Graduation, anarchists, refugees and summer scenes in Greece.

 We just celebrated our niece’s graduation at Aristotle University, Thessaloniki - we were very proud of her achievement and had a great family get-together to show her our support. Congratulations, Konstantina – may your life routes always lead to desired destinations!

                

                                                                          

 

   

 We were, however, but saddened that parts of the university itself has been occupied by anarchist groups from all over Europe, apparently supporting the refugees. We saw, among others, French and German dudes wearing black t-shirts with ‘Welcome Refugees!’ emblazoned – ironic since the refugees are already here, albeit under duress on both sides, and these dudes’ own countries won’t let them cross the borders out of Greece.  So what are these guys doing here apart from causing real deliberate destruction both in the university and in the prefecture offices? And some of them presented themselves in a totally arrogant, self-righteous manner which is at one disturbing and outright annoying.

 The Greek state and people are doing whatever they can do and they do have local, national and international support. But when we have some members of NGOs playing the role of self-elected guardians who refuse to cooperate with local municipalities, then one has to ask exactly what their presence here is for and what it represents.

Locally there is an official refugee encampment – the scene below shows the warehouses being prepared prior to their arrival. 

We local residents were admittedly very apprehensive but I must say that the 1,500 refugees that are based not a ten-minute walk from us have been exemplary. They stay quietly in what really are not adequate premises and make the best of things.

My only contact has been travelling with them on the local buses. From what I’ve seen the parents are assiduous in keeping their children quiet and well-behaved; the men very polite, greeting fellow-travellers in Greek and giving up their seats to local ladies. The kids were delightful: someone had given them bananas and there was great excitement. Some little ones were squashing them, squeezing them and then licking the flesh as you would ice-cream. That happy little scene gets played back from time to time and always conjures up a smile.

Here we continue to enjoy summer. This scene I shot in our garden of tomatoes on the vine, Angeliki used as a post for our Easing Into English social media. Check it out on  www.easingintoenglish.com  to see the joke she added!

                                        

           

The picture below epitomises one of my summer dilemmas: which one should I dive into first? Life is hard.