radish times

Liz recently sent me an e-mail entitled “Analogies and Similes Found in Recent High School Essays.” The following are my high- lights of this extremely amusing e-mail:

- She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs. - It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall. - It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one had ever seen before. - John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met. - He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

And this one especially for Jenny: - Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze. (I thought maybe you could use in it one of your poems. Yes?)

So much for writing a serious update that actually updates anyone about something. This evening after returning from the store, I thought to myself: tonight I will have a little vacation. I will not study. The problem is that I think this all too often. But in some way it is ok. We spent a somewhat irritating afternoon repeatedly calling Congressman Rangle’s office about the missing file. If any of you are in a praying mood, add a prayer for the improved organization of the INS. If it works, it would help more people than just us.

So two days ago I finished reading Harry Potter in Russian. It was really fun. I didn’t understand all the words - but I was very relaxed because I knew that I wouldn’t miss anything important. It was the first time that reading Russian was only for fun instead of also being hard work. Of course, the translation is supposed to be awful. So now I am reading Dovlatov in an attempt to fill the “good Russian” void which the bad translation of Harry Potter created. It is much more difficult reading and requires a lot more concentration. But it is great and really interesting - especially since now I have experienced something about immigrating to another country.

In case you were wondering, the large supermarket here in Prague is still there. We still visit it. It has lost some of its original awe-inspiring complication but there are still new experiences to have. I am learning how to order cheese and meat from the cheese and meat counters. You realize this means speaking Czech loudly, in a public place, often with a large audience of impatient future cheese and meat orderers. But it is not just a matter of learning the Czech language - it is also a matter of learning the metric system. The second time I ever tried to order cheese, I said “Chtela bych dve deca teho syru” which means “I would like two dekagrams of that cheese”. The woman said “Ne…” in a way that meant “No you don’t.” And Peter said also “No you don’t. Do you realize that two dekagrams is about two pieces of cheese? You want 10 decas or 20 decas.” Then when we were trying to order two pieces of marinated meat, I said “Chtela bych dve” pointing to the meat we wanted. The woman said “dve?!?” Confused, I said “dva?” which is the masculine form of the word 2 instead of the feminine word “dve” which I have originally used. That the woman said “Ne, asodi asdoifu aksdjhkwehroi kjhiug dfkjsh sodiffh fj ofgjajdf kahsjdf jdf” and stopped looking at us expectantly. Peter and I looked at each other. Neither of us had any idea what she said. Peter said very decisively, “Ano, dve!”(Yes, two!) So she gave them to us. We ate them tonight. They weren’t incredibly tasty but so far nothing bad has happened. Once I learn the metric system, I have to work on using the correct genitive endings which are used after saying the number of dekagrams.

I thought it was time for an update. And I want to start with a question. It is a multiple choice question so it shouldn’t be that hard. (Some of you already intimately know the answer to this question). If you moved to a foreign country and needed to get a residence visa based on the fact that you were married to someone working in that country, what would you have to do to prove that you were legally married?

A. Provide a copy of your marriage certificate.

B. Provide a notarized copy of your marriage certificate.

C. Provide a notarized copy of your marriage certificate and have the original on hand.

D. Obtain a new copy of your marriage certificate with the personal signature of the City Clerk, make a copy of it, and get it notarized. To hell with the original.

E. Obtain a new copy of your marriage certificate with the personal signature of the City Clerk, get an authenticity stamp from your County office, make a copy of it, and get it notarized.

F. Obtain a new copy of your marriage certificate with the personal signature of the City Clerk, get an authenticity stamp from your County office, attach an official paper from your State with the word Apostille in bold at the top, make a copy of all of it, and get it notarized.

If you chose F, you are correct. However an ever more accurate answer might read:

G. Obtain a new copy of your marriage certificate with the personal signature of the City Clerk, get an authenticity stamp from your County office, attach an official paper from your State with the word Apostille in bold at the top, make a copy of all of it, and get it notarized. Go to the office of the lady who will submit your papers to the foreign government. Sit there while she stares at your notarized thrice stamped marriage certificate with a puzzled almost panicked expression. Maintain your sanity and serenity when she looks up at you and your husband and says dramatically with some confusion, “But Mr. Gannushkin this is not an Apostille!” Wait several moments for the tension in the air to clear so that she can hear you. Calmly point out that she should read the large bold word on the top of the first page and stop trying to understand what all those stamps are.

And of course, if you were in the same position as we are here, you couldn’t possibly do all these steps yourself. So, I would like thank my father for getting the personal signature of the Clerk of the City of New York, the authenticity stamp from the County of New York and the apostille from the State of New York.

