The Fefes Adventure Collective

Demetri says every Greek American family can pick one specific part from “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” and say, ‘yep, that’s us.’  My title today is a line from it … when Kostas, the dad, is driving carpool and impressing the other children with how any word has its root in Greek. If you remember the movie, the kids think they’ve got him when they ask him for the roots of ‘kimono’ and he tells them it’s a robe that people wear in the winter because, hello,  it’s based on the Greek word for winter: χειμωνασ.  Toula, the daughter, was dying of embarrassment in the backseat.

Several months ago, Papou told me about an economist who gave a speech in the 1950s in English but used only Greek-rooted words.  A month or so later at a Laser Tag birthday party, a 2nd grade dad told me the same thing … but he did one better by googling it and pulling it up for me.

The economist who gave this (and another) speech was Xenophon Zolotas. The prefix xeno- means foreign, so I’d like to think he was destined to bring the Greek language to the mainstream modern word.  Zolotas is one of the best jewelry stores in all of Greece, but that probably has nothing to do with what I’m writing about.  Anyway, Zolotas was the head of the Bank of Greece right after World War II and then again for 12 years before the junta took power.  In 1989, Zolotas was appointed a non-party prime minister, as the elections that year failed to give majority to either of the prominent political parties.  He died at 100 years old and swam every day of his life.

Zolotas gave two speeches demonstrating the contributions of the Greek language to the English vocabulary.  At the time of this address, Greece had just emerged from an awful civil war. Zolotas’ intention was to use these speeches to enlighten the spirit, substance and grandeur of Greek Culture. Have a look:

September 1957

I always wished to address this Assembly in Greek, but realized that it would have been indeed “Greek” to all present in this room. I found out, however, that I could make my address in Greek which would still be English to everybody. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, l shall do it now, using with the exception of articles and prepositions, only Greek words.

Kyrie,

I eulogize the archons of the Panethnic Numismatic Thesaurus and the Ecumenical Trapeza for the orthodoxy of their axioms, methods and policies, although there is an episode of cacophony of the Trapeza with Hellas. With enthusiasm we dialogue and synagonize at the synods of our didymous organizations in which polymorphous economic ideas and dogmas are analyzed and synthesized. Our critical problems such as the numismatic plethora generate some agony and melancholy. This phenomenon is characteristic of our epoch.

But, to my thesis, we have the dynamism to program therapeutic practices as a prophylaxis from chaos and catastrophe. In parallel, a Panethnic unhypocritical economic synergy and harmonization in a democratic climate is basic. I apologize for my eccentric monologue. I emphasize my euharistia to you, Kyrie to the eugenic arid generous American Ethnos and to the organizes and protagonists of his Amphictyony and the gastronomic symposia.

Kyrie,

It is Zeus’ anathema on our epoch (for the dynamism of our economies) and the heresy of our economic method and policies that we should agonize the Skylla of nomismatic plethora and the Charybdis of economic anaemia. It is not my idiosyncracy to be ironic or sarcastic but my diagnosis would be that politicians are rather cryptoplethorists. Although they emphatically stigmatize nomismatic plethora, they energize it through their tactics and practices. Our policies should be based more on economic and less on political criteria. Our gnomon has to be a metron between economic,strategic and philanthropic scopes. Political magic has always been anti-economic.

In an epoch characterized by monopolies, oligopolies, monopolistic antagonism and polymorphous inelasticities, our policies have to be more orthological, but this should not be metamorphosed into plethorophobia, which is endemic among academic economists. Nomi smatic symmetry should not antagonize economic acme. A greater harmonization between the practices of the economic and nomismatic archons is basic. Parallel to this,we have to synchronize and harmonize more and more our economic and nomismatic policies panethnically. These scopes are more practicable now, when the prognostics of the political and economic barometer are halcyonic. The history of our didimus organization on this sphere has been didactic and their gnostic practices will always be a tonic to the polyonymous and idiomorphous ethnical economies. The genesis of the programmed organization will dynamize these policies.

Therefore, i sympathize, although not without criticism one or two themes with the apostles and the hierarchy of our organs in their zeal to program orthodox economic and nomismatic policies, although I have some logomachy with them.I apologize for having tyranized you with my Hellenic phraseology. In my epilogue, i emphasize my eulogy to the philoxenous aytoc htons of this cosmopolitan metropolis and my encomium to you, Kyrie stenographers.

Maybe good ole Kostas was onto something.

The word “ΓΛΩΣΣΑ” in the photo above, means ‘languages.’  Schools also use it to describe language arts activities, i.e., reading, writing, spelling.

In January, the kindergarten began studying the sea.  Last week, they presented the project and a special play that incorporated pretty much everything they learned.  For the first 30 minutes, Kyria Anna and Kyria Amalia, the kindergarten teachers, talked with the parents/siblings/grandparents about everything they studied and incorporated into this expeditionary learning unit.  All of their reading, language arts, math and science centered around the sea. They read a book about a τριγoναψαρουλη (a triangle fish) and did a report on it.  They read another about a κοτουλα (chicken) named Karmela who wanted to see the sea so badly that she ran away from home.  And another about a φοκια (seal) who hated the way she looked so much that she cut her whiskers off only to find out she couldn’t hunt fish without them and learned to appreciate her face and body.  They built their own ferry (The Blue Star Kessaris) and christened it with a bottle of ‘champagne’ filled with confetti.  They built canoes and paddles.  They made dioramas.  They made clay sea animals.  They constructed lighthouses and key holders to sell at the Open Day Bazaar.  Peter drew sea scenes for weeks at home and at school.   And yesterday, he decided he’s going to live in Mexico when he grows up, because Mexico has bullfights AND sharks (καρχαγεια)  I mean, really, what could be better?

The field trips with this unit were awesome.  First, they went to a sea turtle refuge just down the road from our house and learned about how the refuge helps the turtles become healthy and able to go back into the sea. Our class adopted a χελωνα (turtle) named Nemo for a month, paying for all its medical needs and food.  In April, they collected recyclable materials all month in the classroom and then loaded it onto the school buses headed toward a recycling center.  The kids and staff talked there for more than an hour about how recycling is good for the earth … and the sea.

Last September’s oil spill provided a great teaching opportunity. During the play, half of the children played fish while the other half wore black capes (oil) and army crawled on the floor. The fish all died.  It was a very dramatic re-enactment.  They also did a couple of skits where they discussed the ‘rules’ of the sea and why we keep the beaches and water clean. They re-enacted the part of the chicken book where Karmela’s father grabs her wing and escorts her back to the coop because she’s too little to go to the sea by herself.  Each child had a part or two with a couple of lines. It was adorable.

Their final field trip was to the beach at Varkiza, where they picked up trash for a few hours.  Kyria Anna told us that the area they cleaned had not one speck of trash when they left.  Peter came home talking about all the kalamaki (straws) they found on the beach, and how his pal Demetri found a souvlaki kalamaki (bamboo skewer) and how dirty the beach was.  They learned how bad plastic is for our environment and each child got his/her own canvas bag to take things to the beach.  At the end of the performance, the kids sang two songs in English and two songs in Greek and received oceanographer diplomas, and then we got to walk through the halls and collect all of the masterpieces the kids made over the course of this unit.

This was the most perfect unit I could think of for this age.  I hope their discoveries turn them into the generation who will preserve the beautiful Greek environment.  The country desperately needs it.