Omilo Newsletter October 2011

7/27/2019 Omilo Newsletter October 2011

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www.omilo.com

Greek Language and Culture

October 2011 OMILO Newsletter

Dear OMILO friends,

This Newsletter will have fewer subjects than usual! There is so much news at the moment, that it is

hard to make a choice what to cover!Thank you for your emails and your concerns, asking if the OMILO-staff in Athens is fine! As we

have written many times before, the pictures of Athens you see on TV and in the media with violent

protests, are limited to about 5 streets in center Athens and do not happen often. A small minority

chooses to make this mess and the media loves it! No Greeks we know are approving this, and most

protests are peaceful. It is a tragedy that the foreign media

destroys the tourism in Greece, by choosing to cover the

news about Greece, with the most violent pictures. Greece

does have financial problems, but remains an excellent

and safe tourist destination.

So how to cover “the real problems’’ οf Greece? Not simple, but with “humor” you can say it all! Therefore

we chose to cover the “Greek reality” at this moment

from a humorous point of view!

In this Newsletter, three subjects:

1. About OMILO

2. A Greek sense of humor

3. Political Cabaret

*************************************************

1. About OMILO

a. Since the beginning of October we have updated our website and added the new course dates for

2012. Everything is online. However, there is a small change in the dates of the Syros courses in

September. We originally had written that courses would start on Monday and finish on Saturday.

This has changed and now all Syros courses start on Sunday (19.00) and finish on Friday (13.30).

For all 2012 course dates, visit:

http://www.omilo.com/cms/index.php?

option=com_content&view=article&id=14&Itemid=15&lang=en

b. The accommodation prices are also updated. Good news: the hotel prices in Nafplion andcenter Athens became cheaper than last year. Other prices stayed the same. Greece will need

tourists to survive, so we appreciate the hotels are doing their best to maintain good prices.

http://www.omilo.com/cms/

http://www.omilo.com/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14&Itemid=15&lang=en




http://www.omilo.com/cms/



c. We added a new link on the website with various photo-albums of various courses. This link

will bring you to the facebook-albums, where you can also add your comments:



d. For you, family members or friends … do not forget we also

offer “cultural walks in Athens”. The media does not help to

show the “total picture of Athens” and chooses to constantlyconcentrate only on violent protests. Athens is more than that

and has to offer a lot. We did several cultural walks during the

last 2 months with German, American and Dutch families on

holidays. They loved it! More info on:



e. Our dear teacher Dora lost her heart to an Austrian (Omilo student!) and

finally decided to move this autumn to Vienna. Dora will continue to be anOMILO teacher during the intensive courses out of Athens, but will not teach

anymore during the “school year” in Maroussi. We wish her all the best and we

are sure many Austrians are now very happy (and lucky) to have a very good

teacher in their capital!

f. And last but not least … a new idea, a new concept! OMILO

will organize a “Greek cultural week” on the island of

Andros from Sunday, July 29 till Friday, August 3, 2012.

What this means? Not so much language this time, but a week

with several cultural activities like “cooking lessons”, “dancinglessons” and more ... We need some more time to get organized

and define prices, but that week the OMILO team will be in

Andros, and we will have fun! Hope you will join as well! If

you are dreaming of some “special courses” in Greece in a nice environment, let us know what you

would like to do, and we will try to serve your needs! You are the first ones to hear this news, it is

not on the website yet!

************************************************

2. A Greek sense of humor

In times of crisis, you need some humor to survive! Greeks do have humor and use black humor…But what about their ancestors?

Were the ancient Greeks funny? It’s a question not often asked. When thought about, most people

will turn to the ‘comedies’ put on at different theatrical festivals across ancient Greece, most

notably in Athens.

The majority of the “ancient comedies” surviving today are by Aristophanes, written in the 5th and

4th centuries BC.

Aristophanes makes political jokes, imitates the politicians of the day (who without doubt were

often sitting in the audience) and uses exaggeration and caricature to pass comment on the social

and political well being of the city.

But did the ancient Greeks tell jokes? Yes, they did.

One ancient Greek idiot joke reads: “An idiot, wanting to go to sleep but not having a pillow, told

his slave to set an earthen jar under his head. The slave said that the jug was hard. The idiot told him















to fill it with feathers.”

There are also ‘doctor’ jokes: ΄΄A person went to a doctor and said: “Doctor, whenever I get up from

sleeping, I’m groggy for a half an hour afterwards and only after that am I all right.” To which the

doctor replied: “Get up half an hour later!”΄΄

(Source: 24grammata.com)

So what kind of jokes we hear today? Apart of the usual jokes about other nationalities (Albanians,

Pontic Greeks, Turks…), known figures (Ms. Merkel!), and “blond Greek ladies”, there are a lot of

“political jokes”…

Some examples:

A. They ate the fish from Pangalos’s platter because ‘they ate them together’!

The following event took place in a fish tavern in Piraeus, where Pangalos had gone with some

friends of his. The tavern owner led him and his company to the best table and right afterwards they

ordered fresh fish. Half an hour later, the waiter –with a smile on his face– placed a big platter of fish on the table. Out of the blue, a well-dressed gentleman in his mid-thirties sitting at the next

table with three other people stood up and approached Pangalos’s table.

