The village itself hadn’t escaped the snowfall either. Dumping my bags, I decided to go wandering, and ended up in the area that Kaliopi and I frequented. Glancing around at the café, I could see snow on the ground and on the leaves of trees that overhung the river, gushing now with snowmelt. The café was closed and Kaliopi was still in her father’s village for Christmas. It was January 3rd and she wasn’t due to start back at the bank until the 7th. School also started then. The sixth was Epiphany and I was looking forward to this celebration, having heard about the tradition of young men jumping into freezing cold waters to retrieve the crucifix thrown in.
I rose early as Epiphany dawned and wandered down to the river. Although the snow had melted, colder weather had produced ice and I half skidded, half ambled my way down the hill. Mr Ioannis, in his role of Assistant Town Mayor, was already there greeting everybody by the river with enthusiastic handshakes, like a B list Hollywood movie star.
“Where’s Mrs Stella?” I asked when he reached me, pumping my hand like a beer tap.
“Bed,” he replied, all twinkly eyed. “She no like religious celebrations. But you stay a little, our religion says this day Jesus was baptized. Watch.” Aside from asking me if I liked cheese, this was the most Mr Ioannis had ever said to me. I was impressed with his attempt at English and smiled.
At the sound of excitement coming from the river I turned to see the local priest throwing in a large cross. Three virile young men, clad only in bathing trunks, immediately plunged in, vying to be the one to retrieve it. You wouldn’t get teens in the UK following tradition and braving ice cold water at nine in the morning. They might do something stupid if they were drunk on the weekend religion of alcohol consumption, but this was different and I was impressed!
A loud cheer from the crowd signalled that one of the boys had succeeded in retrieving the cross. He was lifted onto several shoulders and paraded around, wrapped in a towel and revelling in his success. The atmosphere was proud, happy even, and I soaked it in, watching Mr Ioannis work the crowd, making people feel special—shaking hands, touching elbows of parents and heads of children…almost like Jesus himself! I couldn’t help observing.
Feeling cold and seeing the café was still not yet open, I made my way home to start planning lessons for the next day. I was looking forward to going back and seeing what my students had been up to. That was a first for me: looking forward to going back to work.
I received a lovely red rose from one of my younger students the next day in class. “You are beautiful, Miss Rachel,” she proclaimed, solemnly presenting me with the flower.
“Thank you agapi mou, [my love]. Christina, please can you put this in some water?” Christina was the long-suffering school secretary who made the place tick. She could be trusted implicitly and was always being called upon (more accurately, shouted at) by Mrs Stella. My classroom was next to Christina’s small office—which was more of a converted cupboard. I’d often hear Mrs Stella’s dulcet tones demanding the girl bring something to her office or classroom. I’d never understand what as it was always shouted in Greek, but she’d be expected to drop everything—even phone calls—and attend to the matriarch’s whims.
I popped off to do some photocopying in between classes. Christina had provided me with a vase and was dealing with a telephone call.
“What are you doing?” Mrs Stella made me jump, having sneaked up behind me. “Christina will do that, this is one of the reasons I pay her.”
“But she’s on the telephone, Mrs Stella.”
“I don’t care. Christina! Get here this instant and help Miss Rachel, will you?” she yelled in English for a change…probably for my benefit, but it just made me feel really embarrassed.
I cringed and pulled a ‘sorry’ face as a harassed Christina appeared in the photocopying room. “I’m sorry…” I whispered, “I was trying to help out by doing it myself.”
“Is OK,” Christina had long ago resigned herself to Mrs Stella’s demanding ways. “Go back to classroom now, before she come back!” We shared a giggle.
