Reasons Why

Jon Webb, the wonderfully stodgy veteran of ESL teaching and our TEFL trainer, surveyed our class during his first lesson (his black sock replete with family crest poking out of a Birkenstock), then said these telling words:

“Every one of you has a secret. Why anyone would do this is beyond me. It’s certainly not a glamour job. You’ll get shit hours, you’ll get shit pay. You’ve left home and you’re here. Why? That’s your secret.”

He’s a sarcastic showman, Mr. Webb is, but I’ve found he was right to a large degree. “Secret” might be an exaggerated term, but I think the main question Jon was asking was this: Why have you moved halfway across the world to do what you could do much easier at home? What are you doing unrooting your life?

Pertinent indeed. Because no answer is ever the same, really—oh, there’s a few categories for sure, a few patterns, but it’s still kind of a secret card that everyone holds in their hand. Look at these facts: most of the teachers can’t speak a lick of Czech; most plan to go back “home” (i.e., North America) in a year or two. So why?

There are lots of strange cases, and lots of strange people. In fact, it’s people who act “normal” or “mainstream” that make me the most weary—they swagger through the school like politicians, all smiles and not much to say.

So, the basic categories:

Lovers: Some, like Alyssa and Tom, had significant others in the area and decided to relocate on their behalf. That seems nice if it works out. Paul moved for an Internet love he had never met in person—unsurprisingly that did not work out.

Ted came to bang Euro chicks because he couldn’t get any at home. His Frankenstein physique and persona aren’t fairing much better over here, though.

Nathan fell in love with one of his students. I’ve heard a bunch of guys say, “Well, if I find the right girl over here and settle down…” This is strange to me, because it seems like a case of taking advantage of your English-speaking prowess (which WILL get girls interested in you to a good degree).

I don’t know. You find love where you find it—in chance meetings, in blue pickups, in Dairy Queens or classes you almost cut out on. Searching halfway across the globe does not increase the likelihood of finding it, in my opinion. But who am I to blow against the wind?

Partiers: It is entirely possible to party your brain into a large foggy blackness in Prague and still get paid for it. You can get by without lesson planning, you can spend every night at the pub if you want. Entirely possible.

The first month or two I was here I was getting a lot of drinks with friends. Then back into the fight the next morning. I got burned out by this quickly, though, and limit my partying to the weekends (predominantly) if at all. I've actually come to appreciate the weekends as wind-down time as opposed to wind-up party time. (Yaoza. That's kind of an adult thought. What am I turning into? What, praytell, have I become?)

But there are plenty of people who work hard and play hard. And there are plenty of people who work poorly and play hard. My ex-roommates were heavy into it, hitting up raves, dropping X, drinking and smoking every night. Which is fine, I guess, if that’s your bag. I just couldn’t sustain it.

I will say this about Prague—of all the European capitals I’ve been to, it’s certainly the seediest. It’s got this decadent element to it, the kind that brings English stag parties over in droves. A beer is cheaper than a coke—Come and get it, boys. It's still more beautiful than most other major cities, it's not necessarily dirty, it's just...well, you only need to go a couple feet off the main square to find a whore. So yeah. that's what I'm saying.


After that who’s left? Who Else Is Here?

—the lost?
—the lonely?
—the beaten down?

You’ve got the recent college graduates, like Colin, who decided that figuring out the future could wait.

You’ve got people doing gap years, like Grace from Oxford.

You’ve got people who’ve sworn off America, like Jessica from Virginia.

You’ve got some hardliners, veterans, folks that have made it a permanent profession, directors and the like who’ve been here 5, 10, 15 years.

You’ve got the restless, the travelers, the adventurers.

And…these people are easier to define. Their “secret,” so to speak, is less hidden (or so it seems). The rest, though, the rest, fall into various permutations of either

1. Not knowing what they want from life
2. Running away from something

One of my roommates, Emily, was offered a promotion at her job in Calgary to events coordinator for a bookstore. And she would have loved the job. But her boyfriend and her split and the emotional waves carried her all the way to Prague, where she once studied and had been happy.

My other roommate Tom wants to do everything. He’s taking French lessons. He’s taking Czech lessons, but he might drop it to take Spanish lessons. He wants to go to grad school for environmental studies. He wants to make movies. He wants to buy a car and drive it to Finland. He wants to buy a piano and take piano lessons. Oh, and his future might be in interior design. Translation: Tom has no idea what he wants to do so he’s trying to collect as many possibilities as possible.

And I…I had to get away (for a while). The year before, after I’d graduated, was quite difficult. It was tough finding a job, finding a place to live, and nothing seemed to go quite right. The Measure for Measure project that I failed to put on was kind of analogous to the whole year—something I put a lot of work into, that had the best intentions, but ultimately fell apart. And maybe it wasn’t my fault, completely, but I hadn’t saved it. Not getting the fellowship at Enspire was the same way. It was a tough adjustment that didn't go well, I got down on myself mentally, told myself I only had a few people I could count on, shied away from new relationships and old. I felt trapped. The job I was working was fine but not a career path. Nothing…fit. Nothing felt right. I told myself if I didn’t get the Enspire fellowship I would leave, and lo and behold, I left.

Who knows if it was the best choice? But getting to Prague, finally getting far, far away and gaining some perspective, has been great. It’s taught me (A) To get over myself, (B) That Texas is more awesome than other parts of the world, (C) You can make it anywhere if you try, (D) What and Who I value, etc., etc., etc.

Satanic Verses starts with the line, “To be born again, first you have to die.” We’d like to think of life as levels, steps to take, snakeskins to slough off. Rarely does it work that way. But Prague has been close to that, I think. It’s taught me lessons I needed to learn.

Sometimes you can’t hope for more than the chorus of The Bealtes’ “Getting Better,” you know? You hope that you’re improving yourself. You have to tell yourself you are.

Other teachers have strange brews of my reason, of Tom’s, of Emily’s, of all and anything else. Sometimes it just amounts to being more fun that what people were doing back home. Grace says everyone here is looking for something. I'm not sure--there is no perfect answer when your students ask you why you decided to come to the Czech Republic.

But I have to admit it’s getting better. Oh yes. All the time.