Another Winter of Our Discontent—With the Floral Glories of a Cretan Spring

The Numbers Game: Most Greeks Are Still Losing

  

We hear reports of some encouraging numbers related to the Greek economy, such as last year’s primary surplus (not including the debt, of course), this year’s tourism statistics to date, and now a current account surplus. However, the reasons for the latter are not encouraging, since it’s partly that Greeks can’t afford imports any more—they’re down 54 percent compared to 2008!--and partly that prices and wages have been cut so much that Greece has become quite attractive to foreign tourists (Tourism boom drives Greece to first current account surplus on record). With the Greek economy highly dependent on tourism (for more than 16% of the GDP; see Island Hopping), the economy clearly benefits, but meanwhile most Greeks are suffering. The Press Project reports that according to Efimerida ton Sintakton, “[t]he workforce in Greece shed 1/4th of their income in just three years. Salaries went back to 2006 levels.” Even the conservative/centrist Kathemerini admits that while Greece’s credit rating is improving, unemployment increased “[f]rom 7.2 percent before the recession in 2008 … [to] 27 percent in the third quarter of 2013 [and 27.5% in the fourth quarter], giving Greece the worst job rating among the 34 advanced economies in the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.” And not only that: “More than 70 percent of the unemployed have been out of work for more than a year, leaving most to rely on charity after losing monthly benefit payments and health insurance.” The leader of the Athens Medical Association estimates that about one quarter of the people who need health insurance lack it (Greece: Numbers improve, problems worsen in 2014). That means they can’t afford to pay for preventive or basic health care. The law only requires that they be given free emergency care until their life is out of danger, and they may even have charges for emergency care added to tax bills (Metropolitan Community Clinic at Elliniko in Athens provides a lifeline for desperate Greeks). Unemployed Greeks did not lose health insurance so quickly in the past. The financial crisis, and the Troika's and government's decisions about how to handle it, harm the health of people in Greece. For example, researchers have presented evidence of “rising rates of HIV, tuberculosis, depression and even infant deaths” (Greek financial crisis tied to worsening health).

At the same time, half of all “small and medium-sized Greek enterprises [are] facing the threat of closure within 2014, while for very small businesses the risk concerns two out of three,” and this is on top of the 200,000 businesses that have already closed since 2009 (One in two SMEs at risk of closure). Kathemerini has also reported that industrial production has decreased about 30% from its pre-recession high point, 40% of households include someone who is unemployed, most of those receive no unemployment benefits, and almost all households have lost much of their income during the last three years, with the average reduction nearly 40%. So it is hardly surprising that Greeks have not paid over 9 billion euros’ worth of the vastly increased taxes they were asked to pay last year. I do, however, find it surprising that the troika recently “asked Greece to lower wages for new civil servants and to remove automatic pay rises for Greeks earning the minimum wage in the private sector” (Troika pushing for lower salaries). Greece already has far lower minimum and average salaries than Spain, France, or the UK to go with notably higher taxes on food “and other basic goods” (Prices lower, but households still struggling). More people are starting to acknowledge that the troika’s ideas weren’t so good for Greece. For example, “[m]embers of a European Parliament committee investigating the role of the troika and the impact of its policies in Greece … said the troika had been ‘necessary and right’ for Greece at the outset but that ‘irresponsible decisions’ were taken in the process with painful social repercussions” (MEPs herald end to troika, look to debt restructuring). And yet it’s not clear that such decisions will be reversed, rather than having more problematic changes heaped on top of them.

For a neighbor who is a social worker at the state unemployment office, those “painful social repercussions” are as evident as they are to the unemployed people to whom she must apologize day after day because she has no jobs for them. There are still many empty storefronts and unbought houses around Chania. Real estate prices are down 32% to 50% in Greece, but the houses that are large enough for my family, by middle-class American standards, are still too expensive for people living on a Greek salary, since (especially on the islands) their owners tend to rent or sell them to wealthier foreigners who bring money from outside the country. Greece is a great place for foreigners to invest in real estate right now, and the government is encouraging that with offers of residence permits to those who buy properties worth 250,000 euros or more, but this makes it even more difficult for Greeks to buy homes, given lower salaries and higher taxes. Yes, this can bring much-needed money into the country’s economy, but many Greeks regret that so much of their country—including public properties and state-run businesses--is being sold off to the highest bidder. I keep asking how the troika and the Greek government expect people to pay higher taxes while buying more expensive gas and heating oil with fewer jobs, lower wages, and fewer benefits (hence, higher medical costs), but the answer seems to be that they just don’t think about it enough to realize that it may work for the rich, but not for average people. Everyone here is sick and tired (often quite literally) of all the unreasonable demands for “sacrifices” from wealthy politicians perceived as unlikely to make any themselves.  

