Ples

A paraphrase of part of the conversation I had with my mom yesterday:
“I thought about writing about ples, but I don’t know if I should.”
“Why wouldn’t you?” she asked.
“Well, it’d just be, like, ‘Ples: it’s like stužková, but different.’”
“You should explain how it's different from štuz--štužková.”
Therefore, I’m going to describe ples. Parts of this entry will be cribbed from the e-mail I wrote to a friend about the event. As my sagacious brother says, “Work smarter, not harder.”

We had our ples on Friday night. The complete and proper title for the event is školský ples, or school ball. A few students, attempting to use English terms, call it “prom,” but it’s quite different from American prom. At our school ples is organized by the student company, which is mostly fourth years. Some towns and villages are also having ples this weekend, so this is not something limited to the high school environment. Ours is in the cultural center next door to the school, in the same room where stužková is held. Like stužková, ples starts at 6 PM, and it is considered proper form for the teachers to leave only after the headmistress does, which is usually sometime around 1 AM.

Ples is less formal than stužková. It’s still a formal event, but it doesn’t have the sober coming-of-age aspect that stužková has; hence the program was less involved than at stužková. Ples began with a welcome and introduction, and the headmistress made a toast; after this there was a program. The entertainment consisted of three main elements: music, dance, and fire. Some of the fourth years played the piano, and there were also piano-and-saxophone duets featuring a fourth year’s younger brother on alto sax; and two younger students, a second year and a third year, sang “You Raise Me Up,” made famous by Josh Groban. Interspersed with these songs were dances performed by two ballroom-dance couples, one of whom is a third year. (His nickname is Bravík, which means something like “little pig.”) The finale was a performance of fire-twirling by two girls, neither of whom were students. It was cool and completely unexpected, so well done, student company. Around midnight there was a raffle, but that was the extent of the planned activities.

After the program there was dinner and dancing. The headmistress and her husband began the formal dancing, and then members of the company and other students joined in. Thankfully, I was not called upon to dance in this style. Style doesn’t enter into it when I’m dancing. The provision of music was split between a DJ and a band. Sadly, neither played any iteration of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” (which, if I didn’t mention this in my stužková post, was played in some form at both stužkovás and ples last year), but the DJ redeemed himself in the eyes of many by playing Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff,” and, right before I left, my favorite ’90s Euro-dance song.


How is ples different from prom? Well, for one, this is February. No US high school would have prom in February. It’s rather slushy at the moment, and still fairly cold, though by no means as frigid as it was the week before last. For those of us who had to walk from our apartments to the cultural center and then back home, the walk was a bit of an adventure. I walked to my friends’ apartment halfway between mine and the cultural center wearing my hiking shoes and warm socks, and changed into my heels there to walk the rest of the way. By the time we left, the moisture on the road was frozen into a thin layer of ice. Imagine walking on an intermittently icy road in heels and a dress that you really don’t want to ruin at around 1:45 on a Saturday morning. It is as fun as it sounds.

Ples is also different in that attendance is not restricted to a particular class. There were first through fifth years there, as well as a handful of last year’s graduates. Dates were not required, but seemed encouraged; some students brought their non-EGT significant others. As at prom, they went all out in dressing up.


Another difference is in the way teachers and students interact at ples. At my senior prom long ago, teachers were there specifically as chaperones. We were guests, not chaperones. I guess the difference is that ples is for the whole school community, not just the students, the way prom is. On Friday night we talked and danced and took pictures with our students. It never would have crossed my mind to ask a teacher to dance with me--I think that would have been social suicide, and our teachers were probably prohibited from dancing with students. Our students happily invite their teachers to dance with them; in some cases they don’t just invite, but insist. I’m not being dismissive when I say that I believe this is a cultural difference. People still dance here.

Of course, people still get down with the get down here, too. As time passes, the DJ throws on more “disco” (that is, dance) music and less Strauss. Once again, it’s not just the kids who dance, but the teachers, too; and the students are not visibly mortified to see their teachers shake a tail feather. This is when they are most insistent that we dance. I haven’t figured out why students want me to disco. I suppose they think that if you’re sitting down, you’re not having fun. I like watching other people dance as much as or more than I like dancing myself.

