GREECE 2016 - 4 - PEOPLE ARE GOOD EVERYWHERE

Wow, what a week and day... The train-the-master-trainer training activities a team of Greek and American instructors held involving 20 exceptionally competent pediatricians from all over Greece a week took four 15-hour work days, mostly training, partly networking and socializing. As my colleague from the USA states every day “to keep the smile on our faces demands effort”. But our hearts are at peace, the effort paid off, it was so gratifying to see our younger colleagues to flourish into master trainers over half a week and with such dedication and commitment.

Acropolis visible from the terrace of Benaki Museum at dusk

From our busy schedule, we were able to steal one evening to visit the Benaki Museum, which was established in 1930 by Antonis Benakis. It is housed in the Benakis mansion on the street lined with other mansions housing most of the embassies in downtown Athens, Greece in the vicinity of the Parliament. The museum houses Greek works of art from the prehistorical to the modern times. Its previous Islamic art exhibition apparently is housed in a satellite museum since 2000. My colleague and I savor the items on displayed scattered the halls on three stories. The final touch is a light dinner on the terrace where the Museum Café is located, again with a view of the Acropolis. My friend believes every restaurant in town must have the view of the Acropolis!

National Archeological Museum in Greece

 

With adrenaline gone, I now face the fact that being confined into a hotel room for a week really makes one get scattered all over the place. It takes me 2 hours to put my luggage into ready-to-carry shape again. After my now-routine but delicious Greek breakfast, I decide to go to the Archaeological Museum of Athens, which I’ve known for a long time to be an exceptional place. I am planning to walk to the museum from Plaka, where my hotel is, but soon enough I discover it is too far to walk: If I do, I will lose half of my day walking to and from the museum, instead of spending that precious little time at the museum.

 

From archaic times with the influence of Egyptian art on Greek art: Kouros

 

I ask a young woman the directions to the museum, it turns out, she works for one of those hop-on-hop-off tourist buses. As she tries to convince me to buy a tour ticket from her, the man at the newsstand tells me, I can take the metro. I want to ask one more neutral person to decide if it is indeed that far. I am used to now, people looking at my white hair, making a judgment about my age and energy and telling me to take a taxi even for 0.5 km distances. However, once another person tells me I have to take either a bus or a taxi, I am convinced, I don't have enough time to walk all that distance, enjoy the museum without a rush, and make it to the hotel on time to meet my taxi driver. All of a sudden, the idea of the hop-on-hop-off tourist bus doesn't seem that off-putting.
 

The depth of the expression on faces in classical era is remarkable in some cases
 

The thought goes through my mind: “What the heck, I am tight on time, and these bus tours do give one a brief overview of a town anyway.” I can compare notes between what i read and observed so far and what they will tell me on the bus. I start looking for the lovely young Greek woman who was trying to convince me earlier to hop on one of her buses. As if she was also following me with her eyes and has read my mind, we find ourselves walking toward each other without any exchange of words. She has a beautiful face with kind eyes. It is clear she has not had any severe strikes from life as I see on the faces of some of my clients in my clinic. She has a carefree, innocent look on her face blending nicely with the warmth of her eyes. I like her, I feel, she could be one of my daughter’s friends I could get into a lovely conversation with at a party. I think, from my body language she did sense, I was also trying to give my business specifically to her. She is clearly grateful, she gives me 1 euro discount, her warm eyes smiling with gratefulness!!!
 

One of the most expressive sculptures at Archeological Museum: Aphrodite, Pan and Eros

I hop on the bus just like everybody else: Blue Line. The bus route has 15 stops that are covered in about one hour if you don't hop off. My goal is mainly to get to the Archeological Museum, which takes about 35 minutes from the Parliament Square. It still is interesting to see all the things that I have already seen and hear again the things that I knew and learn some new information. Especially sitting upstairs in open air, I enjoy the vistas much better and the touch of a lovely summer breeze is the bonus. Until the first omen of the day finds me! When the bus driver announces, we have arrived at the Museum, I gather my two little bags and head down the stairs, perhaps in a bit of rush? The narrow, sharply meandering staircase is scary as it is, all of a sudden I find myself airborne two steps before reaching the main floor and land on a twisted left ankle, which sends me flat onto the floor, twisting my right pelvis as I fall!

