So that's why I'm here...

It ain’t no secret that I’ve been going through a bit of a rough patch lately. Today as I actively dragged myself out of it to prevent my last month here from slipping away in a bad way, an initially unpleasant situation ultimately reminded me why I am here, and despite everything I’ve bee griping about, why I really do love the place.

After teaching my one lesson (I have a pretty easy Friday- not only do I finish with my official duties after the first hour of the day, the class is one of the best group of students to teach!) I pounced on the surprise rain reprieve and set out on a run. Since most of the trails were sure to be waterlogged or practically little rivers themselves, I decided to stick to the paved roads. I headed north up a residential side-road. Just as I was about to pass a woman walking I tripped on a grate past some train tracks and re-twisted my ankle.

I’m a klutz and over the years have found numerous and ridiculous opportunities to sprain or twist my ankles. Back in March though, the week before I left for the Dolomites, I REALLY sprained it. It’s taken a long time to heal and every-once-and-a-while still gives me some trouble. So, after I rolled it and felt the instantaneous shooting pain of a re-injury—like waking up some kind of angry sleeping beast—I was pretty sure that I had taken about twenty steps back in the healing process and had foiled my hiking plans for the next day. I pulled over and sat down on the curb for a second to assess the situation.

The woman I had been on the brink of passing stopped walking and asked me (in Slovak) if I needed help, or if she needed to go find help somewhere. I insisted I was fine, and tried to express that it was a simple ankle re-roll. She then asked where I was from, and I discovered that her daughter lives in Toronto Canada, and has two amazing children, “Max a Zovey (Max and Zooey)”. When I was able to stand I hobbled next to her as we continued up the road. She asked where I was going, what I was up to, etc. When we parted ways at her gate she told me that on the way back I should stop by for some coffee.

I proceeded to get in a pretty decent jog. The paved road eventually morphs into a forest service road, so I did get a little gentle trail running in after all. It started raining on me, at first simply spitting but eventually picking up force. As Becky, one of my fellow Americans says though, “once you’re out it doesn’t matter.” Truth. In fact, for the first time in a while I was actually enjoying and appreciating the rain.

On the way back I was contemplating whether or not I was actually going to stop at this complete stranger’s house. I’ve been a guest in Slovak homes, and sometimes the overwhelming hospitality can turn into a hostage-like situation pretty quickly. Was I ready for that? Or did I just need to generate some good ol’ endorphins solo?

As I was about to pass her house (I was soaking wet, I didn’t want to get her house dirty, and oh, yeah, I didn’t even KNOW her and there’s that whole language barrier…) I decided to stop at the last second. I opened the gate, cautiously ascended the steps and pushed the buzzer with a green bell on it. I didn’t hear any sound from within, but you never know about these doorbells. I waited around for a good solid minute, then, almost relieved, descended the steps and headed back out into the rain to finish my run. What was I thinking; it would have been a bad idea anyways….

Not twenty strides away I heard a shout and the woman was at her kitchen window signaling to me. I re-approached the house and tried to convey that I was wet so maybe I should just wait on the porch. She insisted I come in—which I expected—but told me just to leave my shoes on instead of slipping into a pair of house slippers—which I did NOT expect. Between knowing how Slovaks feel about shoes in the house (not good) and my own mother (really not good) I cringed with every step I took knowing that I was leaving a trail of wet shoe prints on her immaculate floors.

We entered her kitchen; she sat me down and started boiling water for instant coffee and cutting an inevitable slice of cake despite my protests. She also brought over envelopes with pictures of little Max, Zooey, and her daughter and son-in-law skiing back home in Canada and on vacation in Cuba. She’d gesture at a particularly cute picture, or elaborate on where the happy family was vacationing.

I spent about a half hour or 40 minutes in this woman’s house, and I never did catch her name. We talked about what I was doing in Slovakia and I found myself elaborating on my whole long and involved connection with this country. After feeling like my zeal for being here and the validity of my project had recently gone a little stale, this helped revive it. She told me more about her family, here bi-annual visits to Canada, and a surgery she had had there which I think we were able to agree was on her thyroid gland. She told me about her afternoon plans to go to Brezno to buy boots for one of her granddaughters, and filled me on a great place in Tisovec to get some shoes if I ever need them. The whole interaction took place in Slovak, and I was even struggling through (and probably butchering) some past-tense. Nevertheless the message was received and she seemed to understand everything I was trying to say, even about old Slovaks being hard workers—especially in the Orava region both she and my grandma’s family were from. It felt like we were actually communicating, beyond the small talk I so-often have with strangers or the cleaning women at my school. And I was doing it by myself, without the aid of one of my students for translation.

