The End of the End?

With each passing day, as Greece’s impending default and exit from the European Union draws nearer, the sense of dispair and desolation increases exponentially. A mix of fear, panic, anger—directed at a government seemingly incapable of meaningful negotiation, but also at creditors who remain stalwart and uncompromising—dominates most conversations.

One friend, whose grocery story once earned 1500 euros a days pre-crisis, now brings in much less than 100 euros. He tells Jonathan that in three months he will have to close and move to Germany for work because he can’t afford to pay the electric bill. At least in northern Europe, he says, there is some hope for a future.

In Greece today, if you between the ages of, say, 18 and 40, the unemployment rate is nearly 50 percent. If you are age 50 or over, and currently unemployed, your prospects of finding meaningful employment—or any employment—is practically nil.

The son on one friend, working as a gym teacher, hasn’t been paid for three months. The fatehr offers an optimistic analysis: “They say he will be paid at the end of this month.”

------

And yet, the band keeps playing on. Last night the village cafes, bars, and restaurants, were mostly full, raucous laughter echoed through the cobbled streets until 4 a.m.—the doom and gloom marginalized, at least momentarily, by steady merrymaking.

And the natural beauty of this place is extraordinary, unaffected by the lunacy of international politics and financial brinksmanship. Wildflowers are in bloom (but abating as the heat builds) and the bird life is magical. Among the larger wild creatures that populate southern Messinia, Europe’s nearly extinct population of jackals has made an enormous comeback after having been nearly hunted to extinction a generation ago. In the evening, the howls in the distance are a unnervingly beautiful, like the coyotes of eastern Maine. An even fiercer mammal is the wild boar, the bane of farmers (they are prodigous diggers) and cars (weighing several hundred pounds, collisions are severe and so they are a real hazard for motorists, especially at night.

-------

Tomorrow marks the first day of summer. By any measure, though, summer has been coming to the southern Peloponnese for the past several months.