A week or two after we arrived in Athens, Kathleen and I met a guy who owned a little store (veggies, nuts, beans, etc.--it was the oranges and mandarins that attracted us into the store). Foreigners (at least our kind of foreigner--whatever that is) seem to be instantly recognizable to the Greeks, and he immediately wanted to know about us. Within about 30 seconds he offered to give us some olive oil from his parents' farm in Crete if we would come back in 10 days (he said it's the best olive oil in Greece!). We followed up on the day he suggested, and a wonderful scene ensued: as soon as he saw us, he said, "Wait here," abandoned his store to us, jumped on his motor scooter and disappeared. About five minutes later, he reappeared with a plastic bottle (1.5 liters, maybe) of olive oil. It was a marvelous dark-green, bursting with flavor and fairly acidic. A fair amount of sediment has settled out of it, so it's not exactly what you'd call highly processed! In short, it's wonderful.
Basilis's store is not quite in our neighborhood (a 10-15 minute walk, in a direction we seldom go), so we only got there one other time--until Wednesday 2/27, when I stopped by to propose to him that we spend some time together simply conversing in order to learn each others' language. He replied that that would be impossible for him, because he was only a few daysaway from shutting down his shop and taking a job in a restaurant--"the crisis, you know," he said; "all the little stores like mine are going." Now, we've heard stories from people about suffering under pay cuts and new/higher taxes, including a couple folks we know well, but most of those we've heard from are still hanging on (at least for now). But this really case really saddened me. Here was this sweet big-hearted guy whose dream is gone for who knows how long. Not long ago he owned three-four shops of this sort in Athens; he had already closed the others, and now the last of them is going. (The only good news in all this is that he did find a job!)
I wanted to get pictures of him as a way to remember him and his kindness, and to put a face on the effect of the crisis.
P.S. I had noticed in my two earlier visits that customers seemed few and far between, which probably led to the fact that, on my way to his shop this last time, I actually had what some would call a premonition that something like that would happen--make of that what you will.
P.P.S. 3/2: I wrote the above yesterday, 3/1. At the time, we also asked Basilis if we could buy some of his olive oil. He said that the family doesn't actually sell it commerically, but they do sell it to "friends," and he said he would find out from his parents what the "friend" price is, and that we should come back 3/2. So, today we went back, and had two surprises. One, Basilis had completely trimmed his beard. I said that I figured I knew why: namely that he was going to do cooking in the restaurant and couldn't have a beard. He said that that wasn't a problem at all. He decided to shave off the beard because he looked too "angry" with it and so scared people! :):):) The second surprise was when he hopped on the motor scooter again to get our olive oil, and came back with a 5-liter container, which he quoted to us for 20 euros (about $26). That's about half the price of moderately decent oil at home, so we were pleased.
Lastly, he told us that he was trained in (and has papers) that qualify him to be a chef, and that his job is in a small chain of pretty nice restaurants (one of them even is getting a Michelin star), so it looks like he will at least land on his feet.
Basilis's store is not quite in our neighborhood (a 10-15 minute walk, in a direction we seldom go), so we only got there one other time--until Wednesday 2/27, when I stopped by to propose to him that we spend some time together simply conversing in order to learn each others' language. He replied that that would be impossible for him, because he was only a few daysaway from shutting down his shop and taking a job in a restaurant--"the crisis, you know," he said; "all the little stores like mine are going." Now, we've heard stories from people about suffering under pay cuts and new/higher taxes, including a couple folks we know well, but most of those we've heard from are still hanging on (at least for now). But this really case really saddened me. Here was this sweet big-hearted guy whose dream is gone for who knows how long. Not long ago he owned three-four shops of this sort in Athens; he had already closed the others, and now the last of them is going. (The only good news in all this is that he did find a job!)
I wanted to get pictures of him as a way to remember him and his kindness, and to put a face on the effect of the crisis.
P.S. I had noticed in my two earlier visits that customers seemed few and far between, which probably led to the fact that, on my way to his shop this last time, I actually had what some would call a premonition that something like that would happen--make of that what you will.
P.P.S. 3/2: I wrote the above yesterday, 3/1. At the time, we also asked Basilis if we could buy some of his olive oil. He said that the family doesn't actually sell it commerically, but they do sell it to "friends," and he said he would find out from his parents what the "friend" price is, and that we should come back 3/2. So, today we went back, and had two surprises. One, Basilis had completely trimmed his beard. I said that I figured I knew why: namely that he was going to do cooking in the restaurant and couldn't have a beard. He said that that wasn't a problem at all. He decided to shave off the beard because he looked too "angry" with it and so scared people! :):):) The second surprise was when he hopped on the motor scooter again to get our olive oil, and came back with a 5-liter container, which he quoted to us for 20 euros (about $26). That's about half the price of moderately decent oil at home, so we were pleased.
Lastly, he told us that he was trained in (and has papers) that qualify him to be a chef, and that his job is in a small chain of pretty nice restaurants (one of them even is getting a Michelin star), so it looks like he will at least land on his feet.
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