The Czech language contains several letters not found in the English alphabet, but most of them simply represent sounds we don’t have a single symbol for. For example, ě sounds like “yeh,” š like “sh,” č like “ch,” and ž like “zh” (think second g in “garage”). But there is one very special letter, the sound of which does not even exist in any other language that I’m aware of. That letter is ř.
To form the ř, one must produce the sounds of the Czech “r” (a “trill” r made in the front of the mouth) and ž at the same time. Naturally, this is very difficult for foreigners to pick up, as we have simply never trained our tongues to move in that way. But being unable to pronounce this letter does not automatically label you a foreigner. In fact, just about every Czech has to visit a speech therapist during the early years of school in order to learn to form this letter, and some of them never succeed.
The speech therapist who visits the preschool where I work expressed her admiration for my ability with this letter; years of practice seem finally to have paid off. And actually, once you are able to form the sound, you begin to understand why Czechs are so proud of it. It’s quite fun to say! But what does it actually sound like? I’ve spent some time thinking about it, and I believe it can be described in this way:
Ř is the sound of a G that got stuck and started vibrating. It’s the precise sound produced when a beetle trapped inside a plastic bag flaps its wings desperately hoping to escape.
As an example, here is the pronunciation of the Czech word řeka (river): http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Cs-%C5%99eka.ogg
And here is a famous Czech tongue twister (Třistatřiatřicet stříbrných křepelek přeletělo přes třistatřiatřicet stříbrných střech. - Three hundred and thirty three silver quails flew over three hundred and thirty three silver roofs.): http://www.omniglot.com/soundfiles/czech/tonguetwisters/tt3_cz.mp3
Enjoy, and happy tongue twisting to all!
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Important Paperwork
If you're ever unfortunate enough to find yourself at the bus station of Rakovnik, be sure to visit the station toilet. Yes, you have to pay for it, but it's pretty clean, and for the low low price of 4 kč you get not only six single-ply sheets of toilet paper, but also this fancy receipt!
Unfortunately the attendant failed to fill in the date on mine, so I guess I can't count on it for a tax write-off. I should really go back and file a complaint.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Czech Bureaucracy: Receiving a Package
If you’re a foreigner living in the Czech Republic, it’s a good bet that you have family and friends living elsewhere in the world. Mine happen to live in the United States, and now and then one of them wants to send me a care package. In the past I’ve always asked them not to, after hearing horror stories from others who’ve had to pick up packages from the post office, but since moving to my own apartment with my very own address, I decided to lift the ban and gave my address out to my relatives.
Forgetting this, I was confused to find a slip in my mailbox a couple of weeks ago saying I had missed a delivery. The only other time I had gotten one of these was when O2 had delivered my wifi router (another long story of bureaucratic nightmare), but the only name on the slip other than mine was a Czech woman’s name I had never heard before. Who was she, and what was she sending me? I decided not to worry about it for now – I’d have time to collect whatever it was a few days later.
That evening a friend came to visit me and I showed him the slip. His forehead wrinkled with concern and he told me these were the sorts of slips they used to indicate delivery of government documents. The name, he said, was either the name of a government worker or, possibly, just the name of my postal delivery woman. I’d better head to the post office as soon as possible, he said, because it might be something relating to my visa.
The words of another friend immediately ran through my mind: if they’re going to reject your application, they’ll do it within the first few months. You’ll get a departure order in the mail and have to leave the country within a certain time period, and you’ll have to wait 3 months to come back and start your visa application over from scratch.
There was no time to go that evening, and that night I hardly slept, wondering what on earth I’d do if I got deported. What about my job? What about my apartment? What about my friends? What about my cat?
The next day, immediately after work, I raced to my local post office. I had never been to this one before and had no idea where to go, but my Czech was good enough to politely ask someone standing in line where I should go, and he directed me upstairs. At the top of the stairs were a few windows with small barriers in front of them with gaps in between. All of the barriers had writing on them indicating clearly that there was ONE entrance to this area and arrows pointing to a gap on one side of the room where a young woman was waiting. There were several empty windows, however, so I stood around uncertain for a moment. Finally one of the unoccupied workers looked at me in annoyance and beckoned me over, the look on her face seeming to indicate that she was awfully tired of having to tell people to come to her window when it was free.
