Greek Lessons with Eight-Year-Olds

Taken from my most recent post on Let’s Go.

My Greek is not very good. I speak a “lee-go” greek, meaning very little. But, I can tell I am improving by the age of the people I can talk to. At first, I could only talk to cats. I said “ya sou” to a lot of stray cats just to prove I could say “hi” in Greek. This was generally frowned upon by other people on the street, so I chose a new tactic— talking to babies. Babies are easy, because all they can say is “ya sou,” and that’s all I can say back anyway. But in the past couple weeks, my Greek vocabulary grew. I could feel myself preparing to move on to the next level of conversation, a level that was achieved a few nights ago as I stood next to the metro station late at night waiting for my friends.

There was a group of boys, probably elementary school age, playing soccer in the street. (Greek parents seem to let their kids stay out pretty late without supervision). They kicked the soccer ball around me, treating me like an inanimate obstacle that had been placed in the middle of their field. One bold child, who I estimate was eight years old, stepped out of the group, lunging one foot forward and throwing his hands up in the air. “CAN YOU UNDERSTAND ME?” he screamed.

That’s a pretty complex sentence of English for a small child. “NAI!” I screamed back. He was shocked. Did I really know Greek?

“Apo pou eisai?” he said (Where are you from?).

“Apo teen Ameriki,” I replied.

He giggled. “Pou? Pou?”

“Arizona,” I said.

“Oooh,” he said, shaking his hips and waving his arms up and down like a Flamenco dancer. “Ar-ee-zone-a!”

What kind of dance was that? What did he think of Arizona? That it involved belly dancing? Exotic people? Language barriers prevented me from asking. He ran off, kicking the soccer ball back into his group of friends. But I was satisfied, knowing I had graduated to the next level of Greek conversation.