Girl Gone Greek (3 page)

“
Kyria
Rachel?” enquired a very short lady in her forties with black bobbed hair and glasses that almost took up her entire face. “Me Anthoula, me sister of your boss man,” she said as she struggled to take my huge case from under the bus. With a year’s supply of clothes, my case was twice as big as her, and she seemed intent on picking it up and carrying it to God knows where.

I turned and smiled down at her, after figuring out she was the sister-in-law of my boss, and pointed to the wheels at the bottom, extending the trolley handle. Anthoula raised her eyes to the heavens and stretched out her palm vertically next to the side of her head. She then shook it rapidly from side to side, as if to indicate that she was a silly lady for not having figured this out herself.

It took ten minutes to manoeuvre the oversized suitcase into a waiting Volkswagen Polo. All the while, I watched people greeting each other with hugs, kisses and cheek pinching—my trance only broken when I heard Anthoula beckoning me from the car.

“Parnassos,” Anthoula saw me looking at the mountain. “
Oreia
, eh?” Having picked up that “
oreia
” meant “beautiful” from my earlier years in Greece, I nodded. Mount Parnassos was, indeed,
oreia
. I could make out pine trees clustered up to a certain point, and then this gave way to the snow I’d seen earlier.

Anthoula dropped me at my flat and I stood in its doorway, taking in the main room with the single bed, desk, mirror, bookshelf and TV, as well as the separate kitchen and bathroom. The excitement of the last twenty-four hours was wearing off and I could feel my adrenaline and energy levels dropping. In their place I felt tears welling. It seemed as if the walls were closing in on me from all sides. If they’d been padded, it would have completed the illusion of an asylum. Anthoula had been sweet, but I still felt she’d simply dumped me here and expected me to fend for myself.

“Later,” she’d said, patting me on the arm and unlocking the door to my new home. She’d placed the keys into my hands and scuttled off. My fridge was as bare as the walls; no milk, not even water.
Maybe Kirsty was right—I’m a failure at anything new I try.
Kirsty’s words crept into my head—as they always do when I feel uncertain of my choices.

I looked out of the one window. Backing onto a small yard with an orange tree, at least I had something of a view: I told myself not to give in to negativity.
Kirsty can’t hurt or affect you anymore. You’re a big girl; deep breaths...get some sleep.
I was overwhelmed with exhaustion, and I knew that was making things look worse than they were. I liked my saner counterpart when it spoke out…it was a voice that made sense. I poked around some more and found, to my relief in the wardrobe in the corridor, a whole host of clean, fresh bed linen. I made up the bed and fell on top of it. Within minutes I was fast asleep, dreaming of ten year olds with matted hair knocking on my window.

The knocking turned out to be no dream. As I came to, cob-webbed from a deep afternoon nap, I realised that someone was, in fact, knocking at the window. It was a different lady this time: medium height, about fifty with shoulder-length blonde hair dappled with grey, wearing a flowery apron around her ample frame. This lady came laden with goods.

“
Yeiasou
Rachel,
me lene
Vasiliki.” Vasiliki turned out to be my new boss’s sister, and had bought a plate of spaghetti, a jar of honey, some Melba toasts…and milk! Finally I could make that much needed cup of tea.

I unburdened Vasiliki of her load and planted kisses on both her cheeks. I’d read that this was the Greek way of greeting and thanking others. Vasiliki, in turn, held me at arm’s length and proceeded to spit at me, three times:
ftou, ftou, ftou.
Here in the village, at seven p.m. on my first evening, a kind woman who’d brought food and milk for my tea had just spat at me! I became aware that it must be some kind of Greek custom as Vasiliki kept repeating “
Oreia, oreia
” and grinning at me whilst rubbing my arm.

I assumed it wasn’t supposed to be insulting, but the arm rub on its own would’ve sufficed. I wasn’t too sure how much spittle had landed on my plate of food, but I smiled back, trying to keep the shock from my face and act as if older Greek women spat at me all the time.