I handed her my deliver slip and my passport and after signing a form, she handed me a thick envelope with stamps and writing all over it.
I opened it on the way home to find five pieces of paper. Two of them were covered in Czech small-print legalese which I would have to interpret later. Two were empty forms which I assumed I would need to fill out for some reason or another. But looking through these four pages, I didn’t see anything I recognized. Nothing about an application, a business license, or a visa. At the bottom of one page was an address and a list of opening hours – I finally realized it was another post office. And the fifth piece of paper, when I finally got to it, turned out to be covered in familiar handwriting. Whose was it?
Oh. Right. It was my mom’s handwriting.
(I know that handwriting very well. It is a firm belief of mine that everyone, no matter their age, is still able to forge their mother’s signature even many years after they have graduated high school.)
(Not… Not that I ever forged your signature, mom.)
Finally I remembered that she had sent me a birthday box with goodies in it from the states. I breathed a massive sigh of relief when I realized this had nothing at all to do with my visa. My package had simply been moved to another building and I’d have to go there to pick it up. A Czech friend gave me further relief by telling me the empty forms weren’t necessary for me and I wouldn’t need to worry about them. (Apparently they were just forms giving someone else permission to pick up the package in my place.)
Naturally, it would not be simple. Most post offices in Prague are open weekdays and Saturdays until 20:00 (8 pm), but this one, the one where the customs department was for imported packages, located in a completely different part of Prague from where I live and work, was open Mon-Wed-Fri until 17:00 (5 pm) and Tu-Thu until 15:30 (3:30 pm). Oh, right, and I work until after those hours every day. I’d have to leave work early. And my package would only be held for a week, according to what I could decipher from the documents.
Fortunately some of my students are very understanding and allowed me to end a business English lesson 30 minutes early so I could race off and collect my package. Stack of documents in hand, I went to the appropriate building – a giant warehouse of a post office with many floors, all laid out with traditional communist architecture. I found the name of the office I needed on the documents, matched it with something on the directory on the wall, took the ancient elevator to the third floor, and followed the signs to the office.
As I walked in, a large, exhausted-looking woman beckoned me over and reached out to take my papers from my hand. She sighed the sigh of a woman who hates dealing with people and rattled off something very fast in Czech. I apologized in the most polite Czech I could muster and told her my Czech wasn’t very good – could she speak a bit slower? She sighed again, then pointed out the door and said “nalevo, a nalevo.” (To the left, and to the left.) I nodded, forced a smile, took my papers back, and turned left out the door, left down another hall, and went through the door at the end.
In this room there were two windows. At one, a young woman was sitting at a desk looking bored. She didn’t so much as look up when I walked in. At the other, an older woman was busy working at a computer with a line of people waiting. I got in line and waited my turn. When I got to the window and handed her my papers, she informed me that I had to go to the other woman. The younger one at the other window. The window with no line.
Right. To the other window I went, and handed over the papers for a third time. The girl nodded, flipped through a filing cabinet, and gave me the original customs slip for my package (I only had a copy in my stack of paperwork). Then she told me with a hint of amusement in her voice that I would now have to go to the right, to the right – back to the first office I went to.
So back I went, original customs form in hand, and into the first office again. This time two men in customs officer uniforms were sitting at the desk and they called me over immediately. The first man took my original customs slip and then, performing what appeared to be the entirety of his duties in this office, he handed it to the other officer. The second man asked me if I was a student, to which I responded no, I was not. He sighed (a popular habit in public offices – they should consider doing it competitively), stamped the paper twice, and told me I now had to go back to the room I just came from and wait in line.
Being in a good mood, I very nearly started laughing at this point. But I made my way back to the other office, stood in line, and this time the woman took my stamped customs form and nodded approval. She asked me for 96 kč, which I paid, and handed the form back with a new stamp on it. Then she pointed behind me to a conveyer belt with a man standing by it and told me to go get my package.
