Words for Wednesday :: Travel Log ~ 1 ~ Rejseberetning

Dansk længere nede

This challenge started a long time ago. Now it has turned into a movable feast with Elephant's Child as our coordinator; and the Words provided by a number of people.

The general idea of this challenge is to make us write. Poems, stories, subtitles, tales, jokes, haiku, crosswords, puns, ... you're the boss.
Use all Words, some Words, one Word, or even none of them if that makes your creative juices flow. Anything goes, only please nothing rude or vulgar.

 It is also a challenge, where the old saying "The more the merrier" holds true.

So Please, remember to follow the links, go back and read other peoples' stories. And please leave a comment after reading. Challenges like this one thrives on interaction, feedback and encouragement. And we ALL need encouragement.

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The prompts for every Wednesday in January are provided by Elephant's Child, and made public at her blog.

For today we had these words:

Camel
Bone
Carving
Application
River
     And/or
Journey
Shock
Family
Crown
Colours

Today's writing is a little different than usual. Firstly, it's totally autobiographical, and secondly, there are memories from a not-so-nice time.
I haven't used the words in the order in which they were given, or indeed all of them, as I usually do.
These stories - which I hope to continue over the coming Wednesdays - have been lurking in my head for a long time. And some days ago I realised that most people I know no longer remember the days when the Iron Curtain was a normal part of everyday life. And that many young people have a glorified image of life behind the Iron Curtain.
That's why I've told small sections of this story several times to several different people. Now I had to write it down.

I went to the International High School. The thirst for adventure and the desire to travel were my main motivational factors, and then the atmosphere of belonging, of being safe, and having a place in the bigger sceme of things. These were people you felt you could trust.
     The first time at the school was euphoric, I was finally part of a community, we sang and drank endless amounts of tea. We studied for driver's license together, and as I was one of the first to pass the theroretical part, I continued studying with the others until everyone had passed sometime in October! I memorised the theory, including the difficult part with hydraulics and vacuum brakes.
    There was a "go home" weekend every third weekend. I don't remember much about them, but I do remember the feeling of coming home to school. The guitar music, the songs, and the hot tea in the dining hall after the cold bike ride from the station warmed me to my bones. Even though after a while we were divided into two groups - the ideologues and the rest of us. You had to watch your words when an ideologue was around, so most of the time we sat in small groups with those we trusted around the rooms.
    Fortunately, in my group there weren't many ideologues. There was one of the other groups that was really bad. The worst of us was probably one of my roommates, Anniken. Most of the others were pretty "normal" - and had a thousand different reasons for going there.

    We got our driving licence, read about the countries we were going to visit, brushed up some languages, repaired the buses, packed, and were ready for the big journey. On a sunny day in October, we finally left. We said our goodbyes to parents, siblings and friends who had come to see us off. We travelled through the GDR, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, etc. to experience the communist paradise.

It didn't seem very paradisal to me. It was as if the colours of life were gone. In Prague, which was otherwise a beautiful city, there were still bullet holes in the walls from World War II and people were queuing for a meal at the local soup kitchen. We went to the Revolutionary Museum, which was in an old mansion, but we didn't see the Charles Bridge or the Tajn Church or any of the other beautiful things.

What I tell you in this chapter applies to Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and to some extent Yugoslavia. Czechoslovakia was just the country we spent the most time in, so most of the examples are from there. In Yugoslavia, things were a bit better. People were more optimistic, more active. Tito's manoeuvring between the US and the SSSR gave more wiggle room and thus hope to the people.

Red Star over Czechoslovakia  (a song, we wrote - literal translation)
Czechoslovakia is a country in the east,
we crossed the border, time has turned into autumn,
We croosed beautiful mountains, but then we got no further.
When we reached Prague, our dear bus broke down.

There is a lot of industry in this country.
The farms are big with many big machines ...

As the song tells, one of the buses broke down when we reached Prague and there was a big fuss to get it repaired. The local ČSAD (bus lines - still existing today) workshop was unwilling to lend us any tools to repair it - the bus had broken down right outside the workshop, so it wasn't like we had to go far with the tools. In the end, a West German couple on a family visit ended up helping with the repairs.

While some of our group struggled to repair the bus, the rest of us went on "investigations". That is, we travelled on a local train with wooden seats and were dropped off in small towns along the line in threes. We then had to be at the station again the next day at the same time. My group went to the local grocery store and found a German-speaking, motherly-looking lady who very insistently invited us to the sauna when we started questioning her about political issues and daily life in Bulgaria.

Inside the sauna, she told us that she and her husband had built it themselves, so there were no microphones. And then she went through the system from A to Z. It killed all initiative by cancelling private property rights, it destroyed families with mistrust and espionage. And so on and so forth.

