Please execute my daughter...

As the PE excuse notes accumulate, I continue to require my students to translate them into english if the parent has written the excuse in slovak. Hence the latest gem written by a Prima (first year or 5th grader): "Please execute my daughter because she has been ill." Talk about tough love! "Oh, Barbora," I said, "do you know what you've written?" Friend Dominika understood and helped translate by making the "slit the throat" gesture across her neck. Actually if it had been written by a Quarta (fourth year or 8th grader) I probably WOULD have! All three of the Quarta classes I teach have severe cases of senioritis, compounded by hormones and 13-years-old attitude; they are troublesome to all their teachers, not just me. It appears that eighth graders act like, well, eighth graders, no matter where they go to school.

Last week-end was our last long week-end and a well-needed break for both teachers and students. Tuesday, May 8, was the actual holiday but I requested and received permission to take off Monday as a personal day. (I don't really think I have personal days but I didn't let that stop me.)

This allowed me to travel to Olomouc (say Olla-moats) in the Moravian region of Czech Republic, and support Fulbrighter Kat in her efforts to organize a 6K Fun Run. Kat is in public health and had previously lived and and studied in Olomouc some years before. Her Fulbright proposal involved drug prevention and this Fun Run was to be a culminating activity for her year here. Kat, herself, is an ultra-marathoner, has been working with agencies and not in schools like many of us.

As I often do, I went on line to read about Olomouc but as is also common I encountered some strangely translated information. Like "We prepare for you new webpage presently of UNESCO Czech Heritage Association. It would work in the beginning of year 2007. Actually in Czech version only." (May 3rd and it still wasn't working - in any language.) Elsewhere there was some historical background discussing the local trade issues in the 1300's stating "problems with Vietnamese merchants were not serious get." Non-functioning web sites and blaming the Vietnamese for Czech trade problems. Isn't the internet great?

Fulbrighter Jon and his colleague Amy joined me on the 3-hour train ride from Bratislava. Shelly came down from Decin and met Juliana in Prague, arriving shortly after us. Meg (a real runner) teaches in Olomouc so she was already there, and Ben arrived Saturday evening, missing the race but not the pub celebration.

Olomouc was having a theater week and Kat had picked up tickets for Dybbuk, a performance art piece set in a tent, reminding me of Cirque du Soleil. Well, maybe not so much, as the artist was a Russian dancer with a gymnast's body, but pre-Olga Korbut. Everyone had different takes on the show, but that's what made it interesting, and the music and lighting enhanced the piece. After that we all went our separate ways, planning to meet the next morning for the run.

Saturday dawned a dismal spring day, definitely taking some of the FUN out of the RUN. As it looked to be one of those days where the weather wasn't going to lift, no families came with children and who could blame them? The small group of participants were mainly people from local running clubs, including a female 94-year old former champion! We had taken a bus to the edge of town, driving up to Svaty Kopecek which Kat told me was owned by the Catholic Church. On the hillside sits the baroque church of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary. When Pope John Paul II rolled into town in 1995 he promoted the church to Minor Basilica (don't ask me) and also canonized Father John Sarkander, who had been tortured to death during the Thirty Years War which decimated Olomouc.

Because of the Church ownership Kat no difficulty in getting permission for her run, and no complications in dealing with municipalities because she really didn't have to. I told Kat I was expecting a jumbotron, gatorade and an inflatable start/finish line. Well, we had water, hard candy and someone's dog there for everyone's petting pleasure. NOT the Chicago Marathon, BUT the Olomouc 6K! (I never did find out why it was a 6K.)

The course was one of Kat's favorite runs: twisty, slightly hilly and deep in the woods. Routes had been marked earlier that morning; unfortunately MANY marks were all over the course: crepe paper, painted arrows, regular trail marks, etc. We had a rolling start and some of us (including guess who) managed to take a wrong fork, ending up going much further than planned. This seems to be a recurring theme for me. Hey, I get to see so much more this way! (And as far as I know the 94-year-old champ had no such difficulty!) Meg finished early (natch) and took us to see some monastic ruins in the area. Everyone had a great time, walking, running, 6K more or less. In leiu of an entrance fee we donated money to a special school in the area, and each left with a small ceramic horseshoe made by the students there.

We got back into town and after Kat told us about a Mexican restaurant, we decided to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, a weak excuse to have a bad margherita with lunch. I seem to remember words like interesting...and different... to describe our meals; and the salsa tasted like Ragu spaghetti sauce. One of the things I continue to miss is good mexican food! Later we re-convened at Kat's local pub for some good, cheap Czech beer, but only until 10:00 when the joint shut down.

Jon and Amy left Sunday morning and Kat spent the day with Juliana, Shelly and me, acting as our own personal tour guide. We walked the old town square, visited St. Wenceslas Cathedral, which eventually became an archbishopric in the 1700's. Olomouc at one time was the capital of Moravia before relinquishing that honor to Brno. The Modern Art Museum, surprisingly, held works by Klimt, Tiffany, Hoffman, Wagner, original Thonet furniture and a terrific Jindrich Streit b/w/photography exhibit.

Olomouc is a small university town; with a population of 100,000, it is 1/5 the size of "bustling" Bratislava. It is a town of fountains; we saw all six of them, each at the center of the various squares. Unlike most towns who removed their fountains when they installed water pipes, Olomouc kept them as reservoirs in case of fire. In fact, little Olomouc is the second largest historical monument preserve in the country after Prague, but has none of its tourists.