My awareness of and disgust with the enormity of bureaucracies across the world has grown profoundly in the past two years. I am completely surprised that there is not more violence in bureaucratic offices.

Man enters government building:

Man: Hello. I am going to the Food, Cat Permit and Return Visa Department of the Office of the Interior Order of Non-native Residents.

Security Guard: Dobry den. Prosim vas, mluvite cesky. (Good day. Please speak Czech.)

Man: I am sorry. I don’t speak Czech. As I said I am going to the F-o-o-d, C-a-t P-e-

Security Guard: Ne, pan Cizinec, prosim vas, tady jenon mluvime cesky. Jestle ne mluvite cesky, budete mit problemy. (No sir, please, here we only speak Czech. If you don’t speak Czech you are going to have some problems.)

Man: Please, sir. I just need…

Security Guard: Ne, ne, ne.. (No, no, no..)

Man is pushed out of building. Man goes home, yells at wife, smacks cat. Returns next day with Czech speaking friend. Enters building:

Man’s friend: Dobry den. Jdeme tamhle (Good Day. We are going there.)

Security guard: Yo, yo… (Yes, yes…)

Man and friend go to elevator. Spend 15 minutes finding floor of office. Arrive at office. See lots of people. Wait for 4 hours. All people gone. Woman comes out of office with purse and coat. Locks door. Ignores man and friend.

Man’s friend (in Czech): Excuse me, miss, but we have been waiting here for hours. Can we see someone?

Woman: Do you have an appointment?

Man’s friend: No, but we have been here for hours.

Woman: I’m sorry, sir, but you need an appointment.

Man’s friend: But we have this information sheet. It doesn’t say anything about appointments.

Woman looks at sheet.

Woman: Umm hmm. This is an old sheet. Appointments are our new policy.

Man’s friend: So how can we make an appointment?

Woman: The new sheet explains everything.

Man’s friend: How can we get a new sheet?

Woman: When you speak with someone here, you will get a new sheet.

Man’s friend: But how can we speak with someone here?

Woman: You’ll need an appointment. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really have to go.

Man and friend watch woman leave. Man goes home, yells at wife, strangles cat. Next day, wakes up early, calls lawyer. Waits on hold for 30 minutes. Speaks with lawyer. Learns how to make an appointment. Lawyer hangs up. Mails bill for $500. Man calls special office number. Waits on hold for 45 minutes. Makes earliest possible appointment. Waits 2 months for appointment. Returns to office with friend.

Man’s friend: Dobry den. Jdeme tamhle (Good Day. We are going there.)

Security guard: Yo, yo… (Yes, yes…)

Man and friend go up in elevator. Wait one hour. Woman comes out of office. Calls man’s name. Man and friend get up.

Woman (in Czech): Ah ha! Which one of you is ?

Man’s friend: He is.

Woman to man: Come this way, please.

Man’s friend: We will both come. He doesn’t speak any Czech, so I will translate for him.

Woman: I am afraid that will be impossible. He only has an appointment for himself.

Man’s friend: Well, that really can’t matter. I’m just translating for him. It will be as if I’m not even there.

Woman: I am afraid is does matter. Only two people can fit in my office.

Man’s friend: We can leave the door open. I can stand.

Woman: The door must be closed, sir. It is official policy.

Man’s friend: Look, miss. This is really crazy. He needs a translator. We both need to be there.

Woman: If he needed a translator, he should have made an appointment for both of you. As it is, I cannot see you both. It is all clearly explained on the new sheet. I can’t understand how people can fail to follow such simple instructions. In any case, your time is up.

Woman walks away and reads next name.

Man goes home. Wife is prepared. Door to house has new lock. Man cannot get in. Wife advises him to come back the next day when he is calm. Two days later, man calls office. Wants to make new appointment. Gets message “The Food, Cat Permit and Return Visa Department of the Office of the Interior Order of Non-native Residents has been permanently closed. Please refer any issues or concerns to the Temporary Office for Issues Relating to Food, Cat Permits, Return Visas, Faucet Installation Lawsuits, Glass Blowing Regulations…..

Krolik desired that I say hello to you all and give you a purr or two. It is Saturday morning and I am getting ready to clean the apartment. There is hair everywhere - there always is. As soon as you vacuum everything, you turn around and see hair floating by your face. But if you don’t vacuum, everything you have will be covered in hair. Actually, everything I have already is covered in hair. Peter is more careful and most of his stuff is not covered in hair - or to be more correct, it is not covered in hair unless I wear or use it.

