One is diet and eating habits. It's been common the last 5 or 10 years or so to see articles extolling the traditional Greek diet. When I worked at CSPI the magazine even featured an article entitled 'Zorba the Dietitian." And just last year NPR ran a three-part series on the virtues of the traditional Greek but especially Cretan diet. The gist of all the Greek-diet press was that until recently most Greeks fasted for between 120 and 160 days a year - eating no meat or dairy products - and even when they weren't fasting ate plenty of vegetables, olive oil, fruits, lentils and other non-meat proteins, and very little red meat (some lamb at Easter, Christmas, and feast days).
But recent press has also lamented how fewer and fewer Greeks are eating that way, and we noticed that on this trip. Everywhere we went there were plenty of ice cream novelties, salty snacks, and chocolate bars and pastries on sale, and Greeks are scarfing them up. We didn't notice that many overweight Greeks - nothing to compare to the many overweight folks I run into on the DC Metro everyday - but statistics say that obesity is on the rise in Greece. And in Chania, Crete of all places we saw a few ads for liposuction and the "Crete Obesity Center." To be fair all those ads were in English so maybe they cater to American, British, and Aussie tourists, but it is still odd to even have to think about poor dietary habits in Greece.
The other unexpected dietary issue we ran into was diabetes in Spilia. Both Theo Taki and Thea Toula have type II diabetes, and I did not expect to discuss how Ariadne's pump worked to my relatives there. Granted, Thea Toula is 87 years old, and despite her age and the diabetes looks great and is still pretty active. We ran into her at dinner one night, at her daughter's house, and they were eating a healthy Greek meal of grilled fish, greens, and fruit. My cousin pointed out 'almost no carbs!' But i have to admit, it was pretty depressing to think that folks who have eaten healthy food for 70 and 80 years could still have developed diabetes.
The other hot-button issue we ran into in Greece was immigration. I think at every meal, at least at every dinner, we were approached by an immigrant from China, west Africa, or south Asia peddling bootleg DVDs, trinkets, and goofy toys. We saw the same thing in the Plaka and on the waterfronts of Chania and Nafplio - immigrants selling handbags, statues and art work from China and Africa, and these gelatinous toys meant to look like a splattered tomato when you threw it on the floor.
But immigration was even more prominent in Spilia. My uncle casually mentioned that Spilia is probably a 50-50 village now: 50 percent Greek, 50 percent Albanian, Bulgarian, west African and south Asian. Immigration does not seem to be much of a concern, at least in Spilia. My uncle and cousin stated that most if not all the immigrants become Greek, learning the language and sending their kids to the local public schools, and even getting baptized into the Greek Orthodox church.
My uncle has even built a dormitory behind his house with bunk beds, electricity and running water to house workers who help him with the olive harvest in October and November. My cousin John told us they mainly hire guys from Senegal, give them free room and board in the dorm, and pay them 30 Euros (approximately $45 - not $20 as originally reported; my bad) a month for two months. I may have misunderstood my cousin, but he went on to say most of the Senegalese workers send half of their money home.
My cousin did say that in other parts of Greece, mainly Patras in the northwest Peloponnisos, immigration is a problem. Patras is a port city with ferry service to Italy (and then beyond). There, immigrants from the middle east - Kurds, Iranians and Iraqis according to my cousin, mainly dumped in Greece after being caught in Turkey - do not want to settle down but are in Greece of only one reason: it's a stop between Turkey and Italy and other EU countries. So rather than finding steady employment they often turn to petty crime, prostitution or selling drugs to pay for their passage to Italy.
The changes in diet and the immigrants from third world countries made me change my perspective on Greece. Growing up it was understood that Greece was a poor country. That's why Greeks like my parents left. But while hardly on par with European countries like Germany, France, and the UK, Greece is a relatively prosperous country now. And instead of exporting people like my parents, poor people are MOVING TO Greece. And relatively well-off Greeks are eating more and more like Americans, with a liposuction center in Crete as one bi product.
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