Having slept for most of the afternoon, I was now feeling more positive, especially as Vasiliki had just brought me food. Further inspection of the flat revealed a cupboard in the kitchen full of coffee and other useful day-to-day items such as crackers, bottled water, sugar and olive oil. While the water boiled I sat at the kitchen table and munched on the spaghetti, trying to ignore the fact that Vasiliki’s welcoming phlegm might be lurking somewhere within the sauce, whilst congratulating myself on having packed the teabags.

I was glad I swallowed my pride and paid the excess baggage charge. For these small home comforts, it’d been worth it.

At ten p.m. another rap came on the window. This time a lady’s voice called out in English, “Miss Rachel? Are you still awake? It’s Mrs Stella, your new boss.” I realised quickly that ‘Stella’ wasn’t her surname…because she was formally introducing herself, I was to refer to her by her first name and her title.

I had cleared my plate, washed up and was trying to decipher the dials on the washing machine, so yes, I was definitely still awake. I ran my fingers through my hair in an attempt to look presentable and opened the door to let Mrs Stella in…only to try to stifle the urge to laugh out loud. Next to Mrs Stella—who loomed at least six feet tall with a severe bobbed haircut (what was it about bobs in this country?)—stood her husband Mr Ioannis, measuring in at about five feet two. With his hair mussed up, he looked a bit like a bewildered Einstein. His glasses seemed to be held together with duct tape.

Oh God, I’ve walked into a freak show.
I felt a bit guilty thinking such disrespectful thoughts, but I couldn’t help it—the size difference was just too striking.

“Come up to the house and have coffee with us,” invited Mrs Stella. Mr Ioannis spoke no English, but no language was needed to understand him at that moment as he gave me the same once-over that Stamatis had subjected me to. I gave a mental shrug and decided then and there that trying to be all liberal would be wasted in this country. My immediate opinion of Mrs Stella was that she was a woman you didn’t say no to, so the “offer” to come up for coffee was more an order than an invitation. I really didn’t feel like making small talk to my new boss on my very first evening, dressed as I was in jogging pants and hoodie. Nevertheless, I followed them upstairs to their flat, more curious than anything else.

Mrs Stella’s home was much more sumptuous in comparison to my little place. Settling onto a couch with big purple cushions, trying not to spill coffee as I sank back and wondered if it’d be considered rude to dunk the biscuits they proffered, I tried not to show my tiredness by yawning as Mrs Stella explained in her curt manner:

“You need not teach tomorrow, but come into school nevertheless. You can meet the children and the other teachers and introduce yourself. I trust Anthoula met you at the bus station? I would have come myself, but the days are busy with school preparation.”

Although a serious person, Mrs Stella at least seemed fair. Her husband sat next to her and occasionally nodded his head as she spoke, casting surreptitious glances at me, glances I felt weren’t in any way lecherous, so I saw no need to bleach myself in the shower afterwards or check the lock on my front door.

Do Greek men size women up all the time?
Perhaps they’re not even aware they do it. Maybe that’s why my boss seemed such a harsh woman, if she’s had to put up with being married to this kind of man all her life.

“Our school is called a
Frontesterion
. There are many of these in Greece. The children come here in the afternoons after their normal school hours. We operate from four until ten p.m.” I gasped inwardly. The children must be exhausted by the end of the day. “So your timetable will start in the late afternoon.”

“Why the need for extra schooling?” I enquired, realising this might be an insulting question, considering Mrs Stella owned and ran her own
Frontesterion
. I attempted to backtrack.

“It is alright, it is a good question. For many years now, English is a very necessary subject to study, but students only receive one hour of tuition in this subject a week in the state system, so schools like ours are a necessity.”

If the state system was improved, maybe there’d be no need for all this extra study. The poor kids.
I kept this to myself: without the
Frontesterion
system, I’d have no job in my ‘dream’ country after all.

“You like feta?” Mr Ioannis suddenly piped up. He went off to the kitchen, returning with a big plate of it. I thanked him, somewhat taken aback at the fact that Mr Ioannis seemed a bit of a dark horse and could understand more English than he made out, and that his first words to me had been about feta cheese. Nevertheless, it’d taste great tomorrow morning on the crackers, drizzled with honey.