Today, Peter has informed me, is a reading day, which means that he will read his book by Pynchon. It is very complicated and long and Peter is determined to finish it. I may read too - but first I will clean. Tonight we will go to the birthday party of our friend Yioshi. He is from Japan and has lived in the Czech Republic for about 3 years, I think. He is studying art here but is just about to graduate.

So here I sit on a hot Friday afternoon, thinking about all kinds of things. I have about three weeks left of class. Then my parents will be here for a week. And after that I don’t know what I will be doing. Hence, there is a lot to think about.
These days my schedule is something like this:

MONDAYS I get up early and go to the offices of the Czech Helsinki Committee where I meet the people who I go to the refugee camp with. Usually there are between 4 and 8 of us. One or two social workers (Linda and Teresa) go to the camp I go to (Bela) and one social worker (Pavel) goes to another camp a little further down the road. There is me and another volunteer who teaches German (this is either Cora or Max depending on the week. They each go every other week). Sometimes one of the lawyers goes and sometimes there are visitors who want to see the camp or see someone who lives there.

Our trip takes about 1 and 1/2 hours including a short stop to buy food for lunch. We arrive at the camp at about 11 am and stay until 3 pm. From 11 am until 1 pm I do assorted things. Sometimes I sit in the office and listen to the social workers as they work with different refugees. Usually these conversations are either in Czech or Russian. Occasionally they are in English. Other times we have children’s clothes for anyone who wants them so several women from the camp come to pick out clothes. At these times I usually talk to the women - either in Czech or Russian.

At 1 pm I have my little English conversation class. I have only done it one time and I had one student. There is a lot I don’t know about teaching English! but we had a good time.

Then at 2 pm the kids come to play video games on the two ancient computers that are in the office. I help them find the games they want, sometimes explain something about the computer or the games and sometimes help the littlest children draw on the computer. Sometimes I talk to their parents. Every week I talk a little more with the kids about this or that. It is a little intimidating as most of the conversation is in Czech - but slowly I think I am building a relationship with them.

Then at 3 pm it is time to leave. We lock up the office and go to the parking lot to wait for the car. The car ride back and forth is very nice for me because usually there is a lot of conversation in Czech and I can listen all I want. I have not started joining the conversations in Czech, but I think that will come with time. The trip home takes about an hour. By the time I get home I am usually very tired and very hungry. This last Monday I went to sleep at 9:30 (very early!!). I think Peter knows well how tired I am when I come home because if we are doing something like going shopping, he advises me to take a nap before we go.

TUESDAY Tuesdays I get up at normal time (about 8:00) and get ready for school. I either take a short tram ride or walk to school. It takes about 15 minutes either way. There are often very few students in class these days, somewhere between 4 and 8. We study from 9 to 10:30 and then have a break. I usually walk down to the little store nearby with Katerine and we get sandwiches and coffee. We have a great relationship with the people who run the store. There is a man and his wife and his daughter. They are from Armenia. We speak with them all in Czech, expect when I need matches, I always ask for them in Russian because I cannot remember the word in Czech. The store owners are always very amused when I do.

Then we go back to class for another hour and a half. At the next break we often drink hot chocolate and stand outside the school building. Our last part of the day is only 45 minutes but by this time I am usually tired of learning words and practicing grammar!!

After school I call Olga (our friend and my Russian teacher) to let her know I am coming. This call usually serves as her wake-up call because she sleeps very late. I get on the 18 tram and take the 20 minute trip to Hrachanska. There are most often other students taking the same tram. So we speak our bad Czech to the horror of all native tram riders- but I like it because the students who ride this tram (who I know) don’t speak English so we have to speak Czech.

When I get to Olga’s she has gotten up and made coffee. So we sit and drink coffee. She eats breakfast and I eat lunch. Then we have Russian lessons. Usually I am there for about three hours. We work on grammar, reading, and pronunciation. Olga, I think, is a very good teacher. We speak all in Russian while I am there (except occasionally a little bit of Czech if her boyfriend Petr is there).

As I am leaving I call Peter and usually we meet at home, although sometimes we meet somewhere else. We cook dinner and I do any Czech homework I have. Sometimes we go meet an international group of friends for what is supposed to be an English-speaking beer drinking night - but what usually turns out to be an English-Czech-Russian-and sometimes Japanese speaking night.

WEDNESDAY Wednesday I go to class in the morning and then usually come home when it is done. Often I take a nap when I get home. Then I study Russian and Czech, and these days try to do a little work on my conversation lesson for the next Monday. We don’t have any usual things to do on Wednesday nights. This Wednesday we made dinner, went shopping and then came home and read books - Peter read an English book and I read a Russian book. Sometimes I go to an Amnesty International meeting for a couple of hours in the evening.

