Ordinary Hazards

Ken and I have long noticed that the US is more attentive than many other countries to matters of what might be called "public safety"--some might say overly attentive.  (Does every pump at the gas station need to be plastered with the warming that inhaling the fumes isn't all that healthy?  Really?! No!!  Who would have thought?!)

On the other hand, when we were in New Zealand, we were aghast at the absence of greater protections in a place called the Devil's Palette...hot springs coursing through mineral-rich rocks created deep boiling-hot pools of amazing colors (if I remember correctly, arsenic is chartreuse; copper is blue), with nothing but a small split-rail "fence" to keep people from falling in--and a child could have gone through it in an instant!  

Here in Athens we find some interesting pedestrian challenges--not quite at the level of instant death, but worthy of note.  For example, in the picture below, Ken's standing in a nearly 10-inch step that takes up about one-quarter of the entire width of the sidewalk!  Imagine walking along with packages, deep in conversation with a friend.  Ooops!

 Here's another example:

These are steps in the sidewalk close to our house. The closeup on the right shows more clearly that the final rise (count the tiles) is a couple of inches taller than the others.   Lemme tell ya', your brain is a simple organ--it quickly develops expectations based on identified patterns.  Having walked up three steps and without anything to suggest otherwise, your body "knows" the last one will be the same as the others.  OOOOPS.  Even Ken, who is much quicker on his feet than I, has stumbled over that last step more than once.  

And below are steps that cut across the sidewalk.  If you are on the downhill side, as Ken is, good luck carrying packages up even that first step (notice how high it is, compared to Ken's knee).   And as you can see, with a car parked right at the curb, it's quite awkward getting around it from either direction. 

 One also finds that the trees that line most of the streets in residential areas are also a pedestrian hazard.  Either the level of the ground is several inches lower than the sidewalk or there is a small concrete barrier around the edge--just high enough not to notice until you have tripped over it. 

All of which may account for the fact that on the small residential side-streets, a lot of people (especially geezers like me--note that the guy in front of Ken is walking with a cane) don't use the sidewalks most of the time--they walk down the street, itself.  There are not infrequently potholes there--you can see places where the street has been patched--but you have a better chance of seeing them coming.  

The Janus effect

This is the continuation of the Act II blog about roots of the Greek economic debacle. 

I make no claims for the historical accuracy of the following.  I’m repeating what I was told by a well-educated colleague who was attached to a government ministry 30 years ago.   When Greece won its independence from Turkey in the early 19^th century, after 400 years of Ottoman rule, there was a sudden governmental vacuum.  In the absence of civic organizations, people had to depend on the indissoluble core unit of Greek life, the extended family.  They were the only people one was sure of being able to rely on for help.  

We saw this in action when we got here.  We needed to add some furnishings to make the apartment work better as a home-office.  I asked about the equivalent of a “Goodwill” store.  “There’s no such thing,” we were told, “you just ask the family.  Someone has what you need.”  And they did: Two lamps, a printer, a better modem, and various other items. 

[NB: This is also how the young people we see in cafes—many of them college graduates with no job—are managing to live: “They move back with Mom,” who also supplies enough money to pay Starbuck-equivalent prices.  It helps that no one cares if you sit for two or three hours on one espresso, because the waitstaff are paid reasonable wages. “Tipping” on a restaurant bill of 33.70 Euro consists of rounding up to 34.  I was going to make it 35, when my Greek friend dissuaded me: “That’s so American,” he said.]

That mind-set also affects public/civic life.  If your primary sense of safety and commitment for the last two centuries derives from the (extended) family, then of course, you do what you can to be sure they are taken care of, economically and socially.  Here’s how that plays out in reality.

Some time ago, a new government ministry was created to oversee X (I’m being intentionally vague about details).  The politician in charge of the new department was sincere, even a bit idealistic, and for a few years, made meaningful progress.  Then it was time for him to take up a new government post (the party in power regularly does “musical chairs”—but it is rare that a seat actually disappears). Before he left, he attempted to maintain the ministry’s momentum by setting up regional committees to oversee the task.  

Let’s say that would involve 100 people.  This being Greece, it was expected that 20% of those would have to be hired on a patronage basis, depending on who was in charge in the region.  No problem: 80% of the hires will have the capacity to be effective.  But then some other high-placed functionary got hold of the list of those who had been identified—on a merit-based assessment— as potential hires.  He went through, line by line, crossing out names he didn’t know and substituting names he did.  In the end, only 30% of those hired actually had the background to do the work.  Not too surprisingly, the initiative foundered soon after.  

