Το Ίδρυμα...το ξέρει

A teaser for Το Ίδρυμα (The Foundation), a 15-minute satirical news show in Greece.  The announcer says (loosely translated): "Greeks struggle on behalf of the environment...The Foundation knows it."

Last night, as B and I lay in bed, we saw the flashing lights and heard the glorious sound of a garbage truck from the City of Athens!  For those who haven't been following the Greek news, either the garbage workers or the landfill workers or both have been on strike since this post.  Murphy's Law, perhaps?  Thankfully our situation wasn't so bad.  Our block isn't very population dense; the apartment buildings have fewer than five stories on one side of our street, and there's a playground the length of the other side.  Fewer people generate less trash so, despite the strike, our trash was pile neatly next to the dumpster.  The private garbage company that took our trash once when the landfills were open also helped.

Sadly, there are other streets near our house whose dumpsters are still overflowing onto the sidewalks and streets.  Athens has had to do a major clean-up since the strike ended on Friday.  Hospitals and other essential trash-producing organizations have gotten priority service, and rightly so.  I completely understand that they have taken a while to pick up everything.

The trash strikes bring to mind the above teaser.  Thankfully some people have a sense of humor about the economic crisis.  While I laugh at Το Ἰδρυμα, there's a large part of me that feels like I'm perpetuating a stereotype.  And we know that there are many people who feel the financial strain in very concrete ways.  We've spoken with several Greeks who are either unemployed or unsure of their employment in two months' time.  One Albanian woman we met at our playground thinks that she and her family might have to move back to Albania, where the job prospects are even worse.

On that note....