Instant coffee tastes like dirt.
I was reminded of that Wednesday morning, sitting behind my desk and trying to wake up as the students were going about their morning routine. It's not the ideal way to begin a Wednesday, or any day, but sometimes desperate measures must be taken. It's hard to figure out a new morning process (new flat, new route, new school starting time) in general, but especially while jet-lagging. And seeing as I'll be State-side again in a week and a half (holy cow!) I'm not going to worry about settling into a morning routine until after that return trip.
10:30 Saturday morning marked one week of being back. Has it been a week already? Has it ONLY been one week? It's a strange but good transition back: familiarity with the school and daily operations, but a brand new class and teacher; familiarity with the city and general culture, but living in a very different part of Prague. For every one thing that's the same, I can give you another that's new all over again.
Even while adjusting to the new and readjusting to the old, being back in Prague feels like being home. This week, I've found myself smiling at the most unexciting things simply because I'm here again.
My first week back at school went well. I'm primarily working with the first grade class, but get to hop into the second grade room for 15-45 minutes on various days, depending on the teacher's lesson plans. Seven of those second graders were in my class last year, and it's a lot of fun to continue to work with them, as well as to get to know the other new students in their class.
My new first graders are a blast to work with. We have thirteen kids, and out of the nine or ten countries represented, none of them are Czech! (One is Czech-American, but their family is much more culturally American than Czech) There's a wide array of language ability. Most of them speak English fluently, but three are in the process of learning. While the language barrier is significant, it's amazing to see how quickly they pick it up, and equally amazing to see them figure out other ways to communicate when they exhaust their English. One little girl has taken to teaching me French words throughout the day (yes, she is from France.) It's a fun way to engage with her, made more entertaining by my severe lack of talent for a French accent. But she seems to very much enjoy sharing her language and teaching her teacher :)
I've moved to a great flat that's much closer to school, and much closer to the city center. I'm just three tram stops from school, three blocks from a good grocery store, and within about five minutes of a handful of school friends. I'm right above a metro station (well, two doors over, but close enough) and right across from a square that hosts a local farmers' market. I have an awesome roommate who's been in Prague for 10 years. She's been very intentional about making me feel at home in a new space. We're on the top floor of our building, which means a great rooftop patio and an incredible view from the living room, but also five flights of stairs multiple times a day since there is no elevator... at least I've got cardio built into my daily routine now!
In just ten days, I'll be flying back to Atlanta for a week-long visit. Most of that time will be dedicated to wedding festivities (first time being a groomswoman!) but I'm hoping to find a little time to climb, and of course will spend time with my family, especially my almost one-year-old nephew. After I come back at the end of October, I'll be here until next summer. That will be the longest stretch of time that I've been away from Atlanta, and the first Christmas I spend without my family. It will be different, and I know parts of it will be challenging, but I'm also excited about the opportunities it presents. Many of the American teachers won't be spending the holidays with their families, so we're already brainstorming trips and adventures for the break.
I don't really know how to end this, because it always feels as though there's more to say. But I suppose I'll save other stories for another time. It is only week one, after all.
Sunday, October 07, 2018
Wednesday, August 01, 2018
Postcard from Prague: Return Prep
It’s been a great summer in Atlanta – seeing family and
catching up with friends, getting back into my favorite hobbies, and giving
myself some downtime to relax. I’m very grateful for the two months I’ve had to
recharge and enjoy quality time with familiar faces. But it’s almost time to
head out again!
School starts back the last week of August, but staff duties
start back the week before: we have classrooms to prep for new and returning
students and the start of a new year! I’m praying to return to Prague the
weekend of August 18th, which continues to creep closer
and closer – how is it August already? In addition to getting back into the
swing of school, I’ll be moving into a new flat (hopefully… still working on
finding one!) Searching for a new apartment is an endeavor in itself, and looking
for one across the ocean is a whole other game. I’m trying not to get too
stressed or discouraged by leads that don’t pan out. Trusting that the right
place is out there and waiting for me!
These last few weeks home are getting busier and busier, and
while I’m not looking forward to saying goodbyes again, I’m continually more
and more excited to return to CISP. My heart is in Prague right now, and I’m still
so thankful that God relocated me there. Even amid transition difficulties and
cultural adjustment, it remains a huge blessing to be living and working there.
I’m continually amazed by our sweet students, and I'm surprised by how much I’ve missed them this summer!
Do teachers usually miss their students during summer break? It’s a new
feeling, but it’s a great feeling.
I don’t yet know which class I’ll be working with, and I don’t
expect to know until we’re a couple weeks into the semester. It will depend
largely on which elementary class has a larger number of kids learning English,
and therefore which class needs the extra hands. I would be excited to work
with a new group of first graders, but also love the idea of continuing to work
with many of my kids who will now be in second! I’m excited to see how it turns
out.
