Excerpt

“We must take root and grow,
or die where we stood”

(Henry Dugmore, 1820 British Settler
in South Africa)

Contents

Foreword
Settlers in Strange Lands
Disaster Strikes
Pet Travellers
Early Days
A New Career
The Czech Foreign Police
Our neighbour, Jana
Guardian Angels
Ian’s Sledge Ride
The Sledge Saga: Part II
The Fence
Bukov Burglary
Becherovka
Bratislava
Bratislava:  Parts II and III
Floods!
Prague
Hospoda Evening
A Visit to the Doctor
Vanya and the Vet
Driving Hazards
Cycling in South Bohemia
Blue Mondays
Bukov Braai
English Students
Martina
?eska Bud?jovice
Moravian Wine Cellar
First Czech Christmas
Reunion in Prague
The Future
Epilogue
List of Illustrations

Foreword

I admire my parents because they are fearlessly adventurous.  At an age most would be looking at retirement communities, they made a drastic move from South Africa to the harsh, wintry and completely different Czech Republic in Eastern Europe. They knew two people in the entire country when they moved there and couldn’t speak a word of Czech (a very difficult language).  They are now thriving, despite difficult circumstances, and they both speak Czech quite well. They are eccentric and highly intelligent individuals!
My Dad, a diabetic coping with numerous health problems, has been my inspiration in many ways, especially in my photographic career. I admire him for his indomitable spirit, intelligence and sense of humour.
My Mom is my biggest fan. We speak twice a week and e-mail daily even though we live so far apart. I am proud to have been her motivation for this book which I told her she should write!

Tanya N.T. Linnegar
New Orleans, Louisiana.
2008.

