aren't I cute

They took our photos today, pointing at where we're going on the big ITeams globe. Cheese.

never thought that would happen to me...

I've heard rumors of this happening to poor sheltered returning missionaries ;) but never thought it could happen to me. Last night I caught a ride with someone to a nearby grocery store to stock up for the coming week. Excited about the prospect of American food and products, I rushed into this giant, warehouse like store and immediately stopped dead in my tracks. Who needs four aisles of bread!? Which one do I choose?? What is all this other stuff, and how do I find my staples!?!?!? Aaaahhhhh!

It was so overwhelming. My little corner market is about 1/50 the size of this place, and even my "big beautiful" Alpha Vita grocery store in Athens doesn't hold a candle to the enormity and excessiveness of this store! I felt a bit paralyzed. And laughed at myself, glad I didn't attempt Costco last time I was in the States, because I had no idea (and even scoffed at the idea) that I would fall victim to this phenomenon. :)

Hi there!

Well, if you are following along, now I am in Elgin, Illinois (greater Chicago area). I flew in a few hours ago and haven't slept in, oh, 24 hours. Surprisingly I am awake and coherently navigating around the world wide web.

Last weekend ITeams Greece people had a retreat in a different part of Greece, and this past week I had a friend visiting. We both flew out of Athens (to separate locations) this morning, and now here I am. I'll be here about three weeks for ITeams training/orientation, then a couple days visiting friends in LA, then back to Athens.

I am not mentally in the United States, since I have not had any spare seconds to think or prepare myself. So it doesn't feel weird; I've been traveling so much lately that it just feels like another place to be. Only this one happens to speak my language and have York Peppermint Patties. I've got a pretty free day tomorrow to sleep and relax, then training starts tomorrow night.

So, bye for now...

demonstrations

A few more photos and some videos from last week's demonstration, which thankfully was peaceful. A friend and I were caught in the middle of it trying to get to a lunch appointment so we stopped to take in the crowds (first video), and on our way back there were only a handful of people left sitting in the street blocking traffic, surrounded by the police in riot gear (second video). The police forcefully moved them off the street so the cars could pass through after the streets had been closed all morning. We took the opportunity to be stupid American tourists and take our photos with the police boys. :)

Welcome to Athens

βαριέμαι

The Greeks have a word, βαριέμαι (vari-EH-may), that means "I'm bored." But it's so versatile, you can say "I'm bored to go to the store," "I'm bored to study," basically meaning "I don't want to," or just simply "I'm bored" as we understand it. No need to admit to laziness here!

My point is, I'm bored to write on my blog.

......

now I am going to Turkey for a conference for a week. I do not have time for this blog.

:)

...

Just back from several days in Thessaloniki ... trauma rehabilitation training. 9:30 am to 9:30 pm every day. I just need a little rest now...

the "other" office

A colleague found these videos on You Tube the other day. They're of the street where we work with the Nigerian girls, shot by some little excited tourists from the roof their hotel next door. As it gets later, more girls come - around midnight they'll be arriving in taxis together from their apartments. The "house" the girls mention in the video is a hotel that many of them work out of, and those guys are not their pimps; probably just some dudes hanging out.

Give it a couple more hours after these clips are shot and the numbers could get up to 50, 60, 70 girls at times... Or, like last night, when there were zero because of the police driving through over and over to scare them. In one of these clips the girls all ran up some stairs onto a higher level - to run from either the police or some people who sometimes come through, also just to scare them.

Really sometimes all I want is a car, a house that I can put all my books in, and other normal life things. I'm transient...home is nowhere.

my corner of the world...

My new office space at ... the office. Not sure quite what to do with it yet - I'm so used to working from home that I got nothing done today when I went in! Well, lots of chatting, a little Skype and some Facebook.

recovering...

My least bad owie. You can see it's faded quite a bit; two days ago it was twice as big as my palm. I don't know how I got a puncture wound on (and possibly destroyed the inside of) my left knee, had both knees swollen like golf balls and all scraped up, AND managed to do this to my right thigh. And all through my pants - which have no holes! Talent.

Gemista

Here is that recipe for the stuffed tomatoes I made a couple weeks ago. It is meant to be done with tomatoes and bell peppers. The peppers are great too, but I prefer tomatoes so I used all tomatoes. You can use either or both. You can also make this vegetarian, by using more rice instead of the meat.

