Bohemian Pomp and Circumstance

Well, at long last the maturita exams are behind us. I tested 50 students last week, and all of them passed. I couldn’t be more proud of them. It was an exhausting week to say the least, but it was good. I realized last year about this time that I had officially made the transition from college kid to old man when I found joy in a week of tests. As mentioned previously, the maturita exams are huge and terrifying… but in a strange way they’re kind of fun. The novelty of a new schedule coupled with finally seeing my students tangibly rewarded for their efforts just makes for a good time.

The testing came to a close on Thursday evening with a final gathering of each class. We stood around in a large circle, some short speeches were made and tears shed, the students gave each teacher a flower (or bouquet of sausages), and we said goodbye. The teachers then retreated to a classroom-turned-dining room and sipped wine and munched hors d'oeuvres together.

The following day involved a traditional morning keg party across the street from the school (not kidding) followed in the evening by the traditional graduation ceremony. This ceremony is much shorter than its American counterpart, and involves a glass of champagne for each teacher and student in attendance. A pretty good deal if you ask me.

This year, the graduation ceremony was followed by a class party with my 4-year students. The party was held at a pub not far from the school and lasted until the wee hours of the morning. It was a good time, and a great way to congratulate many of the students I’ve grown close to.

A few short hours after finally getting to bed, I arose to play Badminton with Zach and two of our students. It was a lot of fun… but certainly sapped me of any energy I may have had left. The remainder the afternoon was spent preparing music with Boris. That evening, Boris’s band played a small pub concert with yours truly as a special guest. I played a handful of tunes suitable for a relaxed smoky pub, and was pleased to find that a number of students and a few other American teachers had come to see the show. A good time was had by all.

I’ve been staring at this computer screen for much to long now. I’m going to grab some dinner. I hope that you’re well and that those of you suffering a stuffy Ohio spring are keeping cool. I’ll talk to you soon.

A handful of students surprised me by coming to my concert on Saturday night. From the left: Michal, me, Eva, Adela, Veronika, Jana, Bara, Vojta, Radka, Marie.

Mike the English teacher, Andrej the headmaster, and Boris the saxophone-playing Physics teacher at the maturita party.

Mike, Lucka, and Michal at the maturita party

My last conversation class. Normally, there were 21 students. Go figure, less than half of them show up on the day I bring my camera to class. They were a lot of fun... I hate knowing that it's over.

Half of my recently graduated 8-year students.

The other half. Great students.

A Tale of Two and a Half Cities

Two nights ago I posted a pretty heavy blog about my trip to Auschwitz. Today, I’m posting something completely different. It should be mentioned that all chronology has been thrown out the window at this point... so lets back the truck up about three weeks.

You may remember mention of the Czech Labor Day on May 1^st. Well this year the holiday fell on a Monday, which means we teachers had yet another three day weekend. My great friend Joel and I decided to take a trip. Our destinations were Plzen and Telc.

Plzen is a town famous for really only one reason... beer. About a hundred and fifty years ago, a man named Josef Groll developed a brewing process that resulted in a rich-flavored, golden-colored lager. If you’ve ever tasted Pilsner Urquell, you know that the Groll perfected lager. The name “pilsner” actually comes from the name of the town where it was invented. Like champagne cannot technically be called champagne if its not from the Champagne region of France, pilsner is not pilsner if its not from Plzen. So Joel and I went.

The tour of the factory was fascinating. From the huge copper vessels where the water is first boiled to the miles upon miles of cold underground corridors filled with oak barrels, our time at the factory was more an experience than it was just a tour. Anyway, it was great.

Upon completion of the Pilsner experience, Joel and I ran to the bus station and headed for the town of Telc. Due to a series of missed connections accompanied by rainy bus stations, a trip that should have taken 3 ½ hours took 7 hours. We arrived at our penzion just before midnight.

Our penzion, like a bed and breakfast without the breakfast, was located just off the main square of Telc and offered warm beds for decent prices. The funny thing is, Joel and I were the only guests that weekend... we’re not totally convinced the owner even had room for any more people. It was the two of us and Eva, a middle aged Czech woman who spoke zero English. Between Joel and I, we were able to communicate with relative ease, but the situation was a constant source of chuckling for the weekend.