“My husband is the Assistant Town Mayor here,” Mrs Stella explained as our evening coffee was interrupted by phone calls from people asking for favours and Mr Ioannis wheeling and dealing his way through the calls.

Returning to my little flat at around midnight—after being led to the door by the elbow and a polite “
Kali
nichta
,”—no cheek kissing from my boss then—I felt grateful that she was breaking me in gently.
Or maybe she’s fattening me up, giving me false confidence before the kill? I guess I’ll find out tomorrow.
Those were the last thoughts I had before drifting off to sleep.

The next morning I noticed an immediate difference between waking up at the Piraeus hotel and in my new basement flat: blue skies and twinkling sea vs. lack of sunlight in a one-windowed, marble-floored room. And what was this? I craned my neck out of the window and stared at the slope on which the house perched.

“Bloody hell!” I hadn’t realised just how steep the road outside was, and was grateful that Anthoula had met me at the bus station the previous day.

I’d planned for a mini-adventure tour of the surroundings before school, but sleeping late meant I now only had time to shower (after I’d figured out how to turn the hot water tank on), eat crackers with cheese and honey, and choose suitable clothes. I rummaged around in my as yet unpacked suitcase. “Not sure about the jeans, and it looks too warm for a button down shirt…” I muttered as I threw aside each item, making a big pile on the floor.

Eventually, dressed in my trademark black trousers, dark polo neck and purple scarf, I waited by Mrs Stella’s car—how it didn’t roll down the hillside, physics can’t explain—chewing on a thumbnail. I knew I was well trained and prepared for this, and had managed to dress the part—conservatively I thought best—but even so, entering a classroom for the first time would still be nerve-racking. Eventually Mrs Stella emerged from her front door and strolled to the car.

“Have you been waiting long?” she asked, leaning in to the wing mirror to check her hair.

“Oh, you know, I got here on time,” I smiled, figuring this was the most diplomatic way of saying that yes, I’d been waiting for a while yet not wanting to alienate my boss on the first day. I figured there were two kinds of time in Greece: the “stated” and the “actual.” For example, if a Greek proposed to meet you at ten a.m., you should start getting ready at ten, and even then you’d probably be early when you eventually turned up at the rendezvous point at half past.

“Good, let’s go then.”

As I climbed into the passenger seat I looked up at the house and saw Vasiliki waving at me from the window. I smiled and waved back: at least my boss’s sister was friendly.

The journey was a fifteen minute ride to the next village, even smaller than the one where I lived. I managed to still my nerves by marvelling at the scenery: We were driving at an angle to Parnassos, past cotton fields with windfarms above them on the hilltops. There were small tavernas dotting the roadside, and cafes where men sat outside fiddling with worry beads. I took it all in, noting how different the commute was compared to life in the UK, and realised that if I were to settle comfortably into Greek life, I’d have to loosen up a lot and lose my grip on my English-isms—timekeeping would be a good start.

We pulled up outside a one storey structure…a winding metal staircase leading up to a flat roof which held the obligatory solar panels, so often seen on Greek buildings. The name of the school was painted in black letters across the front, and I felt a brief flicker of disappointment. I had a romanticized notion that all buildings in Greece were white with blue shutters. This one had been white once, but paint crumbled from the walls and there was no sign of any shutters, let alone blue ones. I did notice the ivy creeping up around the spiral roof staircase though, and the opposite side of the building looked as if a bougainvillea plant was trying to blossom into life. The building was small: two classrooms in the windowless basement, a room with a photocopier in it and three classrooms on the ground floor), and after a brief tour I found myself shuttled into the tiny staffroom to meet the other four teachers—all Greeks who were chattering away to each other, nursing delicious smelling small cups of coffee.

“Rachel will be with us this academic year,” Mrs Stella announced by way of introduction. They all stopped talking and turned to me with looks that seemed to say
“and?”
just as I heard the staff room door click closed as Mrs Stella left. She had left pretty swiftly.

