CURRENT EVENTS
GREECE

The (True) Need
OF THE PEOPLE
The truck farmer whose hair fell out in a week due to worrying about his family finances, doctors who work for free, children, fears, the future… Scenes of daily life in a country where the economic crisis is not just about numbers and statistics, but pain and solitude, and where, however, unexpected flowers bloom.

by Paolo Perego

The farmers’ market is always crowded, and notwithstanding the crisis, the stands are full. Farmers come from the countryside surrounding the city. Rosaria goes there weekly, always stopping at the same stands, the ones she trusts–one for the best zucchini; another for fruit. But, this time, one of the vendors doesn’t look the same. Within one week, his hair has fallen out. “What happened?” “Eh, it’s the anxiety. You think about the future, your family. You get more and more anguished. There’s no hope for improvement...”
In Larissa, it’s a day like any other, in a small city of 120,000 in Thessaly, a region in northeast Greece, along the road that crosses the eastern coast of the country, between Salonika and Athens.
Rosaria comes from Naples, and met Nicola while at the university, when he was studying medicine and she was studying education. They fell in love and he asked her to marry him. “It took me a while to accept, but, in the end, I followed him to Greece.” They’ve been married 13 years and have two children. Today, Rosaria is a fulltime mother, helping her husband in his practice when he needs it, but mostly focused on the house and the children. She also helps out in the parish. Her days are made up of simple things, such as meeting people when she brings the children to school or does the shopping–like that morning in the market, for example. And what about the economic crisis? “It’s becoming suffocating. Nobody talks about anything else.”
Certainly. But the people don’t talk about the 250 billion euro national debt or the financial speculations, the rating agencies that don’t do their job, or tax evaders. They talk about mortgages, signed with once favorable interest rates that now have become millstones around the necks of families. People discuss their chances of sending their children to college, or worry about getting to the end of the month being able to buy groceries every day, or talk about just losing a job. “The average salary is about 800 euros a month. The FPA, the Greek sales tax, was raised from 19% to 21%, and it seems it’ll be brought to 23%. A year ago, you found pasta at 80 cents a pound, and now it costs almost 1.25. Anchovies, the poor person’s food here, cost 75 cents a pound last year, and this year they cost 2.50 or 3.00 euros a pound. At the market, I used to manage with 20 euros, but today, even being careful, I can’t do the shopping for less than 40 euros.”

Sleepless nights. Rosaria says her family is better off than the others, even though Nico hasn’t been paid for over a year. “Lots of doctors have been forced to take out loans to carry on, even those who have private practices. They often have patients who can’t pay…” So, at times, anxiety gets the better of them and they fight with each other at home. “Because maybe I bought groceries for the Albanian lady who cleans for our apartment building, who has five children and an unemployed husband.” Nico says, “We’re not rolling in the dough,” but then he admits, “I wouldn’t have done otherwise for the cleaning lady.” 
The worries, the anxieties, the sleepless nights are understandable. You leave the house in the morning and you see the faces of the people, their need… “And the need isn’t just material. I only came to understand this slowly. This crisis is, above all, human. The economic one is just the straw, however big, that broke the camel’s back.” The Greeks, in Rosaria’s experience, are used to spending more than they can afford, hanging out in cafés, where you can’t find an espresso for less than three euros. They love to eat out. And now that they have to tighten their belts, you see the true need underneath. “People discover that they’re alone. Because of their culture, they’re distrustful, proud. Now they’re alone in facing their problems, their days, which are becoming increasingly difficult.”
This is where Rosaria made a discovery: “You can’t help everyone, but you can be there for them. What they really need is the same thing I need, a point of consolation in the storm of life, as happened for me in the encounter with the Movement. If that is not it, I can’t explain why so many continue to seek us out and confide in us. They come to our house.”
The Greeks are beginning to feel disoriented “because, starting with the government, and reaching the family, material well-being, and work, all the things you set your hopes on begin collapsing around you, those things that gave you security… Many people use tranquillizers. People still try to hide their problems, as is typical of a certain formalism inherent in Greek culture, but sooner or later not even this holds up.” Rosaria talks about Veronika, one of her children’s teachers, a catechist, a woman of the Church, very formal also in her way of conceiving of the faith. “In the beginning, we often disagreed. Then, at a certain point, I stopped looking at the differences and started looking at her. A beautiful relationship was born. One evening, not long ago, my doorbell rang. It was Veronika. ‘You can’t imagine... I’ve been walking for an hour all over the city. I didn’t know where to go. Then I came to you. I need to talk to someone and I know you won’t gossip about me.’ So she told me about some important personal problems. In this situation, I witnessed solitude, which, when you think of it, is also a lack of freedom.”
A few weeks ago, Rosaria and Nico decided that, rather than leaving a little sum in the bank, given the times, they should buy the apartment above theirs, rented by Sophia. Rosaria knew Sophia’s difficulties well: often she didn’t pay expenses, and her husband had an unreliable job. One day, the woman knocked on Rosaria’s door, saying, “I found out that you are the new owners. Please don’t evict me!” Rosaria asked her why she was afraid. “And she opened up. She sat down and began crying.” She was in dire straights because her employers hadn’t paid her for a long time. “I told her it wasn’t important, that when she had the money she could pay. She hugged me. In the evening, Nicola returned and said, ‘Are you crazy? We need the rent.’ ‘But if she couldn’t pay, what would you do? Would you kick her out?’ And Nicola said, ‘No…’”  A few days later, Veronika came again while Rosaria was away and found Nicola. She brought the rent money, saying, “Mr. Nico, is it true that you won’t increase the rent?” “It’s true. And when you have the money you can pay us.”