You need:

• 4 large firm, ripe tomatoes
• 4 large green bell peppers (or 8 tomatoes)
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1 cup tomato juice
• 2 TBS tomato paste
• 2/3 cup olive oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 lb 2 oz lean ground beef (or ground turkey)
  
• salt and pepper
• scant 1/2 cup medium grain rice (not long or it won't cook)
• 5 TBS finely chopped fresh parsley
• 2 TBS finely chopped fresh mint (optional - I didn't use this)
• 3 large potatoes, each sliced lengthwise into 8 pieces
• 3 TBS butter, cut into pieces

1. Slice off the stem ends of the bell peppers and remove seeds with a teaspoon, reserving the lids. Slice off stem ends of the tomatoes and carefully scoop out most of the flesh, leaving a thin layer next to the skin; reserve the lids. Sprinkle the tomatoes with salt, turn upside down, and let drain.

2. Put the tomato flesh into a blender or food processor and process to a puree, then mix with the sugar, tomato juice, and tomato paste. (If you use 8 tomatoes be sure you only use the flesh from 4 of them!)

3. Preheat the oven to 350 F (180 C). Heat half the oil in a large pan. Add onion and ground beef and cook over high heat, stirring frequently and breaking up the meat with a spoon, for 10-15 min until meat is lightly browned. Stir in tomato mixture and season with salt and pepper. Cook over medium heat for about 10 min, or until slightly thickened. Remove from heat and stir in rice, parsley, and mint, if using. Strain the mixture through a colander into a bowl and reserve the cooking liquid.

4. Stuff the bell peppers and tomatoes two-thirds full with the meat and rice mixture. Arrange the stuffed vegetables in a shallow ovenproof dish and set the reserved lids on top. Put the potato slices between the stuffed vegetables, spoon the reserved cooking liquid over them, and season lightly with salt and pepper. Drizzle the remaining oil over the stuffed vegetables and dot the potatoes with butter.

5. Bake, adding a little water if necessary, for about 1.5 hours, or until all vegetables are tender and the tops are brown. Serve immediately - serves 4.

*Obviously I didn't use the potatoes in mine, but it is a nice addition. The gemista (the greek name, "stuffed") that I have eaten in restaurants have often been black on top, so don't worry if they look burned, it's still great!

Oh, thank God for free American health care.

View from the hill

When I told my sister yesterday that I fell while running, she laughed at me. Cruel, I know. But she was thinking of that stretch of time a few years ago when I stabbed myself, flipped over my bike handlebars and landed on my head, and Nick broke my rib, and perhaps another incident, all within a month or two. I guess it didn't seem that long ago to her and she still thinks I have a death wish.

Anyway. I did. I was running around Philopappou Hill like usual. It's pretty dry up there now and very rocky, and on a little downhill stretch I tripped and had a long, hard fall. Somehow I ended up with swollen, puffy knees and a thigh (as if I needed more puffiness there!). I staggered all the way home, about 25 minutes, glad that my pants were at least hiding the blood running down my leg, but not so much the dirt that covered over half my body and wouldn't wipe off.

I cleaned it all out with the shower head, and discovered this strange, deep, puncture-like hole in my knee. It's pretty gross. And fascinating; I spent lots of time yesterday gazing into it, trying to figure out why it was there and what was inside. And why it kept oozing. By the time I finished some meetings and was able to concentrate on it, the pharmacies were closed, and the one doctor I knew of nearby refused to speak English to me on the phone (jerk!). I was frustrated that I didn't know a few of the vital words I needed in Greek for that conversation.

Neosporin and bandaids were about all the supplies I had on hand, although after applying I read the Neosporin tube and it said "consult a doctor before use if you have ... deep or puncture wounds..." I wasn't sure I wanted to brave the public hospital just yet, and besides I didn't know which one was open that night, so I just hoped last night that it wouldn't get infected and tried not to let panic set in. :) Did I mention I couldn't walk by last night?

Anyway, to make a long, painful story short, I was asking a friend last night if she would still be my friend if I got gangrene, lost my leg, and ended up begging on the sidewalk in Omonia, and she told me that they had a visiting team with a doctor on it. She works for ITeams' refugee ministry here, and said that this woman had actually done a minor "surgery," as she described it, on her that morning. The prospect of a nice American lady fixing me up sounded almost blissful, minus the pain part, in comparison to some of the other options I have available to me in this country!!!

So this morning, I got up and hopped/staggered/limped to the refugee center, occasionally gasping when I took a wrong step and my leg felt like someone had just shot me in the knee. I waited for the doctor to arrive, and it was like I was at home. She cleaned out my wound, called it "impressive" even, and gave me everything I need - peroxide to clean it out regularly, neosporin (guess it's ok to fill my puncture wound with it), big bandaids, and antibiotics, because it was starting to get infected already.

