Angelos Tzortzinis for the International Herald Tribune
Michalis Petrakis, who is jobless and whose son Pantelis has been going to school hungry, opened his nearly empty refrigerator.
By LIZ ALDERMAN
ATHENS — As an elementary-school principal, Leonidas Nikas is used to
seeing children play, laugh and dream about the future. But recently he
has seen something altogether different, something he thought was
impossible in Greece:
children picking through school trash cans for food; needy youngsters
asking playmates for leftovers; and an 11-year-old boy, Pantelis
Petrakis, bent over with hunger pains.
Angelos Tzortzinis for the International Herald Tribune
The Petrakis family, from left: Michalis, Kostas, Pantelis and Themelina (in profile).
Angelos Tzortzinis for the International Herald Tribune
Mr. Petrakis with his wife, Themelina, and their son Kostas.
“He had eaten almost nothing at home,” Mr. Nikas said, sitting in his
cramped school office near the port of Piraeus, a working-class suburb
of Athens, as the sound of a jump rope skittered across the playground.
He confronted Pantelis’s parents, who were ashamed and embarrassed but
admitted that they had not been able to find work for months. Their
savings were gone, and they were living on rations of pasta and ketchup.
“Not in my wildest dreams would I expect to see the situation we are
in,” Mr. Nikas said. “We have reached a point where children in Greece
are coming to school hungry. Today, families have difficulties not only
of employment, but of survival.”
The Greek economy is in free-fall, having shrunk by 20 percent in the
past five years. Unemployment is
