Yes Greece, We Feel Your Pain. Paris Aborted.

Photo:  Yanni's pomegranate harvest

Extravaganza interuptus.  We were to be in Paris chewing on baguettes, creamy cheese melting in our mouths, un coup de champagne in hand.  Instead, we are on Sifnos regrouping while finishing the third wash load of salt water drenched clothing.  It’s been an adventure.

I can personally confirm that this next wave of strikes in Greece is generating the intended effect:  creating enough disruption to bring deep and painful personal attention to the problems that Everyman is suffering at the hand of “those politicians and financiers”.

Our well laid plans were disrupted when ferry operators extended their strike.  We were motivated to find a way off the island when we learned that Easy Jet and the hotel in Paris demanded payment in full, even if we did not use their services.  Strikes are not force majeure.  Reservations adjusted to take the first re-scheduled ferry, we packed suitcases expectantly.  Unfortunately, the strikes were extended yet again, straining our resilience. Nevertheless, still expecting a week’s visit to Paris, and with help from supporters, we arranged for a three hour private boat ride in a 6-meter Zodiac to Lavrio, only a thirty minute bus ride from the Athens airport.   The weather looked promising and the captain’s skill vouched for.  We were set to go….for the third time in so many days.

This Paris visit was to be the reciprocating end of a home exchange agreement.  An IBM colleague we had befriended while living in Paris and his family had stayed in our Sifnos house in August.  During their 11 year old twin daughters’ autumn school break, we were to enjoy their apartment in the 7^th arrondissement.  

 Photo:  New vineyard in Kato Petali, Sifnos

We made the most of the delay in travels by joining a lovely dinner hosted by Maria, our Greek teacher.   She is originally from Athens, and, like us, became soulfully attached to the island when visiting with her two grown children.  Here she met Kostas, the gent who did a bit of the stonework on our house, fell in love, inadvertently became pregnant at 45, married, and has carved out a fine life.  Inspired by Karoline’s friendship with her twelve year old niece Smaragda, Maria invited us to join an extended family gathering.  Maria is hostess-with-the-mostest, Greek style.  The dozen or so of us filled her great room, enjoying her fine cooking.   In typical Greek style, every inch of the table was laden with small plates of home cooked foods.  Almost all of the food had been cultivated on the family farm.  Pork chops and minced beef steak, (we would call hamburgers), came from their husbanded animals.  We ate arugula and tomato salad, spinach pie, roasted potatoes, lettuce, green onion and dill salad – all from the perivoli, (kitchen garden).  Five cheeses were served, three of which Kateh, Kosta’s mother, had made.  Kosta’s white wine was pretty darn good.  Even our dessert contribution was from locally grown produce.  Based on Berkeley T. B.’s simple and elegant dessert recipe, (thanks!), we flavored with rose water the pomegranate gifted to us by Yannis the goat herder.  Maria is one of those hostesses who, when she sees an inch of spare plate in front of you, slips ‘something more you must try’ onto the plate.  I have not been so over stuffed with yummy food since the V. family annual Thanksgiving feast.  Clearly, I need an eating strategy for the next encounter with the next Greek Mama.

The table of guests joined in our stories and lamentations about plans waylaid by the strikes.  I heard about missed medical appointments, delayed deliveries of farm supplies, and empty shelves in the local grocery stores.  All told, however, this family is doing fine living directly off the land, rather well protected from the shenanigans going on in Athens.  Georgios, Kosta’s brother who owns the local boat and car repair shop, encouraged us with our plans for the private boat ride, confirming what we’d already heard about Captain Niko’s boating skills and the seaworthiness of his Zodiac. 

We arose early the next morning, greeted by a gorgeous sun rising over our veranda, and layered foul weather gear over our Paris street clothes.  The harbor was a ghost town.  Not a single soul did we see and only a handful of boats moored at the docks.  How astoundingly unusual compared to the normal hustle and bustle.  Given the few options, the Zodiac was easy to find.  The two outboard motors and low sides of the boat prompted me to mentally prepare Karoline, “Expect a three to four hour combination of roller coaster and water log ride.”  We wrapped our small wheelie bags in heavy duty plastic garbage bags, donned ski hats, and greeted the captain arriving ---vroom, vroom—on a very classy motorcycle.  From sailing experience, I know how this goes—keep an eye on the captain.  If he is confident and calm, with a well provisioned boat, then we are likely off to a good start.  Indeed, I was duly impressed.  We waited an extra thirty minutes for a doctor who was to join our crew.  He was called to duty for a patient on the next island who was unable to get to Athens for treatment.  No doctor, no explanation, yet we departed.  

