Welcome to Athens

This city has a slow heartbeat. Big dogs relax all day wherever you look, prone in grassy spots, on marble steps, enjoying views of monuments and dinner tables. Men sit at midday, backgammon between them and snap the pieces across the board, never moving more than an elbow. And everyone sits sipping as the sun beats down. If you go to the sea, you can look out toward Peloponesia where the ships drift across the horizon between blurring blocks of blue and blue and time tiptoes.
The passage of these sea-going mamoths are a reminder of Athens' long-standing role as a commercial and cultural hub of the mediterranean. From ancient times Greece and its islands have seen the development of sea trade and all its benefits, cultural and economic. Today greek owned ships still represent the worlds largest commercial fleet. On the flip side, the resulting shipping fortunes we've all heard of were likely swollen by trafficking. Arms and drugs to and from the ports of the world, with local networks and organized crime rings developing around points of entry.
Many of the same trafficking routes, especially to and from developing nations in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and also in some parts of Africa have been recyled now to accomodate a fresh commodity, human lives. Human trafficking is the third highest grossing industry on the global black market today. People are lured, often from lives of poverty, by the promise of fast and easy money, to "jobs" in wealthier economies. In the case of many girls and women, the hope of these "jobs" as waitresses or au-pairs vanish quite suddenly when they find out they have been sold to a pimp and that the "travel expenses" they were expecting to reimburse total in the 40 and 50 thousands of Euro.
This city has a slow heartbeat. At night the narrow streets around the meat market are backed up with cars, gawkers, customers, and passersby alike are welcomed by the vibrant tones of Nigerian voices. Greeted at their windows by girls in half costume, full masks. They are paying back their travel expenses.