Support raising is a big task again, and I’m continuing to
work to build my team for this upcoming year. Of course, any gift is a blessing,
but moving into a full year of ministry, I particularly need supporters who are
able to give financial support monthly. If you are interested in helping to support me or would
like to know more about it, please ask me! I’d love to tell you more and invite
you to join my team. Shoot me a Facebook message or an email and I’ll do my
best to answer quickly (Facebook: Catherine Chaney, email: cchaney@teachbeyond.org.)
I can’t say thank you enough to everyone who partnered to
get me to CISP in February for this past semester. It was an experience and a
blessing that I can’t explain. I feel so honored and humbled by your
outpourings of encouragement, prayer, and love, and I wish I had better words
to express how grateful I am. Thank you for believing in me and being a part of this journey with me!
Wednesday, June 13, 2018
Postcard from Prague: Summer Break
Am I home?
Kinda. Not quite. Maybe. Ish?
Please forgive the severe lack of posts and updates these past 4 months. CISP has been great but busy, and adjusting to life takes a bit of time and a lot of energy. The semester seemed to fly by, especially once we returned from spring break at the beginning of April. The last couple weeks continued to be non-stop: I celebrated my birthday, went on two field trips, took a 3:30am bus to Berlin for a 10-minute meeting, registered with the Czech police, and celebrated the end of school and graduation all in a 12-day period. Our last day of school was this past week - the 8th - and graduation was the 9th. And once all the chaos wrapped up, rather than enjoy a very relaxing beginning-of-summer, I packed up my things, said some hard goodbyes, and flew back to Atlanta.
After an exciting 25 hours awake, featuring a 4 hour-delayed flight and a 45 minute struggle at baggage claim, I enjoyed a whopping 34 hours at home before flying to Chicago for ten days for a TeachBeyond conference/training.
So, while I sit in the Chicago O'Hare Starbucks and wait for my pickup, I finally have a minute to catch my breath while fighting off jet-lag and general travel exhaustion (thank God for caffeine.)
I feel like now would be a good moment to share some highlights of the semester, but that's difficult when almost everything was a highlight. Lots of cool field trips, crazy but wonderful kiddos, some awesome new friends and "family" (I managed to acquire a handful of little sisters this semester.) I'm very grateful that this semester was even better than I had hoped, and I'm very excited to head back at the end of summer for the new school year. But it's equally exciting to be Stateside these next six-ish weeks and able to spend time catching up on things I've missed and seeing familiar faces.
But all this flying makes me wish for teleportation...
Kinda. Not quite. Maybe. Ish?
Please forgive the severe lack of posts and updates these past 4 months. CISP has been great but busy, and adjusting to life takes a bit of time and a lot of energy. The semester seemed to fly by, especially once we returned from spring break at the beginning of April. The last couple weeks continued to be non-stop: I celebrated my birthday, went on two field trips, took a 3:30am bus to Berlin for a 10-minute meeting, registered with the Czech police, and celebrated the end of school and graduation all in a 12-day period. Our last day of school was this past week - the 8th - and graduation was the 9th. And once all the chaos wrapped up, rather than enjoy a very relaxing beginning-of-summer, I packed up my things, said some hard goodbyes, and flew back to Atlanta.
After an exciting 25 hours awake, featuring a 4 hour-delayed flight and a 45 minute struggle at baggage claim, I enjoyed a whopping 34 hours at home before flying to Chicago for ten days for a TeachBeyond conference/training.
So, while I sit in the Chicago O'Hare Starbucks and wait for my pickup, I finally have a minute to catch my breath while fighting off jet-lag and general travel exhaustion (thank God for caffeine.)
I feel like now would be a good moment to share some highlights of the semester, but that's difficult when almost everything was a highlight. Lots of cool field trips, crazy but wonderful kiddos, some awesome new friends and "family" (I managed to acquire a handful of little sisters this semester.) I'm very grateful that this semester was even better than I had hoped, and I'm very excited to head back at the end of summer for the new school year. But it's equally exciting to be Stateside these next six-ish weeks and able to spend time catching up on things I've missed and seeing familiar faces.
But all this flying makes me wish for teleportation...
Sunday, February 25, 2018
Postcard from Prague: Czeching it out
One week down!
This week was no joke. From working full days and fighting off jet-lag to slowly trying to bring my Czech back, I’m exhausted. But exhausted in the best ways.
The kiddos know my name and have trouble pronouncing it. I think the “ay” sound gives them a little trouble. They’re very close, but it comes out more like “Miss Chehny.” And I have one girl who either never remembers or knows she’s not pronouncing it right, so she just raises her hand and says, “Miss!” It’s adorable every time. And hey, most of them know my name! So I really have no complaints.
