Thursday, 4 Jun 98
The Tour Continues
The morning began slightly cloudy and nearly as humid as the night before.
It was going to be a warm day.
We assembled promptly in the lobby and proceeded to LGSAC where Robert
Bodo conducted us to Sdruzenie Miest A Obci Slovenska (ZMOS), the Federation
of Slovak Municipalities. There we were told that over 95% of Slovakia's
cities and towns are dues-paying members and that they pay fees for special
services as well. The Federation has a 120-member council consisting of
60 mayors from cities and 60 from towns/communes that has executive authority.
The congress of the federation has ultimate authority.
Friday, 5 Jun 98
The morning began sunny and somewhat drier than the day before. Yet another
warm, warm day.
There was some confusion at the checkout desk. To the extent (always limited)
that I can understand it, when we arrived the reservations were screwed
up with two of the guys together in a double. They didn't want it but
one of the women said she couldn't sleep alone so she and one of the other
women bunked together in the room incorrectly reserved for the two guys.
Everyone failed to straighten this out in the morning and now that one
of the guys was checking out (from a room in which he was not registered),
there was an unpaid phone bill on the room that wasn't checking out but
that the registered participants were just from different rooms. Got it?
The 70 km trip to Trnava was pleasant. We rolled across a slightly undulating
and very fertile plain -- like the plain surrounding Bucharest but somehow
different -- and an hour later arrived at the city. We were dropped off
at the edge of the pedestrian mall and walked to the City Hall Offices.
Like Bratislava, the old city was extremely neat. Unlike Bratislava, it
was a bit kitsch that day: polka music blared from speakers in the shrub
planters.
The celebration was of the anniversary (1238-1998) of Trnava's status
as a free city, the first in Slovakia. It featured cholesterol testing,
blood pressure testing, marching groups, and the like. No time to appreciate.
The City Hall ceremonies took an hour and included a welcome from Hana,
a welcome from the City Manager, and a welcome from the Mayor. Gifts were
given and stories told. The mayor gave us the city's cholesterol stats,
always a crowd pleaser. Finally it was over and we could talk to technicians
about the reasons we had come.
There followed a lengthy meeting with Hana Dienerova where participants
first discussed the founding the Slovak Association, its relationship
with ZMOS, its lobbying activities, its financing, how lobbying was done.
This went on for over an hour. Suddenly the topic changed without preface
and local government finance became the focus of discussion. What were
the local revenues in Slovakia, what percent of local budgets were from
the national government, what services did local governments provide,
what was the relationship between the national government and local governments?
The end of the day featured a tour of Cerveny Kamen Castle was owned
for hundreds of years by rich German bankers. It had been attached or
burnt like the Bratislava Castle so many of the original effects were
still there hundreds of years later. The furniture was all museum quality,
indeed some of the finest I have ever seen. All the bedrooms had paintings
on the ceiling that reflected a rather odd taste: most of the scenes were
from the Bible or classical myth and most were of rapes, voyeurism, or
seduction. Those Germans . . .
Joe
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Above, the private chapel
at Cerveny Kamen Castle reflects a baroque style and Catholic religion.
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6 Jun 98
Yet More of Bratislava and Environs
Dick Kobayashi writes to explain the easier adaptation of the Slovaks
to capitalism:
"Unlike Bucharest, Bratislava is but 40 minutes from a bastion of
capitalism and immense wealth - Vienna. Much investment, weekending and
purchase of services: hair massage, auto body repair, etc. It's a longer
trek to Bucharest I fear.
"Also throughout the cold war Slovaks could get Austrian domestic
TV and radio unjammed. All in German, but that was the lingua franca in
those parts."
It is a truism here that the closer a country is to the West, the more
easily it adapts to capitalism. That leaves Russia the furthest east of
all European countries.
Saturday, 6 Jun 98
Nevertheless the trip is valuable in opening the participants minds. If
they just pay attention to what they are told they will have knowledge
of two systems (Slovak and Romanian) and if they ever visit the big time
countries, they might learn that the Slovak system has more in common
with theirs than they now realize. If they are thoughtful on their trip
here, they might even reach that conclusion now.
We met in the Hotel Lobby at 12:30 pm and walked to the LSGAC office.