So the Janus-effect, highly oversimplified: That which is Greeks’ saving grace—primary loyalty to the family—also has a major negative effect.    

These Little Piggies Went To Market

Today, Kathleen and I went to an open-air market on Athenas Street between the Monastiraki and Omonia metro stops (i.e. different than the one near our house).  I had discovered it Tuesday on my way to buy my baglama, but hadn't had time to stop.  But my jaw had dropped when I saw the area where meat/fish are sold--it was a passageway with vendors on both sides, and which appeared to go on for a city block.  Today, we discovered that it is even more impressive.  You can get an idea, but only an idea from the photo.  

The meat/fish market is actually in the shape of a "U," each side being a full city block long!  Except for sausages it is all fresh meat (otherwise no cured, smoked, packaged meat of any kind).  Beef, pork, lamb, chicken, every cut and organ you can imagine. 









Here's tripe and pigs feet on the right.  A little later, we discovered the produce part of the market, which was much smaller, but still extensive, and with very good prices (e.g. nice broccoli for 60 euro-cents per kilo; so about $0.40/lb or less).  Now some things are more expensive or unavailable.  For instance, we get pretty nice green beans year-round in Berkeley ($1.70-$2.00/lb maybe).  But we've only seen very small quantities of them here, and quite pricey when we have seen them.




Walking along the street that the fish/meat and produce markets are next to, we see block after block of merchants selling everything--nuts/seeds, dried beans, sweets, clothes, knick-knacks.  We went into one shop (see photo) that had two floors of every sort of small object we could imagine (glassware, dishes, lamps, books, bedding, instruments, vases, brass, carpets, textiles, photos, frames, 45rpm records, a gramophone!, statuary--"tchotchkes" galore, Kathleen calls it, but I'm not sure of the spelling!).

                                                                                                                                                                                       At another point, we saw a shop (see photo below) that sold containers for olive oil--yep, that was pretty much the sum total of what they did.  But, these containers (beautiful stainless steel) seem to be for those who MAKE (and then, I assume, store) their own olive oil.  The containers varied in price from about 60 to about 100 euros.  (By the way, given my farm background, my instantaneous thought was: "milk containers."--LOL)

We had walked for about 3 hours and had a lot of packages, so we decided to take a taxi home (see picture).  Our driver was quite a talker, and as soon as he realized I spoke a little Greek, he was off running.  I only got about 5-10% of what he said, but one thing was clear--he was upset at the cheaters who do business without issuing/collecting receipts.  (Given the 23% VAT, you can imagine that the vendor and customer can each save about 10-15% if they agree that the transaction is "off-the-books.")

Come on-a My House

[I doubt anyone reading this blog remembers the Rosemary Clooney song I used for the title of this posting.]

This is the entrance--you're looking at the front door.  To the left, in an alcove, is a place where we hang our coats, backpack, and shopping bags, so we can grab them on our way out.  I have turned the larger piece of funiture into a place to store office-type things: books and files I brought from home, various electronics, etc., because my "office" is across the room.







And here it is . . . It's really the dining table (we always eat in the kitchen).
 In the front are piles of papers--otherwise it wouldn't be my office!  At the far end is a very comfortable office chair and printer, and space for my laptop..  Sitting there, I can look out of the french doors that lead to the balcony.  It's still early morning and quite dark, so you can't see much.

 Here's the rest of the living room (it's about 25 feet long and 18 feet wide).

The two couches are perpendicular to one another and share use of the coffee table (which is really three tables and can be used in various configurations).  Ken's new Greek musical instrument, a baglama, can be seen on the table.  It's part of the bouzouki family, just smaller and tuned an octave higher.

The odd metal frame behind the small couch is the dryer....in other words, that's where you hang out the clothes. (No one uses a heated dryer in Greece!)  Also, their front-loading European washing machines spin clothes a lot more effectively than our top-loading machines--so there's no dripping on the floor.  We usually have it on the balcony, but it's been raining.  The dark, paneled object in the back left corner of the  lower photo is a wet bar.  I'm sure you know how much use we get out of that! 

Here's the two bedrooms.

 

As you can see from the lower photo, there's also a smaller balcony outside the bedrooms.   The larger balcony opens off the livingroom.  It's over 35 feet long and 8 feet wide.

