How To Remove Stubborn Greek Hair

I hate waxing. Each time I do it, it breaks me out. But I hate my unwanted hairs too. I was saying this to my friend from Iran (who has perfect eyebrows) and she said, "Why don't you do it the way we do in my country?" The way they do it is called in English, threading. She didn't have any string with her, and wasn't explaining it well enough for me to understand what in the world a piece of string could do for my moustache and eyebrows. (Oh yeah, let's not forget the one, thick, black chin hair that pops out overnight).
So I went to YouTube and found this video:


I was ecstatic! After playing around with some thread, and then finally having my dear friend show me how she does it, I think I have mastered the Art of Threading. This Greek Girl now is facial-hair-free at all times, and no pesky after-waxing zits replacing the mustache.

I urge everyone to try threading themselves, and let me know how it turns out!

My Big Fat Greek Story, Part One

It took years for me to convince my father to go to France for a visit. He didn't even go with my mother to see us when we were living there. He is a homebody, he likes his recliner when he's not working, and now that he owns a laptop, that sweetened the deal. Finally, he succumbed and agreed that he would go with us in March/April '08. But there was a stipulation: If he was going all that way, he wanted to go to Greece, to the island where his father was born and grew up.

That was fine with me, however, being that the dollar was down, and we are five, we just couldn't swing it for ourselves. Besides, we knew we'd need a break from each other by then! My dad's father died when my dad was 15. My dad's mother, who I refuse to call Grandma, is not a nice person. She disowned my dad when he started studying the Bible with the religion he became. When Dad was little, she kicked my his father out for another guy. My grandmother, who refused to allow my dad to call his own father "Dad", but instead by his first name, also refused to let my dad use his real last name; a very Greek, but unique last name. When my Dad started studying the Bible, his mother told him to stop using the stepdad's last name that she had all his life forced on Dad, and told him to now start using his father's last name, because he was "dragging the stepdad's family name through the mud." Nevermind that the step dragged his own name through the mud, in ways I won't even elaborate on here. This man, I have only seen once, because he was a disgusting human being who every decent person in our family called The Nazi. The Nazi and The Dragon Lady, is what they were called.

So, because Dad can tend to be stubborn, he refused to stop using The Nazi's last name (after all, he was only 20, newly married, rebelling against his mom and stepdad's abuse). He regrets this decision today not to take back his rightful Greek name.

Dragon Lady assured Dad that there were no family members left on the island that my grandfather was born on. They all fled to Egypt, or were killed, she said. We did internet searches on the last name, but to no avail. There was not one good lead. As I said before, all we had were family legends and some photos.

We have family photos of Dad's aunts and uncles, siblings of his father. We know the names, we know what happened to some of them. Still, no leads to any family left on the island. This is why I felt like my parents' time and money to go to this island was going to be somewhat wasted. Don't get me wrong, I thought it would be very neat for my dad to see what his father saw as a young boy. But I didn't want Dad to get his hopes up in finding family.

First they spent 4 days in Athens, and Mom said that Dad kept talking to everyone they met about his father and his real last name, and did they ever hear of anyone with that last name? Nevermind that it was like finding a needle in a haystack, he persevered. (I am told by a guy from Greece that this is most definitely a Greek thing, and that Dad didn't embarrass himself.) :)

In Athens, he got the number of a friend of a friend that lives on the island of my grandfather. So when my parents arrived for their 3 day stay on the island, they immediately called this person, who happens to be the same religion as us. Happy, this man who I'll call G. told my parents to meet him in the center of the village at 6pm, he would come meet them.

Meanwhile, my parents explored and visited with local townspeople, who were very willing to listen to my father's story of island heritage. Each person said they hoped he would find family, or even land! (Is that Greek or what?) As they were telling the hotel owner, who spoke perfect English, he got all excited and shouted that they must follow him to the Town Hall to tell them the story and find some records of family members. It was just next door. When they left, they had in possession a an officially stamped and sealed family document!

Yes, it's true, Grandfather was born here! Here was the date of his birth, all the siblings, the parents, and others. Everything was just as we thought. Including the confirmation that all the family left the island and there were none left.