Outside again on the porch I thanked her profusely while she rubbed my cheek, said it was nothing, and hoped there’d be a second time. She showed me the right doorbell to use on my next visit. After closing the gate behind me I stuck in one of my earphones and Cat Steven’s “the wind” was playing, one of my ANTHEMS and the perfect song to hear at that moment! I was totally jazzed.

At first I thought I had re-injured my ankle, that despite my efforts to improve my situation here I had actually made it worse. But if I had just jogged by that woman, and had not instead been engaged in conversation our happy little meeting would probably never have transpired. The piece of cake probably canceled out my run, but the social interaction, subtle reminder of why I’m even here in the first place, and of course getting out for a while kept the balance in the positive for sure.

I might have to jump off Hradova

I am becoming the laziest girl! Case and point: Last night, after the 5th year graduation and reception ceremonies at EGT, and the weekly “Friday Night Lights” Bible study which I currently live for, after the lovely walk to the lake I took with Liptak because the evening was so pleasant and I just wasn’t ready to be confined to my box yet; I should have sat down at my desk and done some serious work. I need to get out another installment of “These Slovak Lives.” I need to write up my experiences as an ETA for a compilation the Slovak Fulbright ETA’s are putting together. I just cracked open Faulkner’s “A Light in August” for an ambitious re-read. Instead however, I borrowed the Kiara Knightly version of “Pride and Prejudice” from Liptak and proceeded to stay up until midnight watching the film and all the bonus material. Then, this morning I slept in until 9:00 because I only had one class to teach at 12:20.

This isn’t me, this isn’t how I operate. I like to be busy, I like to have stuff going on, and I like a little less alone time. “Stuff going on” doesn’t have to be busy-body mile-a-minute distractions. It can mean anything from having plans to meet up with someone for coffee, a hike or bike ride, to meeting some kind of academic or professional deadline. Heck, it even means breaking down camp and hiking all day. Right now I am drowning in scads of free time but not the good kind, and I’m running out of ideas of how to spend it. I feel like I am stagnating.

Part of this is just life I am sure. I come from a large family, all through college I was on a crew team which means very close and constant quarters with a small group of girls, and I never had less than three other roommates, usually 5. This past summer I lived with a group of 12-13 other humans 24-7 for three weeks at a time, and I saw my co-leader every day from early June through August 10th. Half the time we slept in the same tent. To expect such constant social contact for the rest of my life is unrealistic, especially since I like to travel and jet off to new places. But I think I’ve literally started talking to myself, or maybe not talking to myself but just saying things out loud when there is nobody else around. Like if I’m on an (amazing) solo hike, or I’m sitting in my apartment alone at dusk feeling like I am squandering daylight and life by sitting at home alone.

But what else am I supposed do to? Working out has recently become my main release/ focus. When the rain lets up (or sometimes in the rain) there are great hikes to go on and plenty of loops to be run. I’ve even started using our school gym regularly again. But you can’t hike too far alone here because there have been some pretty fresh sightings of bear tracks (Liptak took some rad photos, maybe posted on her blog?) and I don’t know, when you’re already feeling funk-a-fied it is just so easy to say no if you are the only person holding yourself accountable.

From today I believe I have 38 days left in Slovakia. At once that seems like too much time, and not nearly enough. During the M-F grind where I am barely needed and required to do very little but don’t have time to jump on a bus and go explore somewhere else I wonder if I’ll last that long. In moments like this morning, when I was trapped in un-restful but debilitating sleep until 9:00 in the morning because frankly, what else was I going to do, 38 days feel like eternity. Yet when I count the weekends left, and try to schedule in all of the adventures I still need to have or people and places I need to see, or just realize that July 2nd really is an expiration date and closes the Slovakia chapter of my life (at least for the foreseeable future), I feel like I’m wasting time just looking at a calendar—that’s so soon! I still need to climb a big mountain in the High Tatras, go to the folklore festival in Hel’pa, see some famous caves of Slovakia and make gulas over a fire with my friends and family in Brehy for the last time!

So, instead of boring you with my extended complaining about lacking motivation and inspiration I think I should end it here. But sweet God, if you have any suggestions (or a job for me when I return to Colorado in July…) then let me know! I just have to keep reminding myself that this is an exceptional learning experience, and essentially exactly what I asked for.