Dying Appliances and Crashing Cars


Meanwhile, we can’t buy products that last, so we have to keep spending more to replace them—“we” being the lucky ones who can afford to do so. I cannot remember a new refrigerator, washing machine, dryer, faucet, or dishwasher appearing in our house during the 18 years I was growing up in the U. S., but we had to replace all of these, plus a computer and oh so many plumbing parts, in a decade here in Crete. When we complain, the salespeople and plumbers join us in regretting that appliances and plumbing fixtures just aren’t made to last any more. The 1970s era dinosaur of a TV that we got from D’s parents, on the other hand, lived all the way through last year. We’ll see how long its flimsy little replacement holds out. 

Nor are cars expected to endure. We’ve managed to hang onto ours, but the repair people know us well, since strangers keep running into our car: once while parked outside the village butcher’s, once at a stop sign across the street from that, once on a busy street in Chania, once in the botanical park parking lot. The other week, when I came out of my kung fu class (in Greek, Chinese, and English, with a teacher whose parents came from Russia), I almost stepped on the driver’s side mirror of my car, which a reckless driver had knocked right off, into the wide road. Result: more time and money wasted thanks to hit and run carelessness which our insurance does not cover. The only time I was (perhaps) at fault was when a motorcycle was coming at me right on the center line of a busy city street, and another driver was trying to parallel park on my right; I slightly scraped the parking car as I swerved in a slight panic to avoid the motorcyclist (who naturally continued on his merry way). That’s six minor collisions in eleven years in Greece, vs. one little dent in nearly two decades of driving in North America. 

And it’s so ironic: Greeks are all required to complete driving lessons before getting their license, while Americans aren’t. A lot of good it does. Partly because the roads are too narrow, the parking lots too small and too rare, the drivers too little concerned about inconveniencing anyone else by stopping and parking as they wish, partly because many people drink and drive drunk, and partly, I think, because there’s no visible police presence (at least in our part of Crete) during the course of an ordinary day or night (unless there’s a protest march). Earlier this month, I was struck by the additional irony of a car parked right in front of someone’s garage (in spite of its no parking sign) just outside a private school (frontistirio), and next to graffiti proclaiming “the only school is the street,” followed by an anarchy sign. In the streets, drivers quickly learn that speed limits are merely suggestions, double lines on roads serve as an extra lane for motorcyclists rather than an indication of a no passing zone, stops are optional at a red light or stop sign (especially for motorcycles), and helmets may be worn (if at all) on elbows instead of heads. (Quite a contrast with southern Delaware, where 25 mph means exactly 25 mph, or you’ve got an expensive ticket, and we were pulled over because the light above our license plate had burned out.) We have been extremely lucky: no one was hurt in any of our relatively light collisions, and the damage, while adequately troublesome and expensive, was not truly serious. On the other hand, there have been terrible collisions in our community, with at least two university students--one from our neighborhood--killed in motorcycle accidents in the past year. I’m surprised more people aren’t seriously injured and killed in collisions here. 

Everyday Life and Carnival Parties


For most of us, life goes on. People work, shop, protest, socialize, fish, attend classes, gather for holiday meals, and go on strike (especially if they’re pharmacists). People see doctors if they can afford them, manage to get appointments with those who still accept their insurance, or have time to wait for the very busy free ones; they sign petitions for more free doctors, protest plans to dispose of chemical weapons in the Mediterranean Sea, discuss the politics of the current government in Kiev, or look for bargains at the farmer’s market near the huge hotel that’s being demolished since it was illegally built next to historic Venetian walls in the Old Town of Chania. 

I haven’t heard anyone expressing concern about the waste of a perfectly good building due to the corruption that allowed it to be built in an inappropriate place. And I still seem to be almost the only person complaining that many, many middle-class families spend 1,000 euros every two months for two children’s private evening schools to supplement public schooling in the mornings that no one expects to provide them with an education adequate for entry into a Greek university. But maybe everyone else focuses on the Greek economy’s inability to support thousands and thousands of unemployed private school teachers in the unlikely event of public education being improved enough to make supplementary lessons unnecessary.