THURSDAY Thursdays after class, I have recently been in the habit of going to Peter’s office. There I call this Congressman about Peter’s green card and do other business that necessitates calling the US. I also read news and other interesting things on the internet and often print things as we don’t have a printer at home. At about 5 pm we leave and walk home with Arkady, who lives on the way from Peter’s office to our house.

FRIDAY Friday’s I come home after class. Mostly I don’t do any work but I always feel I should. I often take a nap. Today, my plan is to study, work and write this update. I don’t know if this will happen. I also want to take a walk.

WEEKENDS On the weekend we mostly hang out, see friends and go shopping. Recently we seem to go shopping all the time - for food, for shoes, for clothes, for nothing… We keep trying to plan a short trip somewhere, but we haven’t done it yet. I keep trying to work or study but haven’t done that yet either. It is just really nice spending time together with Peter - so I don’t do anything else.

Today I would like to tell you a tale. It is not a happy tale and its ending is yet unknown.

Once upon a time not very long ago in a land surprisingly close to your own, there lived two lovely young people much like your own relatives or friends. These two young people loved each other very much and desired to be able to live together in this beautiful land. However there existed at the same time in the same place a great evil. This source of the evil was the fear of the people of the land. They feared that people from distant lands would arrive and take their jobs and change their towns. So they decided to create an organization that would protect them against these foreign people. They called this organization Irritate Non-natives So-They-Will-Leave. However the directness of this title caused some concern in the high circles of the organization and it was soon renamed the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Now it happened that these two young people had to have some dealings with this Service, as one of the young people was a person from a distant land. So everything happened like this:

The two young people, young Peter and young Judy, were married in April of 2000. In May of that same year they submitted an application to The Service requesting The Service to give young Peter permanent residency in the land. They also asked The Service for permission for young Peter to work and travel in the time before The Service decided about his permanent residency. Now completing the application was not easy and not cheap. They hired a Professional Application Assistant and General Pain in the Ass (a PAA/GPA, otherwise known as a lawyer) to help them. Not only did they spend hours and days trying to locate obscure information about themselves and their families, but they constantly fought over the advice of their PAA/GPA.

The Service informed them they would wait three months for permission to work. This they did. In August of 2000, young Peter went to pick up his work permit. The Service also informed them they would wait three months for permission to travel. This they did not do. They waited 9 months for this permission… to be denied. The Service claimed that the young couple made a mistake in completing their application. The PAA/GPA claimed that The Service was evil and stupid. Regardless of which claim was correct, the young couple was unable to travel for almost 2 years.

In April of 2001, The Service invited young Peter to have his finger prints made. In May, they invited young Peter and his wife to a personal interview. At the end of the interview, young Peter received The Service’s approval for his permanent residency. The Service Official who conducted the interview placed a stamp in young Peter’s passport as temporary proof of the approval. The permanent card would be sent to the young couple within 6 months.

The young couple was relieved and happy. They relaxed and waited for the permanent card. They waited six months and then they waited some more. They waited seven months, eight months, nine months, ten months and then they could wait no more! The temporary stamp was good only for one year. The couple was living outside of the land in another little land across the big water.

They decided to act and did so decisively. They contacted their local representative of democracy. Their local representative of democracy sent a letter to The Service requesting to know the whereabouts of the missing card. Then he waited. He waited two weeks, three weeks, one month, two months. The young couple called him again. The temporary stamp had expired. Where was the card?

The local representative of democracy, now pressed by circumstance, resorted to using the telephone. He called The Service directly (a thing impossible for a private citizen like young Peter or young Judy to do). The Service did not have encouraging news. First they claimed they responded by letter to the local representative of democracy. However a letter was never received by him. They continued to say that The Service in the young couple’s city sent their file to the Vermont Office on July 8, 2001 for card production. After five hours of trying to call the Vermont Office, the local representative of democracy found out that as of March 14, 2002, this office had not received the file.

So where is the file now? Nobody knows. What will the young couple do? They will wait one week for their local representative of democracy to do some searching. Based on what the he finds out they will decide on the next course of action. Apparently there is something called a Diligence Search - but it sounds frighteningly bureaucratic and lengthy and the young couple is unsure. At present, young Peter cannot return to the United States. We will see what happens. We will see.