This was the part I was really afraid of. I’d heard stories of people who were ordered to open their package on the spot, and if the items inside were declared “valuable” they had to pay thousands of crowns in import tax on them. One friend had advised me that when they asked me what was in the package, I must say that it was a gift, and personal items, that way it should be exempt from tax. But it turned out that this worry was for nothing. Perhaps because it was near to closing time, the worker simply handed me the box and said goodbye without so much as making eye contact.
Not everything has to be complicated, I guess.
In any case, the entire process took nearly 30 minutes and no less than 6 postal workers to complete. In fact, it seemed to be designed to employ as many people as possible – likely a holdover from the days of communism. Ah, well. At least I got my box of goodies in the end.
Forgetting this, I was confused to find a slip in my mailbox a couple of weeks ago saying I had missed a delivery. The only other time I had gotten one of these was when O2 had delivered my wifi router (another long story of bureaucratic nightmare), but the only name on the slip other than mine was a Czech woman’s name I had never heard before. Who was she, and what was she sending me? I decided not to worry about it for now – I’d have time to collect whatever it was a few days later.
That evening a friend came to visit me and I showed him the slip. His forehead wrinkled with concern and he told me these were the sorts of slips they used to indicate delivery of government documents. The name, he said, was either the name of a government worker or, possibly, just the name of my postal delivery woman. I’d better head to the post office as soon as possible, he said, because it might be something relating to my visa.
The words of another friend immediately ran through my mind: if they’re going to reject your application, they’ll do it within the first few months. You’ll get a departure order in the mail and have to leave the country within a certain time period, and you’ll have to wait 3 months to come back and start your visa application over from scratch.
There was no time to go that evening, and that night I hardly slept, wondering what on earth I’d do if I got deported. What about my job? What about my apartment? What about my friends? What about my cat?
The next day, immediately after work, I raced to my local post office. I had never been to this one before and had no idea where to go, but my Czech was good enough to politely ask someone standing in line where I should go, and he directed me upstairs. At the top of the stairs were a few windows with small barriers in front of them with gaps in between. All of the barriers had writing on them indicating clearly that there was ONE entrance to this area and arrows pointing to a gap on one side of the room where a young woman was waiting. There were several empty windows, however, so I stood around uncertain for a moment. Finally one of the unoccupied workers looked at me in annoyance and beckoned me over, the look on her face seeming to indicate that she was awfully tired of having to tell people to come to her window when it was free.
I handed her my deliver slip and my passport and after signing a form, she handed me a thick envelope with stamps and writing all over it.
I opened it on the way home to find five pieces of paper. Two of them were covered in Czech small-print legalese which I would have to interpret later. Two were empty forms which I assumed I would need to fill out for some reason or another. But looking through these four pages, I didn’t see anything I recognized. Nothing about an application, a business license, or a visa. At the bottom of one page was an address and a list of opening hours – I finally realized it was another post office. And the fifth piece of paper, when I finally got to it, turned out to be covered in familiar handwriting. Whose was it?
Oh. Right. It was my mom’s handwriting.
(I know that handwriting very well. It is a firm belief of mine that everyone, no matter their age, is still able to forge their mother’s signature even many years after they have graduated high school.)
(Not… Not that I ever forged your signature, mom.)
Finally I remembered that she had sent me a birthday box with goodies in it from the states. I breathed a massive sigh of relief when I realized this had nothing at all to do with my visa. My package had simply been moved to another building and I’d have to go there to pick it up. A Czech friend gave me further relief by telling me the empty forms weren’t necessary for me and I wouldn’t need to worry about them. (Apparently they were just forms giving someone else permission to pick up the package in my place.)
Naturally, it would not be simple. Most post offices in Prague are open weekdays and Saturdays until 20:00 (8 pm), but this one, the one where the customs department was for imported packages, located in a completely different part of Prague from where I live and work, was open Mon-Wed-Fri until 17:00 (5 pm) and Tu-Thu until 15:30 (3:30 pm). Oh, right, and I work until after those hours every day. I’d have to leave work early. And my package would only be held for a week, according to what I could decipher from the documents.