There was no parade in our village for the pre-Lenten carnival this year (probably because gas is far too expensive, at about 1.70 euros per liter, which is about ¼ of a gallon), but neighborhood groups organized a party at the town hall, and our very active school parents’ organization planned another one at a restaurant that donated its space. The latter featured the usual crowds of parents sitting at tables, the expected rumba dancing exhibition, and the typical extensive potluck buffet with homemade cheese pies, cakes, pizza, cookies, popcorn, and (this time) even meat. This year, the smallest boys dressed as little animals, with Spider Men at the next level, followed by camouflaged soldiers, Ninjas and pirates, with older boys typically bums or uncostumed (and it wasn’t always clear which was which). Girls’ costumes ranged from tiny princesses in frilly, full pink skirts and lovely little ladies in the red and black of Spanish dancers, to a slightly older cross-dressed Charlie Chaplin and a pirate, with more vampires in black than I’ve noticed before. Mothers painted animal faces while teachers led younger children in indoor games and dances, and older kids stood, walked, or frolicked below the giant eucalyptus trees outside, with a view of Souda Bay and the White Mountains in the background. 

Winter Into Spring: Water, Verdure, and Wildflowers

Winter came to Crete in the second week of March, which was much colder than February and even most of January. In February, my kids had rejected winter coats in favor of light jackets, but I insisted that they bundle up again for a week of cold northerly March winds that brought rain squalls and re-coated the barely white-topped White Mountains with more snow (which I hoped we could reach by car--but it wasn’t that far down). This year, we almost skipped winter (and the northeastern and midwestern U. S. seem to have received our share of frigidity on top of an extra dose of theirs). 

Ever since the rainy, humid season began around November, it’s been more like spring, with green grass and wood sorrel carpeting the olive groves and fields, and flowers blooming even earlier than usual. There was sometimes so much early morning humidity that the cars were as wet as if rain had just stopped, so I enjoyed some magical, misty mornings full of flowers and grasses lined with dewdrops. Now our spring has definitely returned, with a strong sun making the mid-60s feel much warmer. The lemon trees are loaded with so many ripe fruits that the neighbors can’t give them all away, and the Cretan oranges may have passed the peak of their sweetness since a colleague gave D a juicy bunch from his orchard a few weeks ago.
 

I was astonished to see wild carrot, which we called Queen Anne’s Lace in the Pennsylvania summers of my childhood, as early as January this year. The (mostly) purple and (occasionally) pink poppy anemones also began to appear in January, along with millions of bright yellow Bermuda buttercups (or wood sorrel). I could not believe how many anemones I encountered in a nearby meadow and adjoining olive grove this year—more than ever. They were first replaced by the most beautiful, plentiful crop of wild fuschia-colored butterfly orchids that I’d ever seen, and then by surprising numbers of the little ophrys plants (strange orchids) that always astonish me with their bizarre shape and insect-mimicking patterns. Butterflies land on the flowers, buzzing bees compete to touch them, and I hear the songbirds more often than I can see them pausing on branches. I noticed the first field of daisies in bloom last week, and we occasionally glimpse the brilliant red of poppies. Roadsides are also lined with the purple of mallow, the white of asphodel, the yellow of wood sorrel, mustard, and a Cretan version of the dandelion, as well as the imposing green and yellow of the bizarre giant fennel plants which tower above the shrubs like little trees, now decorated with lacy yellow balls and feathery green skirts, and even weirder before they bloomed. 

We have such different flowers and plants here than in the northeastern U. S.—or anywhere I’ve

been in North America, as far as I’ve noticed. Just a few examples whose names are also intriguing: phlomis or Jerusalem sage, French lavender, goat’s beard, spiny broom and Spanish broom, white mignonette, and white and pink cistus (the latter, with its crepe-paper-like blooms resembling wild roses, is also called a “rock rose”). I counted 42 different species blooming recently, just in and beyond my neighborhood here outside Chania—and I’m sure I’ve seen more species than that blooming in our area in recent weeks, since I collected 21 different species in one bouquet (picking only the most common flowers!) and keep noticing new flowers in bloom, including different types of orchids which I’d never seen before. I get so distracted by counting, picking, and photographing wildflowers that I forget I’m supposed to be walking briskly to exercise. I’m so addicted to wildflowers that there are generally two or three bouquets in our kitchen—sometimes four. Fortunately, given the state of the Greek economy and healthcare system, this is an inexpensive and relatively harmless addiction.  

