Life from a Greek Island
My youngest son, Daniel and his struggles with the Greek
Language on Rhodes.
Daniel’s teacher has been off sick and the replacement is a
young student teacher. She doesn’t know
that Daniel is Irish and has a very limited knowledge of Greek. For some reason he’s anxious she does not
discover this. He finds it makes life so
much more interesting to bluff his way. Apparently,
she asked him to write some sentence about how a rabbit moves. I.e. a rabbit
hops. Daniel didn’t know the Greek word
for hop so he wrote instead that “He liked rabbits”. He doesn’t mind her thinking he’s a stupid
Greek, he just doesn’t want her to guess he’s not Greek like all the rest. It’s become a kind of game for him and he’s
really enjoying it!
He says there is a Greek boy in his class called Paris who
knows only one expression in English, “R U urt?”. He cannot say anything else in English. Whenever Daniel falls, or is pushed into
something or someone in the playground, Paris will run the full length of the
playground to get his line into use.
Daniel says he has begun to associate pain with Paris’ face looming over
him pronouncing with evident delight, “R
U urt?”.
Daniel is definitely a bit of a character! At School assembly my eldest son crosses himself
with the rest of the children. We told
him he didn’t have to but he says he should respect to their religion. Which I understand. My middle son does not cross himself but
stands in line and tries to be the best he can.
Finding the middle way. Daniel does not stand in line and does not cross himself. Even worse, when the entire 150 children and
dozen teachers all turn to face the Greek flag and sing their national anthem
slapping their chests in loyalty, Daniel turns his back on the flag and faces
the other way! What have we reared?
