Girl Gone Greek

by Hall, Rebecca

  “Actually, Kaliopi, I thought they were really gentle and calm people, and I’m not religious in any shape or form.” I felt the need to stick up for the kind woman who’d patiently insisted on my wearing a skirt and equally patiently explained why.

  “Huh—listen to yourself: one visit to a nun place and you’re ready to convert!” Kaliopi blew smoke into myface in mock disgust.

  “No worries there, Kaliopi, I’d get vertigo living there and besides, you’d never come and visit me,” I re-assured her.

  “Of course not—and besides, they wouldn’t let me in once they see how many male visitor ‘friends’ I have. They wouldn’t want me corrupting you.”

  As May came around, it grew warmer. The snow at the peak of Mount Parnassos started to melt and the Oral Exams crept up. My students had become increasingly agitated in class—especially the ‘Terrible Threesome:’ Konstantinos, Litza and Dimitra. I put this down to exam nerves and tried my best to improve their vocabulary in areas surrounding the economic crisis and its effects, as well as a range of other subjects, such as environmental problems. The more I read, the more I learned as well! Mrs Stella will be pleased.

  “Miss, what’s a word for those people that come into our country and take our jobs, you know—those people from India and stuff?” asked Konstantinos.

  I took a deep breath. I had to remind myself that these kids hadn’t been exposed to such integration—unlike myself—and Greece and other Southern European countries seemed to be some sort of ‘holding area’ for illegal immigrants trying to enter Europe. It was a very complex problem—one I suspected Northern Europeans were not keen to see resolved anytime soon as it suited them to keep illegal immigrants out of their own countries…but it didn’t help my immediate cause and besides, I wasn’t about to get into this debate with Konstantinos and his posse. Contentious as his comment was, at least he was trying.

  “I tell you what, Konstantinos,” I turned on what I considered to be my most winning smile—“why don’t we take a look at how the ‘crisis’ has affected this immediate area.”

  Litza started. “Well, my uncle he can’t sell potatoes like he used to…he says it’s because they must be a certain size for the EU. So he not bring home much money anymore.” I even learnt something interesting myself: Apparently the region where the village and school were located was thought to have high concentrations of mercury in the soil, therefore farmers often had problems selling their produce…once every couple of months they would take their vegetables and fruit to Athens and in a united attempt (and to prove there was nothing wrong with their wares), would give it away free in a central market.

  “It’s all a lie, Miss!” said Konstantinos—he’d started to refer to me in the English form, not the Greek now…he’d dropped the word Kyria—“They are trying to make out we are bad people…there is nothing wrong with our food! Look at me.” I smiled at him.

  “Indeed, look at you!” I replied, not unkindly. “And the word you were looking for was ‘migrant’, Konstantinos: people who go to a country other than their own to find work. Greece has a long history of migrating…look at how many Greeks are in Australia and the U.S., for example.” I was determined to give him food for thought.

  Manos collected me early morning on the last Sunday in May, and off we went to examine in a town about an hour away.

  “Jump out here,” he pulled up at a three story school building in the centre of the rather ugly town, “I’ll go and find somewhere to park.” We’d passed a long snaking queue of nervous looking teenagers outside the building—all waiting their turn to take the exam and for once, most had arrived early, vying to be the first in.

  Announcing our arrival at the Reception of the grey Communist-style building, we made our way upstairs to collect our ‘packs.’ Kept strictly under lock and key, it wouldn’t have been out of place to label them ‘Top Secret’ as they contained the topics and questions for the Oral Exam.

  “You must not leave your room unattended with this inside,” instructed the unsmiling, severe looking woman as she passed our packs over and we signed them out, “a student could, and probably will, find his or her way in and arm his or herself in advance with knowledge.”

  Manos and I gave our most sincere and serious nods in affirmation, whilst I smiled to myself; this was something I could imagine Konstantinos trying to do, and probably succeeding in.

  We examined in pairs: one person asking the questions and the other sitting, listening to the students’ replies and allocating the marks. Luckily I was paired with Manos, as I’d spied ‘Godzilla.’

