There's a Greek pretty-boy named Paris working here who hits on anything that moves--he is what is known as a common European sleaze--but the kitchen crew is fun. Gosha is a bright, funny Polish woman, and she and I share a bond by default: we are the only women we see all day. We communicate with our eyes about certain--for lack of a better word--truths that women hold dear in their hearts about men. (Europeans love the gender war). Ilir is an Albanian kid whose feathers never ruffle, and who excels at un-ruffling everybody else's. He is simultaneously 4 and 47 but is really 23. Gosha gets stressed very easily, and Ilir is impossibly calm at all times. I fall somewhere in the middle, and no one ever understands what I am saying. This makes me feel strangely adolescent, except that I'm mostly amused by my situation, instead of being infuriated.
There is something that infuriates me here, consistently, but it is not language or loneliness. It's what I see as being an attitude problem about the situation we are all in. All of us. I'm talking about this approach: because it isn't happening to me, it isn't happening.
As I said, I'm lucky to work as I travel because I get to see the inside of the places I go. But there is a dark side to the inside here, and it has to do with three things: water, garbage, and class.
Water. There's this myth that the concentration of environmental evil lies in cities. Environmental evil (or good) doesn't have to do with where you live--it has to do with the choices you make. Spyros is one of two brothers who own the restaurant and hotel I work at. His English-speaking Athenian friend visited us for the second time and Spyros opened a bottle of wine. The three of us sat down to watch a National Geographic documentary about the growing water shortages--hmm...that doesn't sound right, does it?--in South America.
I was lucky on two accounts, and unlucky on one. The documentary was in Spanish (with Greek subtitles) so I could understand most of it and I was in the presence of a fluent speaker of both English and Greek. I would be able to participate in a conversation about a documentary, and potentially get to know my employer a little bit! I was unlucky because Spyros doesn't talk very much. What he did finally say was that he was concerned for his business. If the world was running out of potable water, and therefore, if the world was going to war, how would he still run a restaurant? Who would come? How would he survive? These are perfectly legitimate questions. But in context, they were also sort of fucked up questions. Because there was an immense amount of water waste that went on in that place. I adored Gosha, but when we were cleaning the inn's rooms, she would run a tap for a mop bucket, and forget about it, leaving it running on full. Ilir was often told to power wash the stones free of harmless little dead leaves. I guess so that everything looked pristeen for the richies who visited us. When there was nothing to do, we re-cleaned rooms that were already clean. I don't even want to go into our bathroom cleaning methods, which were horrendous. I didn't understand how Spyros could worry about his livelihood, based on the water problem, and not understand that he was part of it, part of the organism and part of the system, and he could affect it.
To understand Spyros mentality (which, to be honest, I can't, or refuse to, on principle, understand) it's important to know that one of the cleanest rivers in Europe runs through Papigo. I would routinely drink straight from it on my walks and I've never tasted water like that. It made me feel tingly and bright. The Voidomatis has straight up fountain of youth stuff going on. Papigo, and Greece in general, is a healthy place to live. But maybe when you never see or feel places where the meat and vegetables are not fresh, and the water has chlorine in it, or worse things, or there is no water at all, you don't know how fucking rich you are.
Garbage. Hotels and restaurants generate an immense amount of waste. Restaurants, because they are busy, have the "now" mentality. As in, how can I eliminate as many things as I can as quickly as possible right now? And the answer is the trash can. Something a chef might wrap in plastic if he was home, he chucks away at his restaurant. Just because whatever it is is in his way. I would've loved an answer on why they didn't compost. We filled up a 50 gallon trash bag almost everyday, and the most of it was filled with organic matter. The worst part is that they had a garden.
Class. I displaced Ilir. When I arrived at Astra, Ilir was in Albania. Gosha and I cleaned out a little room off the hallway that functioned as a cleaning closet and an office. The room had a foam cot shoved in the corner and everywhere else there was papers, soccer balls, extra pillows, slippers, etc., etc., etc. We moved all the crap, got rid of the cot and its mangey blankets, cleaned the room thoroughly, and built some IKEA furniture (a bed, a desk, a small bureau) that Spyros had bought. Spyros even gave me a fluffy duvet and some rugs for the floor. It turned out to be a lovely little room in which, for two weeks, I devoured books like a fiend (my only source of English).
Four days after I moved in, Ilir arrived. I have no idea where he spent the first few nights, but on his 3rd or 4th night in Papigo, he came into the hall/office outside my bedroom, unrolled some bedding on the floor, closed a curtain, and went to sleep. The next day I asked him if the room had been his and he said, "Ma-u-ra. No problema. Ilir sleep. No problema." I double-checked my suspicions with Gosha. Indeed, the little room with the cot had been Ilir's. But it had only been made pleasant for me, the American. I insisted that Ilir take it back, or share it with me, but everyone (including Ilir) insisted that he sleep in the hall. I felt very uncomfortable, but not as uncomfortable as Ilir. It was freezing in the hall.
One day Ilir and I were sent to clean the rafters of the hotel rooms. Apparently an Athenian tourist had come to rent one of the suites, pointed to the dust on the rafters, and left. We got a ladder and climbed onto the rafters and went around on our elbows and knees, rubbing down the beams and hitting the corners with wet rags. We did six rooms. They were large. It was fun at first, because it was so ridiculous, but by the end we were both rubbing our knees and sneezing. Working for rich people is by far one of the strangest feelings in the world. I didn't feel like I was selling out, but buying in. Vomit. All over your Dolce and Banana whatever. Ilir's cheerful disposition was my saving grace, and it also depressed me.