Ancient Aptera
 
Impressed by all the roadside wildflowers he saw on his way back to Chania from Iraklio, D suggested we venture out of town in search of fields of wildflowers one weekend. (I told him we could find some just outside our neighborhood, but he was looking for more of an escape.) We chose the closest interesting candidate, the ancient city of Aptera, which is just 10 or 15 minutes’ drive beyond the port of Souda. In spite of its proximity, we hadn’t been there for years, and all I remembered were the striking Roman cisterns in a vast arched building; I’d totally forgotten about the 12^th century monastery, the Roman bath, the remnants of a 5^th century B. C. temple, or the 19^th century Turkish fortress nearby (which was locked this time). Excavation of an ancient amphitheater seems to be continuing, with the site unfortunately fenced off, but photos in a little monastery museum room suggest that it will be well worth a visit when it’s opened to the public. D was concerned that the expanse of tall grasses and wildflowers might house snakes, so we decided not to lead the kids back to all the remnants of ancient buildings. But we felt amply rewarded for our little journey by the immense arched cistern with reflections of its stone walls in the still, muddy water, and outside it, the unfamiliar wildflowers and grassy meadows on gentle slopes punctuated by ancient rock walls, with olive groves and tough shrubs farther down, and beyond those Souda Bay, with the White Mountains behind us. I discovered four or five species of wildflowers on that high plateau which I had never seen, including yellow pheasant’s eye and wild clary. Spring comes early to Crete, and now it should be here to stay!

 

 

Although I took the photos that appear on this blog, I am grateful to Vangelis Papiomitoglou (author, photographer) and Jill Pittinger (translator) for their work on the lovely book Wild flowers of Crete (Mediterraneo, 2006), which I purchased at the wonderful Botanical Park of Crete last year and used to identify wildflowers this year.

Christmas in Greece: Festivities, Feasts, Fires, and Fears

Leading up to Christmas in Greece, a mild season this year in Crete and Athens, poinsettia trees and cyclamen flowers bloom, community groups organize charity bazaars, schoolchildren stage performances during which parents talk, and schools offer parties featuring cheese pies and sweets, Santa and stories, crafts and (in our case) Cretan dances and Zumba. Christmas carnivals spring up in various city squares, parks, and stadiums, with colorful rides, giant bubbles, and seasonal activities for children, as well as opportunities for commerce by immigrants, Roma, and Greeks. Greeks gather at the homes of friends and family for reunions, reminiscences, gifts for the kids, food, and drink--and to share their pessimism about the future of Greece, complaining about high taxes and expenses, with salaries back at 2006 levels for those who still have jobs, and ever lower pensions. I have spoken with only one person who believes the current centrist coalition government is doing the right thing, and only one other person who believes the leftist SYRIZA (the main opposition party) can improve things. And those are the leading political parties in Greece, nearly tied in the polls--but with not even a quarter of respondents supporting either one.

 

Piraeus, or Pireas (the port city that runs into Athens), is really not where I wanted to spend this most home- and family-centered holiday (in my own American experience), partly because it's not a place where I can satisfy my very particular sentimental and aesthetic preferences for small colorful lights on large houseplants and live Christmas trees, plus the dozens of red and white candles my mother used to light all over our spacious living room, the menorah candles for Hanukkah, a fire in the fireplace (and no concern for smog), hot chocolate and Monopoly after ice skating and sledding or frisbee football, my mother's cooking and baking and our Christmas cookie decorating sessions: my all-American, intercultural, nostalgic memories, not even completely marred by my parents' divorce, with extended family so far-flung across our large continent that we adopted dear friends as family to share holidays with us. Of course, this first Christmas and New Year’s after my mother died were bound to be difficult. I miss her, as well as my father, and I haven’t yet gotten used to her absence.

But here we are with my mother in law (one of the most thoughtful, accommodating, unselfish people I know) in Piraeus for the typically long school vacation: more than two weeks this year, to encompass everything from Christmas Eve through New Year's and then the celebration of the lights (Epiphany) and Agios Ioannis (Saint John's) day. And it was busy enough here with the shopping, children's gifts, kitchen cleanup, visiting with Greek family, and cooking (including my annual turkey soup with leftovers from the bird Greeks eat only at Christmas and New Year's, along with goat and pork) that I kept my nostalgic desires in check and just accepted the day for what it was, here and now, festive and celebratory in its own family- and food-centered Greek way.

While the White Mountains of Crete have been living up to their name, well covered with snow for weeks now, here in Piraeus on my Christmas morning walk it felt like fall, with mild temperatures and many trees still full of more yellow leaves than we tend to see in our part of Crete, with some crumbling underfoot as they used to back in Pennsylvania, except that here they mix with citrus trees in front of the few dilapidated and renovated neoclassical houses that remain, dwarfed between five to seven-story apartment blocks. A few boats decorated with lights add an interesting twist to the ubiquitous Christmas trees and scattering of Santas (and the large boat in Athens's central Syntagma Square provides an especially noteworthy return to Greek tradition this year after last year's bizarre, needlessly expensive scaffolding-light-and-noise monstrosity).

