My waiter and I got into a disagreement. I asked for the menu in English and he insisted the Greek menu was in English. While in one sense it was an awkward moment, in an another I've become accustomed to having conversations where facts and realities seem up for dispute – in all kinds of ways. I felt there must be a path forward for us.
I've worked at the surprisingly affordable cafe in front of the Chris Hotel with its beautiful marina view many times. I have never seen this very young – I'm guessing +/- 18 – waiter before. So it seemed likely, he's new and just didn't know. But he held firm and showed me how there were several English words scattered around the menu. That was true – the menu sometimes used Roman lettering for items that are distinctly foreign like Croque Monsieur and Pancakes. But 85 percent of the menu was indisputably in Greek and not all items had any English/French/Roman lettered descriptors.
Not needing to stand on principle, but also really wanting to read the menu, I asked the nice young waiter if he would mind checking to see if there's a different English menu. He agreed and returned with it, apologizing for his mistake. I was of course forgiving, just happy to easily read my options.
I'm not sure if this waiter is hired summer help from elsewhere or one of the many Patmian teenagers who get pulled into their family businesses for the summer.
One cool thing about being on Patmos for my third consecutive year has been watching how many kids are turning into teens with jobs in the family business. Yesterday was the first time I saw Stelios' daughter helping in the gelateria/cafe. She's probably 14 and doesn't yet have her father's English skills, but she definitely has her mother's fortitude and presence. She'll be fine handling customers.
This summer I've seen the teenage son of Manolis who owns the organic shop minding the store on his own; Stefanos – the youngest son of Dimitris and Christina from whom I rent cars and who are also nearby neighbors – helping at his parents' business cleaning and maintaining cars between rentals; and Yorgo the eight-year-old son of Costas at Expert – the appliance and electronics shop – wearing a company polo shirt and helping out around the store. Yorgo and I developed a rapport when he helped his dad deliver my TV last year, so he's my favorite in the shop even if neither of us speaks the other's language.
By and large, Patmians are clever with creating generational wealth. Many of the businesses are multi-generational and even more so the property that is passed along.
In fact, in this way Patmos and Bali have a lot in common. At one time every family in Bali had their family land. Perhaps it was prime real estate – which used to mean fertile rice or produce growing land with good access to primary aqueducts – perhaps it wasn't, as with a lot of the plots in the drier north where families are more likely to raise tapioca than rice. Still, no matter what, every family had their piece of Bali and therefore a homestead. Poverty always existed, but never homelessness or destitution.
Patmians may have had a little less equality in their landownership, but for the most part the families of Patmos all have traditionally owned some land. After all, tourism has only become a real industry for Patmos in the past 30 years and seeing a relatively dry island, Patmos has never been an agricultural powerhouse. From what I'm told, some families cleverly got ahead a few decades ago when the monastery – which hundreds of years ago owned the entirety of the island – sold off many parcels still under its control. Families with the right connections are alleged to have bid on land and taken it off the market before it became publicly available Some of those families may have been relatively prescient about which parts of the island would thrive in a tourism economy.
Still, whether a family has land in the far north area I refer to as "Goat Country" or in the economically more powerful town square of Skala – people generally own something. Some have cashed in on the trend of vacationers – domestic and foreign – wanting homes here. I'm obviously a beneficiary of that. Nonetheless, by and large families still retain their most valuable holdings – especially property with commercial use – to be passed through the generations.
Businesses are no different – and may even be easier because they don't necessarily require owning the land on which they operate. Pantellis Restaurant is on its third generation of family ownership. The plumbing and fixtures shop has a photo of their dearly departed father hanging by the register. Cafe Mostra is co-operated by Christos and his two sons and Mrs Christos (I don't know her real name) has a clothing boutique nearby. Stelios' wife runs one boutique of her own and essentially manages her parents' shop across the town square. One of the most popular seafood restaurants has been in Nicholas' wife's family for generations. The Christopholous Bakery has photos of it operating more than 100 years ago. Prokopis who started his hardware shop within the past 20 years now runs it with his twenty-something son who I'm sure is meant to inherit the thriving business one day, although he doesn't curse in two languages with the ease and frequency of his Australian-born father.
