I can’t believe the month in Greece is already over. Greece – it does not matter where – has such a nice flair. The fresh fruit stores on every corner, plenty of cute cafés and restaurants – the food and wine – You can get very good wine for only 2,20 Euro per bottle in the supermarket – I really love wine… I have always thought that the Greek cuisine entails lots of meat, but no – the starters/appetizers in the restaurants are so amazing, that it is often the best just to order a bunch of appetizers and share it – from (of course) Feta in all varieties to grilled eggplant, zucchini balls and of course – Tzatziki.
But my stay in Greece was not about food, I am probably just so into that topic because I am just sitting in a nice restaurant in Thessaloniki, sipping on my red wine and waiting for my food. That is definitely a good “last night” in Greece.
In the morning I was finishing up my work with the NGO “Lifting Hands International” in Serres, 1,5h northeast of Thessaloniki, where I taught German to refugees from Iraq and Syria. The refugee camp in Serres is for Yezidis an ethnic-religious minority who survived the genocide committed by ISIS. For more information, please read my blog entry from week 29. (I will probably share in the coming days more information on the overall refugee crisis in a separate post.)
Even though I was here only for a month, my students learned so much in this short time – my “ABC” (“A0”/A1 Level) students can now buy food or order food/drinks in a restaurant and the students in my Pre-ABC course, which just started two weeks ago already know the numbers, the colours, the ABC and how to introduce themselves – and this though some of them just started learning to write the Latin letters two weeks ago. It is amazing to see their progress and of course to get positive feedback from some of the students asking me to stay longer. The students are so warm-hearted, and we laughed quite a lot together – also about me trying to pronounce words in Kurmanci (the language of Yezidis) correctly… It is sometimes hard to believe through what they went and are still so positive, friendly and amazing people 😊
On top of missing the Greek food, I will also miss the Yezidi food. The students often brought us food as “Thank you”– like flatbread, sweet bread and sometimes even rice and well-spiced sauces or sweets 😊
Oh my god – I have just finished eating – it was sooo good 😊 Good that my hostel is just down the hill so I can just roll down. Back to the topic of food it is… Another thing I like about Greece, in most restaurants you get water for free and sometimes even a dessert or some snacks. Recently, I went out with a bunch of volunteers for a farewell of the other German teacher and we got chips and peanuts with the beers and when we ordered a round of Ouzo, we even got some cucumber and other veggie sticks. Yes, I know the costs of these treats are included in the price of the “main” stuff, but still, I like it, I am so easily manipulated 😛
Thanks to me being in a restaurant this post will be a little bit chaotic, jumping from one topic to the next – just like my brain does it all the time. So back to the volunteer work. At the end of each month, the NGO is organizing a special event, called Hafla (party), on Saturday afternoons with a special programme for every age group. So, a cat just jumped on my lap and wants to be petted… even more, distraction here, which could bring me to the topic of street cats and dogs, but no, I am continuing to tell you about Hafla. In the early afternoon, we organized an obstacle course for kids. I was helping at the “sack race” station. Oh my god was that cute, when the kids, especially the toddlers were jumping in a sack or rather a duvet cover. I should not say that, but some of them fell and it was so funny – no one got hurt of course. On girl, she was just 2 also wanted to do the sack race, so we did it together – I hold her hand and helped her with the sack 😊 This girl was so cute.
Adults could watch Mr Bean on a projector in the education tent. They love Mr Bean and afterwards, we enjoyed a round of dancing – Yezidi dancing. I learned that day, that they are more than 30 dances all following the same style. You dance either in a row or a circle and move anti-clockwise moving your feet, shoulders and hands in a way, I have never seen before. With the shoulders it is a little it like shrugging shoulders to the rhythm, sometimes a big shrug, sometimes a small one. Depending on the rhythm, the steps and hand/shoulder movement varies. It is difficult to describe, maybe you should just watch the YouTube video if you are interested (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WAJMd-vy4Q). One of my students tried to teach me how to dance one of the dances, but moving the feet, the hands and shoulders simultaneously in a certain – unfamiliar way – is not my greatest strength if you know what I mean.
So, my lovely cat just left me – leaving some fur on my laptop. I am usually a dog person, but some cats are just adorable, like the one, which just left me – oh she is coming back! 😊
Both in Serres and Thessaloniki, you see many cats and dogs on the street. The ones with collar have an owner, but even with dogs, it seems that many dogs are going for a walk without their owner – so not all dogs you see walking around alone are street dogs. When I think about street dogs or cats, I usually imagine thin animals desperately looking for food – but at least the ones I saw, were well fed – some even too well fed. I just noticed the other day, when walking to the refugee centre with a new volunteer – how focused I am on dogs. Instead of telling him – oh there is this store where you can get x, I just told him about the dogs the whole walk to the camp (30minutes), like “oh yes that is the dog, who lies in the sun the whole day and that is the crazy dog barking at cars and running in front of them and there is his fat friend and oh yeah over there is my favourite dog, I want to steal him, he is so cute, but he has an owner and other dog friends….” Thinking back, I believe he was so glad when we arrived, and I finally stopped talking about dogs.
So, enough for today, I hope you are not hungry or longing for a dog because of me 😛
Wanderlust 