Once our company joined us, I witnessed an interesting Christmas dinner discussion of the accuracy of goat bone readers (like fortune tellers, or the readers of eggs and interpreters of coffee grounds left in a cup). A father claimed that the first initial of his then-future wife's name, the birth of their two sons, and the sons' first initials had all been correctly foretold by a Romanian woman, but his wife disagreed, and his son objected that such beliefs were un-Christian. A grandmother explained that the Orthodox Church allows such fortune telling on Saint George's day in April, and her son whispered to me that this was part of the church's attempts to reconcile the pagan and Christian beliefs of Greeks in early Christian times. I suppose I could have heard a similar conversation (which reminds me of Zora Neale Hurston) in some parts of the U. S., but I haven't been in the right place for it so far.

Young people in Greece sing their Christmas carols, or Calenda, in return for money, often accompanying themselves with triangles, on Christmas Eve morning and again on New Year's Eve morning and January 5, the day before Epiphany, which is known here as Fota, the festival of light and day for blessing the waters and boats (when a priest throws a cross into the freezing sea, and brave youths race to retrieve it). Sometimes we see wandering bands or accordionists playing carols or other music in the streets these days. What I'd never seen before was a little band of youths with two trombones, a clarinet, a trumpet, and a drum

marching through a small neighborhood "super"market as they played (and how they could do that, with the crowds in that small space, I don't know; I find it difficult to just make my way through some of the aisles to shop there when it's busy!). I hadn't ever seen (or heard) the Calenda played with plastic tubes of varying lengths, either, as groups of visitors did at the Eugenides Foundation's Interactive Science and Technology Exhibition Hall next to its digital planetarium last week. I played my part best in the carol with the same tune as "Jingle Bells," where I actually knew the rhythm. Then we watched a wonderful film about expeditions to Everest, which was the highlight of our visit, since some of the exhibits didn't work correctly, although others were fascinating. Our favorite was the air percussion room, where it sounded like we were playing drums, cymbals, and bells when we hit the air.

Actually, there was a great deal more energy, as well as far more people, when the Technical University of Crete hosted a science fair for elementary school students on December 7, with chemistry demonstrations using ordinary household materials such as baking soda, vinegar, eggs, water, oil, and dyes; small robotic dogs and soccer players that ran (awkwardly) and attempted goals (without any remote control); cell phones to tell when plants must be watered; illustrations and elementary discussions of mathematical models and fractals; computer-generated shadow puppetry; elementary students' exhibits of the water cycle and a volcano that erupted; and more demonstrations than anyone could visit in a few hours. What was most encouraging was that both children and parents were excited and impressed by the science, and with an estimated 3,000 visitors, it felt like the university was THE place to be on that Saturday afternoon! My son even delayed leaving for a birthday party in order to watch more of the chemistry demonstrations. I suppose that event was more impressive than the Athens museum both due to the enthusiastic, energetic efforts of hundreds of students and professors, and because Chania residents unaccustomed to access to a science museum really appreciated seeing something extraordinary.

More recently, we delayed our venture into central Athens to see what Christmas carnivals and activities might impress our children and to check out this year's lovely traditional decorations in Syntagma Square, because of concern about the severe smog created by the fireplaces and wood stoves used to heat homes. This is the result of heating oil prices that are drastically higher than a few years ago (and much higher than in New York and London), thanks to the government’s efforts to combat smuggling and to raise more of the money that the Troika demands, while salaries are so much lower than they used to be, and many families’ electricity has been cut off because they couldn’t pay their bills. There has been such a serious problem with air quality in Athens and some other Greek cities that children and elderly people were advised to stay indoors some days, and people were asked to stop using fireplaces. Since one teenager died and another couple's house burned down during recent attempts to heat homes with fires, more assistance has been offered to the most impoverished so they can afford to heat their homes more safely, but I don't know if the aid will reach enough people in time to prevent more tragedies. And southern Greece isn’t even very cold yet. We are fortunate; we are still able to pay our bills, even though D’s salary and benefits have been cut several times. I was not even bothered by the air quality in the city; nor did I notice a smell of smoke outside. Even so, each time I came in after going out at night, I was surprised to find that my hair smelled like a wood fire.

The government and its supporters claim that the economy is improving--but so they've been saying for some time, and many ordinary Greeks have yet to see evidence of this. Granted, Greece will have a primary surplus this year, and investors in government bonds will make a great deal of money, but this occurs at the expense of people who lack heat, electricity, homes, sufficient warm clothing and shoes, necessary health care, and/or adequate nutritious food, since the government and the Troika have acted less to promote ordinary people's well-being than to help banks, bonds, and the national economic numbers that are most important to the upper classes. It's true that some Greeks have enough money to rent little cars for small children or pedal-powered cars for families next to the extensive Paleo Faliro playgrounds and promenade by the sea, while others can afford the entry fees required for children's holiday activities that were free last year, when the city of Athens spent far more on Christmas, or pay for carnival rides. New exercise equipment for adults in Paleo Faliro, a new daycare center and toddlers' playground in Neo Faliro, and still

impressive metro stations such as the one in Kerameikos with its sculpted forest also imply a measure of prosperity. 