As soon as we left the protection of the harbor, the roller coaster ride began.  Sailing friends had forewarned us about the rough ride between Sifnos and Serifos.  With expectations managed, we rode the top of a wave, air dropped over the edge, and –bam!—hit the trough, climbed up a few swells, then did the air drop –bam!—again, and again, and again.  We slammed into a wave and sea spray showered on us, slapping onto my sunglasses, sliding down my neck, trickling between skin and outer layers of clothing, pooling underneath my toes inside my running shoes.  I spit out a mouthful of salt water.  Repeating this several times, checking in to make sure my companions were still warm and enjoying the wet ride, I wondered how to best endure the possibility of three hours of such.  All hope was on rounding the tip of Serifos, expecting calmer waters.  Instead, we confronted a churned up sea.  The captain cut the gas and circled back so that we could hear him speak.  I fully expected him to declare that we would return to Sifnos.  Instead, “The weather is very bad.  I will slow down.” and away he circled, accelerating into the weather, direction Lavrio.  However, within a minute, he apologized, gave up, and headed back to Sifnos.  Right decision. 

Three hours after our hopeful departure, we were back on Sifnos, dumping our drenched outer layer of clothing into a garbage bag.  The captain surprised us with a refusal of any compensation for his heroic efforts.  “We did not succeed,” he explained dejectedly.  The few, who bothered to be in the harbor, came alongside the boat for our report on conditions.  One need only look at our drenched selves to have their answer.  One man told us he had been trying to get off the island for a week and missed his niece’s wedding the day before.  A similar private boat had left two days earlier transporting a stranded family of five.  That boat was too small to include our friend or the family’s luggage.  Nevertheless, the family had agreed to take the sesame sweets, (a Sifnos specialty), that had been promised for the niece’s wedding celebration.

 Photo:  Drenched to the bone

We declared final defeat in our attempts to leave the island.  Back in the house, never has a long hot shower felt better.  The washing machine worked non-stop cleaning the sea drenched clothes.  Even though it was a gorgeous day—on land—beckoning me outside, we wanted nothing more than to cocoon in bed or sofa, burrowed in our warm dry comforters, resting still, reading, listening to classical music, recalling the wet wild roller coaster ride, overcoming the disappointment of a missed opportunity, and plotting how to enjoy the upcoming week on Sifnos.  

Prompted by reading Suite Francaise, a historical novel about the French fleeing the Germans in WWII, I mused that what is happening today in Greece is like a civil war.  The deprivations and disruptions caused by the dramatic economic cuts and resulting protests and strikes, (thankfully without the level of violence or deaths), resembles a state of war. 

P.S.

Photo:  Barracuda make excellent steaks when dusted with flour and dill then sauted in butter)

 Photo:  Daily rambles, discovering  nooks and crannies on Sifnos

We Had A Sifnos Day

Photo:  Pigeons seem to come out of hiding in October.  This is one of their houses.

The day epitomizes our acclimation to Greece.  It began with a church festival and continued into an unexpected gathering for lunch.  In between, we learned a bit more about how to party and make progress in the Sifnos way.  

Photo:  Whitewashing church below our house

Seasonal changes are dramatic in October, most noticeably with the landscape.  After the August intensity of withering sun and whiplashing wind, September seemed to be a month of recovery.  Now in October I sense a second Spring.  Surprising to me, crocuses, naked ladies, and plenty of other unlabeled flowers paint the landscape on a blanket of green.  With this back drop, men turn attention to weatherizing structures for winter:  white washing churches, new construction, laying drainage channels and preparing rooftops to capture the anticipated rains that will flow into cisterns.  Harvesting continues; now it is aubergines, courgettes, onions, garlic, the last of the peppers, and a great variety of dark greens.  After a week of heavy winds and occasional rain, today is so calm and clear that I can see a church on the distant island of Ios across a reflective glass plate that is the sea.

