Planes, Trains, Buses, and Trams: Navigating an Unrooted Life

Every day growing up, I always ate a peanut butter sandwich – simply two slices of any type of bread my parents bought at our grocery store with smooth, never chunky, peanut butter in between. I would make my sandwich the night before school and the cycle repeated until my senior year of high school. I added banana to this sandwich at Bates but, nevertheless, eating a peanut butter sandwich was always some sort of daily endeavor in the U.S. for me.

This was a small part of my daily routine – a routine of which the accessibility I take for granted now as I learn to navigate life with no such routine here in Česky Têsín. I never thought about where the peanut butter came from, how it got to my house, what kind was purchased every week, how expensive, etc. A jar of peanut butter was always just sitting in the cabinet for me at my house, in a neighborhood where everybody not only knows my name but asks me to babysit their kids from time to time. If a jar was missing from the cabinet, I could easily ask my mom or dad to pick some up at the store.

Here in Česky Têsín, the establishment of my daily routine is not so simple. From my home city in Boston, I traveled 7 hours from Logan Airport to an airport in Frankfort, Germany. Then, I sprinted across the massive building, took a quick tram to my terminal, waited in absurdly long security and customs lines, dashed through the boarding process and hopped on a bus to walk up to my plane to Prague with a minute to spare. Once in Prague, I took another bus to the train station where I needed to travel another 4 hours to my mentor’s flat in Česky Têsín – all this done with jet lag and very little, consistent sleep.

I feel blessed to have finally arrived and made my Fulbright year a reality as this experience has seemed very much a dream upon discovering my acceptance into the program. I know it is to be expected, but it is still hard to process when I am the one experiencing the disorientation: I have found it very difficult to find my footing in a small city where the vast majority of people do not know my language and where my daily habits are far from the norm. Small aspects of everyday life, such as how I eat my food, sleep regularly and comfortably, pay for goods, travel to and from school, speak to my family, friends, and boyfriend, or even go grocery shopping are frustrating, confusing and challenging.

I walked into a smoothie store my second day in town, could not read the menu, did not see any pictures, tried asking for help, and received no verbal response from the clerk, only nervous laughter. I attempted to buy a jar of peanut butter in a small, local grocery, saw what I thought to be a peanut on the label, bought the jar and ended up with some cocoa, hazelnut spread. When in Brno for my orientation I went out to a Mexican restaurant with a group of friends, tried adding chicken to my vegetable salad and ended up with two separate salads: one with vegetables and one with chicken. I ask for a bathroom and receive stares, I try figuring out how far or how warm something is and cannot configure the necessary conversions. Everything follows a 24 hour time scale, or military time. I need to talk very slowly to be understood and often use my hands and point to visuals to get my point across.

When someone speaks to me in Czech, I subconsciously respond in French even though my mind tries very hard to internalize everything in what is to be a language I need to force myself to learn and understand. These frustrations seem simple and should not ruin anybody’s day. However, these small feats terrify me and keep me wondering how in the world am I going to learn how to begin, let alone find, my routine here.

View of Brno from the city’s main castle.

Luckily, I am fortunate that Fulbright has provided me with a mentor (and her family) who has been nothing short of a savior for me. She has provided me a place to stay, has shown me around town, translates for me when needed (which is all the time) and answers my endless strings of questions and concerns.

It is a humbling experience to have to be shown how to grocery shop or ask for directions. Last year I led my own honors thesis about Charles Dickens and trauma, collaborated with an Education professor about the publication of my research, captained a cross country and track team, and served as Editor-in-Chief for a historic, school newspaper. Now, I have lost my voice and cannot find it in any store or event. Yet, I have quickly learned here that asking for help is not an act to be ashamed of, even if you are not familiar with the native language. Simply requesting help is something to be embraced as a necessary part of my slowly developing routine.

During this first week, I have found myself constantly stuck inside my own head, consistently reminding myself: You don’t have your own place, you don’t have a working phone, you don’t have access to your money, you can’t speak to anybody in their native language, you are not able to keep track of time differences for loved ones, what are you doing????

This is my own mind game and one that I need to remember to give myself more than 6 days to conquer, and not just conquer, sustain.

