My Greek Life. The Money And The Matters.

A quiet night in Rhodes, while sitting on our toiletseat-less apartment's balcony and enjoying every little breeze that comes by. Days are incredibly hot here, and drains the energy right out of you. Although life here gives a lot of it back too.

Today after yet another trip to the ATM I started to add up the sums of my bankaccount and got to calculating the difference between money and life. And the balance of it. We need money to survive, that's a known fact. But do we need more than the basics? And what are the basics for a human being? I had a conversation with a Greek friend today whom I recently met, and who has been living here for 5 years now. There's a bar nearby the hotel where we all work and I never saw him there, so I asked what the reason was. He usually goes out in Rhodes town, but his payment didn't get in yet - and he works 7/7. No day off. For 5 years, except for the first year when he got here because then he was an apprentice chef, and they get a day off a week.

My good friends at the watersportcenter have a day off, and I as an animator am intitled to a day off too, and a night off. We have a 09h to 23h job, with some intervals - which I really enjoy. For example, I have time off from 17h till 20h every day. Couldn't miss that. It's the time I look forward to the most, because then I usually go windsurfing, work-out or just write and check my mails. But then I get started again, and finish at 23h. And my pay.. Well, let's face it, it's crappy. So is everybody else's, and almost everyone of us left a pretty wealthy country to come over here.

But my days are so full here, and life is so enjoyable. Everything about life on this Greek island is rich. Except for the actual cash, including my own bankaccount.
Then again. What if I had a nine to five job like I did back home for two months, a full bankaccount and a bottomless pit of worries and complains? Like most of the tourists who come here, really. The ones we all work for. Putting it on the scale, this life here wins. Full monty.
And not having too much money - let's say only the basics, is incredibly necessary. Because if we did have more cash, life here wouldn't be this sweet. The little things in life get appreciated, and you get to understand what really matters.

Our daily life in the boiling sun, being it on the boat or on the beach. Our trips to the beerbridge, playing "who can trow a cigarette the furthest" and listening to sweet tunes. Our barbecue-evenings at Monolithos mountain. Singing, playing guitar, and watching the most amazing sundown you've ever seen. Our nights in Lindos, when we treat ourselves to incredibly good and fine cuisine, after weeks of crappy hotelfood.
This is the life. And there's nothing else like it.
I can resume it all in one sentence I said earlier today. "There is nothing more enjoyable to life than the people you can share happiness with, and the creations that tickle your senses."
And as the admirable Ellen - a Belgian girl who moved here two months ago for Basti, my German windsurfteacher - said at my collegue's goodbye dinner yesterday: "It's all love."
And there is no greater truth than that.

Always yours

Joles