Holiday's

There were two holidays in November which I haven't mentioned. The first was November 1, All Saints Day. Instead of taking the American version of Halloween and focus on the undead vampires, ghosts and goblins, here in Europe people celebrate the actual dead; their families. The markets, for weeks before the event, are full of live flowers and wreaths, which are bought and used to decorate their family’s graves. On the first, or before, if they have numerous graves around the country, the families go to the cemeteries, clean off the fallen leaves and weeds, and decorate the site with flowers and candles. It’s a quiet, though happy affair, and by evening, the cemetery here in Trencin was glowing from all of the candles.

The second holiday was November 17, which is the Day of Fight for Freedom and Democracy. On this day in 1989, massive protests swept the then Czechoslovakia and within days led to the peaceful fall of communism. Vaclav Havel, poet and playwright, then became the countries first democratic president. Now, the day is mostly celebrated by students who were some of the leaders of the protests.

It wasn’t long after the fall of communism that I was a student protesting Bush and the first Iraq war… at least some protests make a difference.

It's dark

The sun now sets at 4:03, and on cloudy days, you would think it was even earlier. And with the shorter days has come the first snow, though it didn't stick to anything but fleece, so I looked like a snowman and the sky looked spotted, and everything else just looked wet. But, it's week 8 in our 10 week schedule, so in a short time, I'll be on vacation on some sunny desert beach in Egypt (I hope), while everyone else pretends it's Christmas...nice :)

Sick

For the last week and a half I’ve been sick. At first it felt like a 20 pound bag of wet cement resting on my chest, just below my neck. But as the days went on, it moved up to my throat, sinuses and finally my head and metamorphosed into a pounding headache. Then, as should be, I was cured and jumped to life suddenly thinking my double load of classes was easy.

But, the wet cement came back and I felt defeated, and told the school I actually needed to see a doctor.

It seems that Slovaks go to the doctor for everything, and don’t even wait to see if it’s something they can kick on their own. They seem to want the doctor’s note and the pills. I’ve heard that no trip to the doctor is worthwhile if they don’t give you a pill and they don’t even know or care what the pill is, as long as they get one. Must be time for placebos.

To go to the doctor you have to go back to high school since that’s where his office is. I guess he’s the schools doctor and has other patients on the side, but lucky for me, Monday was quiet, so they either had the day off for Halloween (?), All Saints Day, or they just really go to class. The place was empty except for the four adults waiting, like me, for a turn.

The doctor turned out to be a large, tan man, dressed in white cotton slacks and loose, white cotton shirt. He would have looked more at home drinking on the beach in the Bahamas, but I wasn’t in any position to say so. It took him less than four minutes to diagnose me (“You have a sore throat in your chest”), but longer to type up the diagnosis for the insurance company, which he did himself at an authentic typewriter, even though there was a receptionist outside, and make change from my cash payment. It seemed he was a one man show; doctor’s office, secretary and billing department, all in one.

Well, I got my doctor’s note and pills, all for $30 US. Within several hours of the visit I was asked several times if I was better, as if the pills were the miracle that would cure on contact. How can you justify bursting their bubble when they put so much faith in the drugs?

So far it’s easy. Every day… “Are you better?”

“No.”