Amber Ruppert

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October 20, 2006

Hav-e-jov!

After we were done in Praha, it was time to travel to our ‘home base’ as I like to call it in Havirov, Czech Rebuplic. It is pronounced Hav-e-jov, and Jennifer (the girl who is here with me) and I love saying it with kind of a dramatic pronunciation. It just makes it sound that much better. Havirov!

So we were in Praha and arrived at the train station to get ready to make our journey. Again we had a print off of what train we needed to be on and when it left, but we had no idea what track it was leaving from or what. Plus, we didn’t even know where to go to find the trains and we had about 100 pounds of luggage that we were hauling around with us. Yeah, everyone in the train station was saying to themselves, “look at those stupid Americans.” To make a long story short, we were confused, frustrated, and couldn’t really talk to anybody, but somehow again, we managed to get on the right train. Someone so kindly put our 50 Ib. bags in the overhead compartment for us, and we were ready to go. Well, kinda. We sat in these seats on the train, and as we sat down I think this lady tried to tell us in Czech that they were reserved seats, but uh, we didn’t understand, so we didn’t get the message. Well, we found out later, found a different seat, and were ready to go.

We arrived in Havirov, and a teacher from Jennifer’s school picked us up at the train station. We went right to our flat and met our new roommates, Marek, the P.E. and English teacher, and Lucie, his girlfriend. As I said before, I was a little worried about living with a boy, but really it is turning out to not be to bad. This is for a few reasons 1) Jennifer and I have our own room and Marek and Lucie have theirs, as long as Jennifer and I aren’t trampsing around in our underwear, I think it should be fine. 2) Marek is very nice and already has a girlfriend, so I don’t think Jennifer and I have anything to worry about him as far as hitting on us or anything. 3) It is actually very helpful to be living with him because he can speak both Czech and English, and if there is something language wise, or culturally we don’t quite understand, he helps explain it to us. He is also very interested about what it’s like to teach in the U.S. so Jennifer and I have had many conversations with him. The one thing that I think may be frustrating for the two of them is that as Marek can speak English pretty well, Lucie can not. She can communicate a little bit with us, but really not much. Many times Marek has to translate for her, and I wonder if that puts a strain on their relationship that he can communicate with us and she can’t. Lucie actually knows more Spanish than English, so sometimes her and Jennifer can speak in Spanish to each other, but I am not so lucky as to know Spanish, so uh, no go there. But we are all learning, and we teach them more English and they teach us more Czech.

When I got here I also found out that I will be teaching English at the gynasium, or the U.S. equivalent of High School (well, kinda, some can start the gynasium at age 12, but most start at age 14). So, well, less then ideal, and I am not licensed to teach high schoolers, but I don’t mind because they can communicate a decent amount with me. At the school they have 45 minute periods, and I will be teaching about 19 periods/lessons a week. The nice thing about this though is that I start at about 7:55 in the morning, but I am done everyday by 12:30 or 1:30. Plus, they are giving us free Fridays to travel. So, I only have to teach 4 days a week! It is so crazy, but it is not unusual for the students not to go to school from 8-3 anyway. Usually their day only lasts until about 1:30 or 2:00 also.

More to come!
Ciao!

Posted by Amber Ruppert at October 20, 2006 07:17 AM

Comments

Posted by: Nancy at October 20, 2006 12:52 PM

Posted by: Sarah D at October 22, 2006 06:54 PM

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