SETTLERS IN STRANGE LANDS

My great-great-grandfather, William Thomas Collen, had the distinction of being the first British Settler to step ashore on South African soil.
Arriving as a nineteen-year-old with the party of English settlers sent to colonise the Cape in 1820, he leapt from the rowing boat carrying them to dry land from the sailing ship,  Chapman, swimming to shore in Algoa Bay on the south-eastern coast of Africa, at the site of what is now the flourishing city of Port Elizabeth.
I have always been very proud of this lone pioneering ancestor who arrived on foreign soil, so far from his homeland, without any family, to establish himself and future generations in South Africa. Thus I am British by descent, South African born and bred, someone who definitely inherited the strong pioneering spirit of my illustrious forefather, having now embraced an entirely different country and culture, that of the Czech Republic.
As I gaze from my sunny upstairs study window out on the frozen pond and fields beyond, in this winter landscape in the heart of Europe, I feel that my life has almost come full-circle.  The place of my birth is far away, in that other very different, dry, harsh Kalahari landscape which provided exactly the same feeling of freedom, peace and oneness with Nature as I now experience in the icy calm of the South Bohemian village of Bukov.
The dramatic decision to change our lives began when my husband, Ian, turned sixty-seven. I was fifty-seven at the time. It was thus with natural incredulity and disbelief that family and friends heard of our decision to uproot ourselves from our comfortable lifestyle in sleepy East London beside South Africa’s Indian Ocean, where we had spent most of our lives, to relocate to the Czech Republic.
“The Czech Republic! Isn’t that near Bosnia? There’s a war going on there…” , “The Czech Republic, what made you decide to go there? Czechoslovakia, isn’t that Communist?”, “You’ll freeze to death there!”, “All they have to eat and drink there are beer and potatoes!”… were just some of the remarks we had to grin and bear, and explain away during the build-up to our Great Trek.
So why did we decide on this gigantic leap? Many reasons contributed to our decision. Having travelled extensively in the past, we both love exploring different countries and cultures. The increasing crime and violence in our country had reached disturbing momentum, where we daily heard news of friends or acquaintances being mugged, burgled, hijacked, robbed or even worse.
The elderly, especially, were easy targets and we did not envisage living out our old age behind high walls, with twenty-four-hour Armed Response and a pack of Rottweilers on guard. We loved our garden with its open outlook and split-pole fence and realised that this would all have to change, should we wish to retire in South Africa in reasonable safety.
Both Ian and I had spent most of our working lives in hospitals for the disadvantaged, he as a doctor and I as a radiographer. It disturbed us to see the decline in medical services for the poor, but at the same time we felt that there was little more that we could contribute at this stage and that the time had come to consider our retirement in a peaceful, stable environment.
Going back to our roots in Britain, an  obvious first choice, was sadly not feasible due to the high cost of living and strong British currency. Emigrating to the USA or Canada, other tempting choices, also proved impractical for the same reasons.
For many years, our best friends in East London had been Louise, a South African, married to Marek, a Czech immigrant who had come to South Africa at the time of the Communist take-over of Czechoslovakia.  After the fall of Communism and the peaceful split of the former Czechoslovakia into the Czech and Slovak Republics, our friends decided to leave South Africa and return to Marek’s homeland at the end of 1994.
In 1995, we visited them in their new home in South Bohemia  and immediately fell in love with the Czech Republic. Ian commented, “If ever we leave South Africa, this is where I would like to live!”
The beginning of 2002 saw Ian past retiring age and with two painful cervical spinal operations behind him and our only daughter married to an  American and settled in New Orleans. We thus came to the unanimous decision to make a dramatic life change by relocating to the Czech Republic. We hoped that we would see a lot more of Tanya that way, reasoning that America was slightly closer to Europe than to Africa.
It was with the super-human assistance of Marek and Louise, who bought a house and renovated it on our behalf in the village of Bukov in South Bohemia, that everything seemed to fall into place. We had e-mailed them certain specifications and they, knowing us extremely well, eventually found our dream home.
So, without ever having set eyes on our new abode, apart from in two photographs, and knowing only two people in the entire country, we sold up everything and moved from Africa to Bukov on the first day of March, 2002.
Even now, nearly seven years after our arrival, we are still overawed to actually be living in this unbelievably beautiful, peaceful countryside in our picture-book wooden chalet. The view from my study in Summer is an idyllic one of green fields, with the occasional deer coming down to graze, a lake in the foreground and a forest in the distance. At times I have to pinch myself to realise that it is not all merely a dream.
Bukov, our village a few kilometres from the Austrian border, is a tiny, sleepy place where time has stood still. Its only commercial ventures are a very basic hospoda (pub) and potraviny (grocery store). Most of the cottages close to our house are owned by city-dwellers who come out to the country at weekends for the fresh air and tranquillity. During the week, we virtually have the place all to ourselves.
Our nearest town, Trhova Sviny, is a quaint market town dating back to the 13th century (the name means “Pig Market”). It boasts a well-stocked supermarket, a few cosy restaurants and pubs, guesthouses, a service station, Post Office, Bank and all the other essential small businesses.
Whenever  I  go to Trhova Sviny, I am transported back to my childhood when, as a family, we would go on a weekly shopping expedition into Vryburg, the nearest town where everybody knew everybody else and would raise their hats in friendly greeting as we passed them by in the main street.  Trhova Sviny is much the same.
All our main shopping, however, is done in ?eska Bud?jovice, the capital of South Bohemia, thirty kilometres north of Bukov. More than eight hundred years old, Budweis (as it is known in German) is a fascinating city with narrow, cobbled streets and alleys, atmospheric street lamps, quaint pubs, restaurants and vinrny (wine shops).
Relocating to a country with an unintelligible language is either brave or foolish, I am not sure which. I have a degree in Linguistics, am fairly fluent in Afrikaans and have a basic knowledge of German and French, but in Czech I have met my nemesis. This impossibly difficult language, where one may find five or six consonants strung together in a row, has certainly led to many hilarious, frustrating and strange incidents in the past few years.
Apart from ahoj! (“hi”), dobr den (“good day”), d?kuji (“thank you”), na shledanou (“goodbye”) and a few other essential phrases, our Czech ability has not progressed one iota.   However, we have to report that there are quite a few Czechs running around South Bohemia today, sporting South African English accents.. .

