EX-PAT HOLIDAY
Here it is the day before Thanksgiving, and I'm reminded of that very odd morning in 1990 when I walked into the Daily Nexus office and someone said our former colleagues were on the phone from Prague, where they were starting to publish the Eastern Bloc's first independent English-language newspaper. I got on the phone and it was Ben Sullivan. "I'm coming to work with you guys in Czechoslovakia, if that's OK. I decided last night," I told him. That night I drove home for the Thanksgiving holiday and told my parents what I planned to do after graduating. A few months later, I arrived in Prague. One of my first bold memories is of a large pool of blood at the base of Wenceslas Square. No one seemed to be making a fuss about it. Just a big pool of blood. I had no idea if it was human or animal, but it was a lot of blood. I ran into Ben a couple hours later at the American Hospitality Center (a little café we learned later was run by an ex-CIA guy), where he immediately paid me a one-month salary. I laughed at him, but he said I should take it now because he'd just been to the bank and had no idea when he could pay salaries again. Indeed, he was correct. Salaries came infrequently and we had to do a lot of things to make ends meet - such as sell the papers ourselves on the Charles Bridge and travel out to the army printer and stuff the paper's inserts by hand. Both Matt and Greg have written up nice Prague reminisces in the past few days. I was hoping to add some fond memories of my own, and dug out my journal that I kept while traveling. But it's really a lot of crap. A lot of woe-is-me I'm in love, not in love, misunderstood, afraid I'm making the wrong choices, blah blah blah. So I'll save you all that (with apologies to my friends who had to suffer through it in person) and instead try to recall what I can of Thanksgiving 1991.

This is a fuzzy memory, but it stands out as the best Thanksgiving I've ever had. Almost all of the Prognosis staff stayed in Prague for Thanksgiving and it was decided we'd have a big potluck dinner. Everyone was assigned items weeks advance, and nearly every day in between was spent searching obscure potravinys that might yield cranberry sauce, real sour cream, pumpkins for pie and whatever else we thought we could find to have an appropriate ex-pat holiday. I recall the major coup being Chris and Jenny procuring a whole turkey from the basement market at Kotva. We had a lovely mulled wine warming in the kitchen and a strong sense of camaraderie as we all jostled to get the food finished in the kitchen. I think we were a heavily American-crowd, but we had some Czechs, Brits, Croats who had fled their war, maybe some Canadians and probably others I can't recall now. Matt and Jeff performed a new song they'd written for the occasion and I still get a few refrains stuck in my head every year: "Have a Happy Thanksgiving, and a fine Turkey Day" something about have some white meat, no thanks, I'll take dark and then something about "I wish we could be this friendly - all the time." Whatever it was, we all laughed, demanded they sing it several times and generally basked in the glow of this group hug, insulated from a city that sometimes felt very cold and far away from home. Now if you're thinking of this as a story unfolding that is about to reach a climax, I should flashback to Jo Bloom. She was this Brit who joined the staff several months earlier and was repeatedly having good-natured UK vs US fights with us all. So as we're sitting around this flat in Prague 23 or so, someone suggests we all go around the room and say what we're thankful for. Groans, hisses, but someone starts and we continue around the room. People were getting a little sappy, but mostly pithy and brief. Then it gets to Jo, and she gets all choked up and can't talk. She finally said something about "You Americans and your Thanksgiving ..." and then poured out this very sentimental thank you to everyone there, and talked about what good friends we'd all become and how we were doing this crazy thing and how much fun we were all having and how we'd all grown to become family. She hit it on the mark for all of us, but it was so wonderful coming from her.

It feels like a very long time ago. Too bad we didn't write down more of those stories. I think we were always waiting for someone else to do it. Anyhow, Happy Thanksgiving everybody. And I hope you all have a fine Turkey Day.
- posted by Amy @ 11/21/2001 01:15:00 PM