However, many small businesses are struggling to stay open, or closing, leaving many empty spaces for rent or destroyed by weather and vandalism. Tens of thousands of university students began their fall semester only in mid December due to staff strikes, and prisons suffer from such excessively overcrowded, unhygienic, barbaric conditions that they sound like they resemble the dungeons of the Dark Ages (Greek prison system collapsing – labeled 'inhuman'). Doctors serving Greek public servants, including teachers and professors,

have been striking for months, except for emergency treatment, leaving basic and preventive care unprovided for many who cannot afford to pay private doctors. The article about the "Council of Europe report: 10austerity imposed human rights abuses in Greece" provides a concise overview of the ways hastily applied, inadequately considered austerity measures threaten the health and well-being of Greeks and other Europeans with their negative effects on pensions, health care, workers' rights,

unemployment rates, and freedom of expression, rather than “Safeguarding human rights in times of economic crises” (as the report is titled). The article suggests that Greek leaders' plans to satisfy the Troika's demands to save money often end up conflicting with the Treaty on European Union and the European Social Charter. On subways and sidewalks, wandering Roma children with accordions  and collection cups compete with Greek beggars' stories of hardship, prompting some handouts, some silence, and one well-dressed middle-aged woman’s notation of an unemployed father's address, with the comment that she wanted to send him something.

On the other hand, some free-spirited Greek youths demonstrated their exuberance with back flips and twists into the Paleo Faliro sand the other day. And the impressive wall painting of two blue hands cupped below a flaming euro coin (pictured in my October 22, 2012 blog) outside the Theatro kato ap' tin Gefira (Theater Under the Bridge) near the Olympiakos soccer stadium in Neo Faliro has been replaced by a possibly more hopeful image of a lit candle. I don't know if that refers to the Christmas holiday, or to increased hope for the Greek economy and the country as a whole. In any case, we shall see whether the midnight firecrackers and phone calls of New Year’s Eve, the Vasilopita or New Year’s cake, with one piece set aside for strangers, and the family gatherings over holiday dinners foreshadow a more joyful, caring, generous and hopeful year for Greece in 2014. We finally visited the nearby Archaeological Museum of Piraeus for the first time yesterday and were impressed with its small but often impressive collection before beginning a long seaside walk past the boats and harbors of Piraeus, so that was a good start for us. May it be a happier new year for those who struggled in 2013.

Thanksgiving in Greece: Gratitude, Frustrations, and the Rebirth of a Cretan Autumn

Thanksgiving is not, of course, a holiday in Greece. The Greeks who have heard of it refer to it with the Greek for "Day of Thanks" when I remind them. It's hard to find turkey, which Greeks tend to eat only at Christmas or New Year's, and I've never seen fresh cranberries here at all. Last year, I found a frozen turkey at one supermarket. Another year, we just had chicken. This year, we tracked down turkey breast fillets and large drumsticks still attached to the thighs--which worked out fine once I figured out how long to bake them. I also made an apple pie with olive oil crust. In any case, Thanksgiving in Greece feels nothing like the big holiday of my American childhood, with family and almost-family gathered for our traditional meal, complete with stuffing, mashed potatoes, fresh cranberry sauce, fruit pies, and either Frisbee football games or ice skating, depending on how the weather was in southeastern Pennsylvania at the time. (Or maybe the skating was at Christmas.) My nostalgia is stronger than ever this year, perhaps because I can't even talk with my mother. And the run-up to the Greek holiday season, with its profusion of common (Orthodox saints') name days (Maria, Katerina, Stelios, Nikos, Anna, etc.) all the way up to Christmas and beyond leaves me dissatisfied, on the fringes of this culture's celebrations rather than embraced by the comforts of my own quirky family traditions. My attempts to introduce those in my home here are hampered by time constraints, kids' demands, travel plans, and sometimes a lack of energy born of homesickness and grief.

