 |
It has been a tumultuous winter in the Balkans. Besides snow in Thessaloniki in March, which was upsetting to me at least, there has been a mobile phone spying scandal in Athens with possible American involvement, a spread of the H5N1 virus in birds across the region, and the death of former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic. But, as always, work presses on, even here at Anatolia College.
Emily and I reworked our schedules, so now I have a nine and a half hour shift on Wednesdays. It's about the best nine and a half hour shift I could have, except if my job was as a pillow fluffiness tester. I start work as the final school bell rings at 3:10 p.m and the kids file in from their classes. Many go up to their rooms, but some grab a late lunch or head downstairs to the playroom to watch TV or play foosball. At five, I rouse them from their perches, to start their studying. I join the junior high students in the small school library. I assist them with their English homework and Google searches, but mostly try to keep their mouths quiet and keep their eyes on their books rather than their friends and phones. My parents were not nearly as rigorous in enforcing my study sessions growing up, though I didn't live in a 75-kid household. There's a 90-minute dinner and socializing break before one final hour of study, which I'm as happy to see end as the students are. Before bed, the dormers are
nice and noisy. A cadre of boys watch Champions League soccer downstairs, while the girls… actually, I'm not sure where the girls are, since I usually watch the game, too. At 11:30, when the oldest students retreat to their rooms, and theoretically go to sleep, I am thankful that I get to do the same.
While the work is agreeable enough, I often question its effectiveness. My primary responsibility is the kids' safety, which I have defended, except for an increase in the flu and, among the high schoolers, smoking cigarettes. My secondary charge, where I'm having more doubts, is to see that these kids read, write, and speak English good-excuse me, read, write and speak English well. My troubles aren't for lack of effort: I've started an English study group with three ninth graders, and begun tutoring an eighth grader who attends the English-only International School. Whenever I see an American Headway workbook open, I ask if I can help. Just saying "How are you doing?" or "Where are you headed?" permeates their foreign language membrane. But I'm failing. Or rather, some of the students are failing, in a literal and academic sense. Dorm advisors have access to the students' grades, and I was dismayed when I read some of their teachers' comments. There has been talk of revoking scholarships from stude
nts, though I'm not sure how or if that will happen. These poor marks have encouraged me to converse with them more. These kids need our help. However, they usually don't ask for it. They're in the awful situation of needing help with their English, but not being confident enough with the language to ask for it.
Regrettably, I feel like I am on shaky ethical footing when motivating their English study, since I am only slowly picking up Greek. I sometimes feel like I'm in the shadow of Will Stroebel, my predecessor as Anatolia's male Grinnell Corps intern. With great diligence, he learned modern Greek in a year, and now is in a post-graduate European Literature program at Thessaloniki's Aristotle University. His feat should motivate me, but it sort of has been having the opposite effect. At this point, I know I won't be near fluency by the end of the year. In my coursework, I just learned how to construct the future tense, but haven't learned the past tense yet. It is better to keep your thoughts on the future, I believe, but not due to ignorance.
While the Greek class I'm taking has been passable, I have enjoyed my few opportunities to teach English classes at Anatolia. This is written elsewhere in the information on the Grinnell Corps: Greece program, but I'd like to emphasize that, unlike Macao, Nanjing, and Lesotho, the program at Anatolia consists of residence life work more than classroom work. So while the other fellows are professors, Emily and I are more like RLCs-we even have apartments in the dorm. I recently substituted for two English classes, though. One was studying antonyms while the other had a reading on traveling to different countries. Toward the end of latter class, I drew a crude map of the world on the blackboard, and asked each student where they would love to travel and why. Then, I marked it off on the map. The "whys" were a bit crude usually, and several of the boys wanted to go to Italy just to see soccer matches. Almost none of them wanted to go to Asia, and those that wanted to go to the States didn't want to ven
ture past the coasts. The only odd answer was the boy who wanted to go to Albania, he said "to see Albanians." To simplify international relations excessively, this would be like an American in any large city saying they wanted to visit Mexico, solely to view the people. I politely told him that there are plenty of Albanian people living in the city, and that there probably are other reasons to visit Albania.
