Melnik Musings

Saturday we started off on an early morning trip to Melnik, a town about forty-five minutes north of Prague. Melnik is perched high on an escarpment and is surrounded by vineyards. It is positioned at the confluence of the Vltava and Elbe rivers. The major attraction in Melnik is a Chateau , referred to in English as Melnik Castle, but it is not called a castle in Czech or German.

We met Rebekah, our travelling companion and guide, at the church at Namesti Miru, at 7:15 AM and then walked to the Metro to go to the Holesovice bus station. There we boarded a nice bus for the forty-five minute trip to Melnik. We walked from the Melnik bus station to the town center which contains the striking features of a market square, a Renaissance town hall and a clock tower. Once there our major quest was for coffee. We circled the square and settled on a little café which had only six tables, five of which were filled with what seemed to be locals. We ordered on cappuccino, two lattes and two small pastries – one of which was a total mystery to us but which was really delightful to the palate.

From the café we set out to do some serious searching of the shops in the market square. I suggested we go into the sporting goods shop we came across first on our wandering. This proved to be an excellent first choice as Rebekah found a Hi-Tek vest on sale and purchased it without hesitation. John bought four whistles for the school, as we don’t have enough for all the teachers to use to gather their flock. We then perused several other shops while successfully avoiding any further purchases. After tiring of shopping we headed for the Chateau. The tours there are self-guided. We received a printout in English to aid our journey through time in the Chateau.

This tour was especially charming as we were able to be up close and personal with furniture, paintings, mirrors, and other smaller artifacts from the 1500s and 1600s. We were able to touch, smell and see several of these. Highlights included the massive bedroom, the ballroom, the map room and the concert hall. Each room contained many original or near original furnishings. The map room featured maps from Amsterdam in the 1600s. There were intricately hand-drawn maps of more than twenty European cities. This was indeed impressive. We saw the tables set with service pieces in the large dining room, and the grand drawing room is the perfect spot to have tea with twenty or thirty of your close friends – very impressive indeed. One room and staircase contained a multitude of guns and hunting trophies.

Enough of the Chateau except to say it has become my favorite historical site to visit in the CR. It was better than Karlstyn Castle and other places we have seen. It was now time for the serious business of lunch. Liz and I were yearning for pizza and Rebekah agreed with our desire. We found a nice inner courtyard restaurant and were completely satisfied with the choice. The food was good, the service was foreigner friendly and the restrooms were clean – how could it get any better? We ate all we could and left some slices for under US$20 for the three of us.

Speaking of serious business, it was now time to return to the Chateau for wine tasting. This is no Sonoma Valley wine tasting experience. We walked all alone down a fairly dark, stone staircase into history. This was all likely from the 1600s. The entry door was about five and a half feet high so I had to duck to get in - I felt really tall! After navigating down the dark, dank stairs we came to a large open space. There were nine ancient barrels sitting upright in a u shape. On each barrel were two bottles, one opened and one yet-to-be-opened, of a variety of wine. We had been given a basket of typical Czech rye bread before we started our descent in order to partially cleanse our palates between samplings.

We were alone in this dimly lit cellar for most of the time. Suddenly a charming, young redheaded Czech man came down carrying a few bottles of wine. He spoke English with a most delightful accent. He had come to replenish the empty bottles with new bottles. We decided as we went around the u shaped area that we needed to reduce the amount of wine we poured ourselves as samples if we were to make it back up the stairs and return home. About our seventh tasting, a group of Czech or Germans descended to join us. We finished up and made it up the stairs to daylight, returned our glasses and basket of bread and exited the Chateau grounds.

The afternoon was gloriously sunny and in temperature was in the mid sixties – a great improvement over the cloudy week we had just experienced. Hence we walked toward the river – winding our way through the vineyards below. We walked across a highway bridge to get better views of the surrounding and the Chateau as it stood elegantly high on the escarpment. The tree leaves on the hillside were beginning to shimmer in their fall colors of yellow and red and we were treated to superb sights of nature. The river water was moving very slowly and was a murky brown just like the Missouri and Kansas rivers. The view across into the agricultural valley was splendid indeed, marred only by the immense, coal burning power generating station in the background of our view. But we are thankful that it was there as it undoubtedly supplies vast amounts of electrical power to Prague.

We made was last stop for pictures in the market square before meandering back to the bus station – about a twenty minute walk from the old town. The temperature was now nearing seventy and we shed our outer garments as we returned. Only last Saturday on a cloudy, cold day we were being chilled by the Czech weather and Liz had to buy a scarf to remain close to comfortable – today it was the opposite.

When we reached the bus station we were warm and thirsty. We found that we had about thirty minutes to wait for the next bus, so we strolled over to a nearby grocery store. A little chocolate, a little coke, a little bottled water were our purchases. We return and wait for the bus to take us back to Prague eating and drinking and carrying on teachers’ favorite pastime – talking about our students – who are all so interesting. In the distance we hear quite a racket coming our way. To our consternation it is our bust making a terrible clatter. Liz verbalizes, “That does not sound good.” We all agree and wait to see what happens.

We buy our tickets and board the bus. But then the driver gets off and begins making phone calls. Some passengers get off to smoke – the ubiquitous sport of many Czechs. We get off as it is warm on the bus. The driver continues to make phone calls. More people get off the bus. Then the driver tells everyone to get off. About thirty minutes have now passed since our initial failed boarding. Everyone starts walking to a bus that just pulled up at a different boarding gate. This bus is about half full. Our bus was three quarters full. The numbers don’t look good.