  “What’s wrong with you?” he asked as I tried to make myself inconspicuous behind him. “Come on, let’s go to the room. You wanna question first? Half way through, we’ll swap to give your vocal chords a break—trust me, they’re gonna need it!”

  Our examining room turned out to be the school gym with a table and chairs set in the corner.

  “Whey hey, look at this,” Manos walked towards a huge chess set, the pieces sitting at waist height. “Oh, and these,” he further noted as he ran childlike to the set of ropes hanging from the ceiling and tried to scale them, all the while making monkey noises.

  “Manos!” I hissed, “The first candidates are sitting outside and can probably hear us, let’s sit down eh?” I was feeling really nervous. Some kid’s future in English would partly be decided by me. All their months of study would finish today, so I had quite a big responsibility.

  Zoe and Melanthe turned out to be the first “victims.”

  After going through the rigmarole of getting them to spell their names, I started on the first question:

  “So Zoe, what do you like about living in your town?” I offered her a beaming, encouraging smile.

  “Nothing,” she sulkily replied, arms crossed and eyes looking at the floor. I waited a good five-seconds to allow her to redeem herself, figuring she might be nervous.

  “OK then, Melanthe, how about you?”

  “Oh, I like the sun and I like the drink café with my friends and I like the cinema and I like the television and I like the volleyball and I like the.…”

  Behind me, Manos interrupted with a loud cough. Taking the hint, I tried to move them along.

  “Zoe, I’m going to show you a picture and I’d like you to tell us what you see,” This is like an ink-blot test! I placed a black-and-white picture of a family seated around a dinner table, the woman dishing up a meal. Zoe took one look at it, laughed, and retorted in perfect English.

  “Well, that’s just typical, a woman serving the food. I can see a typical Greek family [she spat out the word ‘typical’ as if it had a bad taste] and they are eating typical Greek food like mousakka and pastistichio. And like a typical Greek family, the woman is cooking and serving all the men first. The daughter will have to collect the plates and wash them up and….” Again Manos interrupted this rather impressive diatribe from the previously reticent Zoe with a prolonged clearing of the throat.

  Rather nervously now, I passed Melanthe’s picture to her and she attempted to describe a silly picture of another family, this time in a water park. Privately I wondered if I had wasted my time getting my kids armed with vocabulary about the economic crisis if they were going to be looking at pictures of rather simple scenes. Or maybe that was the Greek way: the exam board tells us to prepare the kids for one thing, only to be tested on something much simpler.

  Melanthe’s contribution couldn’t be more different than Zoe’s: “Oh look at the happy faces of the young children in this extended family! They all look so happy, going down the water slides and they all want the day not to end and they will go to the home at the end for the big family meal with the grandma and grandpa…” as she said this, Zoe threw her a dirty look and actually, I was sure I detected a hint of sarcasm in Melanthe’s otherwise naïve demeanour and definitely caught her throwing a sideways smile at her fellow candidate. Are they colluding together? Good cop/bad cop?

  Manos’s th
roat-clearing saved the day once again. Eventually the exam wound to an end, and with some relief I noted that the last questions required knowledge of everyday events and economic problems. I was also somewhat relieved that this exam with this particular set of students was drawing to a close. I’d found them exhausting.

  “Goodbye!” I beamed as they left the gym. Puffing out my cheeks in a long sigh, I raised a questioning eyebrow to Manos who delivered his opinion.

  “That first girl—what’s her name, had a bloody chip on her shoulder and the other girl sounded as if she’d inhaled helium! Got to admit though, that first one, Zoe? She picked up when faced with the picture—but I sure wouldn’t want to be the man that marries her. At least they both had the vocabulary. I’m passing ’em.” Smiling I agreed with him and now, feeling less nervous having got the first candidates out of the way, I felt OK about waving in the next batch.

  And so the day progressed. By six pm we’d seen over fourteen pairs of students between us and taken turns in examining and marking. I was knackered by the time we came to collect our cash for our day’s work.

