Colonos is my neighborhood
2/19/2023 Text:
CHRISTOS DEGESTINOS
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100007771157607
Recently, our area has received negative publicity which was the result of the tragic event that scarred her life
12 years old.
Colonos was filled with journalists who gave you the feeling that they know everything about our neighborhood and with an arrogant disposition to judge us in the TV courts with the ultimate goal of the TV viewing figures.
In the frenzied frenzy of offensiveness every corner was filled with microphones and cameras targeting thousands of families who have the honor and privilege of the proud lineage of the ancients who chose our soil to make their academy.
So when I am asked which area of Athens I am from, I proudly and sharply answer from Colonos.
The eyes roll and an alarming exclamation accompanies the interlocutor's reaction with a fake sympathetic laugh ending the "friendly" conversation that develops into a defense mechanism to avoid misunderstanding.
I choose the greeting and am not tempted to explain that romantically I remain proud to be a Koloniotis.
I grew up in an area where there is still besa and reason still finds refuge in people's relationships with the unwritten laws that set the elders to be a contract of behavior for the younger.
I grew up proud and bowed down to no one, learning to claim things that are taken for granted in other areas.
I grew up in the neighborhood where everyone knows where your hat comes from and I was happy to run to help the grandmothers when they came back from the market.
I grew up in the neighborhood where what the police didn't take care of, I protected with my friends.
I grew up in the neighborhood where the adults stoically waited for the game to end because there was no other basketball court.
I grew up in the neighborhood stigmatized by newly appointed teachers who at the end of the year discovered diamonds in the dirt.
I grew up in the neighborhood that embraced everyone regardless of nationality and religion with the only requirement that they respect Colonos.
I grew up with stories of the few fighting the many, defying the size of this neighborhood, supporting it to the end.
I grew up in Plato's Academy in the bosom that overflows with history and kept the philosophical musings and the free spirit.
I grew up in Colonos, politically insubordinate, embracing anyone who has something to offer to this place.
I grew up in the squares and streets and with my imagination, I transformed the asphalt into fields,
passing the marks on my feet.
I grew up with Granikos, Aegea, Attikos, Plato and Kolonos boasting talents that did not have equal opportunities.
I didn't beg, but I demanded the five days like in every high school
of Greece, bypassing the malignant ones in the ear of Colonos.
I became a real animal lover and the parks in our neighborhood embrace our four-legged friends.
I'm proud of the doctors, lawyers, scientists my neighborhood has produced and I'm proud of all the children who fight every day for a living.
I don't give a damn if you don't like my origin, I'm not a rapist or a thief, I'm a resident of Kolonos and I choose to try to make my area better, for me and my children.
Χρήστος Δεγγεστίνος
📻 COLONOS RADIO & TV
https://colonosradiotv.net