The Course Of Understanding Part 1

This is a story I wrote as an e-mail serial a few years ago, which turned into my own little novelette. It's about a weekend I spent in Bratislava, and the beginning of a long an enriching personal feud with that city. After I had sent the last instalment about 6 months after the experience itself, my parents surprised me by having about 30 copies bound, which they brought to me when they visited in Prague. I'm quite proud of it, since it's the longest single thing I've written, and I still find it very entertaining. Okay, laughing at your own jokes may not be the best indication of poise or skill, but I don't care.

Most of all here I apologize for the formatting and correction. I don't have time to read it all for errors at the moment, and this blogger erases all extra spaces and indentations, so it's hard to read. If anyone knows of a better way to do this, please let me know! I also apologize if it doesn't make sense at first, because these chapters were originally written as e-mails to friends who had some background on me already. If I get time I'll try to rewrite it so it's accessible for everyone. In any case, I hope you get some enjoyment out of my misery (that's the only thing that makes misery easier to handle), and please let me know what you think.



THE COURSE OF UNDERSTANDING
PREFACE
In order for you to understand the bulk of the story, it will be necessary for me to relate some of the details involved with the process of getting a residence visa in Czech Republic. I’ll try to explain this quickly: think of the worst nightmare you’ve ever had (no really, think about it. Try to picture it. You’ve got it? Okay...) and then make the setting in a crowded government office, and make it tedious and boring! Lots of people live in this city on tourists’ visas (which last 90 days and are pretty easily renewed whenever you exit and reenter the country). They leave the country every 90 days and I’ve never heard of any problems. Thing is, it’s a gray area, legally speaking, and a little questionable, and I don’t want to be a tourist. Thus I must expose myself to the pitiless fury of Czech government offices against foreigners. There are a number of docs one must gather, each one of which is a different process, and different story: work permit, employer contract, Czech criminal record, American criminal record, residence contract, proof of financial security, etc. Let’s take the story with the Czech criminal record to get a picture of this process. The first factor is the bad hours, and the fact that I work most of the prime times. For many of these places there’s only a day or two I can even get to the office!
1. THE MYSTERY OF THE CRIMINAL RECORD!
1. I went to scope things out. I’ve discovered that simply hunting down the location (possession of maps and address notwithstanding) can be a major hurtle in and of itself (I miss the grid system!). After a lot of wandering about I found the huge building, and luckily knew that the office I wanted was out back (an American friend told me. Sharing information is really an essential part of this, since getting even the smallest bit of info without speaking the language is almost always an embarrassing and difficult ordeal). I saw that the office (an odd glass structure built onto the side of the building, looking like half a green-house) was crowded and overflowing into the parking lot, and with rain coming and nothing to read I decided to come back later. First step, location!
2. I went back to the office next week, and tried to decipher the system. In a foreign country, observation is key. Everyone seemed to be going into the office in front of the line and coming back a few seconds later, holding something. I went into the building and found people taking numbers from a machine, and I followed the example. I then saw the screens around and outside the building, flashing numbers: two numbers! There was one three-digit, which might match the number on my card (which would imply about 150 people ahead of me), and a random presentation of one-digit numbers, which did not correlate with anything I saw. To make matters worse, there appeared to be no organized line, and people were going into two different doors, one the left side of the structure and one on the opposite side, with no rhyme or reason. These doors were numbered 58 and 14. While trying to decode this I took a look at the application everyone seemed to be filling out, which was a nightmare in itself; all czech, much of which did not appear in my dictionary (legal language), and several things I could not understand (one thing I couldn’t understand, which I’ve learned about since, was the request for my mother’s maiden name!). While trying to figure this out, and making other people nervous by looking too carefully at their papers, I realized that the numbers on the screens must be the call-number, and the number of the window which you should go to. This came after I noticed that the number 9 never appeared, and the two doors were numbered not 58 and 14, but 5-8 and 1-4, meaning each door had four windows behind it. While waiting outside for my number (they moved pretty quick, which will be seen) I did my best on the application. My number approached quickly, and I went into the left door, saw the four windows and sat down in front of my window. Behind the window was a perfect example of a category of people I would learn to know very well: the nearly retired, tired, no-nonsense, female, czech government worker. I swear the government makes all of these attributes requirements for an office job; I never saw any deviation from it. Some details about the character of these people, they don’t speak a word of english (and they are tired of being asked), they don’t like their jobs, and they don’t like YOU! (I only saw one exception to these rules, on the last point there was once one woman who tried to be helpful). So, I sat down, asked if she spoke English (well, I had to ask!). She didn’t. I handed my application to her, with passport. She looked at it, handed it back, and handed me a sheet of writing (in Czech), she underlined one thing on the paper, and made it clear that she was done with me. I walked out with another clue in the mystery of the criminal record.
I took the paper to my school director, my students, and my friends, for a few weeks. None of them could give me a better translation of the underlines sentence than: "you need 50 crowns worth of ‘stamps’" but no one could tell me what this meant. Finally Jakub (Mariana’s boyfriend) told me that he knew what it is, and that you could get them at the post office. On to the post office!