It’s been almost a week here in the Czech Republic and I have been blanketed with a mixture of conflicting emotions – excitement, disorientation, sadness, fear and eagerness – I am yearning for the day where I feel confident in the classroom because that is one skill I enjoyed and appreciated as I learned about myself and others in the United States. I know that I may, and most likely will, receive blank students in my Czech classroom as I speak to students who are not natives of my language. However, teaching various students in Andover and Lewiston has taught me the importance of communication, patience, and empathy when learning to navigate the frustrations of resilience when overcoming challenges and confusing obstacles. As I share my English with my students, I want to learn their language as well. This exchange will enrich my new community as we collaborate, communicate, and share our cultures with each other.

I have been floating between different Czech towns and cities, living out of a suitcase and trying to navigate an intimidating language barrier and frustrating time difference. There are sprinkles of my life in the U.S. that I definitely took for granted – my home, bank account, phone, food, clothes, friends – aspects of my everyday routine that I did not have to think too hard about and the absence of them abroad as totally rocked my world.

All this being said, within this first week I have acquired knowledge that is not taught in any textbook, scholarly article, or academic lecture and have realized is much more important than securing a comfortable routine. I have learned through experience, the significance of discomfort, community, and mentorship.

After three days of feeling disoriented in my home Czech city, I took another two trains, and a bus, three hours to a larger Czech city called Brno. Here, 30 other American Fulbright students traveled from their assigned cities. A huge sigh of relief quickly found me as I was reunited with my American culture and surrounded by people who understood where I was coming from. What’s more, I could even communicate with them without having to think too hard of how I needed to get my point across. For four days, we sat in classrooms, traveled to museums, laughed and enjoyed each other’s company in bars, and explored a new city. Through all of these experiences I was able to relax and allow myself to laugh at myself when I made a silly mistake or asked a question for the third time in a row.

One moment that stands out to me in particular is when a few of us traveled to a castle on the largest hill in Brno, ordered Czech cuisine and drank wine and beer while the sun was setting. We talked about our struggles and funny mistakes and quickly learned that we have a lot in common – we are a community, learning to navigate a stunning country, and we all are within planes, trains, buses, and trams from each other – modes of transportation we are all quite used to at this point.  

These fellow Czech Fulbrighters have quickly become my new support system and family and have taught me to appreciate small victories such as finding a gym, finally securing a time to FaceTime loved ones back home, discovering that a store does in fact sell American peanut butter, and learning about a Special Olympics program that I can volunteer at in Brno. These small victories will lend themselves to larger triumphs when I work my way toward establishing a steady routine here.

It’s been exactly one week, and even though a whirlwind of confusion hits me every day, I know deep down that everything will be okay. I have a community of mentors, friends, and loved ones to guide me through pending and forthcoming obstacles that will surely keep coming my way. Each day brings its own small victories and as I head into September, start teaching and discover my routine I look forward to the larger accomplishments that will slowly find themselves and catch me by surprise in my new Czech life.

I’m already learning about the many beauties and festivities of Czech culture such as being the celebration of names, food, music, beer, and art. My mentor and her husband are helping me feel situated and ensuring that we practice our languages together – they are even helping me broaden my travels by offering mountainous trips to Slovakia, Poland, and Germany on the weekends. In fact, before I submitted this blog, I traveled up a wooden ladder to the roof of my mentor’s flat and watched fireworks signify the celebration of a new school year. While it seems crazy to say as the summer has certainly lent itself to its own beauties and unforgettable memories, the beginning of the school year certainly is a celebration of many exciting, challenging unknowns that will be faced in the coming days. There are still so many question marks about this year but I am eager to start answering them and finding my roots in a foreign place.

As I have learned at pubs with my mentor and her husband, it is important to cap off a long day or week with a celebratory Ns zdraví, or Cheers to new beginnings and all the excitement that is sure to keep coming!

If I can find American peanut butter in Česky Têšín, we can all strive toward exciting new goals that will help us grow as students and community members of our own cities, towns, and suburbs. Until next time, Ahoj! Hodnê štêstí, good luck, and best wishes to everybody as a new school year begins!