Friendships Come from Unusual Places
A small village in Greece is a magnet for migrants seeking work as day laborers from all parts of Eastern Europe and the Middle East. It is also the new home of UK expatriate Juliet who has just moved in and is setting up her translation business. Her newly purchased house and garden has been neglected for years, but is beyond Juliet’s handywoman abilities, which leads her to hire Aaman, a migrant from Pakistan, from the group of day laborers who congregate in the village square each morning.
What would seem to be a mismatch of backgrounds and personalities becomes a learning experience for them both over the coming weeks as the two become not just employer and employee, but friends.
We assume so many things about a person we’ve just met based on what they look like, where they come from, their age, their clothing, presumed status, and so on. But when you take the time and effort to look more closely, ask questions, and listen carefully, you find out that person is more than he seems. Assumptions become facts and form into a unique person with a unique story and background that often explain the causes for those presumptions. This story shows how looking not only at a person, at the surface, but into that person can be the start of not only a friendship, but a life-altering experience.
Aside from the lessons about friendship that the story teaches, it’s an entertaining look at life in small-town Greece that most of us have never experienced. The reader is introduced to the people and shops of the village through Juliet’s interactions as she gets used to the very different life she’s chosen for herself in this relative backwater of Greece that at least is connected to the rest of the world through the wonders of the Internet and long distance telephone service.
I did have a couple of issues with the book in the areas of education and qualifications. I question how Juliet could have become competent enough in the Greek language only through coursework and tutoring to the point she could hang out her virtual shingle as a qualified translator in the language. Any language has idioms, dialects, regionalisms, and shades of meaning that only immersion in the culture as well as the living language can help a person understand fully. I had a similar problem (as a former programmer) with the apparent ease and speed that Aaman went from zero to webmaster in a matter of weeks with absolutely no previous knowledge of computers or programming.
But those issues aside, the book as a whole was an unexpected treasure. I was expecting a simple “fish out of water” story dealing with Juliet’s new home and got a feel good story instead.
Recommended.