A 10 minute walk in Palio Faliro

I have been back in Greece since February 1st, and am pretty content to visit with a few friends that I made here, and do some
volunteer work at Caritas Refugee Center near Omonia Square downtown Athens.

I am wishing that I were more poetic. One poem would be on a ten minute walk through my slightly posh (by Athens standards) neighborhood and the human misery unfolding before me with each half a block. But there is no poem in me yet.

I was walking down the street in Palio Faliro past the fancy shops. What! Is that guy dead or hurt? He's lying in a ground level tree planter square in the dirt. No, his legs are bent at the knees in a sleeping posture. He is sleeping with his upper body and head in the dirt around the tree, and his legs are on the sidewalk. It is one in the afternoon.

A moment later a man emerged from near a store front ready to play his accordian for me. Just a few half-hearted bars while his little boy held out an empty plastic cup for change.

I crossed the street to go to the video store and passed a gypsy woman sitting on the sidewalk with her child in her lap. She wasn't even begging, but was folded into her head covering. Then she reached out her hand as I passed.

After I left the video store, I came upon a man digging through a dumpster. He said "papootsia" which means shoes.
He indicated that his shoes were falling apart. I wanted to tell him that he could go to Caritas Refugee Center to get
shoes and clothes, but the language barrier was too great.

I am embarrassed to admit that I had originally crossed the street at the beginning of my walk to avoid the usual beggars by the church who sit there all day long in wheelchairs as well as the Africans who hawk umbrellas and movie CD's . Unfortunately there is no avoiding poverty and despair in all of the places i have been in Athens. There is a steady stream of refugees from
Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and many African countries such as Rwanda and Sudan, and this government judging by its lack of action couldn't care less about helping them to survive.