Classes!

Jamie are in the middle of scheduling our classes. We are happy to announce that we have 106 students and are expecting more as the year goes on. The most popular classes have been the conversation classes for Adults, as we have a total of 20 students; thus, we have split the Adult classes into two sessions of 10 people. Jamie has done well with her conversation and has around 40 students all together. Our sports and art ideas have struggled to garner the interest and the numbers: sports has a total of 15 kids and art brings in the rear with 5 signed up. The classes for the high school-aged students are doing very well, as the University Prep has 12 students and the regular conversation class has 8. This is an excellent start to the year and we hope that through our efforts, the classes will grow in size.

This week, I am plan on taking a very small group of students bouldering. They have no idea what bouldering is, so I think it will be a challenging and exciting experience for them. In preparation for the trip, I looked up some areas that would be excellent for outdoor sports and found that there are some quality, beginner routes in our state, Pardubice Kraj. This Saturday, Jamie and I will jump on the train and head to the town of Cachnov and then hike to the village of Svratka. From Svratka, there are many options: Čtyři Palice, Drátník, Rybenské Perničky, Devět Skal and Bílá Skála, all of which possess prime bouldering locations. To the "North American" mindset, this might seem like a large trip; however, in the Czech Republic, things are not nearly as spread out. So, in all, the hiking and bouldering will take us about 7 hours to complete in full, which is not too overbearing. If Jamie and I like the route, I will take some of the young guys with me and we will have a "guy day" climbing and flexing our muscles, or in Czech, "muž den."

Last night I found myself walking home at around 8:30 pm in the company of three Czech youths: Honza, Lukaš and Madla. We had just finished band practice and I was walking back to our apartment, which is about a half-mile away from the Church. Madla and I were discussing the upcoming English classes when all of a sudden she asked me what I think about Czech people, and if she, Honza and Lukaš, were "typical Czechs?" I was taken back by the question, because I haven't had much time to think about the Czech people.
I told her that I believe the Czech people to be very humble in appearance and disinclined to bombastic personalities or narcissistic mentalities, which has its negative and positive aspects. For example, we Americans are open people: we give our opinions, show affection and generally are genial to strangers who are walking down the street. Czechs are not like this at all. If you happened to be walking down the street in a town like Policka, you would find that many of the people keep their eyes on the ground. Even if there are only two of you in an alley that is 10 feet wide, their gaze would be on the cobblestones; it feels a little bit cold. If you were to verbalize a greeting like " Dobrý Den", which is translated as "Good day", what you would get in return is a mumbled, barley audible reply. Is it because Czechs are a mean people? No, that is not the case. I think that it has to do with trust.

Czechs have a hard time trusting other people, especially ones they do not know. For forty years the totalitarian state ruled peoples' psyches, and in a way, it still does. Stalinist Communism was a system not only in control of state manufacturing and the political system, but it was a social philosophy that would manipulate minds by controlling mass quantities of information: books, news sources, dissidents, professors, television, art (socialist realism), music, etc. An easy way for the communists to remain in control of the people was by keeping tabs on all ideas coming in and going out of the nation. Thus, the Party became a long-armed spy machine manufacturing show-trials and using secret informers to keep tabs on the whole population. To western listeners, this might seem far fetched, but it becomes a reality when one is lucky enough to listen to Czech stories.

I know very few Czechs; I might know 45 people in all, yet, in those 45, there is a story. There have been numerous times I have heard Anna or Jan talk about family members and friends who were imprisoned for years at a time. Many of those who were thrown in prison were farmers or regular business people. They had no ties to political organizations and were not criminals. What they were, was a captive population that had no way to fight. Fish in a barrel, maybe?Some would spend years in terrible isolation, where their punishment was hard labor and only through back-breaking work would they earn their way back into society. And, when Czechs speak of it, they retell this history almost as if it is a common enough occurrence that it doesn't warrant further explanation, which makes sense, because many families have similar skeletons. It is life to the Czechs; it is their history. Communists controlled information by intimidation.

I often run through hypothetical situations in my mind. Many of the thoughts consist of a moral decision that must be made: would I stand up for an old women getting robbed, or would I march against injustice even if I knew my life would be jeopardized? I have realized that I always find myself winning; I know that I would do the right thing....right?? Many people always question why the Czechs didn't do more when they were suffering under Communism. I am beginning to see that when a question like that is put forth, to people who have lived through the oppression, it only serves to show the ignorance of the one who is asking. And, when Americans want to insult a liberal social policy as being "Communist", maybe they should think twice about what is REALLY being implied, as their statement only belies an out-of-touch notion of what communism was and a misconstrued retelling of history that serves to prove a moot point. I only hope that Czechs never hear Americans squabbling over the "commies" in the Democratic Party, because I would be ashamed as an American that the Czechs were so viciously assaulted, as it makes light of a hard, dark and very real past.

So, as you can see, there is always more than meets the eye when dealing with Czech people. Are they cold on the street? Yes, they can be. It only makes it that much better when a Czech does say hi to you and opens up, because you know that it is genuine, a real feeling of friendship and camaraderie. And this, I think, is where we Americans miss the point: we can be a little too fake when we put up our facade of happiness; but, then again, it might have to do with our history. After all, aren't we the "land of opportunity" and the bastion of the American Dream; being sad in America is against our whole paradigm. We haven't known hardship like the Czechs and the Czechs haven't known independence like us, so it all makes for a very "lucid-ambiguous" experience.