Anywho, the city of Telc (pronounced telch) is widely-reputed for having one of the most beautiful town squares in the Czech Republic. In fact, the square is one of only 12 UNESCO protected sites in this country. What the tour books and UNESCO experts failed to mention is that during the months of May and June 2006, the is under heavy construction. The beautiful facades of the houses that line the square were eclipsed by mountains of dirt and rocks. So, left with no other options, Joel and I decided to construct a castle using those resources so readily available to us. That was our second and last night there.

In Telc’s defense, it really is a beautiful place despite the unsightly construction. The outskirts of the town are full of amazing parks and carp ponds. For picture-takers like Joel and myself, it was well worth the time and money. After realizing that there wasn’t a ton to do in Telc, we took a short afternoon trip to the town of Jihlava, home to one of the largest town squares in Europe and also home to some 30 km of catacombs running under the city. All in all, twas a great weekend. Enjoy the pictures.

Mike and Joel in Telc.

From the outside Telc is really beautiful... I'm sure it is inside as well... when everything is intact and not under piles of rocks.

In the midst of the large park on the edge of Telc is a huge, old tree which is hollow inside... with room enough for at least a mid-size sedan... if the outside of the tree had a garage door or something similar. But lets be honest, that just stupid. I dont know how a tree ends up like that, but I found it picture-worthy.

Its really lovely what they've done with the place.

When life (Telc) give you lemons (cement blocks), make lemonade (castles).

Auschwitz

Two weeks ago, I stood in a room where literally thousands of people, all of whom believed that they were being decontaminated after a long train ride, were systematically executed.  I peered inside the furnaces where bodies were burned one after the other.  Occasionally, bodies not completely dead were placed inside.  I looked out over the fields and into the woods where the ashes were dumped.  

Somewhere between the room full of human hair, used for manufacturing industrial textiles, and the towering piles of suitcases, all meticulously labeled by owners believing they would be reunited with their belongings in the not too distant future, there is a lesson to be learned at Auschwitz.  I suppose the lessons most people receive are: “Hate has no excuse,” or “Unless we remember the atrocities of the past, history is doomed to repeat itself.”  I don’t disagree with either of these statements… but I guess the realization that affected me most was “I am no different.”  I am no different from the Jews, gypsies, and protesters who lived their last days packed with hundreds of others inside houses of wooden beds frames and overflowing stone latrines.  I am no different from the children who were beaten bloody because of the beliefs of their parents.  I am no different from the doctors who conducted fertility experiments on women in cold dark rooms.  I am no different from the Nazi soldiers who, when the experiments failed, lined the women up against a stone wall and shot them in the back of the head.  Somewhere inside me is the ability to withstand excruciating humiliation and agony.  Somewhere inside me in the capacity to inflict incomprehensible pain and suffering upon others.

My greatest disappointment that weekend came in the fact that I wasn’t more viscerally affected by the things I saw.  As an American who has sat through a great number of Holocaust lessons in grade school, perused the pages of Anne Frank’s diary, walked through the halls of the Holocaust Memorial in Washington D.C., and watched hours of concentration camp dramatizations like “Schindler’s List” or “Life is Beautiful,” I have been exposed to these atrocities before.  However, three specific things stand out in my mind for which I was not prepared.  First, the room full of human hair and the products made from this hair in an adjacent display.  Second, the sheer size of Auschwitz II was astounding to me.  A brisk walk from the main front gate to the ruins of the rear furnaces takes nearly 20 minutes.  Third, the moment I realized that for all of the first-hand accounts of the suffering that went on behind those walls, there are thousands of men and women who committed these crimes who go unrecognized as criminals by their families and neighbors.  I can only assume that during the last two years here, or in the 22 years prior, I have walked past former Nazi soldiers or family members on the street, stood next to them in a grocery store line, or worshipped with them in church.  But we never hear those stories.

Auschwitz I

Aushwitz-Birkenau

Auschwitz-Birkenau. In the background you can see a field of chimneys. Just prior to liberation, much of the camp was destroyed by the Nazis. Soon after the war, a private organization had all of the chimneys of the former bunkers rebuilt to demonstrate the scale of the crime.

"Work makes free."