My ABC's of Slovakia

So I threw this together the other day...I thought it was fun to come up with as random a mix of experiences as I could! Here you go! Enjoy :-)

Angry Tesco cashiers yelling at me because I’m trying to pay for things in the WRONG aisle
*I tried to buy a hair dryer at a Tesco store in the wrong department, and she yelled at me but I couldn’t understand her.

Big giant cemeteries….where are you Beethoven?
*Me and the other volunteers spent almost 2 hours in the Central Cemetery in Vienna, trying to find Beethoven’s and other dead composers’ gravesites, but weren’t successful. We didn’t realize that there were MILLIONS of gravestones in there.

Chicaga! Americanka! Dobrovolnicka!
*The resident Jan Danko at our center calls me “Chicago” or “American” or “Volunteer”. He can’t remember my name, so he usually calls me one of these, or a combination of these. I’ve also tried, as well as the nurses, to explain where I’m from, but nobody knows what Minnesota is. And Chicago is the closest thing he recognizes.

Daj si!
*I hear this phrase a hundred times every day. It’s “help yourself”. If I’m sitting somewhere without food or a drink in my hand, they insist that I eat/drink whatever is around. They aren’t satisfied unless I have food.

Elan!
*They are a really popular music group from Slovakia, and apparently friends of Zuza’s. Sometimes we have tomato soup with alphabet letter noodles for dinner at the center, and Zuza spends a good ten minutes looking through the noodles, trying to find the letters to write out “Elan is the best” in Slovak. She gets really excited and is so proud of herself when she shows me.

Frank and Frank and Frank
*There is a construction project next door to the center, and Frantisek and his son Franktisek (Frank is the American version of the Slovak name) come every week to help. During weeknights, me and Zuza and Frank and Frank get together in her room and try to have conversations. Also, Frankie Sinatra (Zuza’s bird) entertains us every night.

Garbage Incinerator, but no Hundertwausserhaus?
*When I was in Vienna with the other volunteers, we decided we wanted to visit the Hundertwausserhaus. The German artist Hundertwausser helped design this funky house. It has uneven layers, crazy paint jobs and designs, and trees growing from the inside out. We never found the house, but there was a giant garbage incinerator in the area that was painted like the actual house.

Halusky
*This is the traditional Slovak dish. It’s pasta noodles with a special kind of goat’s cheese. It’s pretty good!

Inka speaking to me like a dog, “Krausave, Pani Krausave!”
*One of the nurses, Inka, speaks to me like I’m a dog. I don’t think she has any experience talking to foreigners. Note to all: speaking louder and closer to my face WON”T help me understand better. :-)

Janka, Lubo and El Dorado
*Janka is the first friend (well, friend my age anyway) I met in Koseca. She’s a student at village like 30 km from Koseca, but she comes to Diakonia sometimes to help clean and visit. When she comes into town on the weekends, she always comes to pick me up and we go out for a drink at the pub El Dorado (which is pretty much the only place to go in Koseca, so it’s pretty popular!). We usually meet up with her cousin Lubo too, and I attempt to have conversations with him in Slovak (usually about motorcycles, because he loves them) because he doesn’t speak any English.

Knedla, four pieces instead of two
*Knedla is a type of bread, potato bread, that is another popular and traditional food in Slovakia. It’s usually served with a sauce, cabbage, and chunks of beef or pork. When the cook insists dishing up my food for me, and asks me “how many pieces do you want,” I always say two, but I get four pieces. I’ve learned to adjust to this excessive offering of food.

Listy on the pocitac in THE office
*My internet access at the center is Lubo’s (the main pastor) desk in the main office. When I need to use the computer, Lubo sometimes wanders around and waits for me to finish. “Listy” is letters and “pocitac” is computer. Lubo speaks no English, so when I go to the office, I just say “Pocitac, prosim,” which is “computer please”, or “Mozem robit pocitac,” which is “may I do on the computer”. Translation is a little rough, but he understands.

Milieko alebo chi?
*Milieko alebo chi means “milk or tea?” When I help the nurses with the meal cart and help bring meals to the residents, I hear them say this every meal, and sometimes I ask too. They basically only drink milk or tea. I’ve never seen them drink juice, and they think it’s really strange that I want to just drink water sometimes during/after a meal. They think it’s REALLY crazy when I drink water from the tap.

Nescafe coffee or Turkish coffee
*I drink coffee almost every day, either in the nurse’s room or in the teacher’s lounge at the high school. The two options are both instant. Nescafe is just heaps of Nestle imitation coffee grounds and hot water added. Turkish coffee is interesting…the coffee grounds stay in a big heap at the bottom of the cup, and once you hit a certain point, you get a mouthful of grounds and your teeth turn black.

Old apples for conversations
Whenever I visit the residents or help deliver meals and talk to them, they almost always offer me apples. For some reason, they all have a basket or bag of apples handy all the time, and they’re usually old (and often times not edible…). I told one of the nurses the other day (in Slovak), “The more conversations I have, the more apples I get.” Recently I’ve also been receiving mandarins and kiwi.