Can you see how class and garbage are related? And how water--water is the thing that should be so simple.
There is something that infuriates me here, consistently, but it is not language or loneliness. It's what I see as being an attitude problem about the situation we are all in. All of us. I'm talking about this approach: because it isn't happening to me, it isn't happening.
As I said, I'm lucky to work as I travel because I get to see the inside of the places I go. But there is a dark side to the inside here, and it has to do with three things: water, garbage, and class.
Water. There's this myth that the concentration of environmental evil lies in cities. Environmental evil (or good) doesn't have to do with where you live--it has to do with the choices you make. Spyros is one of two brothers who own the restaurant and hotel I work at. His English-speaking Athenian friend visited us for the second time and Spyros opened a bottle of wine. The three of us sat down to watch a National Geographic documentary about the growing water shortages--hmm...that doesn't sound right, does it?--in South America.
I was lucky on two accounts, and unlucky on one. The documentary was in Spanish (with Greek subtitles) so I could understand most of it and I was in the presence of a fluent speaker of both English and Greek. I would be able to participate in a conversation about a documentary, and potentially get to know my employer a little bit! I was unlucky because Spyros doesn't talk very much. What he did finally say was that he was concerned for his business. If the world was running out of potable water, and therefore, if the world was going to war, how would he still run a restaurant? Who would come? How would he survive? These are perfectly legitimate questions. But in context, they were also sort of fucked up questions. Because there was an immense amount of water waste that went on in that place. I adored Gosha, but when we were cleaning the inn's rooms, she would run a tap for a mop bucket, and forget about it, leaving it running on full. Ilir was often told to power wash the stones free of harmless little dead leaves. I guess so that everything looked pristeen for the richies who visited us. When there was nothing to do, we re-cleaned rooms that were already clean. I don't even want to go into our bathroom cleaning methods, which were horrendous. I didn't understand how Spyros could worry about his livelihood, based on the water problem, and not understand that he was part of it, part of the organism and part of the system, and he could affect it.
To understand Spyros mentality (which, to be honest, I can't, or refuse to, on principle, understand) it's important to know that one of the cleanest rivers in Europe runs through Papigo. I would routinely drink straight from it on my walks and I've never tasted water like that. It made me feel tingly and bright. The Voidomatis has straight up fountain of youth stuff going on. Papigo, and Greece in general, is a healthy place to live. But maybe when you never see or feel places where the meat and vegetables are not fresh, and the water has chlorine in it, or worse things, or there is no water at all, you don't know how fucking rich you are.
Garbage. Hotels and restaurants generate an immense amount of waste. Restaurants, because they are busy, have the "now" mentality. As in, how can I eliminate as many things as I can as quickly as possible right now? And the answer is the trash can. Something a chef might wrap in plastic if he was home, he chucks away at his restaurant. Just because whatever it is is in his way. I would've loved an answer on why they didn't compost. We filled up a 50 gallon trash bag almost everyday, and the most of it was filled with organic matter. The worst part is that they had a garden.
Class. I displaced Ilir. When I arrived at Astra, Ilir was in Albania. Gosha and I cleaned out a little room off the hallway that functioned as a cleaning closet and an office. The room had a foam cot shoved in the corner and everywhere else there was papers, soccer balls, extra pillows, slippers, etc., etc., etc. We moved all the crap, got rid of the cot and its mangey blankets, cleaned the room thoroughly, and built some IKEA furniture (a bed, a desk, a small bureau) that Spyros had bought. Spyros even gave me a fluffy duvet and some rugs for the floor. It turned out to be a lovely little room in which, for two weeks, I devoured books like a fiend (my only source of English).
Four days after I moved in, Ilir arrived. I have no idea where he spent the first few nights, but on his 3rd or 4th night in Papigo, he came into the hall/office outside my bedroom, unrolled some bedding on the floor, closed a curtain, and went to sleep. The next day I asked him if the room had been his and he said, "Ma-u-ra. No problema. Ilir sleep. No problema." I double-checked my suspicions with Gosha. Indeed, the little room with the cot had been Ilir's. But it had only been made pleasant for me, the American. I insisted that Ilir take it back, or share it with me, but everyone (including Ilir) insisted that he sleep in the hall. I felt very uncomfortable, but not as uncomfortable as Ilir. It was freezing in the hall.
One day Ilir and I were sent to clean the rafters of the hotel rooms. Apparently an Athenian tourist had come to rent one of the suites, pointed to the dust on the rafters, and left. We got a ladder and climbed onto the rafters and went around on our elbows and knees, rubbing down the beams and hitting the corners with wet rags. We did six rooms. They were large. It was fun at first, because it was so ridiculous, but by the end we were both rubbing our knees and sneezing. Working for rich people is by far one of the strangest feelings in the world. I didn't feel like I was selling out, but buying in. Vomit. All over your Dolce and Banana whatever. Ilir's cheerful disposition was my saving grace, and it also depressed me.
Can you see how class and garbage are related? And how water--water is the thing that should be so simple.
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