I tried to order coffee in Czech at a Starbucks Tuesday morning, and was tremendously disappointed when the barista immediately switched to English. Granted, it was the morning and there were people in line behind me, I wasn’t speaking very loudly (because I was nervous), and the man in front of me had just ordered in English. I know it was easier for her to use English than for me to fumble through Czech at that moment. It was still disappointing, though. But my pride was patched when I walked into a smaller shop Wednesday and got through about 70% of the interaction in Czech! I was good up until the guy asked for my name. "Mluvím malý Český,” I apologized ("I speak a little Czech"). He thought for a second and said, “what is your name?” (I think he speaks English much like I speak Czech: slowly and uncertainly) “Catherine.” “Ketrín?” “Ano.” *writes on cup* Later, I remembered that Czech female names end in -a, and I got self-conscious. So now when ordering in Czech, I give my name as Ketrína (very similar to American “Katrina,” but the emphasis falls differently and the -r- is slightly rolled.) It’s silly, but I’m okay with silly. Anyway, I answered a few more questions for him using Czech, after which he smiled and nodded a little and said, “Czech is good.” Like, MY Czech is good, so that boosted my spirits. Thursday, he was making the drinks rather than working the register, but recognized me (after hearing me fumble through ordering again), so that was pretty cool. He drew a picture on my cup and it made my day. I think I’m going to try to go twice a week and gradually befriend the whole staff. The ones I’ve seen so far all look to be around my age, so maybe I can make some friends and work on my language skills.
Thursday, I started taking Czech class with a few of my non-native-speaking students. The teacher invited me to sit in, partially so I could learn and partially so I could help crowd-control. There’s one little girl in particular who needs some extra attention, so we’ve decided that she’ll be my buddy for the class. The students think it’s great that one of their teachers is learning with them. Thursday I just sat in, whereas yesterday (Friday) I came in with my worksheets, and it clicked for them that I’m actually taking the class. One of my grade 2’s leaned over smiling and said, “so you’re a kid in this class…” Yes, yes I am. And I’ve got some catching up to do, too.
Friday night, I went with some of the other teachers to the movies. Well, to MacDonald’s and then the movies. The girl at Micky Dee’s was a bit rude, enough that a coworker leaned over to me and said, “they’re not usually this mean, just FYI.” But we recognized that she’s also working at the biggest fast food chain in the most touristy part of the city. So we weren’t too upset about it.
Saturday, I had planned on going out to an American diner-style brunch place in Prague 1, and then walking around and taking some obligatory touristy pictures. But it was way below freezing outside, which is a little cold for picture-taking, and that part of Prague 1 is about 40 minutes away from where I'm living. Instead, I tried to go to a local coffee shop only to get there and find out they're closed weekends. So I swung by the grocery store to grab a few things, then headed to Costa Coffee. Costa is a chain across Europe and was a regular haunt while we were in school, and I hadn't been back yet. I killed a couple hours eating a panini and drinking a bowl of coffee and staring out the window of the Costa Coffee near school.
Today, I'll tag along with the Kamstras (the family I'm living with) to afternoon church, and then hopefully have a relaxing evening before I start it all over again tomorrow!
This week was no joke. From working full days and fighting off jet-lag to slowly trying to bring my Czech back, I’m exhausted. But exhausted in the best ways.
The kiddos know my name and have trouble pronouncing it. I think the “ay” sound gives them a little trouble. They’re very close, but it comes out more like “Miss Chehny.” And I have one girl who either never remembers or knows she’s not pronouncing it right, so she just raises her hand and says, “Miss!” It’s adorable every time. And hey, most of them know my name! So I really have no complaints.
I tried to order coffee in Czech at a Starbucks Tuesday morning, and was tremendously disappointed when the barista immediately switched to English. Granted, it was the morning and there were people in line behind me, I wasn’t speaking very loudly (because I was nervous), and the man in front of me had just ordered in English. I know it was easier for her to use English than for me to fumble through Czech at that moment. It was still disappointing, though. But my pride was patched when I walked into a smaller shop Wednesday and got through about 70% of the interaction in Czech! I was good up until the guy asked for my name. "Mluvím malý Český,” I apologized ("I speak a little Czech"). He thought for a second and said, “what is your name?” (I think he speaks English much like I speak Czech: slowly and uncertainly) “Catherine.” “Ketrín?” “Ano.” *writes on cup* Later, I remembered that Czech female names end in -a, and I got self-conscious. So now when ordering in Czech, I give my name as Ketrína (very similar to American “Katrina,” but the emphasis falls differently and the -r- is slightly rolled.) It’s silly, but I’m okay with silly. Anyway, I answered a few more questions for him using Czech, after which he smiled and nodded a little and said, “Czech is good.” Like, MY Czech is good, so that boosted my spirits. Thursday, he was making the drinks rather than working the register, but recognized me (after hearing me fumble through ordering again), so that was pretty cool. He drew a picture on my cup and it made my day. I think I’m going to try to go twice a week and gradually befriend the whole staff. The ones I’ve seen so far all look to be around my age, so maybe I can make some friends and work on my language skills.