Friends we encountered last night while doing errands alerted us to one of the island’s most exceptional annual church festivals that took place at 8:30 a.m. on a Tuesday, (?!).  “Yet another panagria”, thought I, choosing not to attend, preferring instead to continue with my yoga practice and drafting a page for the book while quietly nursing the morning coffee cup.  Karoline, too, did not break her daily stride as she conquered yet another lesson’s worth of Calvert studies, muttering to her computer screen while drinking echinacea tea.  Meanwhile, Gerhard’s curiosity compelled him to pump uphill on his motorized bicycle to the celebration, brow glistening with effort.  

Photo:  Gerhard cycles to errands on his Bionx motorized bike, (Bionx motor $600 carried from U.S. on a 300 Euro mountain bike purchased in Athens)

It is considered polite to make phone calls only during certain hours of the day.  These are 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and then again between 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.  I find this terribly constraining when trying to use time well.  In any case, I rushed calls to squeeze them into acceptable hours, striving to arrange for this week’s Greek, piano and flute lessons.  The teachers do not wish to set a schedule of a certain hour, on a certain day of the week, at a certain location, for a certain number of pre-planned weeks.  Instead, they prefer to set a unique time, day, and location shortly before each lesson.  The hour of the lesson can range from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. ANY day of the week, (this includes Sundays).  Thank goodness I have only one child for whom to juggle the family schedule!  It occurs to me how odd it is that the island cannot supply its own teachers and instead these particular teachers come from Athens via the 3 hour ferry ride for a couple days every other week.  Even well planned days can be disrupted by bad weather, strikes, or an unexpected mechanical failure on the ferry.  Or, as happened today, some port authority found the ferry’s paperwork not in order, therefore, grounded it to a Pireaus dock.  I wonder if video conferencing via Skype can overcome these impediments?  The ambiguity and inefficiency is trying for me, someone habitually land-bound and spoiled by the American system of advanced and simplified planning.  

 Photo:  Music school in Kato Petali, a 15 minute walk up donkey paths from the house

Calls completed within the confines of politesse, I jogged down the hill to deliver a gift for our departing Norwegian friends; congratulating them on a job well done with their newly installed IKEA kitchen.  When Chi Walking upwards home I passed the time by “repeat after me” the Pimsler’s Greek lesson pumping in my ears from an iPod. Arriving home in the nick of time, I drove Karoline to the Greek gymnasium, (school), where she was looking forward to joining mid-day classes in biology, German and music. She was especially looking forward to peering at organisms through the lens of a microscope that is part of a surprisingly well equipped computer and science lab.  

  

Within minutes after the drop-off, and while grocery shopping, I was surprised to find Karoline at my side.  She exclaimed, “There is no one -- absolutely no one -- at the gymnasium.  What should I do?”  Expressing my surprise to our friends Antoni and Tessi, they inquired….in the Greek that I do not yet possess…of Ursula, the cashier…where are the students?  They walked to Artemone, (a town reached through pedestrian paths about 30 minutes distance).  Why this change in plans?  She did not know.  And so the information was translated to us.  Not being deterred, we drove to Artemone and easily found the favorite cluster of girlfriends who beckoned to Karoline, “Ela, ela”, (come,come). 

Evangelina, the music teacher, was passing by and paused to deliver a message:  She very much hopes that Karoline will stay in the school choir, “Karoline was the only one during auditions who could read sheet music and sing in tune.  Karoline can be my assistant.  Please?”  I was taken aback.  Completely.  The previous week Karoline had vented, in post-audition dismay, how she had thoroughly botched it.  Paraphrased:  She didn’t understand that the music class that day was actually a choir audition.   She didn’t understand the (Greek) instructions for what was expected.  She simply took the songbook thrust in her hands, and, when prompted, sang the lyrics (in Greek alphabet) as best she could decipher, and did a lousy job.  She was mortified to be put on the spot in front of her peers.  Only at the end of the class, when the teacher repeated, this time in English, “Congratulations, you passed and will be in the choir,” did Karoline realize that she had auditioned.   As Karoline was conveying her dismay to me, she wept in embarrassment of herself.   Therefore, the teacher’s rendition was yet another example of this feeling that I am only half catching on to what is going on around us.  There is still plenty of learning to further integrate into this village life.

