Patras on the first day of capital controls. Demotix/ Menelaos Mich. All rights reserved.While waiting in the ATM lines caused by the bank shut down in Greece, Phaedra, my nine year old daughter, did her flips and cartwheels and generally entertained the crowd of mainly older people who were trying to retrieve the maximum daily allowance of sixty Euros. When we were done and walking back to our Fiat, she tugged my sleeve, and looked up at me through her thick red glasses. “Daddy, will ballet school be open next year?”
I didn’t have an answer. The whole country seems to be shutting down – one theatre here, one business there. Most people around me are either looking for a job or know someone looking for a job. At home my office is stacked with bios of extremely qualified people who believe that with my last name and my contacts I can secure their shaky future. My son, Andronicus, told me that five of his friends in the British private school he attends are leaving the country for good. Those that can, run. Those that can’t, get in line.
At the beginning of the crisis, I attended a musical production under the Acropolis in honor of a Greek composer, Manos Hadjidakis, famous for Never on Sunday. I was struck by the wealth of local talent evident in the two musical groups that backed up the event. One was the String Orchestra of the city of Patras – a city whose population is no more than 170,000 and has been especially hard hit by the downturn. The other was the Polyphonic Choir, also from the city of Patras. Two hundred girls and women sang into the heavens, accompanied by dozens of mandolins and a bouzouki orchestra made up of wizened older men.
