So you may be still be wondering why I celebrated my birthday in January. In November, we celebrated several birthdays of the students living in the Stavros Niarchos dorm. The students always made a point of inviting me to their parties. That planted a seed. I decided that I would throw a party for all of the students living in Stavros Niarchos to thank them for inviting me to their parties and other events. More importantly, I wanted to thank them for allowing me to be a part of their lives for the past four months. Thus was born the idea of celebrating my birthday three months late!
There is a small cafe in the building next to Stavros Niarchos that is managed by Kostas (He is featured in the fourth photograph). He also runs a catering business. He prepared all of the dishes and he bought all of the Greek wine (featured in the third and fifth photographs). Just in case you were wondering about the menu, it included spinach pie, pastitsio (Greek version of lasagna), meatballs, chicken with red and yellow peppers, two different types of pasta, a plate of local cheeses and salad. In addition, the "house mother" for Stavros Niarchos, Mrs. Konstatina, prepared three birthday cakes. Tomoko, from Japan, was the official photographer (she is featured along with Olga from Kazakhstan in the seventh photograph). My job was to be the host and cut the cake; I think that I handled both functions deftly.
In the first photograph, I decided to pose with some of the guys. From left to right, Farouk (Egypt), me, Chris (USA), and Hassan (Egypt). The second photograph features Marguerita on the left and Domenica on the right; they are both from Poland. The sixth photograph features Dijana who is from Romania. In the eighth photograph, I am talking with Tetev and Shoshan from Armenia. The ninth photograph features Marina on the left from Brazil and Olga on the right from Russia.
In Greece, there is a tradition of putting a coin in a birthday cake. If your piece has the Euro coin, then you will have good luck in the coming year. Aleksandra from Macedonia featured in the tenth photograph was the "lucky" person; her piece of cake had the coin. Fortunately, she did not swallow it.
Christina is in the eleventh photograph. She is actually from Greece. She is in another program at the University of Ioannina, but Stavros Niarchos has adopted her. Obviously, she is fluent in Greek, but she is also fluent in English and Spanish.
The last photograph features Yanni and Dr. Eleni Morfidi. Yanni is in charge of technology for the Education Department at the University of Ioannina. Whenever I had a "tech" problem he was always able to help me. He was bemused by my MacBook; Apple does not have a huge presence in Greece. Eleni made it possible for me to come to Greece and she was the one who suggested that I live at Stavros Niarchos. If not for Eleni, there would have been no birthday party three months late! She has been a great help to me and has proved invaluable in helping me find special education teachers to interview for my study and, even more importantly, translating their interviews from Greek to English.
I asked that the students not buy any gifts for me. I am at a point in my life where I have most everything I need and I really did not want them spending their limited resources on me. However, the students came up with a gift that I had not anticipated, but was perfect. Marija from Serbia got all of the students to write a few lines to me in a notebook featuring a Greek artist's works. Each student wrote a paragraph in their native language and then translated it into English. It really is precious. When I want to "transport" myself back to Greece, all I have to do is open this notebook.
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