There is a monster queue as we all try and board. Since we never really knew what was being said, we are about the last people on the bus. There are no unoccupied seats and there are people standing in the aisles. We make our way down the aisle toward the back of the bus. I am confident that some young person will give us his/her seat. As Liz leads us down the aisle, a nice young lady graciously give up her seat to Liz. I look at the other youth in seats, but my hopes fades as I see their demeanors. I was right. Rebekah and I are among the lucky ones who will stand on the forty-five minute journey back to Prague. I am somewhat disgusted with the youth as several times in Prague I had been give a seat by a polite young person. But by standing, I see the countryside better and Rebekah and I swap traveling stories most of the way back to make the time go faster. I try and crown the seated young man I am closest to make him painfully aware that I should be in that seat according to Czech custom and law. It does not work. We arrive back at Holesvice station and board the metro to return to our flat. Rebekah comes with to use the internet at our place.

Unfortunately the Internet is badly misbehaving and nearly unusable. We had planned to eat together, but Rebekah is now thinking of all the school work she needs to do and decides to head home. Liz fixes a dinner of tuna and noodles that is good. I make a quick journey to the Polska Potraviny to pick up a few items for tomorrow’s meals. We are disappointed that MLB is on our TV sports channel instead of a college football game. We try a few more phone calls to the USA (over the internet) and are only marginally successful. We surf a bit, do a bit of school work, and watch some TV before retiring for the night. It was a very good day.

The Duck Was Found In Kutna Hora

Prague is a very busy city with people scurrying across streets to catch a tram or underground train with cars, trucks, and trams crossing the street in front of you also. We like most people here live in an apartment with little space to move and groove, so we like most Czech families have found it very pleasurable to get out into the country or small villages for at least part of the weekend. Here we see part of the countryside with farms, grain fields(corn, rye, and sunflower) besides seeing trees, rivers, and forests. To get away from the cramped quarters, busy sounds, and smoggy city air is a treat.

This weekend we traveled to Kutna Hora by train with our friend, Rebecca, a fellow teacher at the school. The historical grandeur of the churches is amazing. We chose not to visit one of the tourists sites that has human skeletal bones decorating the sanctuary. There is even a chandelier made of bones. Check out this website if you are interested.

http://www.artgraphica.net/art-shop/prague-kutna-hora-bone-church.htm

The air was chilly, so our first stop was for a “kaffe” latte. We enjoyed the warmth and coziness of the little coffee shop.

We walked around town stepping into various shops to find something warmer to wear as I, Liz did not dress appropriately for the cool temperatures and windy conditions. I purchased a sweater, two scarves to tie around my neck, and gloves for my hands. I had a small temperature gauge attached to my bag and saw that it was 50 degrees, but quite a windchill when the wind came whipping through the narrow cobblestone streets. Below left shows the quaintness and beauty of a typical residential street in Kutna Hora.

Yes, we did find duck in Kutna Hora. Rebecca and I shared an order of roasted duck with bread dumpings and red cabbage. We enjoyed a glass of fine dark Czech beer as well, but added a hot garlic soup to the dinner for added warming up. John had some curried chicken dish which he enjoyed. This made up for the duck we missed in Tabor three weeks ago. Rebecca had her Czech down pat and the duck arrived as hoped for.

We stepped into several small ceramic shops to see local pottery. And I even made a purchase there to buy some ceramic angels which I plan to give as gifts to my fellow elementary teachers who have been angels to help me get started here at CISP. They are all returning from last year, however, not to return next year, so a whole new crop of teachers need to be found for this school. Leslie Johnson, our director is returning to the States in October for a recruiting trip. I think she will be in Chicago at North Park College.

While we were strolling around Kutna Hora walking JJ, our little dog who accompanies us on our travels, we came across the Travelocity Gnome. JJ got very excited and conveyed by his barking that he wanted an autograph and a picture taken with the Gnome. The Gnome was happy to accomodate JJ and posed with him and Liz.

A second highlight of Saturday was our first truly successful batch of chocolate chip cookies. We obtained some molasses from a pharmacy - you can not get it from a grocery store. And you absolutely, positively can not get brown sugar here. Why molasses? If you meticulously mold the molasses into white sugar, you can come up with a reasonable substitute for brown sugar. As you can see, it took three of us to make the cookies. John created the brown sugar. Rachel mixed the batter up quite professionally. And Liz minded the oven and turned the baking sheet

around after approximately four to five minutes in our mini-oven.

We took the cookies to church this morning as there was a pot-luck fellowship welcoming lunch right after church at the International Church of Prague. Needless to say after the pot-lock there were no cookies left, but we ate plenty of other people's food to make up for the sacrifice of the cookies!

Thursday Thoughts and Things

We are now home from Thursday's classes and thinking about food and rest. Liz is in the kitchen working on a sumptuous supper while I belatedly blog the weeks events. Our last blog was Sunday and not too much out of the ordinary has transpired in our lives.

We are well into the routine of school now and we know what is before us. Liz is completely absorbed in her class of eleven. That may sound like a small class, but you must take into account that in one way or another all of her charges are special needs kids. It may be as simple as living in a foreign land with your parents in a secure, loving environment, or it may be more complicated. For some of her students, English is the third or even fourth language. For some, the parents are a melding of different backgrounds and cultures. For some, there is a decided lack of understanding of the English language. I will let her give the details of her first and second grade charges later, but suffice it to say that my contact with them tells me that she is very busy!

My students are nearly all Americans. I have one girl from Macedonia and one from New Zealand. The girl from Macedonia is delightful and quite a character. I enjoy her a lot in my Algebra 2 class. The family from New Zealand are great people also.

The school schedule for Thursdays changed this morning. I had been have 7th and 8th grade PE first thing Tuesdays and Thursdays, but today I found that because someone has volunteered to teach art, that the schedule was adjusted so that art may now be taught. The 7th and 8th grade now do not have PE on Thursdays. I have been having about twenty-five 9th through 12th grade students for PE late morning on TTh, but today only eleven showed up. I was told that some of the upper school kids were in art at this time. I should confirm that sometime soon. Three of the eleven went into the gym to play badminton while eight remained on the pitch for a four on four soccer match. That turned out quite well. We could emphasize passing rather than bunch ball and I even instituted offsides for this smaller group.

