Neoprene diving suits under the camouflage uniforms, air tanks with 95% oxygen that recycle the air so that no bubbles will give away their position, mines tied to their backs and gloves with cuts in the fingers for better feeling of the trigger. Something between dolphins and spidermen, the Greek Navy SEAL are getting ready for a training dive and they do not stop, not even for a moment, to smile and sing.

It is 11:00 a.m and I just got in the Greek Navy SEAL’s camp. The main building is decorated with pieces of diving equipment and parts of the walls are covered with camouflage ropes. In the administrator’s office, a large Greek flag stands in the wall, written… Continue reading →

“Hey, mom, look at the mosque’s tip over there! Can you see the birds flying all around it?” said the little girl, her finger pointing at the mosque. Her name was Nadia and she was in Ioannina with her mother on a three-day vacation, as I heard them explaining to a man next to them. They were on one of the little boats that take you to the little island of Ioannina.

It was a Saturday morning, and I was also on the same boat with a couple of friends from Athens who were visiting. I had planned to show them the little island of my city. Nadia was sitting next to me, and from the way she was jumping… Continue reading →

Dr. Apostolos Belos stood at the entrance of Sismanoglio hospital. He has dark hair, a mustache, touches of grey, and a sweet smile. We took the elevator to the third floor and, as we walked through a long dark hallway, pale people walked around in their pajamas, some holding their serum in one hand.

Why would someone want to work in such an environment? As one of those pale people approached Dr. Belos, he took his hands and held them tightly.

“Dr. Belos, I would like to thank you for helping me. Thank you for caring for me. You are an incredible person, a very decent and wonderful man. Thank you for everything. Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he… Continue reading →

Greenpeace estimates the annual cost of environmental catastrophes around the world at $1.25 trillion. This is why the organization considers cutting green house gas emissions a global priority. And, to make its point, its screening of the film Age of Stupid in Syntagma Square on October 22 literally cost the environment nothing, said the organizers of the event.

Directed by Franny Armstrong, Age of Stupid features Pete Postlethwaite as a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055, looking at old footage from 2008 and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?

All needs for energy during the projection were covered through the use of renewable energy sources and recyclable materials. This means… Continue reading →

When I decided to study in Greece for a semester, I was thrilled by the opportunity that lay before me. I wanted my abroad experience to push me outside of my comfort zone and to teach me things that surely only coming to Greece could do. With its rich culture, strong history and beautiful landscape, I knew Greece would change me for the better.

While I anticipated the culture shock and the language difference, I could not have really prepared myself for uprooting to another country completely. In the beginning, I felt anxious constantly and confused most of the time. However, as I allowed myself to take in the true beauty that is Greece, I found myself walking the streets… Continue reading →

I waved with one hand, since the second was busy holding bags. It was a Tuesday afternoon and I had just made it for some shopping downtown. The taxi stopped a few feet away from me and I squeezed myself in. What hit me first was a peculiar smell of fruity hair gel mixed with smoke, and a slight odor of sweat.

“Where to?” asked the driver. He was around thirty, with the weirdest hairdo you’ve ever seen on a male taxi driver. His head looked like a pineapple, with short hair on the sides and long locks sticking up on top of his scalp, bouncing frivolously with the slightest move he made.

“Vrilissia,” I responded, making myself… Continue reading →

You can spot them in big roads around Athens, and usually you wave your hand negatively when the time comes.

Han, the nineteen-year-old Pakistani who sells his bananas at the traffic lights of Stavros in Agia Paraskevi, didn’t want to talk in an interview.

He was obviously scared, thinking I might be some kind of threat, so he called somebody on the phone and asked me to speak with him.

The man on the phone said “OK, let me explain it to him,” and Han was given the green light to talk to do an interview in exchange for selling all of his bananas at once.

Han had lived in the slums of Karachi for 19 years before the need… Continue reading →

Life in the upper square of Aghia Paraskevi has habitually featured the sounds of cars rolling past, people talking and pigeons and flapping their wings.

But the atmosphere of the upper square was recently disrupted by the poisoning of the pigeons.

On a Saturday afternoon late in March, people walking past the square the witnessed a grim landscape: the pigeons that once added life to the square lay dead on the grass.

Some residents say that whoever is poisoning the birds may be doing so because they leave droppings on cars and carry diseases.

The pigeons have been eating seeds that have been dipped in poisons of various kinds and scattered on the grass.

Some residents of Aghia Paraskevi have… Continue reading →

As I was wandering around the central square of Vrilissia, holding an ice cream and some napkins, I approached the church of the Analipsi. The crowd was perky, parents standing like proud peacocks in anticipation of their sons and daughters marching by in the annual October 28th parade commemorating Greece’s rejection of an Italian ultimatum to surrender at the outset of World War II.

The younger kids were running up and down the square, twirling around as the speakers played a squeaky military march. Everybody was waiting for the flag bearers to come out of the church and lead the parade.

Enjoying my ice cream, I noticed an old man turned completely the other way, away from the crowd,… Continue reading →

Over the last few years, more and more Greek parents have been enrolling in classes on how to massage their infant babies in health centers and become familiar with benefits that they and their babies enjoy from it.

A research study on massage by Dr. Herminial L. Cifra and Dr. Melanie N. Sancho for the University of Philippines has revealed its positive effects on behavior, weight gain, arterial oxygen tension, pain reduction, stress hormones and immunoglobulin, asthma and labor.

“Massage improves circulation, respiration, digestion and enhances babies’ neurological development,” said Thalia Panagidou, a qualified infant massage teacher. “Moreover, it is recognized by doctors to be the only drug-free treatment for colic.”

Massage may also have emotional benefits, giving babies a… Continue reading →