  Driving home, Manos made a quick call to Mrs Stella.

  “Our kids are being examined tomorrow,” he explained. “I want to let her know the content of the exams so they know what to expect.”

  I sighed inwardly. Despite my trying to teach the kids to take the moral high ground, it appeared that even my boss was trying to take shortcuts and accept any help she could. If this level of “corruption” was happening from the top, was it any wonder that it went on further down the chain and reached my kids? I pondered the complexity and ramifications of this thought and realised it pervaded Greek society as a whole—even at government level…ha, especially at governmental level.

  With the exams out of the way, the end of term was approaching—it would coincide with the end of May. We still had one week of lessons left, but now that the older kids had finished their exams, they were much more relaxed in class.

  “Have you ever had a Greek boyfriend, Miss?” Litza and Dimitra asked one day… Konstantinos sniggered in the back row. I was trying to conduct a lesson from the grammar book, but as it was the last week even I didn’t have the energy to teach formally. As long as they’re speaking English, at least they’re learning something.

  “That’s none of your business…” I tried to change the subject, but this went right over their heads. They weren’t going to give up this line of questioning.

  “It’s nearly the end of the lesson.” At that moment Christina rang the hand bell to signal the end of class. As the others left the class, I kept the threesome back, “Come on, you promised me coffee once, remember?”

  We ambled along to the nearest coffee shop, located by the bus stop. Konstantinos plucked a rose from the garden of one of the school’s neighbours and proudly presented it to me.

  “I’d love to accept this, Konstantinos, but I’m sorry, you must put that back, it’s not yours to give away.” I was determined to instil some values into him. He looked genuinely rejected as we sat down, so I allowed him to order and pay for my coffee.

  “In answer to your question about whether I’ve had a boyfriend here in Greece is no, not yet—I’ve been too busy teaching you!”

  “But, Miss, you must have a life, a life of the heart, and that means having a relationship whilst you’re here.

  You cannot leave Greece without meeting a man; it is unheard of!” Konstantinos clearly held views on this.

  I sipped my latte and smiled at him, noting how much he’d improved in my time of teaching. Not only in his English. His sulky, reticent attitude had also mellowed: there was no way he’d be seen sitting with his English teacher in the local café at the beginning of the year. I thought about Kaliopi’s ability to fall so easily into relationships, even if they were just one-night stands.

  “To be honest, I feel as if I have fallen into a relationship—one with your country as a whole. So much so, I’m considering staying here,” I thought aloud, “which will give me plenty of time to meet someone.”

  “Oh yes miss, but don’t stay here,” Dimitra pulled a face, Litza copied her.

  “Why not? What’s wrong with here?” asked Konstantinos.

  “I want to go to the big city and meet a city man,” Dimitra looked purposefully at Konstantinos. I remembered Zoe’s attitude in the Oral Exams just a few weeks previously, and smiled.

  “Don’t you want to try life in the city, Konstantinos?” I asked.

  “Huh! There’s nothing I can get there that I can’t get here,” he stated proudly. “The food is fresher, and besides, who will look after my Mum?” I noted the difference between a seventeen year old Greek boy and a teenager of the same age in the UK: they were desperate to leave home, whereas Konstantinos seemed quite taken with traditional ways. But not Litza and Dimitra; they were both pulling faces and looked as if they couldn’t leave this ‘hole from hell’ fast enough. Maybe there isn’t a future for Dimitra and Konstantinos after all.

  That night, over coffee with Kaliopi, I thought about my conversation with my students and the thought that I might come back. I hadn’t realised the idea had even been on my mind until I’d said the words aloud.

  “You’re not coming back to this shithole,” she characteristically claimed. She’d finally mastered the correct usage of the word. “Look at this place, and you can’t stay another year in that flat. Anyway, I hope to be living in Athens next year—I’ve requested a transfer and they’re actively looking to relocate me back home, thank God,” she concluded.

