Yes, that’s it. I’m in Athens, Greece

I jetted home to San Francisco from Argentina and ten days later headed across the U.S. and over the Atlantic to Turkey to meet the students for a writing workshop I'd organized aboard a Turkish yacht. Turkey was magic, just as I remembered from nine years ago, perhaps more so. Especially Istanbul - genie of a city, rising up sinuously where Asia meets Europe.

After the workshop, my next destination following the Gods of travel serendipity, was the Greek islands - Kos, Rhodes, Crete, and Hydra. Next to the Greek mainland - Athens and Thessaloniki where I was the guest of a Greek God (at least he thinks so) named Demitrios whom I'd met in Turkey. And then back to Athens again, which is where I sit today, almost two months after leaving San Francisco, writing this column.

Where to next?

The choices are dizzying, a good problem to have my cousin Carolyn points out.  Back to Istanbul? Maybe. I've been invited to an expat function in four days and want to interview the author of Tales From an Expat Harem, an American woman married to a Turk. Or will it be Croatia to check out real estate? Southern Italy? The exchange rate makes EU countries prohibitive for an American now, as I've learned in Greece. London where my best friend has invited me to join her and her son next week? Probably not as it’s too unsettling at this juncture and not in line with my goals, but if it’s on the way to somewhere else...Bali, to see if it still might be home? Or back to Buenos Aires where when I left, I believed I had found my new city/home? New York, where a new friend has invited me to rent a room in her flat in South Central Park, in a city I have dreamed of living in part of each year?  Or “home” to California where my children and parents and siblings are wondering if I have disappeared forever from their lives? 

Your guess is as good as mine. - Next month, we can both check this column to find out.

Meanwhile, today from Athens, Greece - 

Africans in Athens
I finally found an internet cafe several blocks away from Demitrios' apartment which he has loaned me to work in while I’m in Athens trying to meet a deadline. But the apartment has no internet. Internet cafes are far and few between in this city that basks in its reputation as the cradle of civilization, but is about as far away from technological advancement as any place I have been. Very few Greeks have even heard of WiFi.

The few internet cafes I have stumbled upon in Athens (and I have taken many a taxi ride all the way across town to the one cafe I discovered with WiFi) are staffed and it would appear owned by black Africans. This must be the Koreans with grocery stores, the Indians with the hotels, the Filipinos with medical clinics kind of thing. This little neighborhood internet shop called Skylab, equipped with five of the latest flatscreens and computer towers, is much like other internet shops I've seen, staffed by blacks with a lot of friends who wander in and out and a complete dearth of white patrons. 

I enter Skylab, sit down in front of a computer and begin to work quietly. The blacks here unlike most Greeks I've met, speak fluent English as they are from Africa. In fact they call themselves Africans and so then, will I.

One offers me a whiskey. It is just before noon. I say I'll have a coke. He pours it. "On the house," he says. I thank him and disappear into my screen for what seems like hours. 

In the background, the men grow louder and merrier. One pulls me out of my computer trance by asking, "Where are you from? Are you alone?" 

Both questions I 'm not sure how to answer. Where I am from becomes increasingly difficult to answer as I have been home exactly 10 days in six months, and am indeed looking for that place called home. 

Alone? Years of solo female travel has taught me that to say that I am alone, is akin to saying, “Come and get me”.  So I usually throw in the boyfriend bit. Which is kind of true this time. They always wonder where the boyfriend is. And if you say, at home or anywhere but a block away, they're on you like flies to honey.

I ask them where they are from. Josef is from Nigeria, Vincent from Ghana. There are various blacks who wander in and out, from a few girls to several men, all of whom seem to be good friends. I return to my work at the computer. In the background, the men sip their whiskies and talk loudly about everything from the World Cup to I’m not sure what as I quickly disappeared into my work.

"What kind of work are you doing?" the one named Josef asks, pulling me from the computer screen reluctantly like taffy. I turn in my seat to converse. Josef is round and dark, dark brown, with bloodshot eyes and he’s all friendly-like. Another man, tall and eggplant black, speaking with an elegant English accent, tells me his name is Vincent. Another man walks in, tall, milk chocolate skinned, sweet smile. They surround him, shake hands or rather clasp hands and pat each other on shoulders. "This one is the chief,” Josef says. “He’s  the, the..."  "The boss?" I ask, and they nod. "He’s rich. Chad here has five wives!" 

"Is that legal?" I ask. To which we begin conversing about multiple wives, which they tell me is the norm in Africa, where a man’s wealth is signified by the number of wives he has; meaning of course that he can sire that many more children. 

There's no such thing as divorce in Africa they say...The worse thing that can happen is "sacking" one's wife, which means kicking her out, or making her leave. When she goes, she must leave the children behind and in the eyes of the community she may be free, but she remains "married", therefore unavailable for a new relationship. So it's rare.

"Can women have multiple husbands?" I ask (naturally). 

"But how would you know who the father of your children was?" Chad asks.  "It could not work." 

"Well, DNA testing might do the trick," I offer.

“Oh what? You're going to go get tested every time?" 

To which I reply, "Well, that depends on how many times I get pregnant. Let's assume a maximum of one time per year. One DNA test per year to learn who the father is probably won't kill me and would sure be worth having several husbands for."

" No, no, a man can't handle that kind of thing."

 "A woman can?" 

"They're used to it," the men say, talking all over each other. "It's how they're raised."

I see that there's no need to argue my point further. It's the worst form of inequality. Women must share, but men don't have to. Still...there is a positive side.

"With our way, the children have a father, always. The family stays together. Can you say that for the United States or any other first world country?"