I suppose I couldn’t expect them to jump for joy just because I was the new English teacher. I remembered my promise to adapt.
Don’t let your subconscious colonial heritage make you feel superior,
I thought. After all, the school hired a new native English teacher every year, so my face was just one of the many they’d seen come and go. And the teachers weren’t exactly rude, they were just…indifferent. The three women and one man regarded me with a
“been there done that—let’s see how this one fares”
expression…a wry smile revealing their inner thoughts. Eventually one piped up.

“Manos.” He extended his hand to shake mine.

“Helena.” Helena did the same.

“Eleni.” Eleni stayed seated, but at least she offered a friendly smile.

“Alexandra.” The same reaction as Eleni’s, minus the smile.

“Hi,” I replied, offering my own smile. I figured I could at least appear friendly and accommodating, not like the stiff-upper-lip Brit they might be used to. A paranoid part of me thought
Oh God, they can see I’m new to teaching and look as if they’re going to relish seeing me eaten alive by the students!

“So that’s the introductions over and done with,” Mrs Stella re-entered the staff room, almost as if she’d been listening at the door. The other teachers kept quiet and returned to marking essays or preparing lesson plans, avoiding eye contact. “Ready to meet the students?”

“Don’t worry,” she said as she steered me towards the classroom. “I have great faith in you. You’ve already travelled to many places and taught abroad before; this shows me you can adjust to any new situation. It’s a trait that has to naturally be a part of a person’s character—it cannot be taught. You’ll adapt to this situation just fine, and the students will learn a lot from you.”

I cringed inwardly, remembering my only previous teaching experience as a volunteer in Sri Lanka—where I’d spent most of the time showing the kids pictures of red telephone boxes, London buses and black cabs.

“And don’t worry about the teachers—they are shy of their English language abilities in front of a native teacher,” she concluded. This was probably the longest speech Mrs Stella had made so far. All pumped up with adrenaline, I strode into the classroom with a sense of pride…only to have my balloon popped when I was greeted by a group of thirteen bored, indifferent-looking teenagers.

Mrs Stella had to nudge me through the door, since the shock of seeing so many blank faces had frozen me to the spot. I composed myself and turned to thank my boss for those last inspiring words, only for the second time that day to hear the door click shut behind me. And was that the sound of the key turning? No, just my imagination, as I discovered when I tried the handle.

Drawing a deep breath, I turned and strode to the front of the class, exuding more confidence than I actually felt. All eyes followed me as I placed my carefully prepared “Introduction to Me” materials on the small desk.

And, what was this—a
blackboard
? My training had used fancy interactive whiteboards with internet access. The nearest thing to technology in this classroom was going to be the light switch. And something else was odd—what was that noise? Turning toward the offending sound, I discovered that thirteen jaws were chomping to the rhythm of some unheard tune. The whole class was chewing gum, and doing so rather loudly. Okay, something had to be done, and fast.

I took the bull by the horns. “Start tough; later you can back down,” had been the advice of my tutor, Gloria, and now I fully intended to follow it.

“Hi. My name’s Rachel. You’ve probably guessed I’m from England. But I am slightly confused—I thought I was to be your English teacher,” I started.

A slight murmur stirred the classroom. One boy shouted from the back, “You are, why you say that?” In actual fact, as I’d discovered in my short time in Greece, he was speaking at a normal Grecian pitch, but to my ears and my heightened sensitivity and nerves on that first day, it felt more like a shout.

“Because I wonder if I am, in fact, a farmer—here to take the cows in to be milked,” I attempted a joke, wondering if they would understand such a dry observation, or if it might be a little too sarcastic for them.

Confusion flickered across their faces as another student, this time a girl with an unfortunate case of acne, dared to venture the question I’d been expecting: “You are saying we are like cows,
Kyria
Rachel?”

“Well, yes,” I replied. “Looking at you, all I see are cows chewing on grass. Listen to you, chomping your gum; you look and you sound like cows chewing the cud! Remove it, please.”

