This trip was an unsettling mix of visiting institutions (e.g. orphanages) for babies in Most (name of a town, but means “bridge”), for children and adults with cognitive disabilities, in the tiny town of Osek, and then seeing my Fulbright colleagues perform bluegrass music at a small pub in Ústí nad Labem. Follow that up with a stay in the spa town of Teplice with additional Fulbrighters.
I got off at the wrong stop between Most and Teplice. Řetenice, turns out, sounds a lot like Teplice over a blurry loudspeaker. But instead of getting off at a vibrant spa town with beautiful colorful buildings, I found myself at a train station that looks like this. You know, picture tumbleweeds bouncing along past you. Well, perhaps instead imagine old bald tires rolling by.
Middle of absolutely nowhere and I was wandering ridiculously holding ceramic creatures given to me by young people at one of the institutions I visited: a chicken and what I call a Czech leprechaun. Because it’s a small green bearded man who smokes a long pipe. Is that, or is that not, a quintessential leprechaun? Though Czechs seem somewhat offended when I say that. They remind me that leprechauns are an Irish thing. Well, or I’d say they are an cereal character that all American children covet because half the pieces are marshmallow.
It is actually Vodník – a not-so-friendly mythical being that lives in ponds and will steal your soul if you get too close to the water. Or in another version, just drags you under water until you drown. You know, the kind of story you should tell your children right before bed.
I can only imagine how I looked with my chicken facing out, feet splayed forward, and my green Vodník, circling the ancient run-down train station, trying to figure out how to get to Michelle’s house from there. Two teen boys, entertained by this sill stranger, followed me from a distance, I’m sure wondering that the heck I was doing there.
Let’s just say it wasn’t the first time I had a train fiasco nor will it be the last. I did finally make it to the correct city.
Teplice is a spa town near the German border, less for leisure but more for medicinal spas – or so I’m told. The architecture throughout the town is both interesting in design and colorful.
Since half of this trip was about my research, I want to say a word or two about it. I’m very appreciative of the directors of these institutions for permitting me to visit and see firsthand the services they provide. It was simultaneously painful and a relief to visit. The babies. Oh the babies. They deserve – all of them – to be raised from birth in a family that will love them and care for their unique needs and respond immediately to their cries…and the reality is this just cannot happen in an institution. I saw babies crying and crying with no one coming. I saw…so much more that I shouldn’t write here. But I also talked to those in power and heard them explain that they too wanted the babies to be somewhere else. That they felt this was the last and worst option. That they wanted to find and sought families to foster and adopt these children. It’s not as clear-cut as it seems on the surface.
When I heard that the children with disabilities never are selected and are destined, pretty much uniformly, to a lifetime in institutions, I asked where they go from here, from the baby institutions that only care for children through age 3. I was invited to visit such a place. A place where children and adults, those with developmental delays live their entire lives. I worried it would be a sad place. I couldn’t be more wrong. I was taken aback by the love and care of the staff, the ease and comfort of the residents who came and went through the doors as they pleased, who joked and laughed hysterically with the director, the head nurse who gently stroked the face of an anxious young person, and perhaps most importantly, the visits to the rooms of the non-ambulatory residents. That they were in fact cared for, loved, attended to, that their needs both physical and social were considered. Ironically, this place was one of the happiest places I’ve visited of all the institutions.
I cannot post photos of my research which is partly why I don’t write much about it. I must respect the privacy of the children – and young adults – whom I encounter as part of my research. But I think about them constantly and I wish to do right by them in my analysis and dissemination of my findings. I intend to be as honest and transparent, and fair as possible when I present my results.
We went to Ustí nad Labem which is very near Teplice, to hear our fellow Fulbrighters, Lee and Emily Bidgood, perform bluegrass at a local pub. It was really a treat. The place was packed. We also got to hear some Czech musicians perform bluegrass as well.
Michelle and her husband Paul were generous hosts and let all of us (including 3 small children not pictured) stay at their flat and made breakfast for us each morning. It is always fun for me to have conversations with people who are experts in something but that something is completely different from my knowledge base.
Michelle took us to the Pivovar Monopol for lunch, which brews their own beer on site. I also had the most amazing fried beet pancakes. This country does know how to get creative with beets. Never thought I’d like them so much.
I was exhausted by the time I returned to Ostrava, but it was one of the more engaging trips I’ve taken.
Adventures in the Czech Republic 
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