I am thankful, though, that we don't live in Athens, but in the tourist country of Crete, where the recession has led to only a 14% reduction in business income, as opposed to the average 29% reduction in Greece as a whole, according to local economists, and the effects of the economic crisis are also milder than in many parts of Greece. The increase in crimes of hate and desperation, in impoverishment and despair, in hunger and suicide, are not as obvious here, although they certainly exist. (So the Roma family who set up a supper camp in a city parking lot, cooking a pot of food on a makeshift stove while the mother combed the daughter's hair, was not asked to give up their parking spaces, at least while I was nearby.) I am thankful that we don't live in any of the five towns in northern Greece where schools were closed last week due to the cold, since there was no money to pay for heating oil for them until the Interior Ministry decreed that emergency funding be provided. (We have not yet turned on our heat this year; I am thankful that we can wait even longer than many Cretans, since the apartment above us insulates our home.) I am thankful that our teachers, professors, and administrative staff have left most of the schools open most of the time this fall, unlike those in many parts of Greece (including some major universities, where the fall semester still has not started--and may or may not be starting next week). I am thankful that I'm not stuck in the middle of, or struggling to escape, the Syrian civil war or the post-typhoon destruction in the Philippines, that I'm not floundering in Mediterranean waters after smugglers took all I had in exchange for a sardine's spot on a small, overloaded boat of refugees who may or not make it to the promised land of Europe. I am thankful that my husband, children, and I are healthy enough that we don't generally need to spend hundreds of euros on doctor visits and medications no longer covered by our insurance, and that we don't have to struggle with public transport, pharmacy, and (right now) doctors' strikes as often as my mother in law in Athens. I am thankful that cloudy days often produce truly awe-inspiring skies, and that I have friends and family who care about me in many parts of the world--even if so many of them are way over on the other side of the ocean.

I am thankful that we haven't suffered the months of administrative staff strikes in Chania that have prevented thousands of university students elsewhere from starting their school year (and delayed doctoral candidates' defenses by two months) due to protests against the Troika's insistence on transferring and firing thousands of civil servants. Chania has not even seen as many grade school strikes as Athens. But I wish my kids had more school. School closes for teachers' meetings and minor holidays, and it often lasts only two hours on the day before the minor holidays! Why can't I remember that most holidays are preceded by holidays like that? It always takes me by surprise, how little school these kids have…. For a month or two each fall, there is an average of only four school days each week.




My son's teacher was absent the other day, so as usual he and his classmates were farmed out to other teachers, randomly divided among the grades at his school to draw or whisper during other students' lessons for five hours. It's far too much to ask for a substitute teacher if the regular teacher will be absent for only a day or two or three. One woman whose grandson was crying about the situation thought she'd better take him back home with her, but the principal said no. I asked the principal if the kids couldn't at least have English, computer, and art classes with the teachers who were there to teach them, but that turned out to be too much to ask, as well--something to do with the fact that our school doesn't have enough teachers, and the ones we have are doing unpaid overtime work from which they need to be relieved (by English, computer, and art teachers who'd normally be teaching my son, apparently). We haven't had a regular substitute teacher since kindergarten, so that's normal for us, but I thought we might manage a few lessons now that there are teachers for them.



I'm not surprised that we still (at the end of November) don't have all the teachers required to stretch the school day all the way to 2:00 on Thursdays and Fridays (though  we have enough for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday). The principal thinks we may get them within a few weeks, though--maybe before Christmas! Yesterday, an English teacher from way up at the farthest edge of Greece, on the NE border with Turkey, called the principal to say she'd just been assigned to our school but had no place to stay all the way down here! Our principal begged her to come immediately. Another gym teacher is probably on the way as well; I hope this one will teach the girls instead of just letting them do what they want while the boys, my daughter, and one other girl play soccer. Although we didn't have an English teacher at our school last year until November (and the principal refused my offer to help, since I'm not officially certified to teach Greek elementary children), the mess is even worse than usual this year, probably thanks to the Troika's pressure. The principal says part of the problem is that the Ministry of the Economy only sends funding to the Education Ministry every two months. Some teachers from northern Greece were assigned to teach way down in Crete back in September, but they refused, since a beginning teacher's salary of about 600 euros a month does not cover the cost of the move, the uprooting, and the rental of a home away from home if the teacher is a parent with children. With that refusal, those teachers risked the loss of work for at least a year, and maybe more. Yet no one else was assigned to our school, since there wouldn't be money to pay them for two months! Now, we finally hear of new assignments. And teachers who are not parents are now accepting them, however far they must go, however fast they must decide (in one day!), because they fear that they'll be fired outright if they refuse (in spite of a need for teachers!), thanks to the Troika's pressure. They feel that they must accept this highly inconvenient teaching assignment, which may well require them to drive between several schools. We will have four English teachers who drive around, rather than two who stay put and don't waste time, energy, and gas, some of them from the far ends of Greece! There is no logic here.

