We fell in love with Crete. Really, like you fall and, more importantly, stay in love with a person. We were infatuated at first, then had many quarrels with her, saw her ugly sides, felt the cold of her bad shoulder; then we made up, were kissed by her sun, ate her stuffed zucchini flowers, swam in her Libyan sea, danced and sang and played as her sun rose – and did it all over again. We really became members of our small village’s community, and that of the city below. Ana began speaking rustic Greek with a Cretan-Brazilian accent. The daily joys and sheer quality of life started really overwhelming the bureaucratic hellishness of living in Greece.
So I started seriously thinking about becoming a citizen, doing the obligatory military service (which for me, as an American-born Greekling, would only be three months’ worth), getting us the necessary papers, and making a go of it for the long haul. I spent months hanging around government offices and making phone calls in an attempt to learn exactly what I had to do in order to complete the process, tracked down and gathered all the necessary documents – birth, marriage, baptism records stretching back in time to my great-grandfather, who was born on the island of Cephallonia in 1878 – and checked and double-checked with my local bureaucrat to make sure I was doing everything right. I even called the central office in Athens to make sure. Yes, they assured me, all is as our colleague in Rethymno says.
And so came the day when I went to hand everything in. And, as you’ve probably guessed, there and then I learned, when the attendant happened to double-check something in the giant book of draconian Greek immigration laws, that all I had been told was wrong. That due to my particular status the citizenship process must be initiated from my American city of permanent residence through the local consulate. That I have to go in person several times over a year or so with witnesses testifying to blah blah blah. And so on. In other words, ton poulo. And the best part: If you’re not out of the country by the end of June, Mr. League, you will be seized by the federal police and forcibly made to serve in the army for a year.
As you can imagine, I was shocked, and made various attempts to begin sentences starting with “But I was told that…” I was met with indifferent shrugs and “You should have asked so-and-so.” But I did! “Then so-and-so.” But I did! “Then such-and-such.” But I did! I did! “Eh, too bad. NEXT!”
So we had to pack it up and move it out, on pretty short notice. Okay, I could have spent my year’s salary at the music school on a lawyer, to research the hell out of the whole affair. But I fell prey to my rearing in a country with some measure of efficiency in the public service sector, and made the fatal mistake of actually trusting those people to do their jobs. I overlooked the fact that most of them got said jobs because they are the child, cousin, nephew, or mistress of someone owed political favors, that they receive no training, stay at the office for an average of three hours a day, do no actual work, and want the job in the first place only because according to Greek law public servants can’t be fired.
Not that I’m bitter. Oh, I was. Was I ever. But at this point we’re looking forward to returning to Boston, for various reasons.
The last several weeks have been a blur of constant movement, travel and change, as will be the next few. I’m writing this from Maestro Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport in Rio de Janeiro (an ironic homage to one of Brazil’s most beloved musicians, who was mortally afraid of airplanes). We are in the middle of what may be the most complicated move of my life, which is saying something. Our worldly possessions are spread between three continents; I’m on my way to play at a festival in the Turkish-occupied northern part of Cyprus (which I’ll write about once it’s happened, since it’s a historic event and pretty interesting), then back to Brazil for two days, then finally back to sunny Boston via an eleven-hour layover in Santiago de Chile (that’s what you get for traveling on redeemed miles).
We came to Brazil for Ana’s father’s 60th birthday, which was great, as Brazil mostly is.
Despite the sickening poverty, inequality, corruption, and racism, it’s a vibrant, welcoming, love-saturated country full of the most genuinely friendly people I’ve ever met. And, best of all, I got hugged by a tree sloth. Unfortunately our camera broke, so I can’t provide any photos of the experience. Rest assured it was darn cute.
Well, I suppose this is the end of the current phase of my blogging career, since technically I’m not in the eastern Mediterranean anymore. But who knows…
Thanks for reading!
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