My aim was not to break the number one rule of teaching by throwing sarcasm at them; it was to introduce the students to an idiomatic phrase—they were learning English on the hoof, as it were. The cattle metaphors were blossoming nicely. Picking up the rubbish bin, I meandered among the tables, congratulating myself that the students were actually tossing their wads of gum into it—albeit with mumbles of Greek under their breath.

“Thank you,” I beamed as the last piece plunked into the bin. “In future, I’d appreciate it if you removed your gum before entering my classroom.” A few students nodded in assent, but most looked curiously at this new teacher who’d referred to them as cows and considered herself a farmer.

Meanwhile, I was marvelling at how well I’d handled myself, and how well the average sixteen-year-old Greek student understood English. Maybe the actual teaching part wouldn’t be too hard after all. Perhaps the challenge will be winning my students’ hearts and minds. I might be new to teaching, but I wasn’t a fool. I was aware that it would be important to treat my protégées with respect as human beings, to
listen
to them, yet maintain professional distance and not become their friend. Turning back to the class, I relished this latter challenge and looked forward to getting to know their personalities and nurture their abilities.

“Good,” I continued. “Now that’s over, let’s get on with introducing ourselves. I’m not going to actually be teaching you today, but I am sure you’re dying to know all about me.”

“Not really,” mumbled an attractive boy at the back—the one who’d responded to my earlier comment about being here to teach and not to farm. Even though he was seated, it was obvious he was tall. And with his olive-coloured skin, his short-cropped jet black hair and his remarkable blue eyes (blue? I thought Greeks had brown eyes. In that instant I was struck by his exoticness), I realised I’d have my work cut out with this one. I made a mental note to rearrange the seating of these students before class met again and not have him sat at the back.

“And you are ...?” I gave him an open smile, intended to be neither hostile nor challenging.

“He’s
malaka
,” replied the acne-covered girl. Oblivious to what this word meant, I assumed this was the Adonis’ name.

“Pleased to meet you,
Malaka
.” The hoots and whistles that followed this exchange soon alerted me that this was probably
not
the thing to have said.

“
Kyria
Rachel, do you understand that
malaka
is not a word you should to be going around saying?” queried a third student, confirming my realisations.

There were two ways I could handle this. I could become outraged that they’d upstaged me, or I could go along with it. I thought quickly, but it turned out I needn’t to do either as the Adonis (who was, in fact, named Konstantinos) retorted to the rest of the class, “Be quiet and listen to the new
Kyria
.”

Clearly he felt bad that he’d caused embarrassment to his new teacher, so he was now working to bring the situation back under control. Their amusement at my expense subsided and I began to discover more about Konstantinos, Litza, (the girl who’d translated
malaka
), Dimitra (the girl with acne) and the rest of the class. All in all, my introductory lesson was a success. The hour flew by, and I heard an old-fashioned hand rung bell that signalled the end of the lesson, far sooner than expected.
So the blackboard isn’t the only non-technological item here.
It felt rather quaint; to be teaching in a remote village with ivy, bougainvillea, blackboards and hand-held bells.

Smiling as I said goodbye to them all, Konstantinos and Dimitra told me they’d see me tomorrow. “Try to remember my correct name,
Kyria
,” was Konstantinos’ cheeky parting comment as he left the classroom.

One introduction class down, only one more to go before I had to leave for the day. Just enough time to munch on a digestive biscuit before the next lot arrives. (As I’d thought, digestives had been another luxury I’d packed from home. I’d lied before; I’d have paid £90 in excess baggage fees.)

A knock on the door announced Mrs Stella’s arrival. “So, how did your introduction with the teenagers go…any problems that I should know about?” I was about to open my mouth and mention Konstantinos when I noticed him hovering behind Mrs Stella in the open classroom doorway. He was trying to communicate something with his eyes whilst shaking his head. Stopping in my tracks, I returned my attention to Mrs Stella and smiled.

“They took a while to warm to me, but I think in time we’ll be okay,” I replied. The relief in Konstantinos’s eyes was obvious as Mrs Stella agreed. She added, “Do not take
any
nonsense from Konstantinos—the good-looking boy with the blue eyes. If you have any problems with him, send him to me immediately.”