At the post office, there are several different types of windows, each with different tasks (paying bills, collecting small packages, collecting big packages, sending packages, etc.). I took my underlined sentence (there was no way I could pronounce the name!). I stood in the first line and then presented the paper to the lady, asked her if she knew that it meant, and if she had any. She looked at it a moment, and then told me no. I stood in a different line. Same response. Next line, I got some sign language, which suggested I should go upstairs. Upstairs there are several types of windows... you get the idea. On the second window a young man took my paper, called over a colleague, and they studied it together, with a vague undertone of long-buried recognition. Finally the man went out of his window and to a door, where he disappeared for long enough to make me slightly concerned. He came back and led me to a different door, and left me in front of it. I tried the handle: locked. I noticed a speaker with a buzzer by the door. Doubtlessly I was expected to ring the buzzer, but then what? I couldn’t explain what I wanted even face-to-face and with it written out in front of me! After a few moments someone came out of the door, and I entered. It was a small room, with a teller-window on one side. I have since learned that one person at a time is allowed in this room, because a lot of money changes hands here. This is also where you buy boxes.
I presents the paper to the lady behind the window, who looked at it in confusion for a moment, long enough to make me concerned, and then she went to a box and took out a stamp, which had a big 50 Kc printed on it. Success!
3. I returned to the foreign police station, and again waited for 150 people to finish. I walked into the door, sat down, and confidently handed my papers to the lady. She asked for my passport, which I gave her, and then she asked for something else, which I didn’t understand. She handed me a different paper, underlined something, and sent me away. I was starting to get the hang of this!
Fortunately this one was easy. My director told me they needed my birth certificate also, and they needed my passport and birth certificate translated into Czech. She told me that she is a licensed translator, and so I brought my things to her to translate.
4. Much later, I returned again to this Everest of paperwork, and waited in line, this time risking a little confidence. I presented my papers to the woman, who quick looked at my papers, glanced at the translations, and began to express disagreement. She wrote out an address with a note and gave it to me. I didn’t even need to see her sending me away to know my cue. I considered questioning it, but without knowing how it would be little more than making myself a problem, and getting help would be even more unlikely.
I took the note to my director (you’d think she’d be getting annoyed by now, but most of these requests were several weeks apart, so not really!). She told me that the note said I must have the documents translated by the specific company, which they wrote the address of. She was confused by this, because her translations had always worked in the past. I set out to find this address, and since it was on Wensaslas square, which is the center of the city, I didn’t expect too much difficulty.
This address was not easy to find. After getting to the square, it took me about an hour and a half. The number was 17, and I could not find any addresses between 11 and 19. Naturally, I asked at the place next to 19. Nope. I then asked at all the stored between 11 and 19 (as far as communication was possible), getting varied responses. Finally I noticed that there was a small walkway going under the buildings, lined with shops (similar to the Garden Walk in downtown Chico). There were about 20 shops here. Turns out that this walkway is number 17.
After a mangled conversation with an old security guard who didn’t speak a word of english, I found a door in a corner which led to a very off-limits looking hallway. There were two guards in the room, blocking the staircase at the end of the dark hallway. After mustering my courage, I entered another mangled attempt at gathering information, and got pointed up the staircase. Four floors up, I finally found a door which seemed to be the right place. I rang, the door opened, and I had two questions read for the young man who answered. 1. "Do you speak English?" "Yes of course." 2. "How much will it cost to translate my passport and birth certificate?" "About 560 crowns a page" "okay, thank you." And I quickly walked out. Okay, perspective: my two documents would be at least two pages (if they decided to fit it onto two pages, which was by no means certain), so 1120 crowns. This would easily feed me for at least two weeks. I usually survive on about 5000 crowns a month, and don’t have a lot to spare. Long story short, even though I was bracing myself for something outrageous, I was shocked by this price, and it was not feasible. So, I decided that before giving up on the whole process, I would return to the police station with the same documents once more.
5. I stood in line (200 people this time), the whole time thinking that this was an exercise in futility. When it was my turn, I went to my window (I’m a pro at this by now!), and handed my papers to the lady. She glanced at my documents, glanced at the translations (done by my director), mechanically stamped my application, and handed me my official Czech Criminal Record, all without ever looking at me. It’s a good thing she didn’t, because if she had looked up she would have seen a very unusual, almost rapturous expression on my face, as I delicately held my own Holy Grail of bureaucracy. I felt like I was standing in a pillar of light, and I could almost hear the angels singing.
So why was I accepted this last time and not before? There’s no reason I’ve been able to determine. Even more perplexing is that the last lady did not even take time to read anything on any of my papers, did not look anything up on the computer, didn’t ask me any questions...really didn’t do anything at all, and yet she saw fit to hand me an official paper saying I had a clean criminal record (even though I saw no attempt at verification of this questionable "fact"). I’ve put a lot of thought into this, and I still don’t understand any of it, and my success does not mean I understand any reasons for a single step of the process. Really, it’s still a mystery, but one I managed to close the book on.
This was only one piece of paper among several, each having similar stories and ordeals.