And here's the bathroom. You can't see the washing machine, which is behind me as I take the photo,

 Ken's having breakfast. It's a small kitchen, by our standards, but we manage.  You can just see the edges of the microwave and smallish refrigerator to the right of the photo.  It has a tiny countertop dishwashing machine in the far corner, but we've never used it.  We also immediately put the espresso maker on the topmost shelf.

One view from our balcony is of all the solar heaters.  

There's also a small storage room with extra furniture--I didn't bother to show you that or the TV.  We get CNN international on at least 6 channels.  It has Fareed Zacharia and Christine Amanpour, interesting Voices from Africa, and a strange Brit who does international business reporting.  In the middle of the night, we can even get Wolfe Blitzer.  We haven't paid for cable, so there's just a few other English-language programs at odd hours--mostly very out of date sitcoms and an occasional equally old movie.

A story in two acts--Act I

Act I: I went out for coffee with 4 women colleagues last night--the first "girls' night out" of our stay. They were all connected to the field of education in one way or another, though one was an art student.  The amusing start to the evening was that everyone got lost or misdirected.  Tatiana, an administrator in the Fulbright office, had suggested the cafe in the Byzantine museum as our meeting place, since it was near her office and very near a metro stop, therefore an easy commute for others.

Being somewhat nervous about directions (Ken and I get lost about half the time, even when we are carrying a map), I googled "Byzantine museum, Athens"--but the address was wrong in terms of the general coordinates, i.e., it was not near the Fulbright office and it was a different metro station.  I tried Tatiana at the office, but she had already gone.  Ken googled and got the same result.  Eeek!  What to do?

Just when I was starting to hyperventilate, Tatiana called.  She was waiting outside the museum because it was closed!  She gave me the exact address--it was where she had originally put it (a route Ken and I have walked enough times for me to feel empowered to head out into the wilderness, so to speak).

When the elevator got to the first floor I realized I didn't have the map.  I wasn't THAT empowered, so went back for it.  Turns out that was a good decision.  Athens streets go every which way; not every street has signage, what they do have is often indecipherable due to weathering (though most are in both English and Greek, thank goodness, the transliterated spelling often varies from what is on the map), and I find the abbreviations confusing.

But I did manage to find the familiar route, walked through the police rerouting of auto traffic (turns out President Hollande was visiting, leading to massive traffic jams) and made the final turn onto the correct street.  So far, so good!  When I got to the corner where the numbers suggested the building had to be--no Tatiana!  I phoned--fortunately I had saved her cell number in my phone.  "Where are you," she asked.  I explained I was about a block from the Fulbright office.  "Keep coming," she said, "you will see me."

I did--but no Tatiana even after I had walked an extra block past Fulbright.  "Hi Tatiana," I called her again,"did you mean you would see me AT the Fulbright office?  Should I come up?" 

"How did you get there" she asked, "without passing me?"   (If I knew that, we wouldn't be having this conversation--I didn't say that.)  "Turn around," she said, "walk back--I am on the corner."  (But that's the corner I called you from the first time!--I didn't say that, either.)

Yes, there she was!  Still alone!  The others had called to explain the various reasons they were not there.  The art student had googled the museum address and had gone to the other metro station.  One of the other women, when the Byzantine museum turned out to be in the wrong place, figured it must be the museum close to the Fulbright that began with a B, so she first went to the Benacke.  I forget what happened to the fourth woman: maybe she was just on Greek Standard Time.

So about 45 minutes behind schedule, we settled into a cafe in the area.  Turns out there are TWO Byzantine museums.  (Don't ask.)

A story in two Acts--Act II

Act II.
We settled in and ordered coffees.  We commiserated on the insanity of having two museums with essentiallly the same name.  Naturally, talk turned to Greek culture and the economy.  (I wonder if Greeks talk about anything else, these days?) 

There was far too much discussed for me to cover in this blog (even assuming I could remember it).  So I'm going to focus on a few highlights (really: lowlights).

I need to contextualize this by saying that all these women are educated professionals--most have two degrees (including the art student, who is 34 and was awarded a study grant last year).  These are not public service workers, union members, etc., who might tell a different story.

A main area of discussion turned to just that topic: public sector workers and union members.  These were described almost entirely negatively--that they had a stranglehold on the country and were using their power to maintain pressure for benefits that were unreasonable.  They were described largely in terms of "featherbedding"--and not only creating easy jobs for themselves, but resenting and resisting when others wanted to do real work. 

