An unsafe, cold walk in Athens

And the people who made an evening so memorable

One wonderful thing about being solidly in your 40s is that you can stop feeling sheepish about being a walker. As in, a person who walks. There’s no dog here, but I walk myself—for exercise, for pleasure, for fresh air, for general well-being. This morning’s walk was a cold one, and it brought to memory a cold February walk through Athens. No, no, no, not Athens, Georgia. Athens, Greece.

As I traveled, I didn’t just want to be a pleasure-seeking vacationer. Even as I traipsed my way around Europe and the United States, I tried to make travel life similar to my real life. I attended church wherever I was each Sunday. I worked on my business. (This made for some interestingly-timed video client calls from hotel rooms, including a 12:00a.m. one on the Greek island where I didn’t die.) I tried to keep my surroundings tidy, maintain something of a daily routine, and keep up with my budget and personal affairs.

Another thing I tried to do wherever I traveled was find ways to serve. Not because I’m a Mother Teresa or Florence Nightingale. I do genuinely like people, and I like helping. But I suppose there’s still a selfish element and one I’ve not found my way around yet: I’m simply happier when I serve other people. As George Eliot says:

“What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?”

Because I hadn’t done any of this making-life-easier-for-others thing for a little while, volunteering was on my mind when I landed in Greece for a couple weeks. At church the next day, I met a missionary couple. Their assignment is to partner with NGOs and non-profits in providing relief to God’s children. Coincidence? Not a chance. That night I talked via WhatsApp with the Idahoan founder of one of these non-profits, and was delighted to find she had something I could do THAT WEEK. No bureaucratic hoops to jump through here!

There was no interview, no background check, no application. In contrast, a friend had to fill out an application to volunteer in her son’s first-grade classroom. And—get this—she had to interview for the privilege. Someone decades younger than her asked questions like, “What are you hoping to get out of this experience?” and “What are your qualifications for this opportunity?” Having some criteria and structure is probably good, but could it be that in the United States at least we’ve created so many hoops between good people doing good things, that they no longer want to help out?

Back to Athens: On a Wednesday evening—Day 5 in Greece—I was bundled up for the cold, and walking to my volunteer session. The founder had warned me that it wasn’t in the safest area of the city, but she thought I’d probably be all right. Those are exactly the kind of assurances which add a thrill of adventure to an ordinary weeknight.

My mission that night: Help an 18-year-old young man from Guinea study for the Social Studies portion of the US GED test. Did you know that GED stands for General Education Development and that this test is used for college admission in at least some foreign countries? I assuredly did not.

This portion of the test was the only thing standing between Cam receiving his GED. Which would allow him to enroll in college. Which would also allow him to get the Shopify job he’d conditionally received. As we got into it, I was convinced that Cam knew more about US history and government than I did. Perhaps I’ve put too much time into my parallel parking skills and should beef up on some book learnin’.

Anyway, as Cam and I talked through the questions, I could see that he knew the right answers. So why had he failed this section—and by miles—twice? It became clear that he was second-guessing his comprehension of the question’s intent. And then he was second-guessing his first and correct instinct for the answer. In almost every case, he’d changed his first and correct guess due to overthinking. Could there be something to trusting and following our first instincts? Probably.

However, you and I don’t have time to talk about that, because the ENTIRE POINT of this piece is to tell you about walking in the cold in Athens. You already know about my unsafe and uneventful walk there. My unsafe walk back to my hostel was more eventful. I affectionately remember it as the “Street Food Tour of Athens.”

The only photos I took on my walk that night. You might guess that I like pizza.

First stop? A Turkish bakery. I don’t particularly love baklava or Turkish desserts, but I immediately liked the mom and teenage daughter running their family business, and bought something. The mother and I shared a hearty laugh over something to do with my request for a fork; in addition to the whole family learning Greek, the mom was also learning English, and the daughter was learning French at school.

As I continued my unsafe walk, I saw a place selling what looked like American cookies. Chocolate chip cookies are a favorite dessert and not oft-seen abroad, so I stopped to buy one. And a cheese pie, because why not? One bite of the cookie indicated that we have very different opinions on cookies, so that was rather a second dessert bust.

My third stop on the tour was for a gyro—at “the usual place,” per my travel journal.

My fourth and final stop was for gelato which was NOT a dessert bust. It almost never is.

I must have been hungry. Or in a celebratory mood. Or cold. Or all three.

In case you’re wondering if anything good came out of that Wednesday evening besides this multiethnic carb and sugar binge session, it did. Cam found my tutoring helpful enough to continue our sessions. I expected the non-profit to coordinate these because, you know, client privacy and such. But nope: like the adults we both were (still are) we exchanged numbers via WhatsApp and ARRANGED THINGS OURSELVES. Even as I continued my travels, we held another handful of sessions via Google Meet. Several weeks later, Cam sent me a WhatApp message. He’d passed this section, received his GED, and got the job with Shopify.

I’ll likely never cross paths again with these people who made such an impression on me with their kindness and courage. Cam? I have no idea how he’s doing making his way solo in a new country. I’ll likely never know how the Turkish family is doing with their language learning and how they also continue to adjust to life and business in a new country. And I’ll probably never know if the very nice girl at the cookie shop improves their cookie recipe. All I know is I’m grateful for that cold walk throughout Athens, and the people who made it one of life’s very memorable nights.

Isn’t life cool, and aren’t people interesting? See you in the next one…

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