We have recently had a host of uninvited guests in our home. They don’t speak with us so I am unaware of their name, but it seems that they have found our living room a very comfortable place to settle and explore. They are The Giant Ant Population (giant modifying Population - not Ant. A more exact nomenclature might be The Giant Population of Tiny Ants). Anyway, we first noticed these little guests several days ago. They were zigzagging across our floor from balcony through living room to guest room.

Needless to say, I was not exceedingly pleased by their arrival but several circumstances intervened to make me even more anxious about them: 1) They, being unsatisfied with the floor, found our living room table. Hence they can be found crawling through my books, papers and other miscellaneous items that I by habit leave on this table. This filled me with dismay as the image of transporting these little invaders all over Prague came vividly to mind. 2) Our ferocious hunting cats have absolutely no interest in The Invaders! Not only will they not eat them, they don’t even visibly notice their existence. For example, last night Krolik laid down right in the middle of their evening exploration party and proceeded to sleep absolutely unperturbed. (Of course you know that the flies that visit our house have no such immunity. They are harassed and eventually eaten if they decide to stay.) 3) The vacuum cleaner is an inept weapon against them. I sucked up numerous ants only to see that they were instantaneously replaced by several new invaders. Now I am worried that they will form a community in my vacuum cleaner and start exploring the hall and the closets and there become permanent residents.

So being anxious to persuade our uninvited guests that their stay should come to an end, we explored the bug control devices at our local supermarket. We found one device against ants. Thankfully it did not seem to emit any toxic or odorous substances - but then again we couldn’t be sure as all the instructions and descriptions were in Czech. So, on Friday, instead of killing ants, I carried this little green device with me to school so that I could ask our Czech speaking friend what the box said. The only things I could make out were the warnings and that there were prominent first aid instructions. These instructions seemed to include only what you should do if you ate, drank or smoked the green box - but I was not sure. Our Czech friend explained exactly what to do and when we got home, we tried it out. It is something like an ant hotel. There is some poisonous food inside and after you make a little hole in the device, the ants will go in and eat and come out later and die. Of course, after we had put down the trap we felt awful in some way for planning the mass death of so many little ants. This morning there are many fewer ants on our floor than yesterday.

So summer weather has been with us here in Prague for several days. It is beautiful and extremely pleasing. What is not pleasing is the monumental growth in the swarms of tourists now abiding in the city. After we had been here for several weeks I learned that the people that live here generally avoid all tourist locations. I didn’t really understand because some of them are so beautiful - like Charles Bridge. The first day I passed that bridge packed with so many people that it looked like you couldn’t walk, I understood immediately. In the winter, there are always people on the bridge - but nothing close to this!! Huge huge crowds of people are there and tourist season is not even at its height! In New York it is probably the same, but New York is so much bigger and its image is improved (if not made more comfortable) by crowds and crowds of people. Prague is not so big and is very delicate - so the crowds just look out of place and completely exhausting.

We now leave our balcony door open almost all the time. It is pretty much the same temperature inside and out. I really like it but there is something about it that disturbs my mind. I go to sleep at night with one of several images in my mind: 1) A stray bird flying into the house. CRASH! BANG! BLAST! DESTRUCTION!! Cats ferociously trying to reach bird mindless of whose face they use as a launching board or whose body they maim trying to catch that bird. 2) A sneaky man in a dark trench coat watching our apartment from the safety of the trees across the street. When all the lights go out, he prepares, straining only once more to see through the dark if our door really is still open. Then he begins his assent, climbing stealthily up from balcony to balcony until he reaches ours…. I don’t really have any idea what he does when he gets here - as he arrives the sequence abruptly reverts to the beginning. 3) Getting up in the morning and looking over the balcony railing at a smashed cat down below.

Anyway, seriously, things are good here with us. We have been enjoying the summer weather. My class is still going. We have finally learned all the cases and will spend the last several weeks of class practicing conversation (or so they promised and I HOPE!!!).

I have been to the refugee camp the past two Mondays and will continue to go each Monday. So far I have just been getting acquainted with the place and meeting people. Probably next Monday (not the one in two days but the next) I will begin to teach some conversation sections of an English course already being taught by one of the resident refugees. He is a university professor from Iran. I may also do something with the teenagers there - but this will be in a while I think. First I need time to meet them and learn how to communicate with them. It seems they are mostly speaking Czech because it is a common language between all of them. One tremendously limiting factor of working in these camps is the time constraint. We travel from Prague every Monday. The trip takes between one and two hours. We get there about 11:30 am and then leave at 3:00 pm. This is not a lot of time and there is no flexibility - either you leave when the car leaves or you don’t leave. So we will see. So far it is really interesting.