…when you came over
to visit with my wife and her English-speaking husband, and you make eye
contact with the husband, and you realize that all of you are speaking Greek
with a speed and energy that is making it hard for you to understand each other
and the English-speaking husband is sitting by himself completely left out of
the conversation and not understanding a word that is said.
You have two options
at this moment. You can try to engage
the English-speaking husband in conversation to try to make him feel more
comfortable, knowing that your English is not very good, thereby making
yourself a little uncomfortable. Or you
can break eye contact, look away as if you never saw him sitting there, become
even more involved in the on-going conversation, continue to make the
English-speaking husband uncomfortable while preserving your own comfort, and
think to yourself, “He came to Greece, so he should be speaking Greek.”
Both of these
choices have happened to me, but the second one happens more often. Tonight, I even predicted this would happen
before it happened. I told my wife that the cadre of people coming over to “visit” with me was really coming over
to visit with her. They would speak in
Greek, so I wouldn’t understand them, and I would sit in silence and be
bored. And when Androula, Ioannis and
his wife, Kostas, Irini, Mirto, and Alepetha came over tonight that’s exactly
what happened. Only this time, I decided
that I wasn’t going to just sit in the background and be ignored. So I let my wife visit and enjoy their
company, and I went to the den and watched football with babas mou. This helped to pass a very enjoyable evening
for me, even if I was being a little “rude” to our guests by not being in the
same room as them. Ironic, isn’t it?
Not much else
happened today. The only other highlight
was Georgios took the jerseys he had bought me and got my name put on the
back. On the AEK jersey, he got my name,
like I was one of those one-named Brazilian players. On the Greek national team jersey, he got Derekithis (Derekithis), which means that I am from
Pondi, the region that babas is from.
Babas loved this tribute to his people, so I was happy too.
Tomorrow is packing
and traveling day. We leave Greece after
our quick week and head back to Ireland.