Right after PE comes lunch. In the divying up of extra assginments I volunteered for the lunch recess duty for secondary school. That means that right after PE, I went in to get my lunch (a sandwich, cookies, fruit and coke) and headed back to the pitch to wait for a soccer game to break out. The secondary school kids gather round the pitch to eat and then either talk or play soccer after eating.

Then it was off to monitor a study hall. For the first hour I have only three senior students in study hall. After the first hour, the 7th and 8th grade who don't take some elective magically appear for the remainder of the period. Today I helped the younger kids with their math assignment. Then, for the last period of the day, I tauhgt Algebra 2 class which is comprised of (so far) four interesting characters, including my Macedonian girl along with three Americans. One American girl lived for several years in Russian and my only boy grew up in Chile. Tomorrow and Friday I have my more academic loads of Pre-Calc, Calc and Physics. That is always a challenge to be properly prepared.
We came home from school fairly soon after school was out today. Rae is going out to eat with a couple of the other young elementary teachers. We were invited, but wanted a more relaxing evening. Liz is now napping after her strenuous day with the wee ones.

We celebrate any event here - big or small. This is because we can so easily see God's hand working for us in our lives. Also, Prague is a great city to celebrate in. It just seems to be a jubilant, happy place to us. Every day that the sun shines is spectacular. Cloudy days are still good. What did we celebrate last night? In my opinion it was my first haircut in Prague. I just sat and grinned and hoped that Dalibor would not take too much off or leave too many cut lines showing. In reality he did a spendid job, so celebration was truly in order.

So last night to celebrate Rae took us out to eat and we chose an Italian restaurant just about three blocks up the street. We had our first staff meeting last night, so we needed a break in the restaurant. We all had very tasty meals of pastas of various different sorts. Rae had a chicken lasanga, Liz chose a salmon gnochi and I took a penne chicken dish. We stopped by a larger-than-average potraviny and were again surprised to find so many Americans around this corner. We talked for a while with a couple from Nashville who were doing Europe and had been in the CR for about a month. Then we met another CISP teacher and her IMB journeyman roomate at the same corner while talking to the other Americans. And then a couple American young men came by and talked with the pretty ladies. I think they were college students here.

I will put a few recent pics on this blog to let you visualize what we see most days. First three shots of Liz's classroom.



The next pictues will be of my PE classes. The 7th and 8th PE sessions do not have an adequate place to meet, so I have been taking them to a park to place dodge ball - their game of choice. We walk about six blocks. You will see us on the journey.

Her are Ana and Igor, brother and sister from Serbia. You can barely see daniel and Johnny behind them.Here are Ana, Sean and Travis waiting to get back in the dodge ball game after being hit and temporarily put out of the match. No one is out for long the wayh we play.The crew is heading down the street on the way to the park.Daniel (with ball), Johnny, Lukas and Cail are the last ones put out for this round.

The picture at left shows a noon recess football game played by the secondary school kids. David has the ball, but is tightly (?) marked by Joshua, Amy and Teamea who are forming a tight line of defense to keep him at bay. Next you see my Physics class which consists of Roger and Emily - two stars and great kids. The last pictuer shows Caleb, Hannah, Teamea and Joana with JJ. JJ is the start student in the class, Hannah's Lion is starting to catch on more quickly now and may become the number one student. All for now. We are going to take a walk now.

Sunday Morning at ICBP

Ths morning Liz woke up very early again so we had coffee and granola for breakfast. We watched a little news on TV and we both worked on some school lessons. It was quite chilly this morning. Weather Underground reported the temperature in Prague to be 42 F. Hence I scurried around to try and figure out how to make the heating system in our apartment work. We have hot water heat that circulates through registers in bathroom, both bedrooms, the living room and the entry hall. I easily found the dial to turn on the hot water heater and cranked it up a bit and waited for the warmth to permeate our apartment. It soon felt really great in our bedroom and the living room, but no heat came out of the hall or guest bedroom registers. A little investigation turned up dials to turn on those registers to let the warm water flow through them. Mission accomplished - we shall be warm this winter!

We got ready for church way before it would begin so we took a walk to help wake us up. It turned out to a most fortuitous walk. First, we found a little VietNamese run shop that we had been searching for for about three days. Liz had bought a thin, cotton sweater there and wanted one in another color as it is just right for teaching and is washable. We have been searching for three days off and on when we are out to find the shop, but it appears to have disappeared. On our walk this morning we went farther east than we thought it could have been and found it. So we can return there when it is open this week and see what other colors there are. We then walked to Alberts, our nearby grocery thinking about some pastries to eat before church. Would you believe, hot pastries were just being placed on the pastry racks, so we lovingly chose four of them and headed homel. I made a stop for bananas at our local fruit and vegetable shop and Liz headed straight home to make coffee.

Coffee has caused us some consternation as Czech coffee is more bitter than we like. However, last Thursday afternoon Vera took us on a tour of Zizkov (where we live) and was pointing out to us the various shops and types of restaurants near our place. We came upon a shop selling some African things so I went in to peruse the wears. To our good luck, there was "mild", organic coffee from Mexico. The word mild was too much to pass up so I bought a bag. We made it for the first time to have with our pastries and it lived up to its billing - very good.

Rae was off to ICP with other young teachers, but we chose to try the International Baptist Church of Prague again. See http://www.ibcp.cz/ for details. The worship is very good and some of my favorite students go there. Also, the English pastor is good. This morning was very good. See the picture below that I got off the web site to get an idea of what the inside of the building looks like.

After church we walked to our local Mall - Flora - to eat with the IMB crowd. The two pics below give you an idea of what a check mall is like - just like an American mall. We are in the food courts. There is KFC as shown in the background, a McDonalds, a Thai place, a Subway, a Chinese, pizza, etc.