Fortunately some of my students are very understanding and allowed me to end a business English lesson 30 minutes early so I could race off and collect my package. Stack of documents in hand, I went to the appropriate building – a giant warehouse of a post office with many floors, all laid out with traditional communist architecture. I found the name of the office I needed on the documents, matched it with something on the directory on the wall, took the ancient elevator to the third floor, and followed the signs to the office.
As I walked in, a large, exhausted-looking woman beckoned me over and reached out to take my papers from my hand. She sighed the sigh of a woman who hates dealing with people and rattled off something very fast in Czech. I apologized in the most polite Czech I could muster and told her my Czech wasn’t very good – could she speak a bit slower? She sighed again, then pointed out the door and said “nalevo, a nalevo.” (To the left, and to the left.) I nodded, forced a smile, took my papers back, and turned left out the door, left down another hall, and went through the door at the end.
In this room there were two windows. At one, a young woman was sitting at a desk looking bored. She didn’t so much as look up when I walked in. At the other, an older woman was busy working at a computer with a line of people waiting. I got in line and waited my turn. When I got to the window and handed her my papers, she informed me that I had to go to the other woman. The younger one at the other window. The window with no line.
Right. To the other window I went, and handed over the papers for a third time. The girl nodded, flipped through a filing cabinet, and gave me the original customs slip for my package (I only had a copy in my stack of paperwork). Then she told me with a hint of amusement in her voice that I would now have to go to the right, to the right – back to the first office I went to.
So back I went, original customs form in hand, and into the first office again. This time two men in customs officer uniforms were sitting at the desk and they called me over immediately. The first man took my original customs slip and then, performing what appeared to be the entirety of his duties in this office, he handed it to the other officer. The second man asked me if I was a student, to which I responded no, I was not. He sighed (a popular habit in public offices – they should consider doing it competitively), stamped the paper twice, and told me I now had to go back to the room I just came from and wait in line.
Being in a good mood, I very nearly started laughing at this point. But I made my way back to the other office, stood in line, and this time the woman took my stamped customs form and nodded approval. She asked me for 96 kč, which I paid, and handed the form back with a new stamp on it. Then she pointed behind me to a conveyer belt with a man standing by it and told me to go get my package.
This was the part I was really afraid of. I’d heard stories of people who were ordered to open their package on the spot, and if the items inside were declared “valuable” they had to pay thousands of crowns in import tax on them. One friend had advised me that when they asked me what was in the package, I must say that it was a gift, and personal items, that way it should be exempt from tax. But it turned out that this worry was for nothing. Perhaps because it was near to closing time, the worker simply handed me the box and said goodbye without so much as making eye contact.
Not everything has to be complicated, I guess.
In any case, the entire process took nearly 30 minutes and no less than 6 postal workers to complete. In fact, it seemed to be designed to employ as many people as possible – likely a holdover from the days of communism. Ah, well. At least I got my box of goodies in the end.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Czech Bureaucracy: Obtaining a Long-Stay Residence Permit (Part 4)
When we last left our hero, she was shuffling away from the foreigner police office in Rakovnik, her tears of despair mixing with the cold rain that was pelting her and her friend. That was me, about three months ago. For those of you haven’t been following the story so far, I’d just been told that despite having called weeks in advance to ask what paperwork was needed for the application, my information was wrong, my paperwork was incomplete, and it was unlikely I’d be able to get everything together in time for the deadline.
Apologies for leaving it at such a cliffhanger. Life catches up with you sometimes and you forget that you have a blog. It’s time to finally summarize what happened after that.
The following Monday, the gracious, generous, kind-hearted friend accompanied me back to Kladno to obtain the necessary papers from the social and trade offices. As usual, the process at the social office was so easy I thought I might have dreamed it. The trade office (živnostenský úřad), however, was not so simple.
After you’ve visited the trade office once, the same person must handle your paperwork every time you return. In the case of a foreigner, this is relatively frequent, since visas expire and several papers must be filed each time. In my case, I had the office worker from hell in charge of my case.