Very satisfied that they at least accomplished something, even if it didn't lead to actual family members, my parents left the building to go meet G. This was more than they really hoped for.

So at 6pm, they waiting at the meeting point. G. came driving up and introduced himself and his kids to my parents, and then said, "Get in the car, we take you to our house for coffee and visiting." Stunned, a little worried, but taken by the friendliness and sincerity of G., they got in the car. (Mind you, this is not a city, and he was a friend of a friend.)

G. took them to his house, and they started visiting over some Greek coffee. Dad explained that he was the first family member to come to Grandfather's Island, they just got a document with a family tree, and they were happy. G. said, "Tell me the family name of your father." So, Dad told him. Stunned silence.

G said, "Excuse me for a moment, I have a phone call to make." My Dad does not understand Greek anymore, but it was very evident there was excitement going on this end of the phone call. There were intermittent questions asked of my dad by G. about family history, places, dates, names. My dad answered all of them. G was getting louder and louder on the phone, smiles, big, excited Greek gestures...my parents were sitting there wondering what in the world was going on or about to happen.

G hangs the phone up. Looks up at my parents, and said, "You have a cousin. I know her. She lives here on the island. She is on her way over right now."

To be continued......

My Greek Hair-itage

If you follow La Belette Rouge's blog, you'll have read yesterday about her Greek friend Nicky, who made her feel inferior because, and let me quote here,

I was mesmerized by her "otherness" as she seemed to be everything I was not. Where I was painfully pale and could not lay out for more than five minutes without risking red hot pain and burning blisters, Helios seemed to worship Nicky by amplifying her already bronzed beauty with an Aphrodite like glow. I had strawberry red hair that was cut into a short and snappy 80's hair do that accented my collection of colourful earrings---while Nicky had extremely long black hair that was longer, blacker and thicker than any hair I have ever seen. Her shiny eyes flashed like day-glow Kalamata olives, while mine were light and blue, much like an anemic body of water in the Ionic of which no fisherman fished and no tourists toured.

I wrote a comment to help LBR feel better about her pale skin by telling her the Greek Girl's side of things, which started to get so long winded that I decided to turn it into a post. So, where I may have felt proud of my fast and dark tanning ability, it was only to counteract the hidden torment of my Greek "otherness". In a word...hair. While most of us Greeks have thick, dark shiny hair (and true, it's nice) it doesn't limit itself to the scalp. It seems to think if it's pretty up there, it'll be pretty everywhere.

Let's start with the leg hair. From the age of, oh say three, Greek girls start sprouting long black hair that is longer and blacker than any hair I've ever seen. Ok, so maybe you can't braid it, but you sure can see it from across the classroom if you've not put on ankle length pants and knee high socks! And it's not really acceptable for a 4 year old to start shaving her legs, she's got a few years before she can achieve that milestone. In the meantime, while all the non-olive skinned girls with blonde locks and smoothe hairless arms and legs looked forward to Shorts Day in elementary school, this hairy Greek would have flashbacks of the previous Shorts Day disaster, when her blonde non-Greek mother convinced her no one would notice her hairy legs. She was wrong. Images of 10 year old boys jumping around like apes and making monkey noises still haunt my 5th grade memories.

Which prompted me to secretly start shaving in time for the next Shorts Day. And the results were astounding! I had the smoothest, hairless (and don't forget tannest!) legs in the 6th grade! But my newly bald legs didn't make "happily ever after". There was another problem...arm hair. Now, I had threatened my poor mother with shaving my arms for years. I always got the same shrieking response, "You'll get whiskers on your arms!!!!!" My dad's whiskers were enough to keep me from actually carrying out the act. Being full Greek, he must shave a minimum of twice a day to keep it tame.

And speaking of facial hair, this brings up The Mustache. Should I even delve into this topic? I'll just give you a clue: dumb boys and catty girls. There. 'Nuff said.

Less embarrassing than being envied by pre-pubescant boys, but equally important to tame down, The Unibrow. Do you see where this is all going? A good Greek girl should buy stock in wax. Because, as I told LBR, we Greeks may make you jealous of our tans, but being Greek takes a lot of waxing!