Jessica (7th grade) is taking a bite of corn-on-the-cob. Her Dad is to her left and Hannah (10th) is to her right. Hannah is on the worship team at school and at church. The next visible person is Stephanie who works at the IMB office and does some teaching at the school. Lauren (10th) is next. She is a great bongo player both at the church and the in the school's chapel. Going around the table you see a bit of Joshua, then a bit of Caleb (brothers) and they most of David - brother of Lauren and Jessica. Then you see a bit of their little brother - Andrew I think and then their Mom. Hannah's mom and Liz are not visible in the pic, but there. So is Stphanie's sister who is visiting. Liz and I chose Thai and were able to bring half of what we ordered home.
Again Liz is hiddent by Preston Pearce, father of four of the crew in the pic. Joshua and Stephanie's sister are clearly visible in this pic.

Saturday As A Tourist

Saturday dawned bright and beautiful. We decided it was time to wash our bedding - something that we have been procrastinating about because of the relative size of our kingsize bed sheets and our mini sized washing machine - plus the lack of a dryer. Liz had a great idea as it was a sunny, breezy morning. We would wash the bedding and then hang it on the curtain rods in our bedroom with the windows open. That plan worked beautifully. We put the sheets in the washer knowing that the wash cycle is at least ninety minutes and often two hours. Hence we had some time to kill as Liz had gotten up at 5:00 AM after an excellent night's sleep. I had arisen shortly thereafter after smelling the coffee. Rachel was still asleep and we did not want to wake her as twenty-year-old's need there morning sleep!

One of our tasks besides laundry for the day was to renew our public transport passes. We had bought one-month passes when we arrived, now we needed to renew them as we have been here for a month. You can tell we have been here for a month by observing my hair in the picture below - I need to get it cut, but have not been bold enough yet to venture into a salon.

Liz and I took a brisk thirty minute morning walk to Mustek Metro stop where one can get the transporation passes - it cover metro, trams, buses and the funicular. We arrived at Mustek and were again surprized at the efficiency of the metro workings. We got our new passes within sixty seconds of communicating our need. The lady at the counter produced them with amazing alacrity. The cost for the two, three month passes was 1320 Kc or about $77. If you think that this amount covers what you pay for a car, car insurance, gas, etc. in North America, it turns out to be dirt cheap for three months of transportation.

To celebrate our success with bureaucracy, we stopped at a McDonalds on Wencelas Square and had breakfast - an eggMcMuffin type sandwich but with bacon and lattes. We ate outside even though it was the coolest day since we have been in Prague. It was 52F when we left home. Interestingly, since we were there around 9:00 AM we got to watch the street and sidewalk cleaners at work in this heavy tourist district. They had several street sweepers working on the streets with smaller versions on the sidewalks. There were also tanker trucks spraying water forcifully to clean after the sweeping.

We ventured on a little farther to Narondi Trida to a large Tesco store where we bought a whole chicken, some Jack Daniels barbeque sauce and sundry other items. We hopped on the 9 tram and returned to our neighborhood and tried to find a little shop where Liz had bought a lightweight seater a couple weeks earlier. However, the shop had disappeared from our memory banks and though we seached diligently we could not find it. We had differing ideas on where it was. We could remember only that it was near our 9 tram stop, Lepansaka. With no luck, we walked home and found Rachel awake and well.

John and Rachel decided to be tourists for awhile while Liz did some school work. So after successfully getting the sheets hung over the curtain rods in our bedroom and a sandwich Rae and I ventured out. I wanted a vigorous walk so we took our trusty 9 tram farther west and got off at a large park at the foot of the hill where Prague Castle lies. We walked quickly up the hill and came to the model of the Eiffel Tower that resides at the top. Being adventurous and full of cool-weather-energy we paid the piper and walked the three hundred steps to the highest observation platform. This Eiffel tower does not really rival the original in Paris in size or view, but I did take some pics from the top which are displayed below.

This show John badly in need of a haircut. Taken from the lower level observation platform from out "Eiffel Tower". St. Vitus Church and Prague Castle grounds are behind me.

From the top oberservaton platform, the picturesque Charles Bridge, which was started around 1000 AD. It is a main tourist destination in Prague today and is alive with musicians, souvenir sellers, painters, etc. Rae and I later walked across it on our way home.
I thnk this pictue shows the new football stadium where Sparta Praha - the perennial league power now plays. I am really guessing however. Bohemians Praha play at a small, old stadium near our apartment. I am hoping to get to a match there in the next month or so.
Here is a better shot of St. Vitus and the Castle grounds around it. This is taken from the higher platform.
Prague is a great tourist destination. We heard lots of English spoken yesterday, but the majority of the tourists are German, Italian, etc. This picture shows you just how many people might be at a given tourist site. And remember, this is October. I would not like being there in August when the hoards are present. We found just passing over the Charles Bridge very slow going in the part made narrow by renovation and cleaning.

We ventured on home via Wencelas Square to get back on the metro at Muzeum. But first we made a stop at Starbuck for an afternoon pick-me-up. Then strolled to the Wencelas after passing through Old Town Square where a great number of preparations were in progress for the ending of a motor race or race of some sort - which we were unsure of.

One intersting tidbit from early morning was that Liz called Trevor at 5:00 AM our time, 10:00 PM his time. Trevor told that KU was playing a Friday night game so we turned on the TV and navigated to NASN. We were able to see the last two minutes of the KU v. CFU. This morning Liz saw the last few minutes of the USC v. Ohio State game, but I did not get up in time to see anything but the postgame.

All for now...