THE CZECH FOREIGN POLICE

The Czech Republic is a very special country. However, if you as a foreigner wish to make it your permanent home, you have to go through the Mill of the Foreign Police.
Arriving as a “foreigner”, or cizinec, the very fact of  not being able to pronounce this word, instantly labels you as such, wishing to live and work permanently in this country, involves an enormous amount of red tape, paperwork, patience, frustration, blood, sweat and tears.
On a mid-winter Monday morning, I had to “report myself” at the offices of the dreaded Foreign Police in ?eska Bud?jovice, on just the first of many such memorable occasions. (Ian, having the good fortune of having a mother who was born in Britain and thus himself obtaining British (EU) citizenship, was exempt from all these hardships.)
A visit to the Foreign Police entails getting to the door of the ugly brick building bespattered with graffiti, at the crack of dawn in dark sub-zero conditions, in the vain attempt to be first in the queue. The “Erotic City” just opposite the Police station provides some macabre distracting thoughts to frozen toes and fingertips.
The doors officially open at 8am, not one second earlier.  The huddle of deep-frozen foreigners line up dejectedly outside the glass doors, behind which a perfectly cosy, well-heated, spacious foyer lies.       Staff of the Foreign Police, having arrived at 7.30am, do not allow the alien mob inside until the very last stroke of eight has sounded, while they themselves lounge around, chat cheerily and sip steaming mugs of coffee in the comfort and warmth within.
Alas! It seems that if you are keen enough (or crazy enough) to desire permanent residence in the Czech Republic, you have to prove it first by your stamina and forbearance in withstanding sub-zero temperatures, before even being allowed to enter the hallowed portals of the Foreign Police.
Once the doors open, there is a general stampede into the over-heated interior of the foyer and up the stairs. Now your fitness and athletic ability really come into play.  Despite the fact that you might have been standing outside since 5am to be first in the queue, if a young guy  who arrived only at ten minutes to eight manages to outrun and out-elbow you up the stairs, your fate is sealed.
Once up the stairs, you join the scrum to be the first at the ticket machine, which spews out the official Numbers.  It is these Numbers which rule the day. If you have the misfortune to get Number 194, you will probably not be seen on that particular day, but will have to wait until the next opening day to be granted an interview with the Foreign Police, who by the way, speak no “foreign tongues” apart from Czech!
Clutching the slip of paper bearing your precious Number, you scramble to gain  a seat on one of the upright, cold, green plastic chairs which surround the grim, prison-like waiting room.  After a decent interval, a policeman or policewoman will appear at the door and shout out a number in Czech, which almost all the waiting foreigners do not understand, being something unintelligible like “ty icet-tyi” (“forty-four”).
If you have the misfortune of not understanding when your Number is shouted out, you will miss your turn and will have to go through the entire procedure on the next open day.   Each lucky alien whose Number gets called out, disappears within the inner realms of the gloomy offices for what seems an interminable length of time to those unfortunates waiting and listening outside for their Numbers.
Once actually ushered into the hallowed internal office, you will be seated opposite a grim-faced Gestapo like policeman or an even more terrifying policewoman straight out of the pages of a communist novel. A plastic flower will adorn his or her desk. Grey plastic furniture fills the room and a glass cabinet full of trophies of dubious origin is the only other ornamental frivolity of this chamber of horrors.
There will be no other language spoken except for Czech, so you had best know the phrases “nerozuma­m” (“I do not understand”) and “nemluva­m esky (“I do not speak Czech”) although these will not gain you much favour or sympathy, merely the utter disdain of your interrogator.
You will have your passport and sheaf of doklady (documents) seized, your bulging Police file opened, numerous phone calls and discussions going on over your head. Questions will be hurled at you in Czech. Trembling, you try to answer “ano” or  “ne” (“yes” or “no”), praying that you are making the appropriate responses and do not find yourself hurled into solitary confinement without even the option of letting your spouse know where you are.
If you are so fortunate, your ever-filling passport will eventually be adorned with numerous important-looking official stamps of various colours. You will be given directions on a piece of paper as to the next date you are to appear before Them. If your doklady do not meet with official approval, you will be given a list of further documents to produce, told to return with them and be formally ushered to the door.
Shaking in your boots, you exit, thanking Them profusely, “D?kuji moc”, for what?  For not locking you up in leg chains or putting you on the rack?  You count your few blessings, until your next visit to the Foreign Police.
Maybe I exaggerate slightly. In 2004, when the Czech Republic joined the European Union, I was entitled to obtain a kind of second-class Permanent Residency as the wife of a British citizen. Life became distinctly easier for this unwanted alien and outcast from Darkest Africa.
I was granted Permanent Residence for ten years, after much to-ing and fro-ing and countless documents having to be officially translated from English to Czech.
A very important document was one signed by Ian which “allowed me to live in our own home”. The sheer diabolical inventiveness of the Foreign Police red tape never ceased to amaze us.
I recounted my last visit to the Foreign Police in an e-mail to Tanya:
“Yesterday was a really good day as I got my Czech Permanent Residence, valid until 2015. I could hardly believe my eyes! NO more Czech visas! No more visits to my favourite Police Station!
Guess what? They now have a brand new system. Instead of the numbers being yelled in Czech at the waiting foreigners, there is a flashing neon sign up which displays the next lucky number being called.
Yesterday they also had a pile of new booklets in the waiting room, especially for us aliens to read all about the Law as pertaining to foreigners. Unfortunately these were all only printed in Russian and Japanese, so I fear that now I will never know the Law.
Despite my new status as Permanent Resident I do, however, still require visas for most other countries in the world, except the European Union states. I can only hope that things change for us Africans one day.”

