It's all Greek to me

Yesterday seems like a blur of languages to me after working furiously to translate my English health survey into Russian, Greek and Albanian with a lot of help. The medical terminology proved most difficult to accurately convey, but by this morning we printed several stacks of carefully approved and proofread surveys in English, Greek and Albanian to use on the outreach to several areas of Athens this morning. As I typed up the Albanian survey, I found myself grateful that at least it uses our same alphabet, in contrast to yesterday's total confusion immersed in a sea of Greek and Russian!

Now, I'm no expert, but my Greek vocabulary is expanding slowly as I learn under fire. For example, standing at the vegan restaurant yesterday with the whole buffet labeled in Greek, the only word I could pick out was 'fava'. Before I knew what was happening, I had a large plate loaded with over a pound of fava beans thrust at me over the counter. I swallowed every bit of those beans, despite my stomach's protests, and then vowed to learn a few more options to diversify my next meal.

With my elementary Greek, I'm happy to pass on a few useful phrases for you to learn as well. And I'll leave out the medical terminology ...

Ναι [nay] = yes, despite the fact that it sounds like NO
όχι [o-hee] = no, despite the fact that it sounds sort of like okay
νέα ζωή [knee-ahh zo-eee] = Nea Zoi, or new life, the name of our organization
Αθήνα [atheena] = Athens
Ακρόπολη = Acropolis
γιατρό [ee-ahtro] = doctor
Αγγλικά [eh-gleeka] = English???? (with a desperate tone in your voice)

For now, that's the extent of my Greek and the end of the lesson. But when in doubt, nod a lot and smile big! I used that tactic a lot today in the brothels of Filis during our outreach from 11am - 1pm. The bare white lights that advertise the brothels (not red, as we typically think) were commonplace, scattered down narrow side streets, and the prostitution seems to hide under routine daily life continuing on the streets outside. Each brothel in this neighborhood is the first or second floor apartment of a building, often with "normal" neighbors living above them who see these interchanges every day. Within each apartment, one madame and several women live and work. As we ducked through doorways into the dark, smoky apartments, my partner - a wonderful Greek pastor's wife - did all of the talking while I followed, carrying a basket full of teas, coffee packets and pamphlets etc. Other than handing cups of coffee to the women, I more often just stood back to smile and nod. A few times, I realized as we went back outside that I had smiled and nodded through a very tense exchange, but for the most part, we had good contacts today. Three of the madames, who each "take care" of one or more prostitutes in their separate apartments, effusively complimented the Nea Zoi teams, thanking them for their kindness and help. We had a chance to talk to several young women, many from Ukraine or Moldovia, and to talk through our health survey with a handful as well with invitations to Friday afternoon's clinic.

Leaving out most details of the experience due to a mixed audience, I will say that I left the day rather stunned and depressed. Lindsay and I are holding each other accountable to discussing what we are seeing with each other and the Nea Zoi team, because maintaining healthy perspectives requires prayer and careful processing. Prayer for all of that would be enormously appreciated and especially for the women we are meeting: Nadia, Cleopatra, Corina, Sarah, Maria ... These are "street names" that the women use, often in part to isolate their working identity from their true name and psychological sense of self. The separation of identity makes the current situation easier to cope with, but often results in long-term problems like personality disorders, suppressed PTSD and other psychological issues.

I did have some hope from today though, even in the simple exchanges of a smile back and forth. The neighborhood - Filis (Fe-leece) - is a fairly new area for Nea Zoi, and already the teams are seeing women warming up to the love and help being extended. The other teams going to different Athens brothels today contacted many women as well, and collected health data as they went. Our debriefing at the office afterwards reminded us that the need is huge, but the potential for sharing godly compassion and having a positive impact is equally large.

On a happy ending note, thanks to those of you leaving comments on the blog posts ... the kind and funny words are much appreciated by all of us! If you'd like a response to something specific, be sure to leave your email address with the comment. Or, if you have any questions from reading through the blog, feel free to email us (corrie.roehm@gmail.com and rroehm@gmail.com) ... we'll try to respond as we can!