Hand shaking was part of Greek culture in Classical times!

Luckily, no impact on my head, but I just can’t bring myself to make any effort to move. A young man moves in front of me and extends his hands to me to hold. How grateful I am… Kindness, desire to help, good are in all of us, whatever our beliefs may be, whatever language we speak, when we see somebody hurt, we all want to help. How is it then, the same mankind creates hurting, tortures, mutilates, and kills… The easiest answer certainly is that those that naturally tend to help and those that do atrocities are not the same people. The one lifting me up certainly will not become one of the killers. The driver is also concerned. He asks me “How do you feel?”,  all I can tell is "Time will tell", both my ankle and hip hurt badly. I get off the bus and walk to the corner of the street to cross the road. I can walk with a limp, my hip hurting more than my ankle, really.

Here is the correct size of the impressive Kouros statue at the Archeological Museum

I might have felt something coming; instead of crossing the street, I stand by a post and put my arm around it. For a moment I feel like I am asleep and dreaming that I am revolving around the post in a dancing manner. Did I really flail around the post with vasovagal response due to the pain when my arm wrapped around it prevented me from falling? As I come to, I realize I might have, for a split second passed out. Feeling still somewhat dizzy, I walk the few steps to the wall by the curbside and sit on the ground. How we feel invincible with our body, until that one thing beyond our control happens and we discover, there are limits to what we can do, what we can control, and what we can change. What we cannot, we need the serenity of a clear mind and spirit to accept and the wisdom to differentiate between what is doable and what is not, which is my motto in life modeling after Reinhold Niebuhr. Finally, when I feel more stable, I walk across the street and in  short while, I am in the cool safety of the museum.

Two lions attacking a bull/cow

What an impressive museum. All artifacts chronologically ordered, from archaic times to classical, to Hellenistic, to neoclassical... How sculptures reflect the social norms, hierarchy, relationships, traditions, and artistic taste of their time. How saddening it is to recall all the stolen pieces I saw in Metropolitan Museum of New York City, British Museum in London, Museum of Greek and Roman Antiquities in Berlin among others. What would have this museum looked like had those precious pieces not been stolen?

Impressively ornate grave heads from Classical times

Or is it better that the museums of the west were willing to purchase those pieces from the intermediaries when the native governments and peoples of Greece, Turkey, Italy were not ready to protect the heritage of their own land? Being a citizen of the world, I don’t feel as resentful as I used to anymore replacing my old bitter feelings with “At least they were preserved for the entire humanity”. It is still good to learn that at least one American museum returned some stolen artifacts to the museum after a 10-year long litigation!

Monastiraki square and neighborhood

On the way back on our tour, I get off at the Monastiraki the center of which is characterized by an old mosque. To the right of the square are many “steno”s (narrow streets) with numerous shops and antique vendors. One of them has silver jewelry on display in glass covered wooden cases. The vendor turns out to be and Armenian Greek. What a combination; I tell him I am originally from Crete, born in Turkey, living in the USA, currently and extend my hand to a high five. He accepts it!. We are friends now. The bracelets I take a look at are beautiful but as pricey. No trade takes place but a few words of Turkish and Greek have been exchanged leading to a warm connection.
 

PanAthenean Stadium                                                      By the time I am back to the hotel I need a cup of Greek coffee. As I sip the last bit of my coffee, I see a young man looking at me intently. Sure enough, he turns out to be my driver, Costas. With his little bit of English and my Greek, we communicate well. Eventually, we even make a plan of him picking me up from the airport when I come back to Athens for the Fulbright reception next week. He is happy, so am I. I am leaving Athens with very warm feelings, yet, once again. I would like to use all my resources to help the wonderful physicians I met here during this past week, who would like to establish a national program to respond to child abuse and neglect more effectively. I have seen that they are capable and committed people. I trust they will accomplish this task. As I say good bye to my friend Costas, I am looking forward to my days in Crete with my friend Sofia and her very personable husband Michaeli, a pure blooded Cretan man! 





From the Great Britannia Hotel's rooftop restaurant, Acropolis is before our eyes with all its grandeur