The Mushroom Cult

In addition to Sophie's successful start of school, there are other promising signs that we won't be reduced to pathetic lonely alcoholism by mid November, even though easy access to high quality beer makes that a tempting, if not very ambitious, goal...

Bayard has gone out for beers a couple of times with an American grad music student and has befriended the German dad of one of Sophie's classmates. Betsy is getting to know her department mates, and we've gone out for beers with her department head.

Our best friends thus far has been a Czech "Fulbrighter" family that lived in Vermont for a year and want their 8-year-old daughter to keep up her English. We've exchanged play dates with them, they've had us over for dinner, they lent us bikes so we could bike in the hills around Brno, and best of all, they took us mushrooming.

A word about mushrooming: The Czechs are crazy for mushrooming and take pride in being able to identify their mushrooms, distinguish old from new, poisonous from edible, and knowing special secret places that other mushroomers have yet to find. In fact, the Mushroom Cult is so intense, Czechs don't buy mushrooms; one must pick one's own. (Think: more or less, the OPPOSITE of how you feel about cleaning toilets)

One more thing about the Mushroom Cult: it is closely related to the Chata (cottage) Cult. Czechs love to go mushrooming, but it is even better if you go from your cottage. Lots of Czechs have them, little rustic cottages, usually grouped into little cottage communities. During the communist times, one's chata was an escape from work and the state's constant monitoring (which also explains their love of cars, I think). And, of course, access to the opportunity to own a chata was dished out along political party lines.

Our descent into the inner circles of the Mushroom and Chata Cults, began with a train ride out of Brno up into the Moravian highlands (it looks like the country around here only...well, higher up). They met us at the railway stop (not a station: no platform, no ticket seller, no beer...just a stop...more about the Beer Cult in a later posting). We walked down the train track embankment into a forest where we followed a stream until we walked out into a small field (collectively owned by a nearby village), and then into their little cottage community (only four cottages, small by Czech standards).

Their cottage was rustic but full of get-away-from-it-all character: no running water, wood-heated stove, etc. The neighboring chatas were owned by retired skilled workers (from a nearby steel factory) who must have earned the right to their chatas by reaching the right production quotas or whatever back in the bad ol' days.

Our mushrooming expedition started with all the right equipment: baskets and knives. We walked up into the forest and immediately got a flavor for the skill, experience, and cultural training required. Even by the age of eight, their daughter would, from 30 or 40 feet away, look at a mushroom and say: "ah...it is a babicka...edible but too old and wormy." Meanwhile we were still trying to locate the mushroom!

By the end of being led through the forest by our mycological hosts for two hours, we had two loaded baskets but I could only identify one species of mushroom (poisonous...not a bad place to start). We returned to the chata where our hostess (who had returned earlier) treated us to fungal feast, of soup, fried mushrooms, and dumplings (knedliky) with mushroom gravy.

To properly prepare these wild mushrooms, our hostess had cooked them down into a...goop? The proper thing to do is keep some of those stewed mushrooms on hand in the frig and freezer so you can get your fungal kicks whenever the mushroom mood strikes you. Our hostess made an AMAZING soup with parsnips, potatoes, carrots, and mushrooms.

Two last things about this mushroom thing:
1) it is not compatible with alcohol-drinking (but that doesn't include beer, go figure)

2) it seems to go hand-in-hand with warm hospitality and great friendship.

We are so grateful to landed so well, amongst such nice people, and with such delicious mushrooms.

Sophie's Started School!

The big news? Sophie completed her first full week of SCHOOL!

She is going to the Evropská základní škola Brno-- European Basic School. Thankfully, it is a bilingual program (i.e., half the classes are in Czech, the other half in English). Sophie is the only native English speaker in her class of 16 (only four girls!). But the teachers and administrators speak English, which is critical because the culture, norms, and rules are decidedly Czech. There is a strict bell schedule, no toilet paper in the bathrooms (you bring your own!), and a not-quite-endearing Kafka-esque love of bureaucracy (e.g., Sophie's health forms are not adequate; we need a Czech doctor to fill out Czech forms . . . but they don't tell you until the forms are due, etc.)

All that said, Sophie seems to be doing very well despite the drastic move from her groovy progressive school back in the states. She likes the classroom, she is making friends, and she is eager to learn Czech. Fortunately she does not need English-language instruction (English class is pretty basic, and occasionally incorrect.). But getting on track with european math will be great for her, as will the swimming, art, and music classes. AND, her teacher is very nice, if not a little distracting for the dads (. . . when's the next parent-teacher conference?!). She (Sophie, that is) also likes the tradition of wearing "bačkory" (slippers) in school.

Our biggest complaint is our long commute to school (~45 min walking and on the tram!). But even there Sophie sees an opportunity to learn; she wants to make the commute by herself eventually. She says by mid October; her parents think 2010 would be about right.

So overall, now that (most) of the forms are completed and the school-supply shopping is done (this picture doesn't even include the SEVENTEEN little exercise books #523, and seventeen little plastic book covers she turned out to need. . . we got it wrong the first time) we are relieved and even pleased with the situation. But mostly, we are proud of Sophie for handling the situation with such poise and enthusiasm.





(http://www.ezscejkovicka.brno.indos.cz/soubory/english/indexEN.htm).