Olomouc has long had a German affiliation and at one time, re-named one of its squares after Adolf Hitler. The Czech residents changed the name again after the town was liberated. When the retreating German army passed through the town in the final weeks of the war, they opened fire on the town hall, destroying the old astronomical clock. It was re-built in the 1950's so what we saw was the proletarian version, which included a girl with a basketball under her arm, wearing, I'm pretty sure my old gym suit from St. Francis.

And their plague column is to die for. Really. The Holy Trinity Column is UNESCO-protected, huge and sculpted and you can go inside of it; a nun sits there and tells you all about it. Oh, yeah, and everyone seems to want to hop on the Sister City bandwagon. Olomouc has eight including Owensboro, Kentucky.

We all took trains the next morning, Juliana and Shelly to Prague, where Shelly could then continue home to Decin. I headed to Brno, this time, to visit another Fulbrighter and her family. I had booked a no-change train and was just settling in, most others having exited my compartment when the last traveler hoisted his backback and said something to me in Czech. Realizing I didn't understand him, he called the conductor over who kept saying "autobus" to which I kept replying, "I have to take a bus to Brno?" as if the more I said it, the more it would change the outcome. Talk about a conversation going nowhere...

Anyway, we all unboarded the train and stood together to wait for the bus. The conductor saw me and gave me the high sign as in, Yes, dear, you are indeed taking a bus AND standing in the correct line. We traveled 20 minutes on our bus and then re-boarded a very crowded train (there had been a rail problem) to get us into Brno only about 15 minutes late which I thought was remarkable.

Betsy met me and we went to her flat to meet her family and have some lunch. She, Bayrd and 9-year old Sophie live in a beautiful area, very hilly and at the edge of woods which she and Bayrd use for morning runs. Betsy also showed me their neighborhood pool which Bayrd has christened the "tuna tank". It seems many Czechs swim very creatively within the lane lines, seemingly unaware of others. Personal space is way different in Europe!

Betsy and Sophie had recently been to Bratislava and toured the town square, which they found to be much more interesting than Brno's. So Betsy's plan for the afternoon was to go to their reservoir, ferry up to some point and combine this with some hiking. (You know, tramping out in nature.) As the clouds and rain had moved out, replaced by a beautiful sunny day, this seemed like a great idea.

The ferry is set up so that it can make a number of stops along the reservoir, letting people out and on with the turn of a dockside sign that you pivot to indicate that the boat should stop. At some point we opted to get out so we could walk a bit, justifying a liquid break down the road. We hiked back on the other side of the water, sometimes walking through the rape seed fields and coming out all pollenated with the residue from the yellow blossoms. Rape seed is harvested to make both canola and benzine oils, and it looks like a blanket of gold covering the countryside.

As time was running out, we hopped a bus on the return to shorten our hike. Sophie and I sat and chatted as we watched others board the bus, including fishermen, archers and musicians. I have to say we had the best time, enjoying the area and each other's company. And if anyone out there is lucky enough to know Dirk, I've found his match. Sophie is an absolute delight and seems to be enjoying the year abroad. We were comparing PE, a favorite activity and she kept asking if I did Sokol with my students, referring to a traditional system for performing calesthenics. As you can imagine, Sophie did not exactly embrace Sokol, although she is one of the few girls in her class to participate regularly. Betsy and I had spoken about this last February and I mentioned it in a previous entry; things haven't changed since then.

Sokol is Czech for falcon, the symbol of the nationalistic organization founded in 1862 in the Czech lands which would later become Czechoslovakia, and now Czech Republic and Slovak Republic. It was dedicated to the development of physical fitness, and at that time consisted mostly of regimented gymnastics, exercises and calesthenics. It traveled stateside a few years later, brought over by Czech and Slovak immigrants. Sokol USA is a "fraternal organization serving its members with physical fitness programs, cultural activities and LIFE INSURANCE". Even now, these exercise routines are taught in private gyms throughout the country. Participants then come together for SokolFests (Cincinnati 2007!), huge exhibitions which showcase these routines performed by many groups according to ages, sort of like a family version of half-time at the Orange Bowl. (Everyone keeps his/her shirt on.)

That evening at the flat, Sophie entertained us by modeling her birthday present, a hand-sewn Czech folk dress. While Bayrd and I talked in the living room, Betsy helped Sophie get dressed next door in the bedroom. Starting with her special slip and a red bow in her hair, Sophie came running out to show us each layer. As a sewer I appreciated the fine work, and also the clever way that horizontal tucks were sewn into the skirts so they could eventually be let out to grow with Sophie. I'm not sure, but I'd guess she made at least six or seven appearances before the outfit was complete, including special hand-knit knee sox and pointy, tan leather lace up shoes. This was the summer version of the folk costume, but the outfit was incredibly heavy. One of her friends had taught her a folk dance, so Sophie finished the show by performing in front of a wildy appreciative audience.

Back at school the following week, we had the final ringing. The juniors prepare a special event for the seniors last morning at school. Each student is given a single flower and then the class visits the faculty offices to wish their thanks, say good bys, and unveil their class composite picture. This picture (about 30 x 48) then gets displayed in a local store window, with an internet competition for the "best photo display". Many of the students present their flowers to the teachers; my yoga kids thanked me for holding our optional class and gave me a tulip, which I found so touching. Then at the end the bell sounds for a full five minutes, marking their last bell ever for secondary school. We were in the gym at the time and not knowing about the custom, I thought it was a fire drill (If we've had one, I've not been there for it.) My class thought so too, but quickly returned to the non-burning gym because they wanted to finish their game! OK, it was vybijana (dodgeball), but, hey, they were invested!