All of that brings me back to the youth coming up the ranks.
It's hard to know if the 16-year-old nephew of the lady who runs Ta Kardasia bakery (where they make the best spinach, cheese, chicken, cream, chocolate, halvah and other bougatsas and "pies") will continue to be part of, let alone inherit the spanakopita empire as he gets older. Yet for some reason, he's one of my two favorite teen workers on the island. During the year he lives in Piraeus – the port town adjacent to Athens (ie what San Pedro is to Los Angeles, but nicer). He comes to stay with his aunt and cousin for the summer because it's safe and wholesome.
This kid – whose name sadly escapes me at the moment – speaks decent English, has an unassuming manner and works hard from early morning until about 2pm when business slows. For the remaining 6.5 or so daylight hours, he can be seen around the island, roaming in a pack of same-age boys, usually shirtless and scanning for packs of teenage girls – frequently at one beach or another. He's moderate height, skinny and very composed. I'm always impressed at how while he's visibly uncomfortable using his English, he never backs away from it and does quite well. He clearly understands there's a value to sharpening his communication skills with foreigners. I think I give him enough safety that he's become more comfortable chatting. I just wish he wasn't smoking cigarettes this year.
The other favorite local teenage worker this summer isn't Patmian of origin. Michelle and I found our 16-year-old waiter at Glykanisos mezzetekia both quirky and adorable. Michael (whose real name is Michaelis, but told us it would be more "appropriate for keeping in my role" if we called him Michael) has a curly mop of hair and attributes his great English to Netflix. He watches his shows and movies with some intensity, cultivating an American accent (fairly successfully). Both mildly awkward and surprisingly bold, on two separate occasions, Michelle and I became increasingly fascinated with this kid and found ourselves engaging Michael in extended conversation.
We know his mom is a single mom who moved her two kids from Piraeus to Patmos for a more wholesome environment and better schools. Michael understands and appreciates his mom's choice, but also wants to get out and see the world. Patmos feels constraining to a very smart, curious kid. I get the feeling he doesn't fully relate to the Patmian kids his age.
Michael wants to attend Harvard and become a lawyer, but feels he won't be able because his sister is autistic and he needs to stay and help his mom care for her. Becoming a pilot seems like a more realistic career to him – which kinda' broke our hearts. Michael plans to wait tables seven days a week through the summer break and seems to have some kind of connection to the owner (which makes sense because it's not common for sixteen year-olds to wait tables, especially at nice restaurants). But what makes Michael especially great is how polite and humble he can be, yet when Michelle ordered her Greek salad without tomatoes, he reflexively yet respectfully said, "But, why order it?" When Michelle jokingly said she knows it's crazy and probably makes no sense to him, he responded, "Okay, to each his own taste…." Which was both mature and a pretty solid use of idiomatic language.
Michael eventually asked us what we each do for work. When Michelle revealed she's a child psychologist, Michael immediately asked, "You're not analyzing me now, are you?" he said startled, as if she had a magic power she had secretly been using the whole time. She assured him she wasn't.
In short, we kind of want Michael to get his chance at Harvard. Moreover, going to America is his big dream.
"If I was American, I would never go to another country," Michael told us. "America has everything in it, I could spend my whole life just seeing everything and never need to leave."
I told him curious people always want to see what they don't have – what else is out there. I hope Michael gets his chance. If he does, I'll be surprised if he's content just seeing America. He's going to want to see it all.
Of course it's impossible to know where Michael or any of them will end up. Sometimes we don't know what we've got 'til it's gone. The wholesome suburban or rural environment we grow up in is the place we most want to leave, not understanding its value until we have our own kids – as happened for me and so many of my generation who have returned to the Conejo Valley to raise our families. Other times the world is not enough and we're meant for a different environment from which we came – even if we came from what many would consider paradise.
Whatever it is for Michael, or the bakery-lady's nephew or especially for little Yorgo smiling away in his orange polo shirt at his dad's side – I hope they take all their talent, joy and capacity and each find their right answer.