My younger classes were brimming with news about their Christmas—the presents they’d received, what they’d eaten, the church services attended. The Konstantinos/Dimitra/Litza soap opera hadn’t changed much. Although friends, Litza appeared to display less of an interest in Konstantinos. Their class trooped in at five p.m. for the last lesson of the day and plopped themselves down. Konstantinos remembered he had to sit in the front, chattering away in Greek. When he saw me, he asked, “Miss! Did you have a good Christmas in England?” and seemed mightily pleased with himself for his linguistic efforts. He’s learning to drop the definite article. I smiled, “Yes, thank you Konstantinos. It was nice to see my father again.” But I caught myself and blushed, remembering he had no father. This seemed to have slipped by unnoticed though.
“My sister has a boyfriend and doesn’t want to help my mother much in the kitchen,” Konstantinos started. “And I do not like this boy,” he continued. “He is a little malakas. I am sorry, but is.”
For the first time since Litza had mentioned it, I noticed his right eye. It did indeed have a slight laziness to it. I smiled as I recalled Litza’s observation before the Christmas break, and also at Konstantinos’s description of his sister’s new boyfriend. Still, I had to reprimand him for his language: “Konstantinos! I know it’s the first day back but please remember we do not use language like that in this classroom. And besides, no man will be good enough for your sister in your eyes. This is the way things usually go in families—the brother tends to be very protective.”
“OK, Kyria, but I still don’t like him.”
The lesson continued without much preamble, everyone keen to get home. At eight p.m. Manos popped his head round the door of my classroom.
“You ready for a lift?”
“OK,” I placed my pencil onto the desk and stretched. “Only if you promise to stop at the spanakopita roadside café on the way—I’m starving.”
As he drove, Manos filled me in on his own Christmas, interrupted only by the stop at our usual roadside jaunt.
“The little one kept us awake all night on Christmas Eve, running into the room, jumping on the bed, bouncing up and down and asking where Santa was. The older one was dead chuffed with his new karate outfit. We ate a lot, went to church on Christmas Day, that sort of thing. You?”
“Just a quiet one with my Dad. It was good to be home, but I’m realising that the weather makes a huge difference. It was miserable back in England, and if I’m honest I’m glad to be back. I can cope with cold, but not the oppressive grey.”
“Ah, you’re one of those sad people,” observed Manos. “We’re lucky. Never suffered from that, being raised in Oz and then coming straight to Greece. Never had the pleasure of experiencing this greyness you mention, not for extended periods of time at least.” I’d never given much thought to SAD before, but now he mentioned it…I thought about how weather shapes cultures and habits: it was true that the Greeks seemed to be a hell of a lot more open than their UK counterparts. We British are reserved, ingratiatingly polite, and border on being patronizing when compared to the Greeks and their way of dealing with things.
I remembered my conversation with Dad over Christmas when he’d talked about the anarchical nature of the Greeks. He said something interesting: “The Greeks—well, they’re just ‘blah’ aren’t they?”
Yes, they are just ‘blah’: they say exactly what they think the moment they think it, without processing or refining anything beforehand. And oddly, I didn’t get offended by their ‘blah-ness’—I actually found it rather endearing and refreshing; I knew where I stood.
Talking of ‘blah-ness,’ I was looking forward to catching up with Kaliopi the next day, and was the first to arrive at our usual café haunt.
Standing up to embrace her as she jogged up 10 minutes late, she flopped into a chair and immediately lit up her trademark cigarette.
“Back here, again. This year
is the year for change. I must get out of this hole from hell,” she looked around her. “Anyway, enough about our collective problem that is this place, how was your father and Christmas?”
I filled her in, feeling strangely comforted by Kaliopi’s trademark disgust and moaning about her current living and work situation. It felt good to be back, it felt familiar.
“Ah, Miss Rachel,” Mrs Stella cornered me at school one mid-January evening during a break. “I have had a phone call from the local examining board, asking if any of my teachers are interested in becoming oral examiners for the May exam season. I told them that you are a native teacher and that you will be. You will go to Athens this Sunday and attend their one-day training course,” she concluded.
Eh? What’s an Oral Examiner? And why does Mrs Stella automatically assume I would want to become one?
