limbo. However, life may change for all of us, since
the Greek government seems more likely to run out of money, default on its debts,
and leave the Eurozone than it ever has before. We really don’t know, though. Last
month, an economist who doesn’t have to live through whatever may happen in
Greece came up with another catchy little term: Grimbo. That’s what we seem to
be in, since the Grexit forecast in 2012 and the Grexident or Graccident
discussed in recent months still haven’t materialized (Grexit is so 2012. Citigroup introduces 'Grimbo' to crisis lexicon). I am
not amused.
Most
Greeks are not amused, either. A gynecologist says the government is making a
mess of the healthcare and education systems, for example by forbidding
gynecologists to prescribe breast ultrasounds and mammograms under the national
insurance plan, although they are expected to examine the results. She’d like
to leave Greece for the sake of her teenage children, but her husband is too
attached to his land to go. A gas station attendant suggests that it might have
been worth Greece leaving the euro in 2010, but now it would do no good, and no
one in Greece wants to do it, so (he says) it won’t happen. He argues that
we’re much better off in Crete, where jobs as farm laborers are available for
those who really want them, than people are in Athens, where there just aren’t
enough jobs. A widowed grandmother believes the current government doesn’t know
enough about what needs to be done, so its leaders say one thing but do
something else. She is exasperated by the latest public transport strikes. We
had a few months’ break from strikes after this coalition government was
elected, but now the strikes are back.
They’re back partly
because the government’s popularity has finally begun to decrease after months
of unsuccessful negotiations with the European Commission, the European Central
Bank, and the IMF, formerly known as the troika, then the institutions,
creditors, or (with the addition of the European Stability Mechanism) the
Brussels Group. The government’s falling popularity was apparent in the ferry
workers’ and railway workers’ strike on the major travel date of Labor Day (the
first of May here) and in mayors’ angry reactions to the federal government’s
demands that local cash reserves be transferred to the central bank to pay
salaries, pensions, and debts. It was clear in the elementary school teachers’
union’s anger that the government did not consult it about educational reforms,
and of course it was evident in polls.
In February, 72% of
those surveyed approved of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and finance minister
Yanis Varoufakis’s negotiating strategy; in late April, only 45.5% approved,
and that had decreased to 35% by mid May, according to one source (Labor minister sees deal within coming days). However,
a different “poll conducted in May by Public Issue for the pro-government
newspaper Avgi, shows 54 percent backing the SYRIZA-led government's handling
of the negotiations” (Greeks back government's red lines, but want to keep euro), and far
more would vote for SYRIZA than for the conservative centrist New Democracy,
the second most popular political party. Since a majority of Greeks still wants
to remain in the Eurozone, even if that means compromising with lenders and
continuing or even adding to the austerity measures and high taxation SYRIZA
had vowed to end, what will happen here is uncertain—aside from death and
taxes, both of which are constantly on the minds of my generation as we lose
our income, our parents, and the grandparents in our neighborhoods.
Holidays and Hopes, Flowers and Fruits, a Local Shepherd, and Everyday Heroes
Most
Greeks do still celebrate holidays, however. So we enjoyed a traditional Easter
feast with friends on a lovely sunny day after a very cold, windy Holy Week
kept some away from church services they would generally attend. Once again
this Easter, I was struck by the way this holiday is like an American Christmas
in several ways: in terms of its importance, the two-week vacation, the
ever-present holiday wishes, and—even now--the commercialism. Here, there is
more fasting (although it varies from nothing to everything) and more emphasis
on the religious reason for the holiday. For example, after Easter, outside a
café in Chania I saw a chalk board with a beer company’s logo displaying the
typical Easter and post-Easter greeting among friends and family: ΧΡΙΣΤΌΣ
ΑΝΈΣΤΗ, or CHRIST IS RISEN! (That was followed by ΧΡΟΝΙΑ ΠΟΛΛΑ ΜΕ ΥΓΕΙΑ, or MANY
YEARS WITH HEALTH—also very typical wishes at any Greek holiday.)
However,
there is also so much shopping for so many gifts, just like an American
Christmas: Easter cookies and breads, wine, chocolate eggs or bunnies, clothes
and shoes for children. Godparents always give kids outrageously expensive
Easter candles called lambadas, which they light at church. These lambadas are
either lavishly decorated with ribbons or attached to additional gifts, such as
watches, bracelets, little dolls, small musical instruments, or even—in an
elaborate set of boxes—Hotwheels cars and toys! I liked our local soup
kitchen’s idea of selling some beribboned candles for 8 euros to raise money
for food for the hungry, but the elaborate attachments and far more excessive
prices of the candles sold in stores do not appeal to me. Since they are not part
of a tradition I grew up with, they just appear wasteful in my eyes--unlike
household Christmas decorations. I know such an unfair judgment involves
acculturation vs. prejudice against what I’m not used to. Better to condemn the
wastefulness of Christmas decorations, too—as I did when I heard about the
millions of dollars spent on them by New York companies—but I’m too attached to
my own old, modest ones, which represent a strong link to the childhood, family,
and first home about which I’m very nostalgic. As Tevye sang in Fiddler on the Roof, “Tradition,
tradition! Tradition!”
