{"id":115,"date":"2009-05-11T08:06:54","date_gmt":"2009-05-11T08:06:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.acg.edu\/web\/observer\/?p=115"},"modified":"2012-10-02T08:09:12","modified_gmt":"2012-10-02T08:09:12","slug":"bananas-make-ends-meet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.acg.edu\/web\/observer\/2009\/05\/11\/bananas-make-ends-meet\/","title":{"rendered":"Bananas make ends meet"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>You can spot them in big roads around Athens, and usually you wave your hand negatively when the time comes.<\/p>\n

Han, the nineteen-year-old Pakistani who sells his bananas at the traffic lights of Stavros in Agia Paraskevi, didn\u2019t want to talk in an interview.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The man on the phone said \u201cOK, let me explain it to him,\u201d and Han was given the green light to talk to do an interview in exchange for selling all of his bananas at once.<\/p>\n

Han had lived in the slums of Karachi for 19 years before the need for money made him move to Greece. Back home, his eight brothers and his parents were in desperate need of money. His parents being old and in poor health, Han – as the oldest brother – moved here to find a job and support his family.<\/p>\n

During his six months in Greece he has done a lot. At first he worked in construction in Piraeus, but after a month they dismissed him. Then he worked in Agioi Anargyroi at house cleaning, where they promised to pay him 25 Euros but gave him only 20 because, they said, he didn\u2019t deserve more. After that he started selling bananas, but they don\u2019t earn him more than 15 Euros a day.<\/p>\n

\u201cBack in Pakistan life is very different,\u201d he said, looking oddly at my tape recorder. There is lots of \u201cfighting, police, night gangs \u2013 everything is a problem.\u201d Here in Greece \u201cthings are very good; here, very good,\u201d without \u201ckous-kous,\u201d which later I learned it means \u201cwar.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only thing that worries him in Greece is employment, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSix days, six days on foot,\u201d he responded, looking into my eyes, when I asked him how he had come to Greece. This man walked endlessly for six days, he walked about 1000 km and went through who-knows-what.<\/p>\n

After leaving Karachi, he entered Iran and then walked across Iran to enter Iraq. From Iraq he went to Syria, where he boarded a ship sailing from the shores of Al Lathqiyah. It took three days for the ship to reach Greece; he wouldn\u2019t say where they left him or how much he paid them.<\/p>\n

He said he doesn\u2019t miss Pakistan; he prefers being here, where \u201cjob is the only problem.\u201d He has no plans to go home for a visit \u2013 traveling isn\u2019t easy in his case.<\/p>\n

Now he was sitting next to me in my car, with the air condition in his face, looking at his friends trying to wash my windshield. It must have felt awkward for him: when I told him to get in, he made for the back seat. He was not used to being given a lift.<\/p>\n

It was 4 p.m. and he would work until 10. After I bought all his bananas, he thanked me and we shook hands. Now he was walking over to his friends, probably telling them that if they went to talk to me I\u2019d buy their all their bananas.<\/p>\n

I wish I could.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019t want to talk in an interview. He was obviously scared, thinking I might be some kind of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.acg.edu\/web\/observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.acg.edu\/web\/observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.acg.edu\/web\/observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.acg.edu\/web\/observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.acg.edu\/web\/observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/web.acg.edu\/web\/observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118,"href":"https:\/\/web.acg.edu\/web\/observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions\/118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.acg.edu\/web\/observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.acg.edu\/web\/observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.acg.edu\/web\/observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}