“Oh, er, thanks.” I realised Mrs Stella’s opinion that I was worthy of becoming an Oral Examiner was probably a compliment.
“Good, now off you go back to class and I will give you the details later.” She gave me a not very gentle shove in the direction of my classroom and swept back into her own. I smiled as I acknowledged that, despite warming to her, Mrs Stella still needed to be in charge. And she wouldn’t look out of place with a cape draped round her shoulders and a pointy hat. Maybe I should buy red patent buckle shoes.
“What’s an Oral Examiner?” I figured the teens would know, so I asked my next class with Konstantinos, Litza and Dimitra.
“Oh Miss,” they became visibly excited. “That’s really good. You get to examine the speaking part of our exams. This is great—you can tell us what’s going to be in the exam!”
Part of the seniors’ English examination process was testing in listening, reading, writing and speaking skills. So, it would seem I had been selected to be trained as the Speaking/Oral examiner. “No, I can’t tell you that, but I can give you ideas, and be in a better position to help you study in class and look at relevant topics.” I watched their faces as they processed this information: that the English Kyria wasn’t going to tell them outright what to expect, but get them to do some thinking for themselves.
“Just think how much better you’ll feel, knowing you’ve passed an exam due to your own ideas, vocabulary and imagination!” I tried again. Nope—their faces still looked at me like I was stupid.
“I’ll give you twenty Euros if you’ll tell us what’s on the exam,” offered Dimitra, lightly tapping her pen on the table, her head inclined as if ready to bargain.
“No! Have I taught you nothing about ethics?”
“Well, how about fifty then?” this from Konstantinos.
I took in the sea of expectant faces with growing despair, but also some amusement. I realised these kids had been brought up in a society that believed that everybody and everything had a price.
“Clearly I still have some work to do with you regarding morals. I cannot be bought—you should know this by now. You’ll feel so much better passing this exam through your own skill and hard work, trust me. I promise, though, that I will give you an idea of what topics you can expect to cover, for which you’ll need a wide vocabulary.”
Later, on the drive home, Manos and I continued to discuss the training.
“It’s quite a compliment that she’s put you down for this, since it’s only your first year, and you’ve not even been teaching a full year yet,” he mused. “They like native teachers to do the examining; they’ve got greater clarity with words. I’m also an examiner, being half Australian and all.”
“Well, you have questionable speaking skills yourself,” I goaded, smiling.
“Hey, watch it otherwise no spanakopita for you tonight,” he lightly whacked me on the head.
“Only tyropita I’m afraid.” We’d stopped the car at our usual spot and Manos passed me the paper with pie inside. “It’s a delicious feta cheese pie, good for a change, otherwise you’ll end up looking like Popeye.” Manos winked as we continued the drive back to the village.
That Sunday I took the early bus to get to Athens in time for the start of the training session. I’d thought about going the night before and staying with Kaliopi, but decided instead to enjoy a day to myself. Besides, she’d tried to discourage me throughout the week:
“My ex is coming to visit again this weekend,” she’d casually mentioned during one of our visits to the café.
“Not the Italian with the yacht?” I had images of him trying to throw her off the balcony, given her last experience.
“Eh? Ochi, not him. This one’s French.”
Truly the international, my friend.
“Well you’d better change your bed sheets then,” I gave her a knowing smile, she reciprocated with mock surprise and blew smoke in my face.
I arrived in Athens at nine, allowing myself enough time to metro hop to the training venue. Emerging onto a main thoroughfare in the Centre I stood scratching my head, baffled at the Orthodox Church towering in front of me. Looking at my map, I could see this was the right place, but surely we weren’t going to have an Oral Examiners’ training seminar in a church? Oh, wait a minute—what’s this? I should’ve realised by now, Athens is full of twists and turns. There, tucked away behind it stood a smallish building in a tiny alleyway with a crude sign stuck to the church’s wall: “Oral Exam training, this way.”