And I was so thankful for this seemingly simple solution. It was a big deal to me to have it taken care of so easily, when nothing is easy here, the medical system is quite plainly traumatic, and I don't have a grasp of the right terms in the language. I am laid up for a couple of days, but I have plenty of sympathetic attention (hee hee :) and I have enormous amounts of relief to have it taken care of and have everything I needed provided, free, in English, and by a nice Christian lady who wrote "God bless" on my antibiotics bottle. :) SO thankful that God made that easy today.

Today

7:30 am - Woke up in the shelter in Northern Greece to giggling girls gabbing in Russian and getting ready for their program for the day. Spent the weekend there; it went really well. Just seven girls this time, all manageable and it went by quickly. Six of them I knew from last time and one new Albanian girl with a really sad story. Had some cool conversations and it was good to get to know a few of them better.

10:30 am - Caught flight back to Athens. And the bus home from the airport is twice as long as the flight from Thessaloniki to Athens.

1:15 pm - Got home, dropped my bag in my house, went for a run (had to after sitting on my butt in that house all weekend!). Attempted to catch up on emails and a few other things.

4:30 pm - Staff meeting at Nea Zoi

7:30 pm - Outreach to brothels

11:00 pm - Finally home to rest!! I was just wondering why I'm so tired; this helps me understand. :)

HA HA

I just called the Greek embassy in Chicago to see if I could apply for a residence permit there, or if I have to do it in my city of residence. I was told that I should call back on Tuesday to talk to the visa officer, who is currently on strike. In fact, all the Greek embassies are on strike!! HAHAHA shocker!!!!!

Easter Sunday!

Late Sunday morning we headed out to a little beach village in Crete called Marathi. Our friend Nikos, who owns a taverna in Hania with his dad, invited us to spend the holiday with his family. His uncle owns a taverna (must be the family business) right on the beach in Marathi, a beautiful location! It wasn't open for business yet - most tourist businesses close for the winter - so we joined the family for a special Easter feast. The taverna will open this week, as the week after Easter is when most tourist businesses begin to open around Greece.Nicole and I laid out on the beach for a bit as lunch was prepared. They cooked 4 lambs, three on the spit and one in the oven with horta (wild greens). Yum!The 4th spit you see with the little pieces on it is the koukouretsi, the insides of the lamb. It's a delicacy! I sampled lamb skin, fat, and a bit of intestine, and that was quite enough for me. Nicole liked the head -
There were about 50 people. Nikos and his brother Giorgos (George) didn't even know everyone. There were some stragglers like us; friends of one family or another who were invited, long lost cousins, uncles that they only see at Easter time.
The wine was flowing (homemade by the family), the food was abundant and delicious, and the Greek spirit was alive! :) Music was playing overhead, and after much wine, some of the ladies started dancing. I watched as one aunt picked up one of the nice plates we were eating off, held it up to the sky, and sent it crashing down to the ground! It was my first Greek plate smashing, although usually they have special "cheap" plates for that!Soon they became bored with dancing on the ground and moved onto the table.We had a great time, and were stuffed for days following. (Although that didn't stop us from eating.) It was a great Easter!

Easter Saturday

I went to Crete for the weekend. It's my favorite island, the cheapest getaway from Athens, with friends and places to stay/things to do waiting for me. :) I went with a friend and her parents, and we had a great time visiting different villages and towns on the island and pottering around in the we always stay in, Hania (I learned that term "pottering" from an Australian friend! I'm becoming so international). :)

Hania, photo from a trip last year

There are so many Greek traditions to observe around Easter time, and we got to participate in most of them. Friday night while I was on the boat, Nicole and her parents went to the good Friday service at the local Orthodox church. I didn't miss out though; as I lay on the floor on the ferry I got to listen to the priests doing their chanting, broadcast loudly through the whole huge boat, until after 11pm! So much for sleeping! A quick investigation told me that the boat had brought along their own priests and materials to conduct the service right on the boat!
The church bells tolled all weekend in Hania, throughout the day, night, and early morning (thankfully I found some earplugs!). Saturday night, we went back to the church for the midnight candle lighting service. It was packed, as it's one of the largest churches in the town -The head Orthodox priest goes to Jerusalem to get the "light." It is said that there, a priest goes into the place where Jesus is said to have died and his candle spontaneously ignites. (I don't know what happens if it doesn't work out that way, but that's how it's supposed to go!) He comes out to the priests who are waiting to take the light back to their countries. The Greek priest gets his light and flies back to Athens, where other priests are waiting to take the light back to their own cities all over the country.

