Thievery

In a city of 1.3 million, there is apt to be crime. On Friday, my portable data projector was heisted from our sanctuary as we prepared to recognize students who had satisfactorily completed the first session of English camp. The doors were locked, but we think the thief slipped in through a window. This was, we believe, an inside job since the robber knew where to look.

Our camp takes place on the grounds of a residence for Christian students and others associated with the church, a complex of possibly 100 people during the school year.  Not all people are honest.

It’s disheartening, but our program continues.  The police, when I went to see them, were polite, efficient and sympathetic.  I had expected far less.  The Czechs tell horror stories about their police force—perhaps their distrust is a vestige of Communism. 

Our room is now double locked at all times.  I have bought a new camera, a sense of security is more difficult to replace.  Travel makes us more vulnerable than we would be at home for the outsider is conspicuous.

I take what I view as sensible precautions.  On the whole I’ve had pretty good luck. This is my tenth international project and my first really serious problem.  

A matter of taste

Twice a day, we provide snacks for our students—yogurt, fruit, vegetables, nuts, cakes, cookies.  I’d imagined we’d have to limit the children’s access to sugar, but  I was wrong.  They are not very interested in sweets, preferring vegetables and peanuts.

Although the Czechs make excellent pastries, the basic Czech diet is low in sugar.  When we baked bread, my students thought it peculiar that I use a half cup of sugar for two loaves of bread—hardly excessive in my mind.  They would have used a single tablespoon, only.

The Czech diet is high in fat. However, obesity is far less prevalent than in the US, possibly because Czechs walk so much.  The favorite meat here is pork. Knowing this, I prepared a lean pork broth for yesterday’s lunch. I threw in cabbage, carrots, leeks, potatoes and turnip, since all these vegetables are popular here.  The result, I gather, was more Chinese than Czech. The students said they had never eaten anything like it. They thought it odd I had skimmed off so much of the fat.  

A Learning Community

Each morning, we separate into groups.  Sometimes we put adults and children together; but more often we instruct these groups separately so we can offer the grownups advanced work on grammar and vocabulary.  Later, we have a snack and afterwards, singing, which Gary leads.

Lunch is included in the cost of the camp, and we prepare it together. Our students believe a bowl of soup is essential for an adequate lunch, so I start a broth each morning, and we throw in vegetables later on. This is particularly good for the less advanced students’ English development.  

English Conversation on subjects the students choose rounds out the day. We continually ask them what they need help with and develop lessons accordingly. Homework is voluntary, but if students complete it, we critique it.  Everyone in our program wants to be there.

 There is no school board, no hierarchy.  We negotiate how we’ll develop the program, and the students negotiate with us.  It’s idyllic.

First Day

On Sunday night, Michelle, Gary, Joe and I were worried about our project.  We didn’t know much about the students who’d be coming, and we didn’t have a lot to work with. The electricity was not working, and our supplies were limited to paper, markers, and masking tape. I didn’t even have a chalk board.  

But the students came, and we got busy assessing them.  Most have university English and wanted a chance to practice speaking.  Two brought their children, and we incorporated them into our activities.  We sang English songs.  We ate a meal together. We discussed current events, incorporating vocabulary and grammar.  And we saw that, thank God, we’d be able to bring this thing off.

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  As Marva Collins said,  materials don’t teach; buildings don’t teach; people teach.

Remembering

Today, I visited Terezin or Theresienstadt, as the Nazis called it, and I said Kaddish for Willie’s mother.  My family is Jewish; all four of my grandparents came from somewhere in Eastern Europe: Austria, Latvia, Romania and Poland.  An Austrian, Wilfred Stark was my grandmother’s younger half-brother, making Willie my Great Uncle.

In 1938, Hitler forced his way into Austria.  Willie, who was then in his teens, joined the Resistance and got locked up in Dachau where he spent two and a half miserable years. Then, he was released—something that almost never occurred.  Perhaps his mother bribed an official. He fled Austria, and fortunately the U.S. government admitted him to America where he had family. He enlisted in the U.S. army, and his command of German made him useful to army intelligence. His widow says Willie was decorated, but he never spoke of this.  After the war, Willie searched for his mother and learned she had died at Terezin.

Technically, it was not a death camp; it was a resettlement center where Jews were shipped before being sent to their deaths in places like Auschwitz and Treblinka. There were no gas chambers at Terezin, though plenty of people died there from disease and starvation, since the living conditions were horrific. Naturally, guards hanged, beat to death, or shot inmates who gave them trouble.  The place was prettied up from time to time so that organizations like the Red Cross could see how humanely the Nazis treated Jews.   In all, 33,000 people died at Terezin.  Another 88,000 of its inmates were shipped out and died in death camps. Willie’s mother died at Terezin itself.

Other than Willie, every European member of our family who had not moved to America before 1930 was killed.   I don’t know how many there were.  My parents would not discuss it.

What impressed me most about Terezin was not its brutality, which I’d expected, but its efficiency. The Nazis kept excellent records, and produced lots of memos. They had well developed systems for disposing of bodies.  And judging from pictures, Terezin was pretty even during the war, a walled city set in beautiful countryside with grass, trees, a river and flowers.  

I don’t understand what happened; I doubt that anyone does.  I stood in the barracks at Terezin, reciting the mourner’s Kaddish. Its familiar rhythm was soothing, but its words which praise God, seemed completely irrelevant. I know clergy who encourage their congregations to chant:

God is good all the time,
And all the time,
God is good.

It’s not that I disagree.  But in a world where the Holocaust happened, the statement is at best a platitude and can serve as encouragement not to think.  

Digs

Here in Prague, we are staying in a dorm for seminary students. The body you see in the background belongs to my husband Joe. While his appetite for travel is less than mine, his capacity for sleep during trips is much greater.  

The beds are comfortable, but I was unable to stave off the ghoulies of sleeplessness very long, though I'm exhausted. I don’t have as much of a problem with jet lag when I travel to Asia. I've heard the direction of travel make a big difference.

Going formal

Typically, I’m not big on ostentatious red, white and blue outfits.  Nor do I like to dress up when traveling; I opt for comfort. The trip to Prague takes about 23 hours, counting airport time, so I thought about wearing my sweats.

Then I recalled last year’s trip to Hong Kong where because of a flight delay, there was a tight connection. and I got shaky going through a scanning machine. A tall, humorless Homeland Security agent gave me what amounted to a gynecological exam with my clothes on. It took a long time, and we missed our connection. 

Would it help to look more respectable?  Well, it couldn’t hurt. 
So for this trip, which began on the Fourth of July, I got decked out in head to toe red, white, and blue. I even wore an expansive red hat that would have made my children wince.

I can't prove it makes any difference during security checks, but it's actually fun going formal.  Our
trip was uneventful, as most of them are. Except for a thunder storm over the Atlantic and a bout of turbulence between Amsterdam and Prague which resembled a roller coaster ride, our trip was uneventful. We are now in Prague.