Thursday, I started taking Czech class with a few of my non-native-speaking students. The teacher invited me to sit in, partially so I could learn and partially so I could help crowd-control. There’s one little girl in particular who needs some extra attention, so we’ve decided that she’ll be my buddy for the class. The students think it’s great that one of their teachers is learning with them. Thursday I just sat in, whereas yesterday (Friday) I came in with my worksheets, and it clicked for them that I’m actually taking the class. One of my grade 2’s leaned over smiling and said, “so you’re a kid in this class…” Yes, yes I am. And I’ve got some catching up to do, too.
Friday night, I went with some of the other teachers to the movies. Well, to MacDonald’s and then the movies. The girl at Micky Dee’s was a bit rude, enough that a coworker leaned over to me and said, “they’re not usually this mean, just FYI.” But we recognized that she’s also working at the biggest fast food chain in the most touristy part of the city. So we weren’t too upset about it.
Saturday, I had planned on going out to an American diner-style brunch place in Prague 1, and then walking around and taking some obligatory touristy pictures. But it was way below freezing outside, which is a little cold for picture-taking, and that part of Prague 1 is about 40 minutes away from where I'm living. Instead, I tried to go to a local coffee shop only to get there and find out they're closed weekends. So I swung by the grocery store to grab a few things, then headed to Costa Coffee. Costa is a chain across Europe and was a regular haunt while we were in school, and I hadn't been back yet. I killed a couple hours eating a panini and drinking a bowl of coffee and staring out the window of the Costa Coffee near school.
Today, I'll tag along with the Kamstras (the family I'm living with) to afternoon church, and then hopefully have a relaxing evening before I start it all over again tomorrow!
Sunday, February 18, 2018
Postcard from Prague**: goodbye, hello
This weekend, I’m thankful for hard goodbyes and for
friends who made it sad to leave Atlanta.
Today will be day one of settling into new normal life. Nothing too exciting – unpacking and organizing, temporary metro pass, a trip to the grocery store, and maybe I’ll wander over to the school so I don’t have to figure that out at 7:30 tomorrow morning.
It’s pretty cold, and there’s snow in the backyard and along some of the roads. It was 16 degrees when I landed last night. I think the last time I was in 16 degree weather was in Colorado three years ago. Yikes.
I slept almost 12 hours last night (take that, jet lag!) and I’m feeling pretty good today, so that’s quite encouraging.
Goals for this week: get a real metro pass (a long-term rather than a one- or three-day), figure out how to mail letters (I promised some of y’all postcards!), order coffee in Czech. We’re starting small and attainable.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me encouraging texts and messages. I do have WiFi (pronounced "weefee"), so I can easily use iMessage, and I’ll download What’s App sometime soon, as well.
I miss you all terribly, but not enough to be homesick yet ;) I’m so grateful for what an amazing last week I had with you all. Thank you for last-minute lunch and coffee plans, for hugs and high fives, for rearranging schedules and going out of your way to see me. There are still so many people I wished to see but couldn’t. I feel very blessed to have such a strong and loving community. Thanks for shared excitement and for following along on round two of this grand adventure!
(**Working title. If anyone has suggestions for a good blog name, send em to me. The obvious and perfect "Prague Blog" is already taken...)
Today will be day one of settling into new normal life. Nothing too exciting – unpacking and organizing, temporary metro pass, a trip to the grocery store, and maybe I’ll wander over to the school so I don’t have to figure that out at 7:30 tomorrow morning.
It’s pretty cold, and there’s snow in the backyard and along some of the roads. It was 16 degrees when I landed last night. I think the last time I was in 16 degree weather was in Colorado three years ago. Yikes.
I slept almost 12 hours last night (take that, jet lag!) and I’m feeling pretty good today, so that’s quite encouraging.
Goals for this week: get a real metro pass (a long-term rather than a one- or three-day), figure out how to mail letters (I promised some of y’all postcards!), order coffee in Czech. We’re starting small and attainable.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me encouraging texts and messages. I do have WiFi (pronounced "weefee"), so I can easily use iMessage, and I’ll download What’s App sometime soon, as well.
I miss you all terribly, but not enough to be homesick yet ;) I’m so grateful for what an amazing last week I had with you all. Thank you for last-minute lunch and coffee plans, for hugs and high fives, for rearranging schedules and going out of your way to see me. There are still so many people I wished to see but couldn’t. I feel very blessed to have such a strong and loving community. Thanks for shared excitement and for following along on round two of this grand adventure!
(**Working title. If anyone has suggestions for a good blog name, send em to me. The obvious and perfect "Prague Blog" is already taken...)
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