We arrived on time (I had padded every deadline to make sure that we would
not be late at any destination) and Ken was waiting for us downstairs.
We were barely in the office when the housing expert arrived and Catalina
and I left the Slovak-Romanian translator with the group so that the Romanian-English
translation would not slow things down. The discussion went on for over
two hours and was animated. Many questions, lengthy answers, curiosity,
interest manifest in the discussion even though I could not understand
a word.
Catalina sent long emails and I traded war stories with Ken.
Sunday, 7 Jun 98
Everyone was prompt at 6 am on this slightly cool morning. I paid the
hotel bills for the staff but forgot to pay with my Slovak Krowns. We
will have figure that out later.
The flight to Prague was short and pleasant. We flow over checked farmland
(forgive the pun) that grew more urban as we left the Small Carpathians
behind and approached the city. The airport was big and fairly new and
filled with shops of all kinds -- at least all kinds intended for tourists.
Catalina proved true to her word and declared that she had spent all her
per diem in Bratislava by asking if she could borrow $50 from me in case
she should see anything she should want. I gave her one of my "emergency"
$50s.
We got on the return flight with no problem and an hour and forty minutes
later, we were passing through customs and immigrations. We said our goodbyes
to the participants and headed home.
In thinking about the visit to Slovakia, I could not forget the fine quality
beer, the very clean old city, the language (my first exposure), how swiftly
the time went, the interpreter who talked too much (Catalina could finish
translating into English before he would finish translating into Romanian),
and the lovely city hall that was mostly 250 to 350 years old.
Joe
16 June 98
The Repatriation Process
or
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Office
I was crossing Victoriei Street on my way to work when I thought, "Today
is the 15th. That means that I will be leaving in 20 days."
Then I realized: The countdown had begun. All this time I have avoided
the urge to figure out how many days were left, how many hours, how many
minutes. I avoided it because when you start counting days, it gets much
harder to focus on your work. It is like some strange form of expatriate
Spring Fever.
Once your thoughts are on home and not the "here" where you
are, the "here" becomes a harder place to live in. You grow
more put out with all the things that aren't "like home," all
the local quirks that had surprised and amused when you were new to the
land. "They would never do that in Chicago," you say to yourself
in a form of disgust. "Just wait till I get home!"
But I have lived away from home on multiple occasions and discovered that
your memories of home are seriously distorted by some perverse form of
romanticism that has little if any relation to reality.
I have complained about the feeble Romanian sense of service. Yet I know
that when I go into Arthur's, a coffee shop just two blocks from my apartment
in Chicago (the one I have paid for and not enjoyed for four months!)
-- I know that the waitresses will stand around talking to each other
and ignore me for as long as is convenient for them -- usually very long.
Now I admit that I can get a fried egg, bacon and processed American cheese
sandwich on an English muffin (no garnish) there the like of which cannot
be found in Romania but that doesn't make the service any better. But
right now, the "we don't need you" service ethic in Arnold's
_seems_ to be better.
There are old Greek myths about the gods blinding someone to make them
think that something beautiful is ugly and something that is ugly, beautiful.
That is what counting the days is like.
And it picks up speed. The closer you get to the departure date the more
fixated you get on leaving. Your patience with whatever has frustrated
you decreases. You start imagining how perfect home is, you can't imagine
any flaws or imperfections. All will be well the moment you step off the
plane -- if you could only leave NOW. There are no rude cab drivers where
you are going, no incompetent clerks, no schedule-challenged public transportation,
no brain dead bureaucrats -- no, at home they know how to do it right.
All this you think, believing it against all reason and knowledge: the
triumph of nostalgia over experience.
For all these reasons, I put my departure out of my mind. "Pay no
heed to it," the father in me said to the child in me and my me-father
nodded sagely and my me-child bit his/my lip, wondering why all the "adult"
things were so painful. (The me child hadn't learned about sex yet --
that was in the future of the past.)
I got to the office early and arranged my desk and got to work, oozing
intent dedication. Bud Roon asked me, "What's today's date?"
"The 15th," I said. "No, I think that was yesterday,"
he said. I clicked on the time display on my menu bar and realized that
it was the 16th! "Great!!" I thought, "I am leaving in
19 days!!" And that was all I could think about.
Joe
A Virtual Tour of Romania |
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