He is right. I cannot.

Vincent says, "In Greece, a man gets married for maybe 10 years at the most, then he divorces and gets a new one. If you have several wives, this doesn't happen."

Perhaps they have a point.

"Don't the women get jealous?" I ask.

"Sure, of course they do, but they keep it inside," Chad says.

"How do you have time for them all?" 

"I spend maybe two nights with each at a time...They live in different flats in the same building," he says with a sweep of his hand. "I take care of them all."

I can picture the children playing together, all the moms pitching in. One big happy family and all.  It beats what African American kids grow up with, which is no dad at all, or, as these African men point out to me with looks of horror, "Children who have to grow up with a father who isn't even their real dad." I hadn't really thought about it that much, but it is kind of sad in an unnatural way for children to get stuck with a parent not even their own.

Chad loves all his wives. "It's the same as with children" he says. "Each one is different from the other yet, you don't love one more than another, nor is your love diminished because you love more than one."

Vincent says there is no infidelity this way, followed as it is in the west by a break up of the home and divorce.

"Can the woman have affairs?" I ask.

"Well, sure as long as she doesn't get caught."

"And if she does?" 

"She's thrown out."

Sigh...Nice system as long as you're a man. 

Suddenly all the discussions beginning back in San Francisco with Scott last year, and continuing with Jamie in Argentina a few months ago about the Western male conundrum of having to choose between intimacy and stability, between lack of variety  with the uncertainty of getting laid... Suddenly it's all becoming clear. 

That and the bewildering (to me) way that Ali Baba in Istanbul took me to his home for dinner, to meet his wife (whom he has been married to for 25 years and says he loves very much) and his children. It was his way of showing her and the world, for that matter, that he rates several women. And the conversations I've had lately with both men and women about men's incongruence with the ideal of monogamy. And the way that Demitrios in Greece is honest with me about the fact he is cheating on his girlfriend who is cheating on her husband, with me. 

Maybe we are all poly amorous after all.  It's a suspicion I've had since the day my unlikely to cheat husband cheated. 

Why can't we love more than one person at a time? And who says?

Our conversation shifts to their quality of life in Greece.

They do not like or respect Greeks. “Greeks are two-faced..., they say one thing and then turn around and do another.” The men say they did not know what they were getting into when they emigrated to Greece.  They are not wanted here, and in fact, Greeks make it as tough for them as they can. 

Refugees, the men call themselves. Which in my mind are lines of sad people trotting in a long line through the countryside away from bombed out cities and corrupt governments to more nurturing ones...Which further into our conversation, the men clarify. No, refugee simply mean immigrant with no papers. 

Which they all are - immigrants without papers. Not for lack of trying, that's for sure. They do everything they can to "get their papers"  including paying what they must, a newly legislated $1,500 Euros per year, in order to get the papers which never come, but for which if they don't pay and apply, will result in imprisonment. 

They are stuck they say. They must pay into the system, but they receive no benefits. They can do nothing, cannot be employed, but to remain in the country they must pay. Their only choice is to go back to Africa, which they're not willing to do. "I can not even get the basic things at home," one says. Even though at home they'd be considered millionaires. Another points out, there are even less jobs there than here.  Many of the Africans in Greece are educated professionals, but here they are not allowed to practice their trades. They can only sell.

"How do you survive?" I ask. They stick together they tell me. One owns an African grocery store, another an internet cafe, another sells sunglasses on the street, and they combine their funds to purchase businesses together. They patronize one another because Greeks refuse to do business with them. 

"I knew you were not Greek," Josef says to me.  "Because if you were Greek, you would not be in here. The only people who come in here are Africans like us, or foreigners like you who don't care what others think."

Vincent says, "Greeks don't like foreigners....ok, some who've been 'outside' are ok about it, but the regular Greeks, no. They say ‘Greece is for the Greeks’. It’s worse for us as Africans, but you would feel it if you lived here too."

The men say that if they show any signs of wealth, say a nice new car, they are asking to be pulled over by the police for questioning. "How did you get that car?" they’ll be grilled.   Followed by the police going to their homes where they then will help themselves to whatever they want.

The justice system is terrible in Greece they say. "The judge may declare, 'He is free', but the police arrest him as soon as he is released. The police don't answer to the judges. And the lawyers?" The men snicker. "The lawyers here are only for apologies to the judge and for pleading for mercy." 

They say it's hard for them all over Europe, except maybe Germany and France where Africans are treated fairly well. 

Greece pays lip service to the UN, they say, since in order to get UN money, they have to demonstrate that they accept emigrants and give them a fair chance.  Little does the UN know that the Greeks let them in, but they won't let them move up and they certainly won't let them move out.

Vincent invites me to join the men that evening for drinks and dinner. I ask where. They say an African restaurant/bar that they frequent. 

"You have your own restaurants and bars?" I ask. 

"Yes. We can't go into a Greek place. Sometimes they come to ours to hear hip hop and African music, but we can't go to theirs. You understand right?"

Yes, I do, as much as I, a white woman, can. It's a fucked up white man's world. 

I stand up to pay.

"No, it's on us," Vincent says, having taken over Josef's place behind the counter. I protest and try to anyway. He refuses and says, "It’s good to share instead of keeping it all in here." (pointing to his chest.) "You care about what we think, what we experience. It is good to get it out of me, to you, and to know that you wanted to hear."

I leave the Skylab Internet Shop late that afternoon remembering why it is that I am here. Not only in Athens, but on Planet Earth. It’s about learning other ways of being in the world, and then sharing what I have seen and heard. Because once we all know, we can understand. And get off each others' backs. 

Images of Athens