 Photo:  Karoline's Greek God series designed for center of porcelain dinner plates

As we were chatting Antoni the potter passed by and signaled for my attention.  The new dinner plates were ready for Karoline’s attention.  She is to come by the pottery workshop and apply the cobalt pattern before the next firing.  In need of more dinner plates to support our more frequent house parties, we decided to create Karoline’s idea of a Greek God series.  Based on ancient Cycladic pottery designs we photographed in Athens’ Archeology museum, we designed motifs to represent six of the major Greek Gods.  

Are you noticing a trend here?  Why is it that people don’t pick up a telephone, or send an email, or, for that matter, why is there no form of local bulletin board advertising events on the island?  This word of mouth communication is lovely– real eye-to-eye people contact is so heart warming and, well, human.  Yet, it is hardly efficient.  To ‘get along’ I keep teaching myself how important it is to be visible in public life and how to lower the value placed on productivity.

With Karoline on the field trip and Gerhard at the church festival, I concocted dishes with vegetables harvested from departed Victor’s restaurant garden.  After tourist season, he has closed his inn and returned to Madrid for the winter, granting me rights to gather what I may. Simultaneously, the iPod prompts me to repeat into thin air, “Hello Mister.  How do I get to Victory Street?” (in Greek, of course).  The phone interrupts and I take a call from U.K. Button who is advising me on how to propagate lavender, (Augusta Folia), from her own local oil-production farm.  

Photo:  Pop quizz!  What does this spell?  (Answer:  My name in Greek, (Mrs. Karen Gilligan)

A car horn brings an end to that phone conversation and announces the arrival of our friend, also named Antoni.  Cigarette dangling from nicotine stained fingers, he brings a smoke cloud into the kitchen throwing air kisses, right then left, and announces that he has arrived to give Gerhard a Greek lesson.  Waiting for Gerhard’s arrival, we relax at the café table on the veranda to enjoy the view with our cups of espresso, glasses of water, and biscuits.  He takes a drag from the cigarette then launches a Greek lesson, guiding me through the alphabet, both written and oral.  I am grateful.  

The impromptu lesson is interrupted by, first, the return of Gerhard and Karoline, then by the arrival of friends Ingerd and Raidar bearing foul-looking faces.  With anger not yet dissipated, they explain, in a Norwegian’s second language, that the ticket seller bungled things and they missed their ferry.  They cancel their evening dinner plans with friends in Athens, wait another 6 hours, route themselves through another island to take sleeping berths on an overnight ferry.  Antoni hears this story and says, “Calm down.  This is how it goes in Greece.  No worries.”  So I prepare a big lunch of “Chinese” stir fried rice for our unexpected guests.  Given that one cannot find Chinese foodstuffs on the island, (Karoline is the the island’s one resident Asian), this dish is highly improvised to give the aura of being Chinese-like.  Karoline is off the hook as this was the meal she was to have prepared for us later in the evening while Gerhard and I attend our Greek lesson.

 Photo:  Resident hen greets us on the way to piano lesson

Over lunch Gerhard describes the earlier church festival.  Several years ago Spyros, the island’s only large scale excavator, had heart problems.  After specialized surgery in England, he recovered his health and vowed to say his thanks to God by hosting an annual church festival.  The ritual is as follows:  The evening before, the icon (gold framed antiquity) of the island’s patron saint is ceremoniously delivered from its normal resting place in another church to his home church.  Launching the day’s festivity at 8:30 a.m., incense-dispensing priests and cantors harmonize blessings for an hour, (roughly).  Members of the congregation place offerings of coins in a basket circulated by a deacon.  Everyone transitions to a café where the gentleman survivor – rich with gratitude-- hosts a coffee hour.  If coffee is not one’s pleasure, then a Metaxa 3 star cognac or siporos is served, (recall:  this is about 10 in the morning).  The drinks are accompanied by ornately wrapped sweet cakes and chocolates prepared by the local sweets shop for this occasion.  For several hours a good time is had by all.  

