On the street

Much to our delight and our bodies' dismay, our 6pm arrival in Athens meant we could be part of the Nea Zoi (our Athens team) Thursday night outreach at11pm. After dropping off our bags in our new Soviet bloc style apartment in downtown Athens with Jennifer and grabbing some Greek fast food with Emma, we met up with the other Nea Zoi folks at the headquarters on the edge of the red light district (picture of the office entry room). Now, part of me was totally thrilled to be there, meeting the others and preparing for our night with prayer and worship. But the other part of me was literally falling asleep while singing. And I love to sing. With Robert's gentle taps, I managed to stay mostly awake and focused. The group gathered at the office included several Greek volunteers, one Brit and another American both here for two weeks, the team staff - Emma, Jennifer, Bill and a few others - and a random German filmmaker doing a documentary on the group's street work. We split up into three smaller groups - one going to the brothels, one going to the hotels where mainly Nigerian women work, and one going to visit the transvestite prostitute population, where Lindsay was assigned for the night.

Robert and I went with Emma, Jennifer and two Greek volunteers to the hotels just a few blocks from the Nea Zoi office. Many of the Nigerian women work here instead of the brothels since they are not here legally and don't have the documents to qualify as legal prostitutes for the brothels. The most common reason for the lack of documentation for these women is that they were trafficked into Greece, further complicating their already tenuous position. As we walked through the city to the hotels, the sidewalks demanded our attention to avoid the occasional dark, gaping holes that could turn an ankle. The streetlights cast an orange glow over everything as the very urban smells of urine and garbage hit us in bursts.

As we got closer to the hotels, the noise of traffic seemed to get louder, with honking and squealing tires. The women were out on sidewalks, stylishly if scantily dressed, many with full, colorful wigs and bright eyeshadows accentuating their looks. The overall feel was something like a high school party, with the young girls running around in pairs, giggling and laughing, running away from any police cars that drove by. Most of the girls knew the Nea Zoi team, and were excited to see them, with broad smiles, hugs and kisses on the cheek. But at the same time, the stark reality of the scene kept overriding the smiles and silliness. Customers walking up to the hotels or driving by kept interrupting the happy conversations between the staff and the women, and divided attention seemed the theme of the night.

We "contacted" so many women, engaging them in conversation, asking how they were doing and giving them an Easter gift of a tote bag with chocolates and verses. Many of the encounters were seemingly happy, with plenty of "I'm fine" replies, but some of the women struggled to smile and wet eyes gave away their answer. I was amazed to see the strong connection between the regulars and the Nea Zoi women ... shouts of "Emma!" and "Jennifer!" echoed back enthusiastically off the surrounding buildings. As we moved between hotels, the groups of women would flood out to see us, and mill around to talk. Customers found us to be quite a curiosity, dressed in modest street clothes and talking with the women like old friends. I kept bouncing between two extreme emotions as I watched the men's faces, wanting to full-out punch them and convince them to walk out of the situation at the same time. The team kept a careful safety mentality, with Robert and Jennifer hanging back to watch and pray over everything, while the other four of us moved through the women in pairs. When a drunk man engaged me and my pair in angry Greek (again, "waa waa waaaa wa waa" to me), Robert and Jennifer intervened and sent us on our way. I was impressed with the conserative, careful organization of their system, and it seemed to maximize the time and attention given to the women themselves by reducing other distractions somewhat. At the same time, the whole situation was a huge distraction. Conversations more frequently stayed fairly simple, really just trying to communicate love and respect to the women. We wanted to know how they were doing, and we were there to really listen to their answer.

I met one Nigerian woman "Pamela" who Jennifer introduced to me specifically, because before Pamela left Nigeria she had been a medical student. We talked for a while, and she agreed to come and help out at our clinic day this Friday at our invitation. She seemed to brighten briefly at the idea, but sunk back into a careful dullness. I found out later that her father had died recently in Nigeria from gunshot wounds. She, of course, was not able to return home and had no choice but to stay here and deal with grief on top of the usual stresses of trafficked prostitution. I felt stunned talking to her. I met "Rachel", "Angel", "Michelle" and many others, and I struggled against my remembering-names-disability to commit them to memory. The first step to establishing intimacy and trust is knowing someone's name. And the women seem particularly sensitive to that. Pray that I'll be able to remember during our next outing on Monday night!

By the time we met the other teams back at the office for a debriefing at 3am and then got back to the apartment at 4am, we were very oddly NOT tired. Thank you, jet lag. I got a freezing, painful partial bath before realizing the hot water heater wasn't on yet, and we gave up to go to bed. That night we discovered, to our delight, that the apartment is scented with the sharp musk of cigarette smoke, and that the karaoke bar across the street pumps out awesome Greek music with drunken singing at all hours of the night. More on the smoke later ... and yet with all of that, sleep was oh so sweet for our first night in Greece.