Take Five
By George Rose
July 14, 2009
Since many of my adventures thus far have been under the influence of beer, the phrases I learn usually have something to do with drinking or were discovered while drinking. On my third night in Chios, I went to a birthday party that my cousin invited me to. The girl the party was thrown for was smitten with me, since I am foreign but still of Greek descent. I guess she thinks she's a rebel for going after the foreigner but still respectful because I'm Greek. I could both disappoint and please her parents at the same time. A real win-win situation for a Greek girl. I was drunk and trying to make the crowd love me, so being the quiet wallflower was not an option. Instead, I danced my little heart out and pretended to have fallen in love with the birthday girl. She fell for the bait. At one point, I even took a straw, cut it in half and tied it into a ring, which I then gave to her while on bended knee. She accepted my drunken proposal. Greek woman consider themselves "good girls", until the idea of marriage is put on the table. After she accepted, it was immediately a concern of hers that I was a fertile young man with a healthy sex drive. Little does she know I play for the "other team". To distract her from any suspicion, I made all sorts of promises to "please her" no less than ten times a day, the equivalent to how many children I demanded she produce for me in our near future. Then came the funny Greek saying: "if you are promised lots of cherries, carry a small basket". This implies that no matter how many grand promises someone throws your way, carry a small basket of trust so as not to get your hopes up and be disappointed. I'm not sure what the similar saying in America is (maybe something more simple like "don't believe everything you hear" or "drunk men exaggerate"), but I still found the phrase worthy of a mention. Someone should let her know not to carry a basket around me at all.
Since everyone here knows a little bit of English, they hope you know at least the same amount of Greek. If you don't know Greek, you should try hard to learn it since they are eager to teach it. I have never been good with languages and barely made it through both my Spanish and Greek courses, so teaching me new words has become a game for these people. Since I usually have a beer in my hand while they do this, my retention rate has been extremely low. One that any foreigner must know when coming to Greek is "yamas" (not sure how it's spelled but that's how it sounds). This means something along the lines of "to health". Our American equivalent would be "cheers!" If you ever don't understand the Greek they are speaking or their choppy version of English, raise your glass and yell "YAMAS!" The conversation will stop and everyone will go back to drinking. This has become my way out of many failed attempts at repeating words taught days earlier.
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