Being more logical that the Greek sociopolitical system, I generally take my daily walks in and around our neighborhood to avoid wasting time and gas. Swerving between the goat droppings and dog dirt, the deep ruts in dirt roads, and the irregular rocks jutting out of them, I can't always gaze at the sea or the olive trees, even on the paved roads; there are very few places I can walk without encountering stray or unleashed dogs, as well as dozens of stray cats. The cats only bother me if they make too much noise at night or spray our screens and windows; I assume they keep the rodent population down, and the kids and I love to see the kittens. On the other hand, some of the dogs have become a problem, and there are more of them around here all the time. I spotted an unleashed pit bull earlier in the fall, and three neighbors have been bitten in the last year. I assume the growing number of dogs is partly explained by a growing fear of crime, since dogs are used as cheap, neglected security systems tied up to bark outside, or left to roam around at will. (Where I used to see two dogs tied up in an olive grove just outside our neighborhood--to guard the olives? Or maybe a few chickens there?--I recently saw five large, wildly barking dogs. I wonder how often they are given food and water, let alone any attention.) Perhaps since our neighborhood is on the edge of an undeveloped area, with various empty lots between houses, thoughtless (and perhaps impoverished) people drop off puppies and adult dogs here, adding to our growing population of fertile strays. A darling little puppy followed me home the other month, yipping softly when it started to fall behind; trying to return it to its owner (back where I first saw it), I learned that it had been abandoned, along with a sibling and its mother, the day before. A soft-hearted neighbor set up the dog family in the fenced-in playground, right behind the "dogs are forbidden" sign, which seemed all right to the kids who loved to play with the cute, friendly puppies, and to me as well until my son came home all flea-bitten. Fortunately, some neighbors have adopted at least two of the dogs; the third is rumored to have been hit by a car, which is not surprising, since it joined many dogs in habitually lying in the middle of the road.

In mid November we finally brought down the area rugs we'd stored away for the summer and started to wear long-sleeved shirts on cooler days. After just a few earlier showers, our first sustained period of rainy weather since last spring came in the middle of the month. Now the summer drought is firmly behind us, and our humid, rainy season has begun, bringing out inch-long black beetles that scurry across the road as cats search for dry hiding places. One recent radiant morning, the sun was shining on the olive trees that swayed in the wind, and the blue sky was decorated with picturesquely puffy gray and white clouds. Another day, scattered clouds produced the illusion of dimensions in the vastness of a sky that practically surrounds me on a wild Greek hillside as it never could in the forested or heavily inhabited eastern U. S. I am invigorated by such glorious days between the drab and rainy ones. November brings to mind rebirth in Crete even more than springtime does, as migratory birds flit between bushes, startled by the sound of my feet as I walk by, or rise in unified flocks to shift in formation, and the wild hills just beyond our neighborhood begin to lose their summer brown and turn green and lavender. Both the delicate grass of a manicured American spring lawn and a tougher, coarser wild grass are sprouting up after the rains, between strange plants that I've only seen in Crete, some with flower-like, slightly pulpy leaves appearing among dry brown stalks. Skeletons of sharply pointed brown thistle plants poke me as I examine a sprouting perennial on a dirt road; some wild bushes still retain gray-brown, thorny stems, while others sport new green leaves of various shapes and textures or clusters of tiny, round lavender blossoms. 

Walking past separated parts of what might be a dog's jaw bones on a rocky, rutted, dead end dirt path leading to thorny wild shrubs, a tall, rusting fence on one side and a stinky boneyard (from hunters' kills?) on the other, I was reminded of Greece and its present and future, with the government evicting public broadcasting staff who tried to carry on after being fired, neo-fascist Golden Dawn continuing to be the third most popular political party even after some of its members were charged with crimes, including murder. Pushed to excel against illogical odds, Greek scholars and athletes win international honors; Greek antiquities, seascapes, and clear waters attract millions of tourists each year. The talent, drive, beauty, and capability are here, but will Greek politicians and world leaders open a clear road to a logical, bearable future, or keep Greeks fenced in and injured by the dead-end policies that lead to increasing prices, outrageous bureaucracy, and excessive taxation in the face of decreasing benefits, salaries, hope, and opportunity? Near the little boneyard, bare patches of dirt and rock are gradually ceding the way to new grass and delicate white flowers barely larger than my thumbnail. Moss is beginning to coat the hardest packed mud on the road. Can such delicate organisms survive in the face of strong winter rains and winds? The Greek political, social, and economic climate is milder than that of many a war-torn, poverty-ridden nation, and Greeks have proven themselves hardy survivors, so I'll try to let myself feel encouraged by nature's autumn rebirth, even though there's no sign of political improvement, and rumors of economic betterment have not yet touched most ordinary Greeks' lives.