Greece’s Economic Drama: One Woman’s Story

A week after elections, Greece is no closer to having a government.

The election shattered the political status quo, and fragmented the political scene.

The parties cannot agree on a way forward.

The key issue is the economy.

The old government had pursued a course of austerity, to maintain Greece in the Euro-zone.

That policy is anathema to many of the new parties.

So there’s no coalition yet.

Meanwhile, many ordinary Greeks are struggling to make ends meet.

Theodora Oikonomides of Athens is one.

Theodora is highly qualified, and has worked as an aid worker in Africa, and was formerly a teacher.

But she hasn’t had a job, in Greece, for three years.

She works abroad for a few months, in places like Somalia or Congo, and then has to live off that money when she returns to Greece, where she lives with her mother.

“It doesn’t begin to sense,” she tells anchor Lisa Mullins, “you don’t go to Somalia to find work!”

Her mother is retired and has seen her pension slashed by a third since the austerity campaign began.

Theodora spends her time volunteering to help disadvantaged kids and immigrants, and political activism (she tweets @irategreek).

She does not have a family of her own, for which she is thankful. “In this crisis, I don’t know how I would manage, if I had a family of my own.”