THE FENCE

On the occasion of my sixtieth birthday, we decided to host a party for our friends and some of the neighbours in Bukov. The party took the form of a “braai”, also popular with the Czechs and known here as a grilovan.
Early in the afternoon of a balmy Spring day, the guests started to arrive. Marek and Louise, our expatriate friends from South Africa, were naturally invited. Jake, their teenage son, brought along his friend, Martin, who took the opportunity of interviewing Ian about his experiences as a doctor in South Africa for his university thesis. Jana arrived from next door, bearing many gifts as usual.
Bukov, the name of our village, means “by the beech trees” and we have one of the loveliest specimens in our garden. Beer, wine and conversation started to flow as we gathered around the fire beneath the shady branches of our lovely old buk.
Later in the afternoon, Mrs. Navratilov came along. She is a friendly, attractive lady who spends holidays and weekends in the rambling old farmhouse just above us. She and her husband devote their entire free time in the renovation of this home, intending to retire there one day.
Sipping a glass of erven vino (red wine), she enquired if we knew who had put up a make-shift fence next to their gate? Pepe, another neighbour, had told her that Ian had erected it and that they, the Navratils, were not allowed to go through it!
This had really upset them as it barred their access to the main road. Apparently, Mr. Navratil and Pepe had nearly come to blows over this matter. Mr. Navratil was, in fact, still fuming about The Fence and therefore would not be attending our party.
Anyway, nobody knew who had put up the fence. Suddenly, a whole deputation arrived, including Pepe and his wife. A great deal of shouting in Czech, arm-waving and drinking of toasts subsequently ensued, while the matter of The Fence was hotly debated.
The din attracted even more (uninvited) neighbours who also gathered around to join in the noisy fracas. Thankfully, Marek was able to interpret some of what was going on for us.
The question remained: “Who had put up the fence?”  Nobody owned up. We certainly didn’t know anything about it and I had never even set eyes on the offensive fence.
The party got really loud as yet more gatecrashers from the neighbouring cottages joined in, all bearing bottles of wine, beer or spirits, thus entitling them to be admitted to the free-for-all.
One unknown man became quite obnoxious. When I later told Ian that he had kissed me upon leaving, he replied, “He even kissed me!” This upset him much more than the fact that he had kissed me.
The same unknown gatecrasher, having helped himself to some of my cutlery in the kitchen, took off his shirt and stuck the knives, forks and spoons on to his hairy chest, boasting that he had magical magnetic powers.
Louise was quite disgusted and remarked to me, “Isn’t he revolting?” realising only later that his girlfriend, who sat silently beside him watching this performance, understood every word as she spoke good English.
Vanya then entered into the fray. Pepe and his wife had foolishly brought their two small poodles along to the party and Vanya, having a poodle-phobia, naturally attacked them. There was nearly murder on our hands. The high-pitched yelps of terrified poodles intermingled with the noisy Fence debate still going on, until someone, I think it was I, had the presence of mind to forcibly separate the animals before there was any serious bloodshed.
Marek, who occasionally suffers from dizzy spells, then collapsed on the lawn and had to be helped to bed. Ian, who had been strangely silent during the whole hullabaloo about The Fence, also abruptly retired to bed. The gatecrashers and invited guests eventually all departed, leaving only Louise, Jana and I by the dying embers of the fire.
We unanimously put our “thumbs down” for all mu (men) who couldn’t last the course and had faded from the scene just as we were starting to enjoy the party. We three women sat talking in Czenglish until the early hours of the morning. As dawn was breaking, Jana finally went home next door, while Marek and Louise slept over with us.
The cherry on the top came the following morning when Ian suddenly calmly disclosed to us over breakfast on the patio: “It was I who put up The Fence!”
We were totally dumbfounded. Marek admiringly told him he should take the Oscar for Best Actor, as he had totally denied all knowledge of The Fence the previous evening with such a straight face. Ian confessed that, only in the light of day, had he remembered that he had actually put up the makeshift fence a few days before, to stop Pepe from piling any more of his wood on to our plot.
He had certainly not intended to block the access of the Navratils, nor had he said that they were not allowed to go through it. That had obviously been a bit of trouble-making by Pepe, designed to stir up things in our tranquil neck of the woods.
Strangely enough, when we all rushed out to check on it, The Fence had been magically removed overnight, and this time it was not the doing of Ian, but of some unknown person.
Marek remarked, “The plot thickens!” which nearly had us in hysterics, as the Czech word, plot, is “fence” in English.
Ian wisely agreed to take our advice and never to own up about the very curious matter of The Fence.

