How to have kids without being married (our paperwork in Greece)

This is my first post in English after many people asking me to write in a language they can read. Well, I am sorry for being away for a while, I promise I will invest more time on my blog. So for my first English blog entry, I will explain how my life has changed after getting married in Greece...with a woman.

Everyone had the chance to fight against any bureaucratic system y, yes? Every time one has to deal with any public organization we need double coffee, double patience, a really good book to queue and wait and maybe a punching bag after to hit it at home imagining the face of the public worker who asked us the extra paper job. I am sure that any reader could understand the frustration of the process if you are an expat and you have to do this dirty job, not in your mother language. Just to give you some background information, the day we went to ask for our AFM (the Greek tax number) I asked the public worker "do you speak English?". The answer was "yes" and after a lot of sentences in Greek that we could not understand (με δουλεύεις, ρε φιλε ...)*

So now, as you already understood that Greek bureaucracy is even funnier, let me tell the story about a couple of girls with a kid (basically my wife, my kid and me) going to register our second marriage in the census office of our neighborhood in Athens. The same where anyone can go to register a newborn or somebody who passed away, etc. As I correctly said, we needed to marry again, because after the partnership was approved in Greece, we were not married (yeah, single again xD). So we needed to GET MARRIED AGAIN, but this time under Greek legislation (the previous partnership from Spain was not recognized). So we get married and after we went to register the partnership in the census office.

A little more context: Orthodox church declared that anyone helping gay partners was cursed by the church. So now, you can imagine my lovely wife going to the office. Waiting and queueing with her book. Probably reading and waiting with the papers from the notary on her hand. Or probably she was nervous and looking around and asking Hermes to have the nicer officer for her not to have a bad time. She waited patiently and faced the lady in front of her. I am sure that Greek gay community will understand me when I say that being lesbian, or gay in Greece requires a daily act of bravery. Even if you are in the closet. That day (I am only imagining her as my wife did everything) she went to the census office and she became a heroine.

She went there and presented the papers of the partnership. The lovely lady asked her "why you did partnership instead of marriage with our beloved church?". Well, she just gave her the papers and get ready for the officer to understand. This fifty years lady, probably wearing a typical under knee skirt and cathetism shoes (maybe also a cross shining on her neck with a protective orthodox aura) raised her eyebrows and probably got a mini cardio stroke when she saw our names on the notary declaration of partnership. 

With the excuse that she wanted something from the office inside, when to talk to a colleague, complaining about having in front of her the terrible task to register two lesbians in the census. It was just not enough to have two foreign (or half0, but two women getting a partnership in her office. She started yelling about it as if my wife was not there and could not understand Greek (when she was already talking in Greek to her). His colleague very kindly asked him to relax and just to do his job. This job that probably my and my wife are paying for with our taxes. She came back to my wife as dr Jeckil and asked for our passports. Every time she looked at our names she was crossing herself and praying to her lord. My wife, in the middle of this theater, showed her the passport of our kid by mistake. It was too much for her. When the officer (maybe her name was Katerina, so we can call her Katerina) saw it become crazy. 

My wife explained to her that we had a kid and were already partners in Spain. She stated that was just not possible that we had a kid. It was too difficult to understand that fertility was not possible in a marriage of two women (come on, it is even double fertility!). It was too impossible to believe in her narrow mind that we had a kid that my wife answer her: "Well, of course, it is not my obligation to explain to you how I made the kid, but if you really need it we can go deeper into details...".

After that surprising answer, the officer Katerina asked her to go to another office to make a declaration stating that before we married each other we were single ("where the kid came from then? hmmm"). My dear wife went to the second office of the day with all her resignation and explained the crazy request of the lade to the next officer. She managed to get the paper and came back the next day to see our friend Katerina to FINALLY register our partnership. It seems that she went to see her priest or to pray because she explained to her that she was going to be condemned to go to hell because her church cursed everyone helping gay partnership in Greece. But finally she accepted and we got the recognition on the census office.

That day, my wife decided to forget her spartan blood and instead of killing her she had the patience to wait and get things done. That is why I say that being lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, transgender or any other LGTB choice in Greece is an act of bravery. Not every battle is a literal fight. But now, the good christian lady, that officer, avoiding her soul to go hell, decided to act in the best way of bravery she could. Even today, when she sees us in the neighborhood she crosses herself. And bows her head being as brave as she could and walks to the other side of the street. Nice double moral.

*με δουλεύεις, ρε φιλε ... means "you are kidding me" in Greek.

Thanks for your beautiful pictures, Quentin Gellar, Chrysostomos Galathiris