ruminations

The past few days have been full of moving and cleaning.

Jamie and I moved into our new apartment on Saturday and have been trying to make it into our home, which is quite difficult to do, because we don't have very many possessions. The apartment was given to us by a family in the church. It used to belong to the Grandfather, but he died unexpectedly about two years ago and the apartment sat empty.

What a wonderful sacrifice? I mean, it takes a lot to let two foreign Americans live in the home of your Grandfather; it is a prime example of the help and sacrificial mindset that seems to permeate this whole congregation.

Opening up the drawers and cupboards of our apartment has, surprisingly, been an intimate look into the past. Their Grandfather, Josef, kept everything: watches, pictures, clothes, hats, money, postcards, army pins, communist memorabilia and copious amounts of beer glasses. I often find myself ashamed and embarrassed to be gazing at such personal items, but I can't help but be thankful for them.

Jamie was rummaging around an old drawer, trying to make space for our books, when she found an old hat. It weighed a lot. Upon turning the hat over, we found dozens of small steel pins stuck into the fabric. Each pin was a small piece into his life. There were commemoration pins of the 5oth anniversary of the communist party, an award for driving over 500,000 kilometers (he was a bus driver), numerous gas station pins, the Czech flag wrapped amongst the Soviet sickle and hammer, a Praha Sparta (soccer team) and of course, some beer pins; after all, what would be a Czech hat without beer? I really loved the hat. Looking at the old logos and flags made me think about how life seemed to go on, even under Communism. Old men in America have pins on their hats, but instead of a communist commemorative pin, they usually signify a battle or are an American flag themselves; instead of a soccer team it might be a football team; and Exxon might be the gas of choice, not Benzin.

This question of what was life really like under communism creeps every now and then into my psyche. Watching old men and women brings only more confusion, as I see in their tired eyes and hands many years of hardship and true oppression. What have they seen? Do they feel cheated? I can't know, because I don't speak Czech well enough. I so badly want to ask questions. If I were to learn Czech for that reason, to learn about the people and how their history has influenced them, then it would be worth it. Yet, until then, I am stuck wondering aloud and quenching my hunger for answers by looking at photographs and pins....