As I heard the recitation, it occurred to me what could be the likely reason for the students’ unplanned walk to Artemone’s main square.  The church is located directly on the square where we found Karoline’s girlfriends.  The teachers probably did not wish to miss out on the festivities and so declared the day a Field Trip.   Well, why not?  “This is Greece,” they would tell me.

 Post Script

As I prepare this post Karoline inquires about the meaning of ‘steal’ in this classic Alexander Pope poem.  To address her question I read… and realize… how fittingly descriptive it is for a still existent Sifnian way of life.

The Quiet Life

Happy the man, whose wish and care

A few paternal acres bound,

Content to breathe his native air

            In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,

Whose flocks supply him with attire;

Whose trees in summer yield him shade,

            In winter, fire.

Blest, who can unconcern’dly find

Hours, days, and years, slide soft away

In helath of body, peace of mind,

            Quiet by day.

Sound sleep by night; study and ease

Together mix’d; sweet recreation,

And innocence, which most does please

            With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;

Thus unlamented let me die;

Steal from the world, and not a stone

            Tell where I lie.

Hiccup! and Medical Services in Greece

 Sifnos public medical center

 Sifnos medical center reception and waiting room

Rooftops as seen from Argo Anita Hotel, Pireaus

A figurative hiccup! that is.  We’ve broken stride.  The hiccup! in our routine was triggered by Karoline’s 101.4 F / 38.4 C fever accompanied by chills and abdominal sensitivity.  Her symptoms triggered our first foray into Greek health services, along with challenges gaining control over our stateside insurance coverage.  Based on this very limited experience I have the sense that health services in Greece would be of high quality if not for bureaucracy and economic reality. Meanwhile, we are confronted with the issue that, for U.S. institutions, the uniqueness of a Leave of Absence, coupled with overseas travel, stresses and challenges the rigidity of U.S. healthcare systems.

We pinch ourselves to realize that, in the many visits to the island since 1994, we have never been in need of medical service….until now.  We found the (only) public medical center on the island.  That alone was an accomplishment!    Once inside we experienced a Doc Martin scene, (if you don’t know what I mean rent the BBC series from Neftlix.  Hilarious.)  It is not possible to make appointments, one simply shows up.  There is no administrator or numbering system to manage the queue.  Rather, queuing is on the honor system.  Given that we don’t understand the system and can’t speak enough Greek to figure out where we fit in line, or which doctor to see, we found ourselves hours later left in the waiting room as the last patient.  The over-worked, much stressed, yet kindly young pediatrician examines Karoline.  Turns out he was born in the same town in Germany where we used to live.  Because he studied medicine in Germany, his German is better than his English so that becomes our language of communication.  The doctor runs a number of tests over the course of three days to eliminate the probability of other common illnesses and ultimately agrees with my initial suspicion that her symptoms could be from malaria.  Given that we have recently returned from Tanzania where malaria is a known problem, he insists that we run tests to confirm or deny the suspicion.  The expertise to complete the malaria tests does not exist on Sifnos.  There is a quandary:  should we wait to do the tests until we see if Karoline has a subsequent fever attack -- a clearer sign that malaria is the culprit?  If so, then, we might run into medical response timing problems because the ferries do not run daily in low season, and windstorms are brewing, which might mean that ferries will not run at all.  

Gerhard and Karoline traveled on the first possible boat to Athens the following day, where blood smears were tested at Ana Sophia, Europe’s largest childrens hospital.  On the ferry they were alerted to a new general strike beginning the following day which meant that no taxis, buses or metro operated in Athens.  Gerhard smartly calls the hotel to request assistance with commandeering an emergency taxi, (one of two in Athens), for the next morning’s transfer to the hospital.  With great luck and persistence the hotel manager is successful.  Nevertheless, all roads were jammed with higher than usual private car traffic.  What normally would have been a 30 minute door-to-door metro commute became an hour and a half.  Upon arriving at the hospital complex Gerhard and Karoline were challenged to find the right department since signs, in Greek alphabet, could not be deciphered and no one could speak English, German or Chinese.  After a chaotic and time draining general registration process, to include Gerhard’s perfunctory and unwitting signed agreement that Karoline would stay the night for Euros 74, they were taken to the proper department.  Here three doctors, (one knows not why), examined Karoline with great curiosity.  Only one could speak a common language, (English).  The blood smear was taken and Karoline was led—to Gerhard and Karoline’s surprise—to her bed for the night.  Since the hospital was over-crowded, she was expected to sleep on a cot in the hallway along with 20 other children.  No way, Jose!  This triggered a series of mobile phone calls…to me…to the pediatrician on Sifnos…to Greek friends who know the system. 

