A dramatic tale involving Papas who does not, as it turns out, have a beard

Once regular classes are out for the summer, those on the fellowship are expected to work at the summer camp that the college sponsors. This has been bar none the most outrageous task handed to us over the course of this year. Honestly, it really comes down to volume-- the kiddos outnumber us at a ratio of about 9,465,721 : 1 and are accompanied by a very rigorous camp schedule. I believe I now qualify as both a sheepdog and a Dallas Cowboy's cheerleader thanks to this experience. The shift from teaching fifteen year olds to teaching six year olds was also shocking. Add an un-air-conditioned building in a Greek July, and your eyes should be bugging out of your head if you get the basic gist of this pandemonium. It should come as no surprise, then, that at the end of each day our bodies are droopy, our brows are sweaty, and our vocabulary is less than saintly.

One particularly hot day a little while back, Whitney and I were dragging our feet home contemplating running away to a beach and just staying there indefinitely, and we were certainly griping about the hardships of the day. Food, being scarce (did I mention the immense volume of growing children), was also a topic of conversation: we were very hungry. As we reached the gate to our block, Whitney declared she would continue on to the grocery store and did I need anything while she was there. I thanked her but said no, and made the turn to open the gate to our block. My all-absorbing desire to be inside with a glass of lemonade was abruptly reversed, however, when I spied an old man lying in our walkway surrounded by a pool of blood.

I screamed at a frequency that would kill a dog, and Whitney came running back toward me. The events to come were to prove to be the penultimate test of skills acquired from living in Greece.

Whitney and I rushed to help the man to sit up who was, thank God, fully conscious but definitely shaken and a little disoriented to say the least. He was a terribly old man and very darling with piercing blue eyes (very unusual for the Greeks) and very thin, wispy, white-gray hair. The man spoke exactly zero words of English, so we kicked all of our Greek knowledge into gear full-throttle and asked him what had happened. He told us that he had been in the apartment all day and had wanted to get out and go for a walk, but it was just too hot ("I just got too hot. Just too hot!") and he had collapsed from the heat just as he was returning home from his walk. Home? Ah ha! So this man lived here in our building. Whitney then suggested we just start buzzing anyone and everyone's doorbells to get someone who might know him to come out and help. I ran to the buzzer panel to do so, and Whitney stayed with the man holding him steady and telling him that it will be okay. He continues to bleed from the head.

Thanks to the robbery and the teenage cops, I now know the number for emergency, which if you are ever visiting Greece, is 100. I did not, however, know the specific emergency number for an ambulance (it's 166), but I assumed (how wrong I was...) that like when one dials 911 with any emergency, the operator will connect you to the correct emergency personnel. Not so here in Greece. So, it turns out I was once again dealing with the Greek police who hung up on me not once, not twice, but three times as I pleaded with them over the phone to send an ambulance; that there was an old man who was very hurt-- or to at least give me the number of an ambulance. Luckily, despite the fact that my faith in the police once again wavered, the yiayia who lives next door proved to be of much quicker response and heeded my frantic yelling into her intercom at the door. Still frustrated by the lack of aid from the emergency services, I ran back over to the man and asked if he wanted a hospital (I was willing to call again or try something else), but he was being a good stubborn, old man and insisted he was fine (did I mention he was bleeding from the head?). But no matter, yiayia runs downstairs and yells, "Mr. Stavros!" (ah ha! So, he does live here, and this is Stavros... wait. Stavros Papas? The building president? None other than.), and she then yells up to someone peeking over a nearby balcony to throw down water, antiseptic, and some gauze. Whitney, who does not much like the sight of blood, was being a brilliant trooper and continued to hug Mr. Papas's shoulder and offer words of reassurance.

Now, not being a doctor or anything, I don't know much about head injuries beyond the basics, but lacking any prospect of actual medical personnel, I was forced to summon my first aid knowledge as best I could manage... in Greek. I asked the man basic questions: What is your name? Where do you live? Here? Ok, what is your address? What city are we in? Sufficiently satisfied with his answers and deeming them to prove at least some level of lucidity, I then asked him to watch my finger as I watched his eyes to check for response time and recognition. His eyes were rather glazed over (from the heat and fear, no doubt), but he was able to follow, so my babysitting-playground-check-up (thanks, Red Cross courses) checked out, and we promptly began feeding him water and continuing to doctor the wound. The yiayia's judgment faltered a little when she insisted on trying to get Mr. Papas to stand up. The strain was still too much for him-- he was so weak from the fall and the heat-- and the effort of standing only made the wound on his head throb and re-open. I pleaded with the yiayia to leave him be for the moment; we needed to completely stop the bleeding or else it would just get worse again. We continued with the water and tried to engage in small talk to keep his mind active and to further check cognitive abilities.

After a time, he started to come around more. By this time, more neighbors had made their way outside and were offering their help and advice, as well. With the aid of many hands, we hoisted Papas to his feet and got him inside the nice air-conditioned lobby of our building. Someone fetched a wheelchair from a room, and two of the ladies who had run down to help eased him into the elevator and up to his top-floor apartment.

The residents thanked us profusely, and we stumbled exhaustedly into our own flat. In no time at all, we collapsed on the couch finally feeling all of the day's exhaustion. There was a long pause, and then Whitney slowly turned to me and simply said, "Mandee. This is our life."

And so it is, Whitney. And so it is.