[As an aside, some of this echoed other, earlier conversations.   When we were opening our bank account, the woman helping us--sort of an assistant manager--was incredibly busy.  Even as she dealt with us, several others approached her for answers, forms, keys--there was not a moment that she was not zooming.  When we commented on how overworked she seemed, she said she was just happy to have a job.  (Sorry if I'm repeated myself--although her degrees were in archeology, she was now too long out of the field to ever go back.  Her facial expression said that was a great disappointment to her.)  She also said that in times gone by, there would be twice as many people working at the bank, but at any one time, half of them would be on extended coffee breaks.  Similarly at the translation office.  The line was about 45 minutes long to get to the two people at the counter who were doing all the intake processing (the translations happened later).  When we got to the window, we noted three additional unstaffed windows behind a partition.  Our clerk said, "yes, and when they were all there, half of them were on break.  Now we must do it all and everyone must wait."]

[Here's another aside. When we went to play bridge in the apartment of someone we had met at the bridge club, we found ourselves in a very upscale neighborhood--100 meters from the Acropolis--and a VERY upscale apartment building--which, it was explained, was owned by a former government member who was now in jail.  Over bridge and delicious almond cake she had baked, our hostess described the plight of many of her friends--owners of multiple properties who were deeply effected by the new austerity measures.  They were for the first time having to pay property taxes!  "Imagine!" she said, "they have to pay on 10 or more properties--they cannot do it.  They have to try to sell, but no one will buy!"]

[And here's another.  There is a 23% consumption tax, i.e. VAT, on everything except food which is 13%.  As we know, this is a very regressive tax, falling hardest on those who spend most of their income.  As a result, people attempt to create a "grey economy"--one that is off the books.   That is getting harder, as now even venders in the farmer's market are required to provide printed receipts.)]

The second major complaint was pervasive nepotism.  We heard a tragic-comic story from one of the women about her long-ago stint in a public service job focused on Greek PR.   She was charged with preparing for a visit of the then-sitting prime minister to another country, to work out trade/commerce agreements.  She did tons of work in preparation and consistently called her opposite number in the other country (a Greek living abroad; they would presumably work in tandem--she with the Greek press, he with the press of the other country), but he never responded to any of her calls, telexes, emails--nothing!  When she met him shortly after she arrived with the delegation, she found someone who looked about as professional, competent, and sober as a panhandler.  Then she discovered that he had done no work beyond handing out to his local contacts translations of the work she had sent him.  Furious, she was about to challenge him when the editor of a major local newspaper called her aside.  "Don't you know who he is," her colleague asked.  "The [relative] of [a minor clerk] in the Prime Minister's retinue. Better not to go there!"  [The story ends well for the woman who told the story--she quit her job and went to work for the newspaper as their Greek correspondent--but certainly not for the trade delegation.]

More to come on this . . .

Music Lessons

About  a week ago, I (Ken) found out that the Museum of Greek Folk Instruments (a small museum near the Acropolis) offers music lessons.  So I ordered a very cheap baglama (a very small version of the 3-string bouzouki, pitched one octave higher--I like small, because it means cheaper and easy to carry)  from a local music store (Nakas) and I signed up for lessons at the museum). .  Today, I picked up the baglama (see pix below) and went to my first lesson, with a gent name Lefteris.  I had a great time.  He speaks about as much English as I speak Greek, so we stumbled around making ourselves understood, but that was part of the fun, as well as another aspect of the learning experience for both of us).  First lesson was limited to getting the darn thing tuned up and going through some rhythms, which in this case meant the pattern of up- vs. down-strokes and strumming all the strings vs. just picking (up or down) one of them.  I'm learning rhythms to two classics (Zeimpekiko and Xasapiko).  Here's a link to a great performance of the former:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytdtmxrF8lw

For a while, I thought I had been penny-wise and pound-foolish in my purchase, because we couldn't get it in tune.  Turns out Lefteris was just concerned that either the strings would break or that the instrument might warp (I never got clear which was his fear).  He took me to a music store about 3 blocks from the museum and asked the guy there about it.  The guy looked at it for a few seconds and asked "Where did you get this?"  I thought he was going to try to shame me for buying such a cheap instrument but when I told him, he said "This is my father's work."  :):):)  Turns out his father is an instrument-maker and sells many instruments to Nakas--small world.  Anyway, he said it was fine, tuned it up, and all ended well.

I'm excited about having made this connection.  I think I'll stay busy.