Ooompa!

This weekend I continue with my volunteer activities with the Red Cross this time the locale had much less nudity than Bay to Breakers but was no less entertaining and fun. Friday through Sunday out here I was welcomed by the Greek Festival to help protect their guests, usually from themselves. Now most ethnic groups have their own dances that go with their culture that everyone learns from the earliest age from weddings and every other special occasion dealing with large numbers of friends and family. Well Greeks are no different.

From 11am until 10pm the dance floor was filled with friends and family members from young to old dancing up a storm. I was surprised that even in the late hours when it was just the awkward teenagers in the tender age of 12-15 when boys are trying to impress girls and girls are trying to impress boys all doing stupid things normally, but yet they all continued to dance the traditional steps. Some of the men’s dances were downright effeminate by some traditional standards. And yet no embarrassment by the teenagers, they just jumped right in and would dance with anyone. Quite nice to see people just having a good time.

Now when it comes to food, oompa! They treated us like royalty or rather like Greek grandparents constantly trying to feed us. From standard Gyros all the way to these deserts that were fried dough then boiled in honey covered in chopped almonds and cinnamon. To say they were heavenly would be an understatement. They treated us like one of the family and every time we walked by on our rounds a 4ft grandmother straight off the boat (or plane) from Greece would run out of their stands to make sure we have eaten recently and constantly pushing food into our hands. It was great to see that almost every stand was all volunteers from the Greek church, and they made everyone from young to old help out in some way, and everyone was so cheerful.

From a medical side it was nice and quiet. We did have a woman almost give birth right at our first aid station. She came over saying she was having contractions every 15 minutes apart, she debated with her husband for the next 20 minutes if he should walk home (3 blocks) to get the car and pick her up or if she should walk home with him. By the time they made a decision her contractions were 3 minutes apart and coming stronger. At this point we are like, go anywhere but here, go shoo shoo. :-). Other than that lots of skinned knees and small cuts on kids. We had this wonderful older woman. She was having chest pains. When I started asking questions I just had to be impressed with her clarity and sense of humor. Upon asking if she was taking any medication, she looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘young man I am 71 years old what do you think’. So I narrowed it down to heart medication, she again looked me right in the eye and informed me, ‘Young man I might look as healthy as a horse, but I am 71, of course I am taking those as well’. Throughout the interview and treatment I was so impressed by here sense of self and calm about life. She had spent the day not only watching the dancing, but then actually joining in for some of the slower songs, truly being one with the community.

So overall an ok weekend, very much a reaffirmation of life and seeing that there is so much vibrancy in the world. It was both timely and much needed.