Do I live in Slovakia, or Costa Rica?

Many a morning or late afternoon lately I've found myself wondering if the climate is not a little more tropical here... Krasny.

And then there was Darkness...

This might be taken the wrong way, but as a child I was deprived of power outages. We always had a generator, so even in the most inclement of weather once you heard that buzz kick in you knew you were on reserve power. There was no stash of candles, flashlights or extra batteries. We didn’t have to entertain ourselves sans-electricity, our regular rhythm of life was in no way disrupted. I sort of feel like I missed out.

Wednesday night I was watching a movie with my fellow Americanska ucitelkas (female American teachers. I may have conjugated some of that wrong…). In about the last third of the movie (Stranger than Fiction) it started raining outside. I thought about how nice it would be to cross the hall, crawl into my bed, and listen to the rain through an open window. A few minutes later a far-off thunder begun to rumble, which was exciting because there hasn’t been much thunder since I’ve been here, mostly just precipitation.

Suddenly, a red flash (perhaps tinged that color by the garish orange blinds in our apartments) lit up the room and was immediately —if not instantaneously—accompanied by the loudest CRACK of thunder I have ever heard. It sounded like it was right above the building. The lights in the in adjoining room went out, thought about coming back on, before the fuse most definitely decided to be blown. The entire town was washed in a thick blackness, except for the mine on the hill which obviously is equipped with generators.

After bumbling around in the dark for a while and locating my headlamp I set about finding the few candles I have. Over New Year’s my kitchen light blew and since it was a holiday I had to wait a few day to get it fixed. Especially in the winter there is plenty of dark-time here, so instead of just camping out in my bedroom I decided to find alternate illumination sources. I found some empty beer bottles (don’t worry, you save them up and then return them to the store for a small refund. It’s not like I’m some crazy lush drowning in empty bottles…) and jammed some candles I had purchased into them. As I believe I mentioned in earlier posts I don’t have the most furniture, and candle sticks are definitely not part of my Spartan décor. So I improvised, and the bottles worked fantastic. Anyways, I bring this up because since January I haven’t really felt the need to light them, and just this week I was contemplating throwing them out—half-burned candles and all.

Glad I didn’t. Those two candles served as my primary light source, as the other candle I have is near the end of it’s life, and the essential oil burner thingy I have is more for vaporizing pleasant scents of lavender and cypress—my attempt at neutralizing the more unpleasant odors of cigarette smoke and grease that creep under my doorframe and saturate my existence with stink—than providing light.

Anyways, back to the power outage. At this point it was about 10:00 at night. I had lit my few candles, opened one of my windows, and crawled into bed to listen and take it all in. Even though my computer had a solid battery charge I refrained from pulling it out and listening to ambient music. I was going to BE in this blackout! I also could have just gone to sleep, 10:00 is an entirely reasonable time for me to retire, and maybe I should refrain from telling you how often I go to bed before then… And since I like to sleep in the dark I don’t really need electricity for that.

But it was the novelty of the whole experience—the only reason I could possibly be so tickled by the blackout is because like I said, it hasn’t really happened to me a lot. It feels so pastoral I guess- like this mandatory timeout from the sky. But I only get internet at school, and as of late that has been incredibly sketchy and unreliable. When I see that blank screen or failed connection however I don’t think “oh yay! This is so great! Guess I’ll just have to sit around and wait till it works. Board game anyone?” Instead I get practically belligerent and want to damage things or at least say angry words.

Also, my power outage lasted all of an hour if that (some people in Tisovec claim to have been powerless all night). I got to play with my candles and feel “off the grid” but before I was even done writing about the ordeal in my journal the refrigerator started to buzz again and the kitchen light flicked on of its own accord. If the blackout had lasted longer, if I had needed to shower in the pitch black or couldn’t charge my computer anywhere or make coffee in the morning I probably would have been over it. It wouldn’t have been so cute anymore.

More Spring pics

This 5 picture limit is really restricting...

Spring is SPRINGING!!!

In the last few weeks anything and everthing alive has been exploding. Apple, pear, and cherry trees are blossoming and saturating the air with their intoxicating scent, a welcomed change from the more standard smell of burning tire or the like. Daffodils and tulips are cheering up the otherwise drab fronts of gray stucco houses, and people are outside too! The Slovaks have been working hard in their gardens to get the soil tilled and potatoe, tomoatoe, carrot, onion, and lettuce seeds planted to name a few. The rollerbladers have also re-emerged, so I KNOW winter is over!!!