At midnight, after a long service with lots of chanting and prayer, the bells begin to ring again and the priest lights the candles of those around him. You bring your own candles, and quickly the light spreads throughout the church courtyard. All throughout the country this was happening. As people get their light and begin the walk back home, the light spreads all over the city. It's a fun tradition.
We headed back to our friend Johny's taverna to enjoy the traditional Saturday night soup, magiritsa. After the 40 days of Lent, in which Greeks don't eat meat, dairy, or anything derived from a red-blooded animal, this soup is prepared at midnight at the end of the fast to "lightly" reintroduce the stomach to meat.Can you guess what it is? I'll just tell you - goat insides. We all tasted it, but it's so disgusting we ordered the other soup she had that night, a normal chicken and lamb soup. :)
With a crack of our red eggs, we headed to bed to prepare for more feasting on Easter Sunday...

Good Friday ... For Whom the Bell Tolls

I love Good Friday in Greece. It's the day when the church bells ring ... all day long. Literally every 3-5 seconds the bell gongs once or twice. Each neighborhood has at least one church, and in most places in Athens you can hear 3-4 churches at a time. It's like a chorus of bells all around you. Sinister bells, but bells nonetheless.

Last year it drove me mad, but this year I love listening to it. It is somber death knell, a reminder all day long Who died and what it means. You can't escape it, and I love that.

Cooking with Kelsey

Haha, just kidding. But I did just make these amazing stuffed tomatoes! Another Greek classic, one of my favorites. A little kima (ground beef), rice, olive oil, tomato stuff, seasonings, and yum yum yum! (I overstuffed mine a bit, I see, as they are bursting open, but all the more good filling for me.)

Last month I got this big fat Greek cookbook, essentially the "Joy of Cooking" for Greek food, and I'd like to try a few different things out of it. Nothing too complicated, since I have about one square foot of counter space for preparing food, but it's fun to try recipes. :)

Easter bread

Τσουρέκι (tsoureki), is the traditional Greek Easter bread. There are bakeries in Thessaloniki that are famous for their variation - chocolate covered, lemon, orange, etc. I have a recipe for one with orange zest and chocolate chips that I want to try!

But, the traditional bread is simple with a distinct flavor, and often with a red egg placed in the center, to symbolize the blood of Jesus for Easter. I went to the supermarket yesterday and saw carton after carton of red dyed eggs on sale! The flavor is anise seed, which usually I don't like, but it has just a hint of taste in this mildly sweet bread that is actually quite delicious!

So, if you'd like to try something a little different, tasty, and very Greek this Easter, give this a whirl! Your friends and family will be so impressed. Let me know if you try it.

Easter Bread (Tsoureki)

3 packages yeast (or 2 oz. of fresh yeast)
1/2 cup warm water
1 cup milk
10-11 cups flour
7 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup butter, melted
1 Tbsp anise seeds, powdered or grated
lemon rind
sesame seeds or slivered almonds (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 (maybe after some of the rising is done). Dissolve yeast in warm water. Add milk, 1 teaspoon sugar and 2 cups flour. Stir to batter, cover and set in a warm place for about 1 hour.

After an hour, run hot water in a pan and set a medium mixing bowl on top (to keep ingredients in the bowl warm). Beat 6 eggs, sugar, and lemon rind over the hot water. Stir the mixture into the batter. Add remaining flour. Put dough on a floured pastry board and knead, adding the butter, until smooth and elastic. Place in a large buttered bowl and brush surface lightly with melted butter. Cover with a cloth and let rise in a warm place until it has doubled in size, about 2 hours.

Shape dough into long ropes 1/2 to 1 inch diameter and cut into 12 inch lengths. Braid 3 ropes loosely together and lay on a greased baking sheet. Let it rise, covered, until doubled, about 1 hour. Brush with one beaten egg, sprinkle with sesame seeds or slivered almonds if you wish, and bake for 25-30 minutes.

To be very Greek, push a red egg into the center before you bake it!

Medieval Rhodes

it's a great country I live in...

The good people in Cyprus reimbursed me for every expense for my trip there. Now, I'm taking the money and running! To a 75% off (off-season special) 5 star hotel on the sea in Rhodes. What can I say, I'm in desperate need of a break.

Bye now.

(photo from Kathleen Andersen)

time for my soapbox

I never really told you what I think of that Stop the Traffik PSA I shared below. (I wrote a bit in the comments but not here.) After I got over my traumatization, I thought about it a bit more, and I think it misses the point.