Friday School Pics 2

We hold school inside a building that is really a Czech School. They put in some really good high dollar equipment over the summer. The pic on the left shows the little kids playground beside the playground and our eating space. Our playground is actually quite nice as long as we don't have too many kids outside at once. One day last week, a Czech teacher brought his kids out when we thought we had the playground and it made PE rather awkward. The third picture shows our fearless Principal Leslie Johnson leading a class of some sort. I don't know what the class is. The two students nearest the front of the picture are from - whoops, I can't remember - could be Moldovia. They are really gems and very good in English - good sports and leaders. Leslie is amazing. She works all the time and is very well respected by all. She and her husband Dr. Tom Johnson are with IICS - our sending organization. Leslie and Tom have been in Europe for twelve years or more. There are many details that I do not remember.

It is about 7:00 PM Friday night here. We are eagerly waiting for Carl, an American missionary who is packing up his household to leave for a posting in a different country. We are taking him out as he has been working hard and is in a bit of a stressful situation with the move from one country to another. His family is currently in the USA where his kids have begun school. Rachel will go with us. We are learning more about Ra and finding that she is an extraordinary person whom we can easily love.

Friday School Pics or Our Weekend Starts Before Yours

Friday Mornings we have Chapel the first hour of school for 7th through 12th grade. There is great participation in worship by the students. The singing is very good and quite boisterous. There are lots of good musicians - both vocal and instrumental. We have guitar, bongos, piano and vocalists to lead worship, except this year we don't have a piano as the upper school kids meet separately from the elementary in chapel for the first time - the school is growing. I will name a few of the most visible students: In the back row on the left is Emily - a senior in my physics class. Emily is an extraordinary young lady who is very mature in her thinking. She is more or an art oriented person, but still wanted to take physics. In the striped shirt in front of Em is Joana who is a Macedonian. I have her in Algebra 2. The smaller girl in the light blue at the front is Jessica. She is totally precious. Both Emily and Jessica are fluent in Czech and have lived here most of their lives. Jessica is in 7th grade so I am acquainted with her from my job as caretaker of some PE classes until we get a real PE teacher - any volunteers? There are so many kids I want to mention. David, a senior, who is seated, is running the songs. He is Jessica's big brother - a very helpful person to know as he does lots to make the school a better place. To David's right with the long dark hair is Teamea, a jewel in Algebra 2. The boy with the long hair, glasses and wearing a striped shirt is Roger - my star scientific/mathematician. I have him in physics and calculus. To Roger's left is Robbie - Em's little brother - who is one of the best athletes in the school. I have not found - and do not expect to find - a single student whom I do not really like. We have a great collection of kids in the upper school! The next picture is a typical classroom scene, except this is a very large class - the 9th and 10th grade students.












This is what a warm weather lunch time is like. The older girls have their tree to gather around and the boys have their tree. The boys are just waiting to get on the pitch on the other side of the fence to start playing soccer. I gave them an American football today to see if they would do something different today, but the only one interested was Aji, who is from Indonesia. You can see me sitting on the bench in the picture on the right diligently supervising the students - a very easy job at the secondary level.











Below you find Rebekah talking to her students about a minor incident on the soccer field that occured while my kids were eating and the elementary group was on the pitch. I was supposed to be watching them too, but must have been distracted as I did not see the incident. I think I was talking to Alex, a New Zealand lad, about the possibility of playing rippa rugby - that is flag rugby to an American.


I will post more pics later, but this is all that blogspot seemed to accept today as they are large pixel pics.

Tough Day, Better Day

I have not written since Friday because the beginning days of school were somewhat overwhelming. Today, Wednesday, our sixth day of students things seemed a little more calm and I had a good day in the classroom – as opposed to yesterday when I did not seem to connect with the students. I can now read my students a little better and know more of what they are thinking/feeling inside during the lesson. I really like all my students, but seem to connect more easily with some of them than with others – which I guess would be normal.

I will go over my schedule briefly so you can get an idea of a typical day. Yesterday, Tuesday, from 8:30 to 8:45 I had the morning front door duty of greeting students and letting them in the locked doors. Then while I was standing at the door the 7th and 8th grade students came to me for PE as the real PE teacher is not here and may not be here for some time as he is still raising support in the USA. I did not know exactly where we could play so I ran upstairs and asked the Principal if we could use the school’s playground. I was told no – the options are the small gym or take them to a park. So I got an indoor ball and an outdoor ball and ran back down stairs to ask the students where the small gym was. They showed me and it seemed quite small so I said we were going to the park. So again we ambulated the six blocks or so to the park. On the way I noticed two students whom I did not know, so I struck up a conversation with them – a brother and sister who had just arrived from the USA. They have been in the CR for twelve years, so the older one was fluent in Czech.

We did our different types of dodge ball games and had a decent time and no one got hurt – so I considered the class a success. On the way back I had two of the girls translate the signs on the shops we passed by so I could know what the shops were selling or dong. It was a good way to pass the time on the walk and learn something too.

Next I spent time in my room working on my lesson for Algebra 2. Since I have the smallest classes I set up classroom basically for my little classes right across the hall from Liz in what is the Discovery Center – the place for those needing special help – so I fit right in. The principal needed a name for this new classroom so it is called Hartman Hall! It is nice to work in a place with some latitude on the Principal’s part. About noon, it was time for me to supervise the 9th – 12th grade PE classes. I did this with Vera – the most delightful Czech and German teacher. I think I have mentioned her before, but she is an organizing force at CISP and wants us all to do things in a proper manner. I think the school has been run on a fairly loose basis before and it worked well because it was so small. Now we have over ninety students and we need more structure. We of course played soccer at PE. The upper school kids seem to get along famously playing together as a group even though there are a variety of skill levels on the soccer pitch – a blacktop playground.

So lunch break comes at 12:40 and I grab my cheese sandwich, jellied bread, maybe some chocolate cookies and Coke Zero and some of the kids eat hurriedly so that another multilevel – 7th to 12th soccer game can begin. Some of the kids sit and talk, some lie on the ground and recover from PE, some wander and talk. But a serious soccer game breaks out too. After lunch it is time for a little more prep for Alg 2 and then my class comes in for the session. I am supposed to have five in the class, but so far only three have shown up. One girl is still in the USA and one girl seems somewhat mysteriously missing from class again. I reported her to the Principal today. She may have a valid excuse, but I have not heard it.

