Wednesday, November 12, 2008
I was walking down Notara Street in Piraeus on my way to my Greek Language class when I observed a couple walking in the middle of the street ahead of me. I thought that the woman was assisting the obviously blind man who walked with a white cane. A car came straight toward them. I was at that point ahead of them and motioned to the driver who stopped right in front of them and honked a few times. Other pedestrians ignored the situation. The couple appeared to be clueless as to their predicament, and I then realized they were both blind. I took the arm of the woman, saying the Greek word for street, "othos, othos", but they didn't budge. I called out to several people on the street, asking, "English, do you speak English?" Someone finally called out to them and they allowed me to help them onto the sidewalk. The sidewalks in Athens are narrow with many obstacles such as cars, motorcycles, holes, boxes, trash, and steps that go up or down with no warning. Very challenging even with all of one's faculties intact! I continued to lightly hold the arm of the woman and managed to get them to the end of the block and across the street where again they seemed determined to be in the street rather than on the sidewalk. At the corner was a clothing shop with clothes for sale outside where I got a fairly disinterested woman to engage with me in broken English in order to get some help for the blind couple. She was busy holding up clothes to check them for size, and kept leaving my desperate attempt at conversation to hold up more pants! She finally spoke with the couple and then told me that they were okay, and knew how to get they were going. The blind couple were calm and appeared happy, oblivious to the danger they had been in. In the end, all they wanted to know was, where I was from and laughed happily when they heard that I was an American!
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