As Greek crisis festers, despair grows in streets

Athens

BEHIND the lace curtains of a soup kitchen run by a parish in the humble Athens neighbourhood of Kerameikos, the needy and hungry sit down to a plate of sliced cucumbers, three hunks of bread, a shallow china bowl of chickpea soup and often a piece of meat. Sometimes there is even ice cream, a special treat.

People prize the refectory, run by a priest, for its homeyness, and they travel long distances to fill their empty stomachs at least once a day.