My class goes only so-so, somewhat disappointing to me. I like the kids in it, but the personalities are just at the two extreme ends of bubbly and subdued so I did not know what I was getting across. We leave the school about 4:30 and walk about ten minutes to the flat of an American family who is leaving the country and I pick up a TV. Now you must realize that most of our travel is on foot. I am now at the bottom of a hill about 20 minutes from home and I am the proud owner of a TV. Fortunately it is rather small – a 20” LCD model. We buy a few small items also. Now the trek home begins. Did I tell you that this is a really steep hill that we went down to get to the flat. So we trudge back up. On the way we call Leah and tell her we are ready to meet Rachel.

Rachel is the student teacher who needs a place to live. We have agreed that she should live with us until Bill and Linda arrive on their visit to Prague. Ra is from PEI and a chocolate soul mate of mine. She and Liz just went on a chocolate hunt – though most shops are closed by now. They found a potraviny open and got returned with one of those nice big 100 g bars, which was only half eaten when they returned.

Phyllis peeled off at Vinohradska street to meet Ra and I went on home. I hooked the LCD TV up and was amazed that the original TV in the flat was so bad. It distorted, picutalized, and did everything possible nasty to make TV viewing a non-spectator sport. The new TV is not HD, but it is so much better than the old one we just shake our heads and wonder how we watched anything.
I then spent until about 10:00 PM prepping for today – when I have my three classes, but no PE classes. I did do Lunch and got the soccer ball out only to find that we could not use the blacktop because the Czech School whose building we use was out on it. Some kids asked for a basketball. I did not even know there was a hoop, but they showed me the hoop which was hidden in a corner of the courtyard. Fortunately Matt, another new teacher, was out with me and he went to replace the soccer ball with a basketball.

My three classes, Calculus, Pre-Calc and Physics all went well today. I was just organized enough to make things work – plus I credit my mature and understanding students for making the day go well. I already have many favorite students – essentially all whom I teach and several with whom I have become acquainted in PE classes.

So today I came home fairly early and was relaxing. Liz and Ra came home a little later as they stayed for an elementary staff meeting. Suddenly there is a pop and our electricity goes off. I am thoroughly puzzled as the lights are on in the rest of our building and there are no breakers blown. I call Richard, our landlord, who is in London. He says he can’t really help if no breakers are blown, so he calls a Czech friend of his, Roska or something like that. Out of deseration, I call Ondrejz, the chairman of the building committee for the apartment building. He tells me to look in the hall just opposite the elevator and I should find the main switch for our flat. I locate it, flip it, and the lights are on. HooRay! That really went well. Ondrejz was able to answer the phone and tell me what to do. Is God good or what? However the pop happens again about thirty minutes later. I reset the breakers and decide that the only thing that has changed and is the likely culprit is the TV. So I move the broadband modem, the wireless router, the chargers for our cell phones and camera off the circuit that runs the TV and digital cable box. In moving this stuff, I think I know what went wrong. It involved using a grounded USA extension cord with an adapter, but I think the ground on the USA cord was touching a hot part of the Czech extension cord it was plugged into. I had been wanting to move though electronic devices nearer the desk with computers on it so I could easily run a cable from the wireless router to a laptop if the wireless portion had a problem. I think we are better off now.

So I have had a very relaxing evening compared to yesterday. Liz and Ra fixed a curry dinner that was of course excellent. The TV is crystal clear. The electricity is on. We have chocolate. Life is good. Liz and I took a walk and found a couple of shops we had passed by but then lost track of where they were. One is the Russian Deli and the other was a pizza restaurant that we tried to find last Friday and were unsuccessful doing so. Tomorrow, the hole that a workman working in the adjacent apartment punched though into the guest bedroom will be fixed. Vera is going to take us on a tour of our neighborhood and tell about the various shops and we will go to a grocery and learn more about the contents of various packages and cans. All is well.

Sent without proofreading …

First/Second Classroom Report

A week of teaching a first/second grade class under my belt not, and I still survive to teach another day, only by the grace of God. Yesterday I welcomed a new student to the classroom who threw the established routine and discipline pattern into a tailspin. She is a very active Korean girl who knows very little English, hence, it is very difficult to explain the way we do things and what is expected. Fortunately, I have another Korean girl who is very intelligent, though does not speak much English, who I hope will set a good example and can communicate what is needed to her new little classmate. These two girls go to ESL class every day for 45 minutes. The other first graders plus one second go to Czech level I class during that time. That leaves one second grader with me. He is a very bright, gregarious lad who is well behaved. He has a Cuban mother who does not speak English and an Italian father who speaks some English, but since this boy, Massimo, came to CISP for first grade, his English is quite good. So he helps me get my classroom organized and I assign him some independent work, since he leaves later in the day for his Czech level II class.

Just yesterday we began the full schedule of Phonics/reading for grade one and grade two plus those two levels of Math, both using Saxon materials which are easy to follow. But with the new Korean girl getting settled in, yesterday was a whirlwind, or should I say tornado. One of the mothers greeted me after class and said that I looked really tired. I knew why. Today was better with a different schedule having some specials. The way that works is the principal, Leslie Johnson teaches music with the combined classes of first – third with a few more homeschool students added to the mix which makes for a grouping of 22 international students. The third grade teacher is doing P.E. which she did outside on a tennis court. She had to send one of her third graders in to ask me to come out because one of my first graders disappeared. He returned saying that he just wanted to move some sand off a table. We had a talk discussing the fact that he must stay with the class and follow the teacher’s directions and not just go off and do what he wanted to do. Yes, he is my ADHD student, or should I say just one of them. His dad is American and his mom is Czech. I have another boy who has an American father, but a Russian mother.