Copyright 2008 PEARL HARRIS. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

Introduction

“Why do you do it?”

Shivering and clutching my extra large cup of coffee gingerly between my stone cold, unfeeling hands, I slowly turned from staring out the window to face the convenience store clerk. The young, pretty, sandy-haired girl looked at me from across the counter with an expression of polite interest while I carefully considered my answer. To buy myself a little more time I took a few sips of the steaming creamy beverage.

There was no use pretending that I didn’t know what she was asking about. The weather had turned on me and I’d been caught out unprepared. This Texas-bred boy was slowly freezing despite donning all the riding gear I had stashed on the big Valkyrie motorcycle. After fueling I’d stumbled into the store and my hands were shaking so violently she’d had to help me pour the coffee. She’d also had to add the sugar and cream…I couldn’t even grasp the small packages, much less tear them open. I’d been riding in the freezing misty conditions for hours, and right now I just wanted, intensely, desperately, to get home.

I turned back to the window. Looking through my own reflection, the cold misty evening outside was cruel and repelling. This night’s conditions were going to be absolutely brutal. I shivered violently and wondered if maybe, just maybe, this could be the time I simply wouldn’t make it. Home was still an awfully long way away.

Why do I do it? Yah. Good question. Right then I was wondering that myself.

When I started writing the ‘Life Is a Road’ series, I hoped to include stories that helped to answer the question of: “Why ride?” For a time I thought I’d succeeded, but then found the occasion to wonder if I really had. How could it be possible that I had answered that question, or even attempted to answer that question, when many times I wasn’t sure of the answer myself?

I ride tens of thousands of miles every year, and have experienced extremes of the fantastical and the mundane, as well as everything in between. I’ve seen beautiful and stunning landscapes that could truly take my breath away, and just as often, I’ve ridden through hostile and forbidding places that seem to go on forever.

Folks often ask me why I choose to include certain stories in these books, and then completely fail to even write down others. The answer’s not clear. Some places, some people, some rides find a place in my memory. My experiences, both tragic and amazing write themselves into my soul long before they find themselves being put to paper. The tragic ones I used to write down and then shred. I suppose I was hoping this in some way would help me purge them from my experience…cleanse them from my soul.

That would be the easy way. Yeah, I know, the easy way seldom works. In the end, we are the sum of our experiences. All of them, good, bad, magical, and mundane, make us what we are and help determine what we can become. We can’t hide from our past.

In this volume I’ve chosen a series of short stories I hope help to illustrate that.

The clerk was waiting. Despite all my experience, despite all those rides, right then, standing there, I found myself completely unable to answer what for me should be a simple question. I looked out at the cold and hostile wind-swept world, lonely, uncertain, and shaking from the cold, and simply wondered why.