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Dagens skriverier er noget anderledes end de plejer at være. For det første er det totalt selvbiografisk, for det andet er der minder fra en ikke så vidundelig tid.
Jeg har heller ikke, som jeg plejer, brugt ordene i den rækkefølge, vi har fået dem, eller den alle sammen.
De historier - jeg håber at fortsætte de kommende onsdage - har længe ligget og luret i mit hoved. Og forleden gik det op for mig, at de fleste jeg kender, ikke længere husker den tid hvor jerntæppet var en normal del af hverdagen. Og at mange af de unge har et forherliget billede af livet bag jerntæppet.
Derfor har jeg fortal små afsnit af denne historie flere gange for flere forskellige. Nu måtte jeg så hellere få det skrevet ned.

Jeg tog på Den Internationale Efterskole. Eventyrlysten og udlængselen var de to største faktorer, og så trygheden. Der var folk det føltes som om man kunne stole på. Den første tid på skolen var euforisk, jeg var endelig en del af et fællesskab, vi sang og drak uanede mængder af te hver aften. Vi læste teori sammen, og da jeg bestod som en af de første, læste jeg videre sammen med de andre til alle havde bestået en gang i oktober! Jeg kunne teorien, også den svære del med hydraulik og vacuumbremser udenad.
    Der var hjemrejse-weekend hver tredje weekend. Dem kan jeg ikke huske ret meget fra, men jeg husker følelsen af at komme hjem til skolen. Guitarklangene, sangene - for vi sang virkelig meget - og den varme te i salen efter den kolde cykeltur fra stationen varmede helt ned i tæerne. Også selv om vi efter et stykke tid deltes i to grupper - ideologerne og os andre. Man skulle vogte sine ord, når en ideolog var i nærheden, så for det meste sad vi i små grupper med dem vi stolede på, rundt omkring på værelserne.
    I min gruppe var der heldigvis ikke så mange ideologer. Der var en af de andre grupper, der var virkelig slem. Den værste hos os var nok en af mine værelseskammerater, Anniken. De fleste andre var ret "normale" - og havde 1000 forskellige grunde til at gå der.

    Vi fik taget kørekort, studerede de lande, vi skulle rejse til og lidt sprog, sat busser i stand og pakket. Så var vi klar til den store rejse. En solskinsdag i oktober tog vi så endelig afsted. Vi tog rørende afsked med forældre, søskende og venner der var kommet for at vinke. Vi rejste ned gennem DDR, Tjekkoslovakiet, Jugoslavien, Bulgarien osv, for at opleve det kommunistiske paradis. På mig virkede det nu ikke særligt paradisisk. Det var ligesom farverne i tilværelsen var væk. I Prag, der ellers var en smuk by, var der stadig skudhuller i murene fra 2. verdenskrig og folk stod i kø for at få et måltid i det lokale suppekøkken. Vi var på revolutionsmuseet, der lå i en gammel herskabslejlighed, men vi så ikke Karlsbroen eller Tajn-kirken eller nogen af alle de andre skønne ting.
    Det, jeg fortæller i dette kapitel, gælder for Tjekkoslovakiet, Bulgarien, Ungarn, Rumænien og til dels Jugoslavien. Tjekkoslovakiet var bare det land, vi brugte mest tid i, derfor er de fleste eksempler derfra. I Jugoslavien var det hele lidt bedre. Folk var mere optimistiske, mere aktive. Titos manøvrering mellem USA og SSSR gav mere frihed og dermed håb til befolkningen.

Rød stjerne over Tjekkoslovakiet (en sang, vi skrev)
Tjekkoslovakiet er et land i øst,
vi tog over grænsen, det var blevet høst,
over flotte bjerge, men så var det slut
da vi nåede Prag var motoren kaput.

Her i landet er der meget industri.
Gårdene er store med maskiner i ...

    Som sangen siger, gik en af busserne itu, da vi nåede Prag, og der var stor ståhej med at få den repareret. Det lokale ČSAD-værksted (busselskabet) ville ikke på vilkår låne noget som helst værktøj ud, så vi kunne reparere - bussen var gået i stå lige uden for værkstedet, så det var ikke fordi vi skulle langt væk med værktøjet. Det endte med at et Vesttysk ægtepar på familiebesøg hjalp med reparationerne.
    Mens nogle stykker sled med at reparere bussen, tog vi andre på undersøgelse. Det vil sige at vi tog med et bumletog med træsæder og blev smidt af i små byer langs vejen tre og tre - i treere blev det kaldt. Vi skulle så være på stationen igen næste dag på samme tid. Vi gik til den lokale købmand og fandt der en tysk-talende moderligt udssende dame, der meget insisterende inviterede os i sauna, da vi begyndte at udspørge hende om politiske emner og dagliglvet i Bulgarien.
    Inde i saunaen fortalte hun at den havde hun og hendes mand selv bygget, så der var garanteret ingen mikrofoner. Og så gennemheglede hun ellers systemet fra a til z. Det dræbte al initiativ ved at ophæve ejendomsretten, det ødelagde familierne med mistillid og spionage. Og så videre.