Now let me tell you about my Art class today. We have quite small classrooms…10 was the limit they had for the room, but they expanded to 12 with requests for more, but stopped at 12. With combined third grade and three extra for the specials on Tuesday/Thursday , we needed to find a larger room. We decided we could use the Czech classroom because it is used only MWF for Czech instruction. We put some extra tables and chairs in the room last week and had a fine Art class. When we arrived at the room today, we found it occupied with the homeschool Tuesday/Thursday class. Well, what to do????

We ended up using the room with a few more students added to the mix, so I ended up with 25 students and a table collapsing. Then I had to take control. Fortunately we have the standard discipline plan in place so as soon as I started writing names on the board for timeout from recess, the the class was mine again, but I was not prepared for so many students. By now we at this school know that you do what you can with what you have in the time you have. And it is truly by the grace of God that we can face each day’s challenges.

Let me tell you about the rest of my students who I have not yet mentioned. I have two very sweet girls daughters of and American pastor and his wife who teaches part time at the school as well. All of the other children are sons and daughters of business men and women working here in Prague. In January we have another boy joining the two second graders. He is coming with his missionary parents from America. The other students are a mix of French, Canadian, South African, Indian, and Czech.

Are you exhausted yet? This bunch will keep me busier than I thought I would be this year, but yet, I feel that I was meant for this job. All the other elementary teachers, who are American and Canadian, are glad that I am here and that they do not have this class.

Here we go again. We now have a single young lady staying in the extra bedroom of our apartment. She is a Canadian from Prince Edward Island doing her student teaching with us on assignment from her Bethany Bible College in New Brunswick. She is doing 7 weeks in the combined fifth/sixth grade classroom with a fellow Canadian teacher, then she will be doing 7 weeks with me in order to get an early primary school experience. She is a lovely gal and very gifted musically. She plays bass guitar and keyboard with a Christian rock band.
This experience is teaching us a lot of lessons. How to be flexible. How to laugh at mistakes. How not to take life too seriously. And how to depend upon the Lord for strength and grace to extend to ourselves and others around us.

That is my report on the first of the school year for me as a teacher at Christian International School on Prague. Stay tuned for updates from time to time.

First Week of School

The first week of school is over – it was a three day week and we are tired but very happy with the way things went. I will describe some of the events of the days. Wednesday was the first day with students. The secondary school had a very abbreviated schedule so I had the students for about ten minutes per class. So I learned very little about them that day. Normal class periods are one hour and twenty or thirty minutes, five times every two weeks. I thought such a long period might drag a bit, but the first two days on the schedule the time flew.

I am teaching four classes: Calculus, Pre-Calculus, Algebra 2 and Physics. The entire secondary school of 7th through 12th has around 35 students – about six per age level. However the school offers many languages (Czech, German, French) and music, art, IT, math, science, social studies, English, worship team, drama and maybe more. Hence the scheduling is very complicated. I teach Algebra 2 on Tues/Thur and every other Friday. The other three classes I teach on Mon/Wed and every other Friday. Right now I am doing 7th & 8TH grade PE and lunch duty for the secondary school. We still have a lot of first-of-the-year tasks that I hope will go away soon. I spent time this afternoon moving furniture. Yesterday I worked on getting keys to locks ready to give out. Other tasks still arise.

My classes are very small. Algebra 2 has 5 students, Pre-Calc has 2 students, Calculus has 1 student and Physics has 3 students, I but I teach an AP and a non-AP class simultaneously as only one Physics students is really math/science oriented. The non-AP class will probably be more of a self-study course with me as a resource, but the details are yet to be worked out. My preparation time is quite long compared to my previous teaching in the US as I have so many different subjects.

My greatest joy in Prague is the children in the school. They are a very dedicated, talented, mature group for the most part – especially the students I have. I left the schedule at school and have not memorized it, but I think we have chapel only on Fridays. It was great today. We had a worship team of two female vocalists, one male guitar and a female bongo player. They were really great. I have the two vocalists in classes and just love them. There are several families that have multiple children at the school, so it really feels like a family.

We also really like all the other staff members. There are four elementary teachers, an ESL teacher, a couple part-time remedial work teachers, and about six to eight full time secondary teachers and a bunch of part-time teachers. We also have a student teacher whom Liz will work with later on.

We don’t know what the future holds, but the past and the present have been very good. I think we will be very tired each Friday and appreciate the weekends more than in the USA. We took a rest time after school today, then walked around for about an hour before deciding on a restaurant. It is difficult for us to know what a restaurant is really like, so we read menus – hoping for some English on the menu – try to look inside and try to avoid places where there is gambling – which is everywhere. We stopped by our little fruit and vegetable shop on the way home from the restaurant and got bananas, plums, nectarines, chocolate and a couple beers. Most of the little shops with good vegetables are run by Vietnamese. I suppose they came during the Communist days and have just stayed. They also run small clothing/variety stores. Liz bought a sweater at a Vietnamese shop. Besides that clothing purchase we have each bought a pair of shoes. Liz got sandals, I got Keen tennis shoes.

Liz got the sandals because it is warmer here than we anticipated. I got the Keens because the Czech tradition is to have “indoor” shoes at school. You wear shoes to school and then put on your indoor shoes. However for Liz, this is a problem as the twelve little kids she has must put on their outdoor shoes for two recesses and for lunch play time. Not everyone can tie his/her shoes, so it takes a while for the comings and the goings. However, today was my first day to wear the indoor shoes – which a couple girls commented they thought were cool. However, I forgot to change shoes after school and wore my indoor shoes home! I will try and do better next time!

