Athens is a city where history and modernity come to an awkward head, meeting exactly at the gates of the Acropolis where the winding streets of Monastiraki are lined with shops for tourists. Cafes with outdoor seating offer locals and visitors alike a view of this seam where ancient life and street life come together. Athens is a city built on a city, the modern structures superimposed onto a place of deep history. Seventy years ago, when it was decided to uncover the Roman center of town, 400 modern homes and shops were lost to the efforts. The question became not whether to do this, but where to stop. Any new construction can take years because of the complexity of what is encountered underground. As a visitor, it is easy to be distracted by the ruins, and rightfully so. They are not only beautiful, but they are literally the corner stones of Western civilization. However, life here today is something else entirely. It is a life of pushing and parading, speaking loudly and passionately, staying out late, and smoking many many cigarettes...

excerpted from The Hive, essay in progress.

Some of Athens from the last 3 days (for Mom and Korine).

Where you are. Where are you from?


“I haven’t been to Nigeria in 3 years. But I talk on the phone all the time. You can buy cards to talk – 60 minutes for 5 Euros.”
*
“When I get my papers, I will be able to go and come.”
*
“Where are you from?”
“Sudan.”
“Oh. Tough spot there now. Three Euro for the CD?”
*
“I was born in Athens. Unfortunately.”
*
“I am from this place - do you know Macedonia? I love Athens! It is busy and wonderful. I will never return to my home!”
“Of course he loves Athens. He is a villager from the mountains nowhere. I hate Athens. Athens is complete shit. I am from Crete – from Paradise! But there is no work there for the winter so I come here and work bullshit. It is like Hell to me.”
*
“Those visiting Athens, they see beauty, they love it so much. They cannot understand the daily struggle of living here.”
*
“There are no rules for anything. It is like everyone is trying to push and grab. Other European countries are not like this. We are European, but the Mediterranean affects us. It makes us crazy.”
*
“I buy the CDs from Someplace, 1 Euro 50. I sell them 4, 5 Euros. The CDs, DVDs is where the money is. Handbags are not so good. They are too big, and not much profit.”
*
“When the immigrants started coming, we didn’t change anything. Now they are so many here, and there is no support. Nothing.”
*
“I know all the guys in that Square. Mostly we are Nigerians, but there are some from Sudan, some from Senegal and Guinea. We have to run if we see the police. If they catch us, they will take our things. But just wait. Five minutes, and we will be back.”
*
“These Greeks are lazy. They love to enjoy life too much, but it makes them lazy. That is why I don’t like them.”
*
“You can’t trust them.”
*
“You will be learning Greek from many different accents.”
*
“I won’t learn Greek. You know, instead of Zed, they have Omega. I just don’t understand these people.”
*
“The teacher is Albanian, and the students complain to their parents that they can’t understand because she speaks in that way. She came here when she was two. She can speak proper Greek, but not like one of us, you know?”
*
“You have to be strong in yourself when you speak to the parents. If the parent is complaining about the foreign students, you have to be strong to defend those children.”
*
“I feel that I am suffocating in the classroom.”
*
“The teacher was hitting the student. I asked him how can he do that, but his reply was that some of the foreign children only respond to strength. What could I say? He was old, my father’s age.”
*
“There is a new law. If I pay 1,500 Euro, plus lawyer’s fees, I can have one-year residency permit. After one year, I pay again, and maybe get a two-year permit. If I have the permit, I can leave the country without fear of losing my life here.”
*
“The Municipal Office has to call the Prefectorial Office, and they will argue about who knows the correct rules. But they are both stupid and no one knows what is correct.”
*
“Look at this. Greece is a place where bureaucracy has won.”
*
“I told them you are American. That is why we don’t have to wait in the cue with the other foreigners. You see that line? Full of Pakistanis. We would be here for 3 days.”
*

Stranger in a Strange Land

What can it mean to migrate? How does it feel trading one home for another, arriving in a new place, hopeful, excited, scared? In the past few years, it seems that I have spent much of my time away from the place where I grew up, and although I have often been an outsider, I have never been made to feel outside. I now find myself in Athens, Greece, a place that is pumped full of tourists everyday, but where immigrants live with enormous stigma. Although I not planning to stay forever, the 10 months I will be here has thrust me into a messy system built to handle the masses of individuals who come from outside.

This morning, I made my first visit to the immigration office to begin the application for a residence permit. At 7:30, as I made my way towards the address I had been given, the streets seemed quiet. I knew I was in trouble when I figured out that the address I had was actually an apartment building. Dimitra had reported that at the office I would see many immigrants, and that we would have to go into a basement to apply for the permit. Someone would speak English, she assured me, but I would most likely need papers that I did not have. There was, however, no way of knowing what I needed until I went there to find out, and that is how I found myself on a nearly deserted street standing in front of a row of run down apartments.