This year I only made it until about 1:30 before I went home. As always, the party went on all night. One day I really am going to have to stay until morning. I had a lot of fun at ples. I think these things are easier when you’re no longer a teenager.

My Work Here is Done

Today I'm once again stretching the idea of this blog to include something I want to share. We'll say it's about cultural differences and whatnot and call it square.

I'm a missionary, but I also have an auxiliary, personal mission. That mission is to spread my love of three things: American football, bagpipes, and country music. I just realized that as of this afternoon I've done all three things this week:

1. On Tuesday night I was able to share my enthusiasm for football with nine girls as we participated in a Bible study based on the show "Friday Night Lights." Because I missed the Super Bowl, I was way too emotionally invested in a football game that was scripted for drama. But I got the singular joy of watching one of my fellow teachers explaining to a group of rapt teenage girls the difference between the extra point and the two-point conversion after a touchdown.

2. In our first-year social studies class we talked briefly about icons of Scotland, one of which is the bagpipes. I was able to play for them a bit of "Scotland the Brave" and also of Dropkick Murphys' version of "Amazing Grace." (The firsties always think that haggis sounds disgusting, but I tell them that I've watched people make sausage here, and it's not that much different.)

3. Since Valentine's Day is on Sunday, I decided to play a "love song" for my second years. When I play a song with words in class, I provide the lyrics for students and they often have to fill in gaps. That way it's educational. The song that I chose for them to listen to is one of my personal favorites, "John Deere Green" by Joe Diffie, which is an intensely country song. I didn't realize how difficult it would be for them until we were actually in class and I watched their faces as they tried to fill in prepositions and articles.

So I've managed the trifecta this week. Even though I've achieved that, there is still more to do. There is more country music to listen to and an actual football to toss. And that's why I'm coming back to Slovakia for one more year of teaching.

So Close and Yet So Far

Last weekend was a three-day weekend at the end of our first semester. I've wanted to go to Kraków for a while, and it seemed like a good time to go. On Friday after school I and two of my friends left Tisovec for our first stop, which was Cieszyn, Poland. There are two American teachers at the school there, and they kindly allowed us to stay with them overnight. We left Tisovec around noon and our train got to Český Těšín in the Czech Republic shortly after 7. From there we walked into Poland. As we crossed the border, which is more or less the middle of the Olza River, we did the classic standing-in-two-countries-at-once thing. Our friends greeted us in Cieszyn with fajitas and real American brownies and a drink made with vodka and apple juice.

Here follows a brief digression about vodka. If you're going to be in Central Europe, especially in someplace like Poland that is renowned for its vodka, you should probably sample it--in moderation, of course, because nobody likes a drunk tourist. In fact, most of us really dislike drunk tourists, so don't be an idiot. Anyway, the apple juice and vodka concoction is properly made with a kind of vodka called Żubrówka, which I tend to call "buffalo vodka," because the English name is really bison grass vodka. Żubrówka is made using grass that bison (żubr) like to eat. I for one did not even know that there were bison running around Poland these days. True żubrówka is not available in the US, although the internet says you can get a version of it there.

On Saturday morning we left Cieszyn for Kraków, although we ended up leaving one of our number behind. M didn't feel well as we were getting ready, and decided not to try to sit on a bus for three hours. I felt bad leaving her with a mysterious malady, but there was really nothing we could do, so H and I went on. (M went home on Sunday afternoon, and feels better now.) Unfortunately, that meant going without the one of us who had actually been to Poland before, but we managed okay.