I trod carefully down a narrow stairwell, settled down in the basement lecture theatre, and glanced around. My watch read 09:28, but only four people were present. We were supposed to start at 09:30. Oh well, maybe it’s going to be a small session. That’ll be good—I can expect almost one-to-one attention. This turned out not to be the case as Doris, the trainer, clarified.
“Hi everyone,” her accent had a slight American twang. “As we all know, this is Greece, so I doubt we’ll actually get started until about 10:00–10:15, especially since I’m expecting at least another sixteen of you. You might as well go get a coffee.” Not wanting to be so terribly British and the one to point out that it took me two hours to get here and I’d really like to get started, I was relieved when a very large Greek lady chewing gum did this for me:
“Eh, you think we want to stay here all the day, wasting our Sunday? If the others they cannot to get here on the time, then tough on them. Let’s get started now. The sooner this rubbish is over, the sooner I can go home.”
Well, we’ll call you Godzilla from now on, and you’re an Oral Examiner with that level of English? I glanced at Doris, waiting for her reaction…but it seemed this affable trainer was either Greek-American, or had been in the country long enough to not get offended any more. She smiled good-naturedly as she agreed and proceeded to hand out the day’s schedule and training booklet.
People came in dribs and drabs and by the time 5:30pm rolled around, I was ready to return home. I felt exhausted, my mind buzzing with all the new information. I had to remember to “keep to the script” so as to be fair to all candidates. As a first-timer, all my examinations would be recorded to ensure consistency. I had to be strict with my time limits, making sure I gave enough talking time to students being examined, whilst at the same time paying attention to what they were saying: their grammar, vocabulary, and relevance. I learnt that my students may need some knowledge of the economic crisis, and to be able to discuss in depth their current and future plans.
Blimey, I watched the apartment blocks of the city melt into open fields, I don’t know if I even fully understand the economic crisis. How can I expect my teens to?
Doris had been very cheerful and supportive, despite Godzilla’s continued deep sighs, eye rolling, and huffs and puffs throughout the day. The woman was a teacher at a Frontesterion on the island of Evia, approximately two hours from Athens and near enough to the mainland to be connected by a bridge, so she’d driven to the training session. Despite wanting to get started on time, it was also Godzilla who wanted frequent cigarette breaks.
“Maybe we’ll finish a little earlier if we skip the nex
t break and work through?” I ventured at one point, only to be stared down intensely enough for me to add a mumbled “But of course, we don’t have to.”
As we rounded a bend in the road and the view of Parnassos signalled the impending arrival into the village, I picked up my things from the aisle seat—yes, it appeared I was slowly adopting Greek habits—and let out a loud yawn. Today, I’d learnt how to be an Oral Examiner, picked up some important tips for my students and gained yet another comical insight into the Greek psyche. Not a bad day in all. The bus lumbered to a stop outside the kafineo, and there was Kaliopi, sitting on the bench, puffing away on a cigarette and scanning the passengers for my face.
“There you are! I’ve come out to meet the last two buses, in case you were on them.”
“I thought you didn’t come back from Athens until Monday morning?”
“Yes, but the ex never showed at my place, so I didn’t get any sex this weekend,” she offered by way of explanation.
“And so you thought you’d come back early and seek out my company?”
“This hole of shit is known for its meat. I know you’ve had gryos in Athens before, but eat this—it will be better than anything you’ve had in the past. At least this place is good for something” Kaliopi led me to a different café by the river, pointedly ignoring my remark. “Now, how was this oral day?”
Munching on the gryos, which didn’t taste any different to me (I kept that to myself) I told Kaliopi about what I had to do as an Oral Examiner. Her eyes glazed over again, so I mentioned the Godzilla lady. This perked her up.
“I bet she was constantly chewing gum like a masturbating cow,” she said.
I choked on a piece of meat, smiled, and corrected her. “It’s masticating—to chew like a cow,” I grinned. “You’ve got sex on the brain.”
Girl Gone Greek Page 10