Lambidona: A study of the ordinary
Chapter 1 of “The Million-Dollar Question” series.
Photos: A. Christofilopoulos / FOS PHOTOS
As time goes on, the dust starts to settle. It gets harder to see clearly. What is a crisis anyway? What is an important story? Lambidona is the place people go to drink coffee. The place they take their family for a nice Saturday. It’s not a regular café, it’s not a regular park. It’s something else. I struggle telling you why you should read this story, but I know it’s important.
In a park with playgrounds, green pine trees, and red clay earth, a building with big glass windows and dark wooden poles is located at the highest point.
It’s Saturday, it’s nine o’clock in the morning, and the park is quiet. On the building’s terrace Augustus is sweeping the stone block floor. The pine trees leave withered pine needles on the floor, and every Thursday and Saturday Augustus goes to the building to do the sweeping.
He is neatly dressed, wearing a grey shirt, beige pants and shoes. Not a normal outfit for a person cleaning. He is 48 years old, studied theology, and worked at a factory, but he lost his job 10 years ago. Now he is a part of the community of Lambidona, in the neighborhood of Vyronas in Athens.
Here, he has learned English, was introduced to economic thinkers, and ways of understanding the crisis. This year he is going to follow a class in philosophy.
Later on in the day the kitchen team of Lambidona will prepare a meal for Augustus, but also for a crowd of other regulars who, more or less, come here every Saturday at two o’clock.
It’s all for free, except the coffee, which is 50 cents. It’s a sort of self-established community service; unemployed-to-unemployed, poor-to-poor.
“The basic idea was that this kind of property, because it belonged to the municipality, was not to be privatized.”
A friend of mine once told me how an oil discovery in the United States affected prostitution in the area, how the oil money in the end was dripping down to the prostitutes.
For some reason I think about this when I visit Lambidona. But in reverse. I think about how the economic crisis is drying out kitchens; how cans of olive oil in people’s homes might be empty and dried up.
I struggle; I don’t want to portray Lambidona as a poor place. Even though it is.
But it is not simply a poor place or a place where people who have very little come.
It’s a place which uses the power of the collective to create something from individuals that had nothing alone. It’s a place for everyone, but most are unemployed.
It’s a place where the unemployed go to sweep the floor, like Augustus, so that other unemployed people can cook in the kitchen, so other unemployed people can have a meal, so they can give lessons on a full stomach, so other unemployed people can get a language class or go to gymnastics. You might understand why this cannot be pictured as poor.
Pavlos, 44 years old, is wearing small square glasses and motorbike gloves, which he pulls off and leaves beside him at the table on the terrace; it’s autumn and the weather is still warm enough to drink coffee outside.
Pavlos is one of the ‘founders’ of Lambidona. He was here five years ago when a group of activists, after several discussions and meetings had settled on occupying the building in Vyronas; a restaurant which had closed down.
I have asked Pavlos to tell me the history of Lambidona.
“It was closed for ten months,” he lets me know while he is rolling a cigarette with pink paper; paper produced under “good working conditions,” it says on the package.
“In this period we organized gatherings of the neighborhood, we established an open assembly that decided to open the place as a meeting point for actions and for the people of this neighborhood. It took five meetings to decide this,” he says.
The basic idea was that this kind of property, because it belonged to the municipality, was not to be privatized.
“But to use it for the common good, for the neighborhood,” Pavlos explains.
“Lambidona is the gap between individuals and the system that let them down.”
In the beginning of the occupation there were small fights between the activists and the municipality. The activists broke the lock, then the municipality broke their lock, and then the activists came with a new lock… You get the idea. This was going on for a month.
The municipality also cut the electricity, and the local police force was present in the assembly meetings, to monitor the community. The community let them stay; they didn’t want to be a violent occupation.
Six months later the mayor tried to sell the restaurant again.
They didn’t make it easy for him. The activists gathered around 100 people against it, and the local football team put up posters saying “Hands off Lambidona” at the football stadium, something which apparently had a highly symbolic affect.
“It was raining this day, like really, water up till the knees”, Pavlos tells, “but we went up to the mayor’s office with the posters from the football team to stop the privatization,” he continues.
Lambidona doesn’t have a clear political position, and this might be one of the reasons they have a lot of sympathy from the neighborhood, Pavlos explains.
The protest worked. The mayor and the municipality backed off. The community of Lambidona was allowed to stay, but when I ask Pavlos if he is still afraid of privatization, he replies with a frank “yes”.
For as long as I have been following the community of Lambidona, the question of what Lambidona really is has recurred again and again.
There is an easy answer: it’s a closed restaurant, which local citizens have occupied for the last five years, doing social work with soup kitchens and language classes.
But there is also another answer. An answer not so concrete: Lambidona is the gap between individuals and the system that let them down. A gap where individuals, not only in Lambidona, but all over Athens, are trying to do… something. Making wrong into right. The story of Lambidona might seem small, but I’m not so sure.
It might just be a study of the ordinary. And this explains why I struggle to tell you why this story is important. It’s just about everyday lives, about how the crisis settled down to stay.
The programme of events organised by Lambidona is extensive. Everyday multiple classes or events take place, and since last year the programme runs for more than 12 hours per day.
I ask Pavlos of the proudest moments, and he tells me how the community of Lambidona found homes for two homeless people, and how they have been able to help workers who have been striking.
“In 2011 there was a huge strike by the workers in the metal industry, and the community collected money to support the strikers. We collected 1200€, and 100 bags of food,” he says.
Pavlos is a book distributor, but he hasn’t been receiving a salary lately… When he tells me this fact, his shoulders move up to his ears and down again, quickly.
“This is how it is. I get paid when my boss has the money. And right now he doesn’t.”
Pavlos studied economics and administration, and he has been politically active since he was 15 years old. First in the the Communist Party, KKE, which he left in ‘92.
He still has some of the same views on solidarity, and this is why Lambidona is important for him. He spends one to three hours here everyday.
What motivates you? I ask.
He takes a deep breath. “The free food,” he says ironically, then he looks at Kevin, who is sitting beside him and says: “Kevin is motivating me…” he laughs quietly.
“It’s difficult,” he explains. “Many different people come here, and it can be hard work, emotionally. But I’m an activist, and I fight for a new society, an anti-capitalist society, and without classes and property,” he tells.
“We are now in the present,” he dooms, letting me know the little history class of Lambidona is over.
In the next chapter you can read about the kitchen team of Lambidona; how the poor are helping the poor. We will investigate the million-dollar question; how do people get by with nothing? And how does it interfere with your identity?
This post is part of AthensLive’s The Million-Dollar Question series, looking at how people get by with nothing. If you liked this story, please click on the ♥ below to recommend it to your friends, and follow us to catch the next one. Thanks!
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