One of the challenges or obstacles in my mind was the difference between Slovak and Polish. Even though I don't know much Slovak, I am well able to say "I don't understand" and "I don't speak Slovak," and I feel secure in a way when I don't understand Slovak. But other languages are a different story. When I don't understand in another language, I can't always say that I don't understand, which is difficult. You'd think Polish would be closer to Slovak than it is, because it's in the same family, but you would, of course, be wrong. For example, tak means "so" in Slovak but "yes" in Polish. There are some things that are close, but just different enough to mess you up. Polish also uses some special characters that Slovak doesn't have. The Slovak ž is Polish ż, and there are some vowels with the little hooky thing,* which, according to Character Map, is an ogonek. I wasn't able to master the proper Polish pronunciation of "thank you," dziękuję. It's funny what a difference knowing one little phrase like "thank you" makes.

We got to Kraków around 12:30 and went to our hostel. It was pretty close to the train and bus stations. We actually stayed in a three-bed private room around the corner from the main hostel. It was much quieter than the main place was, and we enjoyed not having to share a room and being able to lock our stuff in safely. (Second sidebar: When we checked in, the helpful young man at the hostel gave us a map and told us some places to go. The map was one of the City Spy maps, which are aimed at young'uns and therefore have an irreverent view of their cities. In this particular map, my favorite piece of advice was, "If you happen to meet A LOT of ladies dressed up, [sic] as penguins then be nice. They are nuns, devoted to God & in no mood to put up with your shit!!" I'm thinking of adopting "Devoted to God and in no mood to put up with your shit" as my personal motto.)

After we'd dropped our things off, we went looking for sights. Just opposite the hostel was a park with the only remaining part of the city walls. The barbican, or barbakan in Polish, and St. Florian's Gate are all that's left of the walls. The Florian Gate, pictured at right, leads into the Old Town area of the city. Florianska, the street that begins at the gate, goes straight to the main square. The Cloth Hall, the basilica, and the town hall tower are all in the main square. Of course the Cloth Hall is being renovated and was covered in scaffolding. Inside there are souvenir and craft stalls, and apparently on the second floor there's something else, but we were there late enough in the afternoon that that was all closed. You can ascend the town hall tower to overlook the city, and I believe there's an exhibit inside there as well. I was most interested in St. Mary's Basilica, and gladly paid even the fee for photography inside. I think the most striking thing about the interior was the ceiling, which is a vibrant blue and decorated with stars. Part of me immediately thought of Grand Central when I looked at the ceiling.

When I was younger we had a book called The Trumpeter of Krakow by Eric P. Kelly. It was probably the first time I'd ever heard of Kraków. The book is based on the legend that a city watch trumpeter was sounding the alarm that the city was about to be attacked by Tatars when he was shot in the throat, abruptly ending the tune. Every hour a trumpeter plays the hejnał from the taller tower of the basilica, once to each direction. Each time the hejnał ends with the "broken note." I wasn't able to get a video during the day, because I just missed it a few times, but the following two videos are of the hejnał on Saturday and Sunday nights, respectively. (I know the first one has a bit of nothing at the beginning, but when I tried to trim the video, the quality got even worse, if you can believe that worse quality is possible.) The two videos show that they are indeed real people playing and not just a recording.




When we left the basilica we continued toward the Wisła River, wandering into some of the many churches we passed. There are lots and lots of churches of all different sizes and styles in Kraków. The vast majority of them seem to be Catholic churches--we only passed one that I noticed was Protestant. For some reason, all of the churches still had their Christmas decorations up. There was also a large Christmas tree in a square near the Franciscan church. (We didn't get a chance to go in that church, which is too bad, because it has some stained glass windows designed by Stanisław Wyspiański that are supposed to be really cool.) This was a bit confusing, as we were there at the very end of January. Like I said, it just wasn't just one church that was a little behind, either; it was all of them. Are there any Polish people out there who can shed some light on this situation for me?