Looking up and down the street, I spotted a group of people milling around on the next block. Could these be the other immigrants? I made my way towards them, and saw that everyone was carrying passports, and documents, looking tired in the narrow street. Cars that tried to pass beeped their horns loudly for people to move. Suddenly an official came out and began yelling directions. People separated into two groups, and I tried to ask what was happening, but couldn't find anyone who could speak English. I joined the line that was being ushered inside, and was relieved when we were marched into a basement. We filed into rows of hard plastic chairs, which faced a long row of tables where tired and unhappy lookinofficialsls were preparing their stamps for the day. One by one, a guard pointed to one of us, said something, and flicked his head. That person went to the front, pulled out a blue slip of paper, and spoke with one of the officials, and the paper was either stamped or not. Soon, however, this system which had seem quite orderly erupted into chaos. People did not wait to be called, but began standing in lines in front of the officials. One woman fell to the floor cryinhystericallyly and making the sign of the cross. An official yelled at an old man who hung his head. I didn'’t know what to do. People were now budging in line, and despite the fact that I had wanted to wait to be called, it seemed that I needed to take action or else forfeit my day to the plastic chair and a drama that could not understand. I began asking if anyone spoke English, and if I was in the right place. Finally someone, a man who was escorting a diplomat to the front of the line, told me that he didn'’t know if I was in the right place, but that I should go upstairs to one of the woman with desks by the door. They could direct me. So back upstairs I went.

Backlit by the glass door, one of the women was on the telephone, but kept raising her eyebrows signaling for me to talk. I said my one perfect phrase, "“I don't understand Greek,"” and I was directed to the other womimmediatelyadiatly began yelling, "English? English??'” It took me a moment to realize that she was yelling at me, asking me what I wanted, why I was there. I explained to her, and she spread my papers over the desk. "I won't read these. I need them in Greek.” She took my passport and violently began flipping through until she came to my European Visa. “What? Why are you here? How long? Student? Why are you alone? Your visa is almost finished. It may be too late. Come back today with translations. Bring someone who can speak Greek. You must come back today." And I was pushed back outside along with an African who was yelling at one of the officials from downstairs. The official was yelling back, and they were both pointing down the block. The woman I had spoken with was already yelling on the phone, and outside, all of the immigrants, who had been pushing to get in 40 minutes before, were gone. An old man sat on a stoop smoking quietly. I called Dimitra, who said that she could go on Monday, but that it would be difficult, as she also had to go out to Elfessina, I had to begin Greek lessons, and we all had a meeting sometime during the day. So the saga of being legal here continues, throughout the weekend and onto Monday.

Sight See Athens

I arrived in Athens tired, but ready, and oddly calm about this move. Yes, I was going to a place where I did not speak the language, to a job that was unspecified at an organization that I had only read a website about. No, I did not know anyone in Athens, I had only spoken to my contact three times on the phone. No, I did not know about my apartment. No, I did not know about my neighborhood. No, I did not really know anything. But when I got off the plane, finally having arrived after months of trying to figure out my Visa, everything seemed to feel surprisingly normal.

On the day I arrived, I was picked at the airport and brought to my apartment. My contact, Dimitra, showed me the basics of the neighborhood – bread store, dairy store, supermarket. I was told to buy vegetables from the large central market on Saturday, and meat from meat stores only. I was given a map, told that I was living in a very good area, that I would learn everything quickly, and that I would be meeting with everyone at Schedia next Monday. Until then, I should relax and spend my time getting situated.

So this week I am sightseeing and learning to find my way around. My apartment, a small studio on the third floor a quiet building, is a 10 minute walk from the downtown area and nestled between two large hills. Every day a different old man playing accordian has made his way up the street, and as he goes people come out to their balconies to listen. As I sit typing a man is playing on the corner.

Although I would not call Athens a beautiful city, it charming and utilitarian, both things that, I appriciate as a newcomer. It is a place with a massive history, which is kept alive by the attention it receives, and which, in turn churns the city. There is evidence of the ancient past everywhere. Walking in any neighborhood, there are holes in the ground 30 feet deep where they have excavated roads or tombs. Locals wearing large sunglasses walk by without notice and tourists stop to look and snap photos. These pocketed ruins are surprisingly wonderful windows into the past, but seem oddly fractured from the modern present, as if the city we are living in was superimposed onto an ancient site with little physical evidence of anything in between.

This week I have joined the ranks of tourists, dutifully packing around town with my camera bag, stopping only to rest, look, and then get lost again. Although it feels a bit silly at times, it is wonderful to be walking around ancient sites with people from all over the world. As I go, I have found that it is the other tourists more than the ruins that I find interesting. Listening in on conversations, joining Japanese guided tours, or just sitting and watching as people stroll through, exhausted from climbing, excited at the sites, hungry to pack in as much as they can in their four-day tour of the city. And by simply being there and available I have come across quite a few interesting people. This afternoon I met an old Italian dancer who said that he was worried about the way that I carried myself when I walked, and that if I did not work to open the pressure points in my neck, my metabolism would slow, and I could double in size within a year. I sat looking up at the Parthanon while he got to work, rubbing my head and neck and chatting about his houses in New York, Australia, and Tibet. When he decided that the pressure points had been opened he said goodbye and moved on. On my way home, I met a Nigerian selling bootleg CDs who took a long break from hussling to give me a tutorial on the political situation in Nigeria, the development of corruption there, and expounded a powerful argument for an independent Biaforian State. He had to run when a police car rolled by looking for people selling without a permit. I arrived home exhausted.

Next week I begin working in earnest, and am excited to learn more about the organization with which I am affiliated, but until then, I suppose that I will have more days of touring. Still up in the air is my residency permit, and subsequent visa extension, but hopefully all of this will soon be figured out. As for this evening, I am free to do as I like, and I believe that I will sit down and practice my ukulele. I hope the neighbors aren’t sleeping.

The view from my balcony


The Parthanon (under construction since 1983)


Changing of the guard outside Parliment


Just outside the National Gardens


Square at night