Just another night at the café...

I'm back at the café two days later. Two days with poor coffee. I think about the fact that whenever I would choose to go by this place he will always be there. Day and night, day in and day out, month after month, years passing, he might be a bit more grey-haired, but he'll still be there, in good and bad days, in sickness and in health. 

I stay longer this time. He is happy to see me. I hang out for three hours and read my book, talk to some of the customers and drink lots of coffee. Two cappuccinos and one latte. He wants to pay the drinks and buys me ice cream. I really want to pay it myself, here I sit with my iPhone and loaded wallet, free to go and travel whenever - wherever I please.  To hop on a plane in no time, very content with paying close to nothing, and just spend a week in the sun. Just like that. And then go back again to my own world, blissfully forgetting all I saw and heard in a short amount of time. 

The customers I talk to are there nearly every day. A nurse, male, must be close to 60 works every day, then has fiesta, and some times works night shifts also, if necessary. Another one teaches 24 hours a week added to all the other teaching work and earns 7200 Norwegian kroner a month. He says he is lucky to earn that much since he's been teaching for years. Yet another one sells T-shirts on the street, every night of the week. It seems to be a pattern. Most of these normal working people I talk to work seven days a week, all year around since the financial crisis. And still they add that they are lucky even to have a job, or are quick to share that they enjoy their work!

The guys all tell me the café owner is an angel. "He never says a bad word about anyone," one of the men brags, "angelic coffee and angel man!"

He shares even more about his life and his family this time, about the reality of a normal family life in modern Greece. I still don't feel like there is anything I can say to comfort, but I promise him I will pray for him. And I promise myself that I will not forget...