Let me tell you how much the Poles in Kraków love Jan Paweł II. The last pope lived in the city for about 16 years. There's a statue of him outside the cathedral (above), a bronze relief on the side of the basilica, they mentioned him during Mass, and there are multiple vending machines where you can buy a John Paul II medal. The first one I noticed was in the ticket office for the basilica; I saw it and thought immediately of the machines that press pennies back home. This was so much more, though. They were proper vending machines, where you insert 7 złoty and receive a hefty gold-colored coin with the pope's profile on one side and the papal seal on the other. I always really liked John Paul, and I still call him "the pope." I feel bad for Benedict, because that must be a tough act to follow. Anyhow, I admired John Paul, because he refused to be part of the oppression and genocide of Jews before and during World War II, and he also stood up to the Communist Party. The motto of the John Paul II Centre is Nie lękajcie się!--Do not be afraid! That motto also appears on the medals. I had a brief moment of doubt as to whether buying a medal with the pope on it was idolatrous at all, but I decided it couldn't be too bad, and bought one anyway.

On Sunday, as I mentioned earlier, we went to Mass at the cathedral. The cathedral is amusing from the outside because, as you can see in the picture, there are a variety of different styles existing together. And they're all kind of squished in together, too (that's the technical architectural term, "squished in"). When we arrived for Mass, a pair of young men wearing very official capes were waiting at the door. Their job was clearly to make sure that no tourists were sneaking in free under the guise of attending the service. They heard us talking, and as we went in one of them asked if we were there for worship, to which we both replied in the affirmative. He was incredulous, but let us in. It was not entirely dissimilar to church here in Tisovec: both places were cold, and I only understood some of what was going on. The cathedral had a bishop and a good organist and a male choir, though, the latter two of which we really enjoyed.

After Mass we walked around Wawel a bit, but didn't really check out any of the exhibits. The river was frozen but for a few patches, and we saw a crowd gathered at the side, so we wandered that way to see what was going on. A group of truly brave people were doing a walrus plunge kind of thing. Now yes, I did a penguin plunge in March 2006, but the air temperature was significantly warmer, and while there was snow on the ground, there was no actual ice in the water. I am nowhere near hardcore enough to jump into the Wisła in January.

We made our way to Kazimierz, the Jewish quarter, where we had lunch. Observe my true Polish pierogi. It's possible that my father might have disowned me had I not eaten pierogi while I was there.
Once we'd finished our lunch, we didn't really want to leave the cafe, because it was wicked cold outside. But leave we did, and continued on to the Remuh Synagogue. It's a small synagogue in the process of being renovated, but by entering it you also get into the cemetery. The inside of the wall around the cemetery is made up of tombstones that were destroyed during the war. We also visited the Tempel (Progressive) Synagogue, which is much larger and in a Moorish style. It was similar to the Spanish Synagogue in Prague, in that the style was completely incongruous with the area's natural decorative style. What's the word for an anachronism, but in space, rather than time? Because that's what those synagogues are.
Kraków is also blessed with a really nice mall. I was so close to buying a mortar and pestle there, among other things. Something that I've experienced fairly often in Europe is the feeling of being overwhelmed at malls. In Portugal I couldn't stand being in the malls for very long, and even Aupark in Bratislava can be too much for me. I was fully expecting to be overwhelmed by the Kraków Galeria, but was pleasantly surprised not to be. Say what you will about consumerism and capitalism, malls are really handy. And they had good ice cream.

Our last experience was to visit a bar mleczny. In English these places are called "milk bars." They're basically cafeterias left over from the Communist era where you order from a super-cheap menu. The guidebooks all say that you ought to visit a milk bar because real Polish people eat there, not just tourists. While we were eating dinner, an old guy came in and got four glasses of hot water, to which he added his own teabags. I got potato pancakes and gulas, and H got a pork steak with potatoes and beets. Each meal was about $5. It was by no means haute cuisine, but I enjoyed it. It was hot and filling and cheap and great.

The only thing we had to do on Monday was make it on the train at 7:35. We made that one and all our subsequent connections without a hitch and got back home by 5. I keep thinking that Kraków wasn't what I expected it to be like, but then again, I couldn't really say what I did expect it to be like.

*I may have described bacteria as "tiny little germ guys" to 3A1 this week. They were rather amused, and in fact quoted me back to myself shortly thereafter. In my defense, it's not as if I was explaining a completely new concept.