Days 3 and 4

If you can't speak Czech - Teach English!

That has been the motto of the past several days, and it appears it will be an intermittent theme throughout our stay.

Yesterday started with a somewhat uneventful shopping trip. With the help of Dana (Pastor Milan's wife) we were able to find most things on our list.    I think at some point I'll devote an entire blog entry to banana-carrot-apple juice (which was enticing simply because of its color, but alas, it has lived up to its name.  Teresa and I are now drinking our obligatory glass of carrot juice at every meal until we use it up.)   As long as you don't smell it, it tastes 'dobre' [pronounced dobje] (meaning ok). (There's supposed to be an accent mark above the r, this blog site doesn't do accent marks.)

We also discovered a very nice bakery - yummy!

The emphasis of the past several days has been teaching English classes at the church.  We are the "native speakers" for the students to converse with.  On Monday was a delightful group of 7 ladies, all of whom are fairly advanced in conversational English.  This evening we had a mixed group from age 15 to 56 at different skill levels.  We've talked about hobbies, families, jobs, tornadoes, Virginia history, and dream vacations.  Unfortunately we did not have the gumption to bring up banana-carrot-apple juice.

It looks like we will be continuing group and individual English lessons with a number of these students throughout our stay. It is a great outreach ministry for the church to bring people into its community.

Incidentally, they are looking for a native English speaker to be the new English teacher here at the Methodist church in Tachov starting in September.  Let me know if you would be interested or know someone who would like to spend a semester or longer in the Czech Republic. 

I think it will be a pretty low stress assignment with mainly evening group and individual classes.  All that is required is good humor and a love of (or at least tolerance for) tea - which seems to be necessary to get the English flowing.  That seems like a British thing if you ask me, but when they serve these wonderful fruit teas I'm willing to make it an American tradition too!

That's it for tonight.  Dobrou noc  (Good Night - pronounced do-broh nots)

Next time (probably in a couple of days) - "High School Students, Firemen, and why American women are 'Chunky'!"

Matthew (Pastor Milan's son) with Eric and Daniel:

Teresa the blacksmith:

 Phil the archer:

 Czech horses at the heritage museum (ok, so they're a little thinner here):