Taxi

Anyone who's lived or at least spent some time in Greece, has had to engage in some kind of conversation with a taxi driver. Greek cab drivers are quite vocal about their beliefs, whether they seem to actually want to talk to you or not. Most often, they will engage in some sort of political talk, about current affairs, the economy and such. Other times, they'll show you their kids in a picture, play a sound clip of their offspring's singing capabilities, or alternatively talk about the merits of unmarried life. They might even provide you with a step-by-step analysis of the only diet out there that works - the latter advice coming from a 60-year-old driver, who quite obviously thought I should loose some weight.

The truth is that I'm one of those people who gives in and talks away until I reach my destination. A friend recently told me that she's had enough of these taxi-driver-ranting sessions: “my alone time is precious, and I prefer to keep it to myself if possible” she told me. Her solution is a set of earphones. And she claims it works wonders. I, on the other hand, haven't had enough, yet. Because, there is a chance that after you've bumped into the politically “conscious”, the rude and the funky, you might come about a person that will choose to open his or her heart in such an eloquent way that it leaves you completely dumfounded.

Today, I got into a cab in the center of Athens. The taxi driver was a woman in her late thirties. As soon as I closed the door, she asked me sweetly if I was OK. I answered that I was, wondering if I looked ill or something. I politely asked her back if she was OK, and she answered that she was, but things were looking hard... She has worked all her life, far more hours than anyone should have to in a lifetime. If she were able to stop working for a living right now (she made a point of saying “for a living”, leaving other options open), she would in a split second. She has three kids. The youngest of them has the flu, hence she can't go visit her friend that just had a baby. She has no time for herself. She feels that her womanhood is slipping away, and that this job is to be blamed for. “No one respects you. The other drivers don't respect you, nor do the buses, or the police, or the passengers, or even your fellow cab drivers”. This job has made her stiff and defensive. It has made her build a butch front that she carries back home and that she swears has nothing to do with her real self. “I can't just switch it off and just be who I really am”.

Her story was moving and turned out to be quite sincere; five minutes before I had reached work, she got a call from her son's school. He had been playing with his mobile phone in class and had been caught in the act. He had gotten detention for it and now the taxi driver mom was calling him on that same mobile phone. “What the f*** my boy? Why? Why? What the f***?” Her sweet voice had turned into the “truck driver's roar” she had previously referred to, while lamenting on her sad evolution. Apart from the fare I owed her, those were pretty much her last words to me. She looked at me as if to say “See?” and drove away.

Try wearing earphones through that...