Looking
over photos of our Greek Easter gathering, including some of gorgeous eggs dyed
with onion skins alongside the traditional red eggs, I found dozens of pictures
of my son playing with the snails we found in the three heads of lettuce a
neighbor gave us from her garden after I took her a few outgrown clothes for
her sons (in yet another instance of the exchange economy we live in today and/or
the generosity of Greeks). We had almost enough for a snail meal to go with our
salad, but my son was more interested in playing with and feeding the snails
than in eating them. He built them a wall of lettuce, but that was too easy for
them to scale, so he had to take them outside--especially after I discovered
that one had escaped to the top of the pepper shaker above the microwave.
Redbuds and daisies were flourishing at Easter.
By the end of April, the former had lost their blossoms, and the latter were
starting to fade in the increasingly hot sun that better suits the tall grasses
and lavender thistles that now predominate outside the sweet-smelling gardens
of roses, honeysuckle, geraniums, and jasmine. Several weeks ago, the olive
trees were blooming, their little clusters of tiny yellow-white flowers dropping
pollen on me. Crepe-paper like pink Cretan rock rose (or cistus) blossoms too
delicate to pick thrived on their hardy bushes all over the wild hills. When I
walked to my mailbox to pick up mail, I smelled the chamomile I crushed underfoot.
Clumps of daisies created wild gardens like carefully planted hedges in empty
lots and by the roadsides. Twice, a neighbor invited me to climb her ladder and
pick her loquats, and the first time I took almost as many photos as loquats. Interesting
view up there, closer to the sky, next to a bee on a citrus flower, with loquat
and citrus tree branches intermingling.
May
Day is a real holiday here: no school, stores closed, workers’ marches. I
celebrated in a traditional Greek way by gathering heaps of flowers and making
May wreaths and bouquets. If we determined its date botanically, May Day would
have to come to Crete in March or April, because by May 1 many of the wild
orchids and all the anemones had long since disappeared, the crown daisies were
beginning to dry up, and the field gladiolas were becoming rarer in the hot
sun. The shrub verbena that grows wild in empty lots here was beginning to
flourish, but its tiny clusters of multi-colored blossoms drop off the stems
very easily. So I had to turn to the huge geranium bushes outside untenanted
yards, take a few roses from homes used only in August, and beg a few fragrant
blossoms from trees and gardens (including some lilacs, which I rarely see here).
That provided plenty for a wreath for our family, plus one for our disabled,
housebound elderly neighbor and his devoted wife, who spent nearly every minute
caring for him. I am so glad I took the spring flowers into their house twice a
week this year, since it turned out to be the last spring he would live through,
and a smile lit up his face when he saw the flowers.
I
had no clue how to make a May wreath when I first tried years ago, but now I
take pride in managing with all-natural ingredients, including long-stemmed
wild carrots and other flowers with flexible stems, plus a few honeysuckle
vines, wrapped around and around and tucked in for the base of the wreath. I
know I need enough of the bright flowers that last a while if I want a wreath
worth looking at for more than an hour. (Since my amateur floristry won’t last
much longer than that, I take a lot of photos as soon as I’m done.) I spent
many hours with flowers on May Day, with my kids and my mother in law helping
part of the time. I was quite tired afterwards, especially once I’d also climbed
a ladder and wall to remove the last loquats from my neighbor’s tree, but I was
also proud of the floral creation I now feel compelled to produce yearly. That
is one labor-intensive Greek custom I don’t mind adopting.
Walking
along a dirt road between olive groves and uncultivated areas, a friend and I
spoke with an older shepherd who seems to know the name and use of all the wild
plants. He told us about one that can cause severe diarrhea when brewed as a
tea (useful for pranks among young men when mixed with wine, he said), others
that can be dried and used as seasonings (both thyme and a related herb called
throombi here), more with different medicinal qualities he couldn’t quite
remember, several plants whose roots or stems are edible, the spiny acanthus
that lasts nicely in a dried bouquet but poked us when we tried to cut and
carry it, and a scary looking thorny plant he broke off to show how its sap
looked like blood on the skin. (According to local tradition, that one was used
for Jesus Christ’s crown of thorns.) The shepherd also told us that the area
where we were walking used to be the village of Tholaria, before pirates came
and killed all the villagers. The shepherd told us about caves where the
villagers kept their goats, and we realized that we’ve seen remnants of the
village reservoirs in olive groves where we search for wildflowers. He said there
are also grinding stones where the villagers crushed olives to make a cup or
two of oil. My friend and I think the shepherd could survive on the land with
his sheep and goats, if necessary, given the extent of his knowledge. With or
without the euro, he’ll make it.
On April 21, Dr. Dimitris Makreas spoke with 150 or 200 members of the small community where he works in the government-sponsored free clinic. What began as a talk about healthcare soon turned into an outpouring of gratitude and respect for this doctor, who was brutally beaten by people believed to be racist thugs in March, after he was seen standing next to a migrant who had been harassed. Audience members spoke of Dr. Makreas frequently working hours of unpaid overtime in order to accommodate all the patients who needed care. One older woman said his mother should be proud; another called him the best of men. It is nearly incomprehensible that anyone would want to attack this good doctor, unless the attack was prompted by professional jealousy or feelings of inadequacy in the face of so much goodness. During Greece’s current political and economic crisis, after that cruel attack, the community formed an oasis of love as audience members expressed their support, reminding one woman of old times in Greece when ties of gratitude and respect were more important than monetary payment for professional services. Ready to put the attack behind him, Dr. Makreas enjoys a wealth of devotion. I see more hope for Greece in the “ordinary,” caring human beings who reach out to people in their community, wherever they may come from, than in the national and international political and economic negotiations that appear to lack adequately skilled humanitarian diplomacy.
