This is the playground between 9:30-10. If the photos and video look a little dark, that is because it is pm! At 10 am, the playground is deserted, covered with graffiti, looking like no one ever plays in it. But after dark, it is hopping! In the video you can see how many small kids are out enjoying the cool air. We left before most of them...at 10:30pm. I've no idea when it actually empties out! And this is the 3-8 year old set! Our local plateia has several terraces and enclosures, each commandeered by a different group. The teens are on the highest level, hanging out, talking in groups, maybe drinking a beer or a soda,, maybe eating souvlaki. The tweens and young teens are off to the side, pushing and shoving each other out of sight of adults, eating ice cream (and threatening to take mine the time I wandered through them accidentally!). The adults and elderly sit on the terrace walls, encircling the kids (8-12 years) who are biking or playing soccer in the center. Every year I am struck by this intergenerational community that shares the evening together. It seems safe and healthy in so many ways. The fact that it is all in public yet segregated by age means that kids grow up watching the other age groups socialize. No one needs to plan, or schedule a "playdate;" you just go out when it cools off and likely all your friends and neighbors are there, too. It is sensible to have kids enjoy playing in the cool air instead of either frying them in the sun or paying a lot of money for a commercial air-conditioned play space.
I was waiting to find a good end to this post, so it has been sitting in Drafts for a few weeks. Tonight, I was walking a friend to the plateia at 1am to catch a taxi (Tuesday). I couldn't resist a spin through the plateia on my way back... it was packed. There were probably 500 people there. The age group had thinned out, so it was mostly 18-25 year olds. Many had beer bottles, but no one seemed drunk. They were sitting in groups of 5 or 8, smoking, with beer in hand, talking quietly. No one was shouting or laughing loudly, just a general buzz of good cheer. Did I mention it was 1am on a Tuesday? Several things seemed wonderful and amazing to me. One was that the night is so lively here. So many people were taking advantage of the relative cool. There seems not to be any idea of a curfew. Maybe it is because they aren't driving, so parents don't worry? Maybe it is because they live with family so long, parents eventually have to give up that kind of control? Maybe it is because the parents are up too? I heard many quiet conversations on balconies as I walked back home... Perhaps there is less to worry about late at night? Another thing that I find wonderful and amazing is that there is drinking, but not drinking. Somehow in our culture, the very word seems to connote excess. We don't have the concept of buying a beer at a little kiosk and drinking it out in a public park with nothing bad happening. But here... something is different. One friend talked about the way that young adults learn to drink in Greece -- socially, not to get drunk, and there are fewer drugs as well-- because they learn to drink in the context of their families, not outside of them. I asked many people about excessive drinking and drug use, and I kept getting blank looks at the excessive drinking... you always drink with food. Hangovers suck. Why would you drink too much except by accident? And drugs... the answers were often to do with neighborhoods, presumably meaning it happens, but not to regular middle class teens. And what is it in this culture that easily self-regulates something that we see as uncontrollable, except through prohibition? In some conversation I had, maybe not even about alcohol or drugs, someone said, "Yes, but your country is so young." Interesting concept. As if our mere 200 years of history is what makes us drink too much. In 5000, perhaps we will chill out and learn to handle the booze and can finally embrace the evening as a community.
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