While Gerhard and Karoline were suffering their logistics ordeal, I was manning the phone on Sifnos, becoming impressed by the warm-hearted concern of local friends calling with well wishes for Karoline.  One such friend leveraged her connections to reach Greece’s pediatric specialist in malaria and TB at Athens University. 

By coincidence, the malaria specialist Nikos Spyridis is also on staff to Ana Sophia hospital and was on site during Karoline’s visit.  He met Karoline and Gerhard at the appropriate department, analyzed the test results as negative, fought the verbal battle with the staff to immediately release Karoline from the hospital.  He relayed, (via phone to me), the advice to our local pediatrician that we are not to be alarmed, unless, within the following 5 days, Karoline should have another fever.  It took another two hours to gain release from the hospital, most of which—Gerhard realized later—was consumed by the doctor trying to find someone who could translate the release letter to English for Gerhard’s signature. 

Yet the ordeal was not over.  How to return to the hotel during a general strike?  Despite offers from friends to meet them at the hospital and drive them by private car to the hotel, in the end result the most practical solution was for Gerhard and Karoline to walk the three hours from hospital to hotel.  They walked through Syntagma Square where they witnessed the security brigade surrounding the Prime Minister’s car cavalcade, as well as the forming group of noisy protesters.  They continued on through a depressing industrial section of Athens under a beating sun before arriving at the hotel in the port of Piraeus.  After another over night and a bit of shopping for things we can’t get on the island they caught the next ferry to Sifnos. 

Looking back on the experience we can better understand the challenges confronting Greece as a country:  systematic inefficiencies, lack of sensitivity to economic factors, and lack of desire to make the—shall we call it-- “capitalistic improvements”.  I am catching on that if the *system* was more effective, then the tradition of need to call on a friend’s favor, (to help overcome the system) – with the expected eventual reciprocation – would be unnecessary.  This tradition is a significant impediment to the kinds of change that the EU and IMF is expecting in return for the recent bail-outs.

That is the Greek side of this story.  There is another side as well; that of the American health care coverage while we are abroad for a year.   We found that between IBM and Kaiser Permanente our health care coverage was all screwed up.  Basically, both institutions operate processes and systems designed for the lowest common denominator.  An employee and her family on Leave of Absence is about as far from the design norm as it gets.  Unexpectedly, upon checking, Karoline was not covered.  This despite having spent weeks earlier resolving to a coverage plan via endless Skype calls, e-mails and faxes, (to include Amy and Gerry’s help from distant Virginia—thank you!).  For a while I had visions that the issues would never be resolved before I return to the IBM desk in a year’s time.  However, thanks to a competent, persistent and kind administrator at Kaiser, we are covered, and retroactively to our earlier understanding.

Sum total of the experience:  Three days of missed local Greek school, (Karo brought her U.S. school work to Athens), two nights in a hotel, one 20 Euro taxi ride, a 5 Euros registration fee at the public hospital, a 13 euro CRP blood test at the Sifnos private lab, and no fever within the next 5 days – all confirmed that Karoline is free of malaria.  There is always a silver lining in such situations.  For us, this was the opportunity to become familiar with the medical system and to be more resourceful should we confront another health challenge.  Further, we made acquaintance and became impressed by the skill of Pedro,our local pediatrician.  We launched new friendships with Billie, the nurse, and Gordon, the Sifnos medical lab director.  Our current friends showed us a side of Greek kindness and compassion that is heart warming, endearing us further to the enchantment that is the island of Sifnos.