Ponosky! Kde tvoj ponosky?
*All of the nurses and most of the residents always wonder why I don’t wear socks indoors. They are always cold, but I’m usually overly warm (because it’s warm, they heat it more than normal because it’s a nursing home), so I like to wear my sandals without socks. They think I’m crazy. I tell them that Minnesota is cold, and I’m used to cold weather. They also laugh at how CRAZY I am when I walk around the center in ONLY socks. They think it's ridiculous that I don't wear slippers sometimes, and that I will get sick.

Questions for Zuza about Slovak grammar, in Slovak
*So words in Slovak have a LOT of different endings, depending on tense or gender. I’m learning more and more words all the time, but I never really understand Slovak grammar. I started trying to ask Zuza, and we have some funny misunderstandings because of it. I usually end up saying something like “No, no, not conversation, is grammar ok??” We always have interesting conversations.

Robert Simko or Dominika, who will win?!?
*My FAVORITE television show (one of the only ones I understand) is Slovensko hlada Superstar (Slovak version of American Idol). Me and Zuza watch it together every week, and we have predicted which two we think will be left at the end: Robert or Dominika. There are five left right now, so we’ll see if we’re right about the last remaining two!

Stvrtok, stvrt, skyrt, where are all the vowels?
*So, the crazy language of Slovak has a bunch of words with NO VOWELS in them! How do you pronounce words with no vowels? Well, let me tell you that it’s definitely not easy. I think I’m getting better though, and people have complimented me on my pronunciation! That’s exciting :-)

Teeter totter time!
*During our first volunteer retreat we took a day trip to Vienna, Austria. Of all the amazing and wonderful things to see and do in Vienna, we spent quite awhile playing on a random teeter totter we found in the middle of an abandoned park. We had a great time, lots of laughs, and we even recorded some video! I think we all needed to relax and retreat to being carefree and playful, because sometimes the realities of our situations is pretty intense.

Ulica a cesta, NIE chodec priatelsky!
*This translates to “Street and road, NOT pedestrian friendly!” This one goes out to the insanity that is European driving. The school I teach at is in the next village, which takes about 2 mintues to get to by car. Yet I wait for the bus every day (probably for about as long of a time as it would take to just walk there). Why do I wait? Because Slovak drivers are CRAZY! CRAZY! They drive fast, they pass each other and weave back into traffic with a second to spare before smashing into other cars, and they’re just nuts. And so I choose to wait 20 minutes to ride the bus safely for two minutes.


Vianoce Stromcek, decorating in Zuza’s room
*One of the first questions Zuza asked me on my first day in Koseca was “Are you going to be here for Christmas?” She has never been a big fan of the Christmas holiday because she’s never really had a family to celebrate with. For the first few months, she kept saying, “Ashley, we’ll cry together on Christmas” and I just kept sharply replying,

“NO! We’re not going to cry on Christmas!”
“We’re not?”
“NO! Christmas is going to be fun!”

With the help of my mom’s Christmas package, I drug my little mini Christmas tree and decorations into Zuza’s room one night (in late November) and insisted that we decorate and start celebrating. She loved it, and the next night she decorated in her room too! Now when she sees me, she is the one telling me, “NO! We’re not going to cry on Christmas!”

Wasabi peas on the train, not paying attention to our stops
*Again, when I was with the other volunteers on our retreat, we spent a whole day in Vienna. It was SO wonderful to see them, and they have become really great friends, even though I’ve only known them for a short time. It felt amazing to be able to share my experiences and frustrations with people who could relate. We took the train to a different part of Vienna, and we were SO engrossed in conversation, laughing, and eating a can of Wasabi nuts that we missed our stop and went almost a half hour past it. How did we find this out? The ticket checker came up to us and told us it was the end of the line and we HAD to get off the train. We didn’t even realize that the train had stopped permanently and that we were the only ones left on it.

X-mas Markets in Vienna and Bratislava
*I haven’t experienced actual Christmas day here in Slovakia just yet, but I have had a great time preparing for it already! Christmas Markets are a really popular thing in Europe, especially this part of Europe. There are dozens of stands with food, drinks, hot wine (traditional Christmas Market seller), Christmas decorations, and other knick-knacks to shop for. The atmosphere is wonderful. Hundreds of people, music playing, lights and trees everywhere. I especially appreciate these markets because they start at the end of November, starting the celebration of Christmas early! Unlike Americans, who seemingly prefer to start celebrating Christmas after Thanksgiving time, Slovaks embrace it earlier! It’s a fun experience. Also, instead of celebrating Christmas on the 24th and 25th of December, they celebrate on the 6th and 24th. December 6th is the celebration of Mikolas (Slovak version of Santa Claus), because he comes and fills children’s shoes with chocolates and candies. This is also great for getting into the Christmas spirit earlier!

Y and I and J are the same! CRAZY language!
*Again, with the crazy language. The letters “Y”, “I”, and “J” all have the same pronunciation. I think if I ever wanted to write a letter in Slovak, I’d be in serious trouble. I can recognize a lot of words and speak them in return because I have learned through listening and conversation, but I bet that I couldn’t spell ANYTHING correctly in Slovak if my life depended on it.

Zuza, crazy Zuza!
*She is crazy and wonderful! She is the best friend I’ve made since I’ve gotten to Slovakia. She has her fair share of health and family problems, and is living here at the young age of 38. She was in need of a friend, and I was in need of a friend, and I knew within a few hours of arriving in Koseca that God had paired us up for this year.