An Ode to Sokolov

Sokolov. Yes, it’s dirty; yes it’s a bit provincial; yes, it’s a tad boring at times. And no, no one has ever heard of it. But, it’s my dirty, provincial, slightly boring Czech town that no one’s ever heard of, and though I may complain the loudest about it, I’d be the first to defend it against insult.

When I arrived last year, I had no clue that I would one day truly miss it. Dragging my luggage into our miniscule Communist flat with an excellent view of the Delvita and the barren mining fields, I was ready to hightail it out of there. But the shock wasn’t simply aesthetic. Like any small town, it was a little stuck in its conservative ways and wasn’t particularly interested in change or outside influence, and that included crazy American twenty-somethings that wore their pajamas to the grocery store and made their students consume strange American concoctions like “brownies” and “rice-crispy treats”.

But I survived Sokolov, and we came to a comfortable mutual existence in which we both made sacrifices for the other’s sake and learned to embrace things about the other that we weren’t used to:

- I learned not to talk on the bus, to appreciate Euro MTV, to buy all my groceries before 3pm on Saturday, and to obey the unwritten after-dark curfew that everyone else abided.

- Sokolov expanded its horizons to sporadically carrying tortillas and salsa at Delvita, to tolerating me wearing my exercise clothes home instead of changing after aerobics, to appreciating my broken Czech attempt rather than criticizing it, and to occasionally smiling back at me on the streets.

I learned to value Sokolov for what it was instead of comparing it to what it wasn’t, and in fact, I was never completely aware of its quaint backwardness until I left it for Prague, like the Texas girl who never knew her mother had an accent until she left the country. And it wasn’t until I was in Prague that I became conscious of how those seeming disadvantages of small-town Czech life had actually been acute blessings. In Sokolov there wasn’t much to do, so it created more free time for being with people; there was no truly beautiful architecture, but some of the most beautiful countryside I had seen; minimal English skills, but an intense eagerness to learn.

That knowledge prepared me for my final moments in Sokolov, where I had to say goodbye not only to this town that had been my unlikely home for the good part of two years, but also to the people that inhabited it. In fact, my last day in town was an accurate demonstration of the quaint awkwardness that I loved about my life there.

After spending the day under the hospitality of Lucka, Darina, Misa, and Milena, all of whom heaped good wishes and gifts upon me for my journey home and for a family that they had never met, I enjoyed my favorite meal (“Fanda” and krokety) at Club Actus, my personal favorite of the limited few restaurants Sokolov had to choose from. Beth and Emily accompanied me to the train station, which we walked to since just about everything in the town is within 20 minutes walking distance.

At the station, I ran into at least six additional people that I knew, some of which happened to be former students. We talked awkwardly for a few moments about summer plans until they ran out of English words, initiating tense moment in which they inevitably contemplated, “Well, I really want to talk to Ms. Whittle, but I wish I didn’t have to say anything else in English.” They chose the easier option and left with an enthusiastic “Hello” (instead of goodbye).

I also ran into the pastor and his family, who I had already said goodbye to the week before, but I still felt I should say at least something additional. Having exhausted my Czech knowledge and utilized every possible synonym for “bye”, we stood in uncomfortable silence, staring at each other as I thought, “Well, I really want to talk to them, but I don’t have anything else to say in Czech”. So, instead I muttered another “Ajoj” (both “hello and “goodbye”) before walking a mere 10 ft back to where Beth, Emily, and one of my students were still standing.

When the train came to a screeching halt, I hugged Beth goodbye and lugged my things across the tracks and onto the train, where I chose a window seat so that I could wave to the six people (spread out across the platform so they didn’t have to keep talking in the other’s language) to see me off.

Surprisingly, I didn’t cry. I’d anticipated being more distressed upon leaving a town where I had invested so much of myself, but instead I felt confident that someday I would return to “my little Sokolov” and watched it fade away with a sense of pride. I invaded this quiet place before it knew what had hit it, and I left it hoping I had brought it just a little more joy.

I waved goodbye to Sokolov with a smile on my face, like leaving an old friend that you know you’ll see again soon, until the chemical factory smokestack finally disappeared behind the trees. I couldn’t help but think to myself that perhaps I didn’t survive Sokolov; maybe we survived each other.