I feel so at home up here in the mountains way outside any major cities. I could die here a happy soul. Or maybe it might be more appropriate to say I could live here and have a happy soul. It is so beautiful. I feel like we are way up in the mountains and I guess in some ways I am. It looks a lot like Switzerland come to think of it. The towns are built on what seem to be sheer cliff sides, the mountain tumbling below them into the olive groves far far below. I love it. Rocky peaks are jutting up through whispy white clouds and pierce the sky with their jaggedness. The air is fresh and cool and sweet with the smell of birch trees and running water. The towns are quaint and beautiful, especially the town we are staying in. It is a ski resort and feels a lot like Telluride or Aspen. The buildings are all stone, lit up with Christmas lights, fires flicker welcomingly from heating grates (it’s a lot colder up here than in Athens) and quite cafes line the streets.
One thing I was thinking about today was Greece’s status as a “first-world” developed country. I realized as we drove up to Delphi from Athens that there are a lot of things here that don’t fit my cookie cutter idea of what a developed country should be and it make me wonder, “What does make a country considered developed or undeveloped?” I’ve spent quite a bit of time in what people consider undeveloped countries and I find that there are a lot of similar things here in Greece that I attribute to the developing world. For example today as we drove through the country side we passed a lot of agricultural land and the houses on it were true shacks, rundown and decrepit looking. Shepherds in rags herded their flocks of wandering goats and sheep by the side of the road and by the looks of it there was just a lot less infrastructure in that part of the country. Perhaps I need to expand my view of what it means to be a developed country but these people appeared to be really struggling to me. I am no political science major but it seems to me that perhaps Greece is considered developed because it is a part of the European Union and because its cities like Athens and Thessolanike have good infrastructure and amenities that I associate with developed countries. Is it that these places generate enough GDP that the country as a whole can be considered developed when really much of the population appears to be struggling? Maybe so.
My guess is that the classes here are really quite stratified, like they are in the United States but it is more obvious here because the country is so much smaller than the US and the poor are out in the open, so to speak. In the US I feel like we sweep our lower classes under the rug and glorify the upper classes when really we need to work on bridging the economic gap among our citizens and bring everyone up to a standard of living that is acceptable. I see a similar trend here in Greece and it concerns me. I just feel like there must be more room in the human heart for compassion and an ability to reach out to those less fortunate than ourselves and help them. I believe that this can work on a national level and that indeed it must. The poor and lower middle classes of a country are still very much a part of the country and often make up the foundation of the working classes and thus deserve all the help they can receive. I do not know what it is exactly that Greece is doing for these people but I know that today I saw a lot of poverty in a “first-world” country. I don’t really have a concluding thought for this semi-rant, I just thought it was an interesting incongruity between the notion of what Greece is and the reality of the people on the ground.
Wandering Tattler 