Like flowers. “Jesus is the One who changes everything,” says Rosaria. He brings new humanity to life in people, like the family of Rumanians who struggle to survive during the week, but on Sundays prepare tables full of food for those who lack work and money, and they spend the day together. “They’re flowers. The need of the people is like a flower. The powers that be want to distance us from this need, to hide this flower that’s within people. Instead, I am educated every day by the faith to stay attentive, to look at these flowers. And when people are looked at this way, they realize it.” The speaker is a woman who already has problems sleeping and who can’t close her eyes at the thought of someone in difficulty. “Where do I find peace? In Jesus. Someone to look to and to follow. Where He happens. So you sleep, you rest, you breath easy. Also with your children. You learn to educate them, and to educate yourself–at table, for example, because you can’t take for granted that plate of pasta.”
Nothing can be taken for granted anymore, from the pasta to the children’s schooling. Kikilia is a school porter, just over 40. Rosaria was biking to Mass and met her. Their children go to school together. Kikilia’s face was sad and they chatted. “What’s the matter?” “I’m starting to look at my son and think that I won’t be able to send him to the university. And you? Aren’t you worried?” “Enough talking about the crisis! I can’t breathe. There’s more to life.” “But if your son can’t study some day?” “Kikilia, tomorrow isn’t ours. We can’t let worries and money overtake us.” Kikilia lowered her eyes. “Now you’re going to tell me that to Mysterio (the Lord) is the most important thing…” “Certainly. If not, what can save us? What can support us?” “So then, may to Mysterio give us the grace to be able to see you every day,” Kikila said.

14 people at lunch. This dynamic is clear for all to see–“including our neighbors, separated at home. The wife Agnes came to me in tears, at the end of April, after the nth fight. ‘I’m going back to my hometown. I can’t take it anymore.’” In the meantime, Rosaria and Nicola had planned to spend a peaceful May 1st holiday without inviting anybody over. Just the two of them. But a phone call came: the parish priest was home alone. “Come to our house.” Then another phone call: their Albanian friends... In the end, there were 14 people at lunch. Agnes’s husband saw the barbeque from his balcony and rang the doorbell. “May I? I’m home alone.” Rosaria and Nico welcomed him. After a few exchanges, an argument began. “You defend my wife.” “No, we love her, and we love you.” So the man, moved, sat down at the table with the parish priest, the Albanians, the Greeks, and the Rumanians. “And Nico and I wanted to be alone. But God is the One who sows, even during hard times. I just see and enjoy the fruits.”