Beer talk and pay cuts.

Time is fleeting and meanwhile I managed to make some pals and and get into a regular running 🏃‍♂️ routine, which was in the recent weeks overtaken by my fledgling social life. Basically it all started with Zuska’s Bday on April 20th. Todd’s birthday phone call started out that morning (same day with the time zone difference). The weather changed at that point and thus all combined factors elevated my mood. The trees 🌳 are thick lush green, birds sing so loudly that I am awoken every a.m. früh (early) about 4:22 to hear them outside my ninth floor window.

As a consequence of the livelier social life I am leading, my time spent on writing ✍️ has decreased. It has likewise become increasingly harder to get onto a computer and spend time hacking away on MS Word.

My writing career is still in the making. I started on and sent two meager inquiries; have two or three in progress; and am a bit in a Catch-22 on the process. I will however plow ahead. Queries take six weeks to reply to me, and by then I am gone from Slovakia 🇸🇰 so I can only write on experiences I’ve made and info I already have/know. Oh well. It will work out.

Pay Cuts

I am gaining lots of experience, from locals and talking “beer talk” with people. Plus all the gossip at school (Berlitz). Wow. Staff and teachers in a small town at a small upper class school. Endless. We also had another meeting with Peter who said he should have our money (for April) by Friday. (He does.)

The meeting was about how nobody in Slovakia 🇸🇰 has money and it’s going even worse. The unemployment will soon hit 25-30 % and the exchange rate is now 42-1. It’s very fast currency devaluation and inflation. The rate was 37-1 when I arrived three months ago. So some landlords want foreigners to pay 💰 in dollars now, since the crown isn’t worth shit -as Jae put it. He was really hounding on Peter in the meeting.

Everyone will take a 2,000 (SK) pay cut (10%) as of May 1, to keep the school (Berlitz) afloat. The next step could be bankruptcy. He (Peter) is hiring new teachers at 15,000 SK now. Go figure. He said the government contract in Bratislava is going to a British company to keep the funds in the EU, a procedure called “turning”.

Beer Talk

Peter further explained that many customers aren’t even paying. One of them I taught right after the meeting, and her husband was supposed to have contacts for Peter. But needless to say -they didn’t go through. A local company was to send 60 students to start this week- now they sent the list of students and it was only 20 (in groups of ten) plus they wanted to Xerox the book. How cheap can you get!

Meanwhile it was Chris’s bday, and I was invited to Chris, Damon, and Bibiana’s for dinner one Saturday night. There was polka music 🎼 playing at a hall across the way.

 

Friday 7 May, 1999

This is an excerpt from my Košice Journal, documenting my exodus from a (relatively happy) bustling life in beautiful San Diego, to (voluntarily) take a post teaching English in the newly independent eastern capital of Slovakia during a very cold winter 1999.