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I am not very good at saying good-bye. Though my final Grinnell Corps report was due over a month ago, I have dawdled and procrastinated and put it off again and again. However, as the end of the year is rapidly approaching, I don't think I have much choice in the matter anymore. School has ended for most kids and Anatolia summer camp has already begun. The school bells no longer ring at 8am every morning, and I often find myself wandering an empty campus. The dormitory has cleared out almost entirely, and walking past the empty rooms gives me that dull sadness that comes from seeing empty spaces that are usually inhabited and full of life.
All of this quiet calm is especially strange, as it follows a period of remarkable intensity. The Anatolia exam period lasted for a full month, with tests every other day and study hall 4-8 hours per day for dorm students. The seniors had an especially intimidating challenge ahead of them; the Panhellenic exams, state-administered tests for entry into university. The results of these tests will determine if and where these students will attend school, and even what they will study. Though the austere attitude surrounding these exams seemed extreme to me at first, I came to realize that these tests may very well have an enormous impact on the future of these students. I don't think I have or ever will take a test with such important consequences.
Because tests are of such importance in the Greek school system, we dorm advisors had to be especially vigilant about convincing the students to study. Understandably, some of the students, being resistant to such long study periods, were especially antsy. While proctoring a study hall for younger students, I had to inform several kids that ten-minute bathroom breaks every half hour would no longer be allowed, and I certainly did remember that trick from my own high school algebra classes. On several occasions I woke up kids who were sleeping through study hall, no doubt recovering from the previous night of heavy studying. After three hours of work, I could feel the tension building among the students, and the last five minutes of the study period were always filled with murmurs and sighs from kids who are counting down the seconds until they can take a break.
However, there have also been some joyful and fun moments lately; things I will certainly remember when I look back on my time here. One day a mysterious creature managed to find its way into the dorm ceiling and was tramping around through the crawl space for a good hour or so. We thought it was a mouse, or maybe a cat, until a student glimpsed it though the skylight and exclaimed "IT CHICKEN! IT CHICKEN!" Rumors quickly spread that there was a 'chicken' in the ceiling, although I have yet to see an actual chicken hanging out on the dorm roof or even in the proximity of the school. On another day, a seventh grade spent a good hour explaining the plot of the film "Sleepy Hollow" in broken English. When I told her that the setting of the story is a mere hour or so from my home in New York, she squealed in horror until I repeatedly assured her that the headless horseman is really just a myth. I had an especially good laugh last week after I picked up a book filled with messages written from dorm students to
find that one of them had wished me a "happy future and a handsome man".
I've been doing my best to work in as much travel as possible in these last days, and I'm planning a trip through the Greek Islands this summer, followed by some wandering through Eastern Europe, Ireland and London before I finally direct myself back home. Over Easter break I took a solo six-day trip around the Pelopponnese and discovered that I very much enjoy the autonomy of wandering around alone. There's something wonderful about standing solitary among the ancient ruins, free from others from the modern world, and feeling the centuries stretching back into the past. I think my favorite part of the trip was exploring the Byzantine city of Mystras, which inhabits the top of something halfway between a hill and a mountain several kilometers outside of Sparti. Climbing so high above the everyday world, entering Mystras is really like entering into a fairy tale, romantic but ghostly at the same time. Hundreds of years after the city was abandoned, you can still walk through the rubble of what were once
homes and see the frescoes on the walls of churches. The only signs of modern life are the purple blossoms creeping through the cracks in the medieval stones, and bees buzzing among the branches.
I spent Greek Orthodox Easter with Phil Holland and Holly Marshall, two members of the Anatolia English department, who not only invited me to share their Easter dinner but also introduced me to the traditional Greek Easter Saturday; church in the evening, with the traditional lighting of candles, called lambadas. Just before midnight I was amazed to see the local church suddenly surrounded by hundreds of people clamoring to light their candles and to wish one another a happy Easter. Afterwards there was a delicious dinner to break the Lenten fast, including traditional soup made with entrails.
This last week at Anatolia has, in a sense, allowed me to come full circle. A group of American college students have moved into Ingle Hall while they work as volunteers at the English language summer camp. Watching them experience Greece for the first time, I feel almost as though I am watching myself ten months ago, confused about times of day and store hours, getting lost in the maze of streets, fascinated by ruins, sounding out Greek words and slowly picking up a new alphabet, and obsessed with putting tzatziki on everything. It's a bit surreal to realize that so many of the things I have come to take for granted are so unfamiliar to my fellow Americans.
Like Brad, I have a lot of people to thank, including Doug Cutchins, Teresa Platidou, Panagiotis Antoniou, Phil Holland, Alexia Dara, Zisis Maras, Eleutheria Kyritsi, Will Stroebel, all of the dormitory students, and Brad himself.
I am looking forward to New York, my friends and family, used bookstores, and Indian food. However, I will miss coffee by the sea with Mt. Olympus across the gulf, afternoon naps, 2pm being 'morning', ancient ruins on city streets, fortresses high on hills, climbing up into the old town and back in time, priests in black on cell phones, fresh fruits and vegetables from the market, 15 kinds of feta on sale, 15 kinds of halvah for sale, ouzo, retsina, good cheap barrel wine, paprika sauce, crepes, pomegranates, octopus next to the eggs at the grocery store, listening to mangled English, mangling Greek, free cookies and nuts in cafes, substitute teaching and explaining that I don't know any famous people, mastic chewing gum, live music at tavernas, free dessert at tavernas, being followed by stray dogs, being followed by kids with questions, having kids confide in me, having kids argue with me, dipping bread in the salad, never knowing when the hell things will be open or closed, the click of worry beads in
waiting rooms, understanding people who swear in Greek, reading the names of American movie stars spelled in Greek letters on Greek movie posters, every word explaining a little bit more, every day being an adventure, every trip exciting, every new place a discovery, every moment a revelation.
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