I think it's really well done, gets the point across, and is in-your-face in a way that gets your attention and makes you think about the issue. (Although, unfortunately, without getting it in actual television spots, the majority of the people who will view it are those who are, at the least, already aware, and at the most, active in the issue.) And my opinion has nothing to do with Stop the Traffik - I worked with them in LA (Oasis, as they are called in the States).

Here's my experience: Anyone would agree, after viewing this PSA, that trafficking is horrible, violent, and should be stopped. Including the man who will go pay for sex in a brothel with this girl. That's because he doesn't make the connection between the girl in the ad - how she got there, whether it was by force/violence or not - and the girl he is having sex with. He assumes and tells himself that the particular girl he is seeing is different - she wants to be there, or at least has made a choice to be there.

We have gotten a lot of attention on human trafficking, and people think it's terrible and evil. But it's not slowing down. Ads like this - and the anti-trafficking campaign in general - would be more effective if they tied this violent event to the girl that is in the brothel or giving services on the street. If we connected the crime, injustice and violence of trafficking directly to prostitution, or even pornography, perhaps that would have a greater effect on the demand - since that is what is fueling the human trafficking industry in the first place.

thinking

random photo of Athens street art to make post more interesting

I am thinking about finally applying for a residence permit when I go to the States in June. I get a headache when I think about all the hoops I will have to jump through: birth certificates, doctors' notes, bank statements, letters from insurance companies, letters from my organization, background check & fingerprints, all translated and notarized, turned in in the States and in Greece, then more doctor's appointments, TB test, lung x-ray... GAH! But, worth it in the end, to not have to leave every 90 days and worry about the small chance of not getting back in or a very large fine??? (????)

I am thinking about my storage unit in Southern California that holds the contents of an apartment, collecting dust and racking up money to keep it there. It's paid through June; what if I got rid of it all? Would I miss it? Would I even want any of that stuff in a few years when/if I do move back to California?

I am thinking about a roommate. We have a girl coming soon for two years from Australia who I met at the prayer summit in Amsterdam last November. I love where I live, I can walk everywhere and I'm 3 minutes from the metro. And I like living alone. But it would save some money and probably give me more space, not to mention company. I'd be very picky about where I lived next, because my location is so great. And I just hate moving and going through the whole process again of finding a place. So I don't know. But I'm thinking about it.

I'm also thinking about the fact that I went to a different church this morning, didn't use the headphones for translation into English, and understood nearly the whole thing. What!!? Either this pastor speaks much more clearly (or uses easier words, or both), or my Greek has improved!! I was listening in sheer amazement the whole time (because I could actually understand most of what I was hearing), and even had a discussion about the sermon afterward with two friends who had their headphones on for the service. Bizarre!!!

And that is enough thinking for a Sunday afternoon. YAAAAAAY for not having any Greek homework to do!!!!!

Just another day in Athens...

Strikes, strikes, so many strikes!

We missed a big one on Friday while we were in Cyprus. I heard several people tell of their two+ hour walks to work! Many didn't make it in at all - metro, trains, and buses do not run, government offices and schools are closed, etc. etc. etc.

Gearing up for another one tomorrow - you have to plan ahead, rearrange your schedules, and stay close to home...nowhere you can't walk to! And hope you don't have a flight scheduled...because those are canceled too.

Thank you, "austerity measures" ...

spanakopita

I got an email today that said "We have been reading a lot in the newspaper about Grease."

:)

Well, I have returned from a whirlwind trip to Cyprus. We had a really great turnout, and I enjoyed doing the training. I was reminded how much "ministry" is involved in these things, when during breaks, after the conference ends for the day, and much of your otherwise "free" time is taken by meals and other meetings and chats and questions and you always have to be "on"! At one point I was so brain dead I just stared into my pizza blankly while the others talked around me. So much polite smiling and nodding and making conversation. :) THAT is what exhausts me; the teaching part I love!It was great having a traveling companion ... Holly is from Seattle and interning with Nea Zoi for a year. I was glad she could come along. We had a bit of free time on Friday morning to wander around along the sea and in the old part of Limassol.
Back in Athens, it's rainy and freezing again! I thought we were surely coming into some nice spring-y weather; last week I was ready to break out the sandals. Not yet! Today we also have our African dust back in the air, so the dark storm clouds mean that it literally rains mud. All the cars parked along the streets look like they have been off-roading.

Stop the Traffik PSA

A friend at home sent me this PSA and a couple others. I think I am traumatized...

Stop the Traffik - Classroom - (2010) :30