‘Excuse me, you are the Deputy Prime Minister of Greece, Mr. Pangalos, aren’t you?’ The Deputy

Prime Minister replied dryly ‘yes’.

‘Mr. Pangalos, let me remind you that you said ‘We ate them together’ (‘them’ refers to ‘public

money’)’ went on the well-dressed gentleman and the Deputy Prime Minister started to feel

somewhat uncomfortable. ‘We’d better not start the same discussion again’ he said.

‘No, Mr. Pangalos, you are right, we ate them (the public money) together and we will eat them (the

fish) together! May I have, please, your platter?’ went on the 35 year old man who without a second

thought took the platter with the fish and went back to his table to eat with his company.

Right afterwards Pangalos left the tavern.

B. Black humor!

After the death of Steve Jobs beginning October, this photo was found in Facebook… (the picture

shows the Prime Minister G. Papandreou)

C. Kanelli at the Parliament with milk and bread



Not exactly a joke, but a political speech with a lot of humor, by MP (Member of Parliament) L.

Kanelli (it took place in the Parliament on 22/9/2011). For the advanced students in the Greek

Language, watch and listen to the speech at:

http://news247.gr/ellada/politiki/h_kanellh_sth_voylh_me_gala_kai_pswmi.1380432.html

Liana Kanelli, a member of the Greek Communist Party, made a sensational appearance at the

Parliament. While addressing her fellow MPs, she took out of her plastic grocery bag a loaf of breadand a bottle of milk. She emphasized the fact that a family of four needs 950 euro per year to buy

this stuff.

Her impressive symbolic gesture aimed at showing the insurmountable financial hardships that

Greek households are facing at the moment because of the hard austerity measures.

D. The ARKAS comics

ARKAS is known for his comics. He can say a lot with his humor, drawings and few words…

An example of everyday reality…





Dangerous Waters by ARKAS - ‘You know it well that I can catch and eat you all! However, I've got a deal to propose!’



- ‘If you show no resistance and you don’t make me run after you, I will eat half of you.’

- ‘That’s a deal! At least, some of us will make it through.’

- ‘A deal is a deal!’

**************************************************************************************

3. Political Cabaret

“Greece gave the world democracy, theatre, mathematics. Without us, they could not even

calculate how much we owe them!”

Jorgos Katsáros: comedian, magician, variety artist, German, Greek.

We meet Jorgos in Xirokambi. Here are his roots, his father is one of many who moved out of

Greece after World War II and the subsequent civil war had left the country devastated. He

characterizes the Bibliothekar –the Greek German word for librarian– as the perfect immigrant: he

loves pretzel and sauerkraut, speaks the language without accent, and has more German than Greek

friends. Jorgos’ mother is German, and so was his upbringing. It were mainly the yearly and long

summer holidays on the Peloponnese that nourished the artist’s Greek roots.Born and raised in Stuttgart, he makes good use of his background for his personalities on stage.

And the Greek crisis provides plenty of themes for political cabaret. In his theater show „Kommt

ein Grieche geflogen…“ [A Greek flies in…], Jorgos combines self-criticism and confrontation. His

favorite trick: “I can make money disappear very well.” The fame of Sparta is another of the artist’s

themes. “Leonidas and his 300 men against millions of Persians – that is similar to 300

Stuttgardians against Bayern München.”

His audience can expect a new personality the upcoming season. Kostas, the typical Greek

immigrant in Germany: an elderly, hospitable restaurant owner who loves to talk with gesture, plays

with his komboloi, smokes and speaks with a great accent.

The Germans love his jokes about Greece, because of its topicality. But in his personal life, he

regularly is ‘attacked’ for being Greek: “Why are you and your family spending so much money, sothat we cannot build new Kindergarten!” The accusations make Jorgos angry, especially when

people speak without knowledge about Greece or never even have set foot in the country.

Luckily he does not face the same problem when he is here in Greece. Even though his knowledge

of the language is limited, he is regarded as a local. His father is Greek, so he is.

“Go on holiday in Greece, your money is already there”

Katsáros loves being in Xirokambi. In the next decade he would like to live part of the year here,

part of the year in Germany. For now, holidays will have to do. He is not joking anymore, when he

says he really wants people to go on holiday in Greece, and especially here. “Xirokambi is a

Geheimtipp, a well kept secret. It is an original, authentic place, with so many things to do and see

all around, and without having to share them with other tourists!”

Jorgos Katsáros will be performing in Leipzig from November 2011 till January 2012. For more

information, you can visit www.jorgos-katsaros.de.

Source: www.photothema.com Laurien and Anton (http://www.xirokambi.com/wordpress/)

*******************************************************

Tomorrow, 28/10/2011,

Greece will be celebrating its “OXI-day” ! A national holiday

and a day to feel proud again!

Many greetings from all of us.

The OMILO-team

http://www.jorgos-katsaros.de/

http://www.photothema.com/

http://www.xirokambi.com/wordpress/

http://www.jorgos-katsaros.de/

http://www.photothema.com/

http://www.xirokambi.com/wordpress/



OMILO, PO Box 61070, 15101 MAROUSSI, ATHENS

Tel. (0030)210-612.28.96

email: [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]



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Omilo Newsletter October 2011