I glanced at the heavy cruiser and even in the gray light and covered with road-grime she still seemed to call for me. The trees across the road whipped in the wind and a smattering of sleet rattled and skipped across the parking lot. The windows of the store shook in the moaning wind and distorted my reflection. It was cold. It was ugly. It was brutal. But it was time.

I. Simply. Had. To. Ride.

I turned to the young lady, crunching my now empty coffee cup and tossing it in the trash. She was eyeing me closely. Hers had not been an idle question and I was taken aback that I didn’t have a ready answer for her.

My mouth worked. The windows rattled, as the sleet, heavier now, blew under the canopy to bounce off them. I looked up sharply at the noise. I’d have to work hard to get south before the roads got too bad to navigate the big machine on. That would be a challenge, but already my heart quickened, looking forward to the prospect.

It is the experience that drives me. Excitement, passion and lust for the journey are parts of my core. I learned long ago that life is a road, and it’s how we travel that road and what we see and do along it that define us, not some intended destination at the end of it. It’s really not about life—it’s not about getting there. It’s about living—it’s about what we do along the way. I smiled. Yeah. That’s it. I did know.

I pushed open the door and winced at the cold blast of air that cascaded into store. I had an answer for her, but I wasn’t sure what she’d make of it. Why do I do it? As I forced my way into the harsh, darkening, windswept evening I stopped and said over my shoulder with a grin, “It’s about the ride babe. It’s all about the ride.”

Life is a road. Live. Ride. See. Fly.

Are you ready?

Copyright 2008 Daniel Meyer. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt:

It is almost beyond words to describe the beauty of the rainforest. It is harder still to express how that beauty affected me. My reaction was almost physical—an intense serenity, an elated peacefulness poured through me, like cool water in a dry land.

The forest is rejoicingly beautiful and incredibly green. As one descends, the trees close overhead, so even the sunlight filtering in seems green. Water trickles over moss-covered rocks, joins with other trickles, forms streams that end in waterfalls and great, deep pools that spill endlessly down the mountainside, disappearing and reemerging from the fabulous tangle of undergrowth. Fig trees with fantastic aerial root systems twist into weird, intricate shapes. Palms, mahogany trees, figs and gum trees stretch high overhead. Ferns attain amazing sizes. Trees drip with vines. We could hear the calls of wild birds and see an occasional flash of vivid color, but the only creature we saw clearly was a brush turkey building its nest.

Most of the trees grow straight and tall, trying to reach above the green canopy and into the sunshine. Some grow at precarious angles, wedged into gaps in the mountain’s side, clinging to boulders for support. Fallen trees have become gardens of moss, ferns and shelf-like, orange fungus, but even the living trees support mosses and ferns. Creeping vines carpet the forest floor in green. Climbing vines, some with thorns, twist up, over and around, hanging in festoons from tree to tree. Small, subtly colored flowers peek through the leaves of many bushes. The rich beauty of the place is almost overwhelming.

By the time we had descended to Cedar Creek Falls, we were breaking out of the rainforest and getting back into eucalypt forest. There, a great slash of bare, gray rock cuts through the trees, where Cedar Creek bursts through a broad cleft and falls to a series of deep pools connected by cascades and rapids.

Stained, stone walls rose up on the far side of the pools, but the slope on the side where we stood was like giant, uneven steps, broken and worn. We climbed down through the rocks for a better view, balancing along stone ledges paralleling the rushing water, hopping across boulders. There were people swimming in one of the lower pools, and boys diving from the cliffs into the deep water below.

“Idyllic” was the first word that came to mind, but it is not strong enough. This, to me, this whole day was far more wonderful than “rustic contentment.” It was a revelation. I wanted to stay, and my gaze clung to everything around me, trying to hold me there.

I am beginning to understand that the nice landscaping around the office and the occasional sunset during the drive home are not enough, at least for me. This beauty, this wildness, this everything real and alive is something I must have as part of my life. My mind may be well served indoors, but what my starving spirit craves can only be found outside. I need culture, but I need nature, too—and maybe more.

Copyright © 2008 Cynthia Clampitt. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

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