Tomorrow we will probably take a small trip outside of Prague to see some sights. Sunday we may try out the English speaking Baptist church here although we like the church we have attended the first two Sundays a lot and most of the staff at the school attends there. We are going to try the Baptist church mostly because we have been told that most of the choir is composed of English speaking Africans in Prague whom we would be interested in talking to. So our home church is up in the air right now. We will get a couple US College football games live Saturday night on TV – the afternoon games in the USA. I think we get an NFL game on Sunday night – the noon game in USA.

All for now, it is very near bedtime for us…

First Day of School Pics

Here is the opening convocation of the Secondary School. The girl in the pink blouse and darker pink skirt and the boy in jeans with long hair in the middle upper part of the pic will be two of my special charges. Roger reminds me some of Trevor. The lady at the podium is Leslie Johnson, our Principal.

The next two pics are of Phyllis and her morning duty of getting the kids in for the morning and then in her classroom with her kids.

Prague - An Amazing City

We are very tired tonight, but I must convey some of the interesting events of the day. Today was "open house" at school today - the first time that the new secondary school rooms have been presented to the public. We left for school a little before 8:00 as we wanted to be the first there so we could print some documents that we created last night. I was the first one to the printer and got the laptop hooked up and then realized that I had created my documents on our other laptop and we had only Liz's documents with us. Oh well, I have become flexible, so it was not really a big deal. So I set to work cleaning and tidying in the new secondary classrooms, which at this time in the morning were not really presentable!



We had staff meeting at 9:00 which was very good. In addition to working out details of the day and the week, we listened to a very inspiring DVD by Dr. Wong on how to be a great teacher. We have listened to other talks of his on the previous two days and he has given me some good ideas. After the staff meeting the secondary staff sets out to make the rooms presentable. We need to move some furniture around still. Now in the USA moving furniture would be easy. We would have the proper dollys and carts and stuff to move it easily. Did I mention that we are in the Czech Republic and our building is one hundred or more years old. The elementary school is on the second floor. The secondary school is on the second and third floors. Our furniture storeroom is in the basement. Two things make this seemingly simple task more difficult. The floors are about twenty feet above one another, so going up or down on story is equal to two normal stories in the USA. Because there is a Czech nursery in the building and they really own the building we can not pass through their wing. Hence to get from the elementary section where most of the books and extra tables now reside we must go from the second floor down to the first floor and back up to the second floor. The hallways are quite lengthy also. Trust me that I went up and down about one hundred normal flights of stairs today carrying books or chairs or tables most of the time.



By some miracle - God is really, really, really evident here - we got all the stuff moved by the 2:00 PM open house start time. Lots of people helped and it happened! The open house went fine. I did not have much responsibility for interaction with parents today other than on a social level for the most part. Liz of course had many parents and students and made a presentation in her classroom. The Principal spoke for the secondary staff. After the open house we again scurried around moving chairs down a floor that we had moved up a floor for the open house. Then all the tables in the hallway that had been used for display and food had to be moved down two flights for storage. I left about 5:00 PM and went home to lie down awhile.



I mentioned above that God is evident here. He is looking out for we inept earthlings all the time here. We all have too much to do and forget a lot. The Czech office administrator politely calls us "absentminded", but we really just don't have the brain power to remember everything at the beginning of the school year. Well, Mindy comes in and asks our Principal - who is on total overload - who is picking up Rachel at the airport. Leslie has not arranged for the pickup, so Mindy just says she will do it. If Mindy had not asked Leslie at just the right time, poor Rachel might still be at the airport. Rachel is our student teacher. She is from Prince Edward Island and we will want to get to know her. I think she will work with Liz some.



The best news of the day for me was that I found a lovely small room just across the hall from Liz's room. I had not seen this room before. I asked the principal if I could teach my two really, really small classes in that room (Calculus has one student and Pre-Calc has two). She said that will be fine. This will give me two things I need: (1) a nice quite classroom with good acoustics and (2) an office space. It really made my day to get this room as it is part of the Discovery or remedial lab, but they are the only people who have more space than they need at the moment.



Liz prepared a great supper of the rest of the barbeque chicken (she made the barbeque sauce) and mixed vegetables. For desert we had the very blan English style biscuits with Nutella on them to make them palatable. She has been great and we have taken turns helping each other out when one of us is unusually tired. Supper rejuvenated me and went on a walk as Liz wanted some apples to take as a snack for her kids tomorrow.



On the walk tonight we discovered more of what makes Prague so special to us and such a great place to live. You must imagine block after block after block filled with fairly large apartment buildings. On the ground floor of these buildings are shops of all kinds. We are continually amazed and pleased by the shops on the street level. There are little grocery stores called potravinys on nearly every block. We have one almost across the street, but our favorite one is about a block away because it has such a great selection of fruits and vegetables and then just a little of other things.



On our walked we preused the menus of many restaurants and walked on some nearby streets that we had not previously traversed. One store was so apealing looking we went inside only to discover it sole mostly Russian and German food. A shopkeeper spoke just a little English, but we got a little info from her about what was in the shop. Much to my delight they had a bottle of barbeque sauce, so I latched onto it immediately as we browsed. It was not a brand we are familar with however as it is made in Russia. I cannot wait to taste Russian barbeque sauce. We then could not resist a bottle of wine from Moldova. We stopped our buying spree at that point. But the shopkeeper gave us each a delightful little chocolate candy treat. We will definitely go back someday and buy some of those.



We kept hearing sounds like a loud party or something but had trouble finding the origination of the souund. But on our way home, the volume increased so we figured it must be in the park at the TV tower - and it was. It was some sort of very lively food, drink, socializing, dancing affair quite near us. We never could discover whether it was a private affair or some public affair, but we did not go in as we had already eaten all we needed.



Just about two minutes ago we heard some loud sounds that I first thought were the trash/recycle people picking up their loads, but as it kept going on and increasing in intesity we realized it was fireworks from the party we had overlooked at the TV tower. The fireworks were short lasting and sounded very echoing as they passed down the street between the apartment buildings.



Enough for tonight, the students come tomorrow!