An entire odyssey has been spent by a Greek-African CNN journalist due to the Omicron mutation. Dubai-based Eleni Giokou went to work in South Africa and was trapped there with her family.
The only way to leave was to use her Greek passport, which she did and is now in quarantine in Athens with the help of the Greek authorities.
“For me, to be here from my balcony, in Athens, to tell the news to CNN, I’m proud to be Greek, I’m proud to have been able to come here,” she said.
Eleni Giokou, CNN correspondent in Dubai, was returning from Johannesburg as soon as the “omicron” mutation broke out. She is now in the third day of her quarantine at a hotel.
Question: How did you find yourself in a hotel room in Athens in quarantine, while its base is in Dubai?
Giokou: “It’s a little crazy, I was in Dubai, I went to South Africa with my husband and daughter, because I had so many events to present and on November 25 I got a message from my sister when I was presenting the awards that Eleni told me we have a new mutation which is in South Africa and we had to find a way to use the Greek passports to return to Greece. “Now we are in quarantine, we are in the third day and we have seven more.”
It was at the center of the micron, at a time when the entire planet was banned from flights from South Africa.
Eleni Giokou described her journey until she arrived in Athens. “We were constantly seeing the rules change so we had flights canceled.”
“I come from a continent that I love very much, Africa and only 7% of the population is vaccinated and the reason is that the developed countries managed to order vaccines and some of them got more than they needed and I think we just have to do it again. “focus on Africa,” he said of the situation in South Africa.
The odyssey of the beautiful Eleni together with 4-year-old Klio had a good end, since all the tests they did as a family are negative, but also because they finally arrived in “Ithaca”, that is, in Athens, in a slightly unorthodox way, of course.
Question: Eleni, you will come to Greece anyway, you were also born in Lemnos.
“I am from Lemnos, I was in Lemnos in August. We would come for Christmas but we did not want to come like that. “We wanted to leave South Africa, go to Dubai and then come back for Christmas and so we will stay here to do Christmas with the family, we have a lot of family here.”
Question: And what is it like to go through quarantine with your husband and child in a room?
“It’s very difficult. “My daughter has a lot of energy, she wants us to keep her busy, I have a lot of work, I have done a lot of reporting for CNN from this point.”
Eleni finds imaginative ways to keep her daughter busy in the hotel room, such as getting her to do housework and trying Greek cuisine.
“They have brought me Imam Bildi, baked eggplants, my daughter has eaten chicken, whatever we need and of course for breakfast we have cheese pies and spinach pies.”
In seven days from today, Eleni with little Klio and her husband will be able to visit the Acropolis, which they are now gazing at from their balcony.
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