Aside from speaking English, I use my mouth, and much of my day, to eat. The dining hall in the dorm is a source for free food, but sadly, not good food-there is a single entrée for each meal, with a repetitive salad bar, which I've improved by smuggling in balsamic vinegar. In Thessaloniki proper, the food is excessively delightful, and I do mean excessive. This is a city and country that likes to eat. A lot. I mean, the Ancient Greeks ruined much of their environment by over-planting olive trees, and today the Aegean Sea is running out of fish.
To put this eating into perspective, Greeks eat more cheese than any country in the European Union, and more olives per person than any nation anywhere. Both the feta cheese and olives here are delicious, and Thessaloniki has lots of other tasty food ingredients, including spinach, honey, and thick Greek yogurt, though the combination of these five probably wouldn't be so sweet.
Going out to dinner with friends here is better than anywhere else I've lived. Greek restaurants, usually called "tavernas," work sort of like Spanish tapas bars. You order several small dishes, which everyone shares. I haven't empirically tested the perfect proportion of portions per person, but I think it's around 1.3 dishes per person. In tavernas here, you can choose among cold appetizers, hot appetizers, salads, cheeses, and either meat or fish-whenever you go out, it's always a question of meat OR fish, with nary an "and" in sight. Usually all this food is garnished with olive oil and lemon, and washed down with some alcohol. At the end, when I usually feel groggy but happily stuffed, the waiters will bring you the best kind of dessert: a free dessert, which is a Macedonian tradition.
Aside from all the food, eating out offers a friendly, relaxed environment. Waiters practically avoid you, and getting your check takes patience. I find it a welcome change from American restaurants that try to maximize profits by minimizing the amount of time you spend in them. One downside, though, is that like cheese and olives, Greeks top the charts in tobacco consumption, and so as my stomach thanks me, my lungs often curse me.
In a pinch, though, Greek takeout food is cheap and superlative. A couple fast food chains have infiltrated town-many of the dorm students like a burger chain called Goody's that is not. Traditional Greek takeout has three main prongs: gyros, souvlaki, and pies. Gyros are hot, salty meat shavings served on flat bread, drenched with ketchup-and mustard if you want. And I usually don't. It's the equivalent of buying a hot dog on the street, and equally salty, but more flavorful and filling. Souvlaki are spiced chicken kebabs, again on flatbread. The primary pies are spanikopita, which is somewhat known in the states, and bougatza, a Macedonian pastry usually filled with cheese or cream, but sometimes spinach or meat. It's similar to spanikopita, but has more filling and a little less filo bread. Like gyros, bougatza is a very portable food, and I often eat it on walks through town, using a napkin to wipe off all the excess butter.
Many Greeks have recently restricted their intake of their awesome cuisine, and I'm not talking about the fears of H5N1 in chickens. Orthodox Lent has begun, which means that Carnival just ended. Will Stroebel, Emily and I spent the last Sunday of Carnival at a celebration in Naoussa, a mountain village that's an 80-minute bus ride from Thessaloniki. It was packed. The main square was full of children in costumes. My personal favorite was the boy dressed as a Roman soldier, holding a toy pistol. It was a cute, non-threatening historical anachronism. Weapons were also part of the village's parades. The men and boys donned white Kabuki-like masks and the traditional Greek military outfit, prominently featuring a skirt and black poof balls on their shoes, and held dulled swords up high, often clashing them with one another. This wasn't merely a military march; it was simultaneously a wedding procession. At the back of the pack, near the musicians playing a steady tune, was a man wearing a colorful wedd
ing dress, holding a pure white cloth above his/her head. Later on in the day, the squares and street intersections were full of people dancing and musicians playing. The whole day felt like a big happy party. But it was the kind of party where I didn't know many people. Or, since I'm neither Orthodox nor Christian, what we were celebrating. Or, unfortunately the language everyone was speaking.
|
|