  Did I want to stay in Greece? I’d certainly enjoyed my time here, discovered a passion for teaching, and developed a love of a country that holds family values dear to its heart. I didn’t come from a close family…but I felt as if I finally belong somewhere. And if I went to Athens next year, I’d have more of a life.

  I decided not to return to the UK straight after teaching. Instead I booked a few days in Santorini to relax and consider the possibility.

  “You look like a woman with a lot on her mind,” declared a man who looked about fifty, placing an un-asked for cappuccino on the table in front of me and sitting himself uninvited in a chair opposite me.

  “Nikos,” he introduced himself as he shook my hand. “I doubt there’s a better sunset than this in the world. Whatever malaka made you come to Santorini alone and look so thoughtful is an asshole. Men these days are just boys; they have no knowledge of how to treat a woman.”

  After unpacking my belongings in the small guesthouse, I’d slowly made my way to the café to watch the sunset over the caldera, and had purposefully chosen the quietest café in order to people-watch and just be. I forgot, however, that I was in Greece…and not just Greece, but Santorini—the most romantic island of them all—and I was a single woman. It was beyond the comprehension of many Greek men to see a woman alone. So my thoughts were interrupted by this Nikos character.

  I smiled and gestured a thanks for the coffee.

  “Tipota, nothing,” he dismissed. “So what brings you to Santorini alone?” He nodded sagely as I told him, as briefly as I could, my experiences of teaching and how I was thinking of staying in Greece.

  “And whilst I may be physically alone, I don’t feel it. I feel as if Greece is my family, and she’s looking after me. It’s the first time I’ve felt truly accepted in a family, after never really being accepted in my own.” I bit my tongue as soon as I’d said it… again not realising until I’d said it out loud that that was how I felt. Greece accepts me, whereas my sister never did. I didn’t realise I was so affected by her rejection.

  “Greece does this to people … sucks them in, but in a positive way. Some people aren’t able to see beyond the surface beauty of this place,” Nikos sighed as he swept his arm towards the setting sun. “Others such as yourself, copela, you have experienced the real Greeks and their hospitality. What is there to even consider? Go back to your country with the rain, wind and cold and your malakismeni siste
r…or stay here and experience blue skies every day!” He leant forward in his seat, as if he was about to impart some top secret information. “You, copela, are an honorary Greek. I see it in your eyes. You’ve embraced this culture and feel accepted here—of course you must stay.” Nikos stood up, massaged my shoulder briefly, and gathered up my drained coffee cup. As he reached the entrance to the café, he turned back to me. “Now that we have sorted that out, enjoy your time here. There’s no need to waste time thinking … just be.” I smiled to myself, remembering that “just being” was the whole purpose of my visit to this café in the first place. “And come back tomorrow evening for watching the sunset—you’re welcome here.”

  I grinned at his pidgin English, biting my tongue to stop myself from automatically correcting him. Yes, I would relax and enjoy my time here. It appeared that I would be staying in Greece after all. Thanks for sorting that out Nikos. I couldn’t wait to tell Kaliopi.

  “So it appears I’m staying.” I announced. Kaliopi and I were sitting in our favourite coffee shop in the village. I’d told her about my experience with Nikos on Santorini and was now back in the village, spending the last few days before moving my stuff to Athens and storing it in Kaliopi’s flat for the summer while I went home.

  “How will your Dad feel? Won’t he want you back in the UK?”

  “I thought you were all for me staying.”

  “Of course, but I just wondered.”

  “We chatted last night.” I recounted the conversation. “He said he’s seen a change in me; apparently I’m more settled now than when I lived a ‘settled’ nine-to-five existence. He doesn’t want me to live the life I think everyone expects of me…and besides, he wants to come and escape the UK weather once a year.”

  I grinned as I remembered his words: “Rachel, when have you ever given a toss about convention? And besides, don’t think coming back to the UK and getting a desk job will suddenly make your sister approve of you. If she doesn’t approve now, she’s never going to, regardless of how you live your life. Let go of your angst; you can’t choose your family and it seems you have better sisterly relationships with the friends you’ve made there than you’ll ever have from your own flesh and blood.”