The first time I visited this office, I took a Czech-speaking friend with me. The woman was kind, friendly, polite, and helpful. The second time, the friend was unavailable, so I brought a piece of paper with what I needed written on it in Czech and a phone to call a friend to translate if necessary. I might as well have showed up and demanded that the woman deal with me in Chinese, because she was extremely pissed off at my inability to immediately understand every word she spat out rapid-fire when she refused to speak slowly or simply. Eventually I got my friend on the phone and he told me that she basically just wanted to yell at me for not having a translator, and actually she didn’t need anything from me at all. Ever since then, I’ve always brought a translator, but she never forgave me for being foreign, and now every time I visit she tries to find a mistake in my paperwork that would give her the right to reject my application.
It was a different friend with me this time, and one who had never experienced the hate of this state worker before. After drilling me on the details of where I lived and what my job was and not managing to find any inconsistencies, she begrudgingly gave me the letter I needed for the foreigner police. She then pointed out that if I didn’t return in 3 weeks to claim the extension to my business license, she would throw out my file and I’d have to start over from scratch.
On the way out, I had to dissuade my friend from pissing on the building – only because a security guard was watching us.
The insurance receipt was easy enough, still tucked away in my insurance folder (you learn not to throw away anything with a stamp on it in this country, especially official receipts). As for the bank statement, it was easy to get, but they charged me 300 kc for the privilege of putting a stamp on it (see my earlier post on Stamps). Finally, without time to return to Rakovnik to submit my paperwork in person, I made color copies of all 4 items for myself and sent the originals, along with a letter from my boss explaining that I had only been working there for two months but they were very happy with me and expected me to continue working there for several years at my current rate of pay or higher (stamped with an official school stamp of course), to the foreigner police by registered mail.
Just before Christmas I asked my boss to call the office to make sure they had received the paperwork and that everything was in order. They had, they said, and everything looked okay, except (EXCEPT!!???) where was my insurance contract?
My boss and I both took deep breaths and calmly asked what in the hell they were talking about. No one had ever mentioned an insurance contract. They said the insurance card and the receipt were enough. They were very specific about that. The woman on the phone, exasperated, inquired how they were expected to make sure the insurance was sufficient if they didn’t have the contract to read through? The good news was that I could bring the contract when I came to pick up my temporary visa, no more than 1 week before the expiration of my current one (January 14), and everything else looked fine.
Finally, on Wednesday, 11 January, the kind friend accompanied me on one last trip to Rakovnik to get the temporary visa. The line was short and the process didn’t take long. After copying my insurance contract, the woman actually smiled a smile that wasn’t dipped in venom and said everything looks fine. She even returned the original insurance receipt I had mailed her. She put the glorious green stamp in my passport giving me 3 more months to live here legally and left me with the final step of going back to Kladno to pick up my extended business license.
The bus trip between these two cities is horrendously long, and we were grateful for the walk to the trade office to stretch our legs. Sitting in the hallway outside the office waiting our turn, both of us were on edge. I kept fidgeting and asking stupid questions, and he kept snapping at me to stop talking because I was making him even more tense. Finally we were called in. The mean lady at the desk was disappointed to see that I had successfully obtained the visa, but at this point there was nothing she could do. She handed me the new business license, stamped twice and signed by her, and said “that’s it” in a somewhat less than friendly way.
As we stood up, almost as an afterthought, she added, “you know, you don’t have to come to this office every time you need something done on your license. You can go to any trade office in the country. So if you work in Prague, you can just go to the office there.”
Both my friend and I stopped breathing for a moment and the air became slightly thicker as a fine mist of hate was expelled from our pores. She couldn’t have mentioned this sooner, say, on any of the seven or eight trips I had made here in the past couple years? Forcing robotic smiles, we thanked her for the information and practically ran out of the building.
On the way home, my friend was very angry with me for dragging him to Kladno unnecessarily. We argued for a bit as he insisted I should have done more research to find out I could go to any business office, while I assured him that I had done plenty of research and everyone had always told me I had to go to the office in my place of residence. It must have been a recent change. (Future research confirmed this – the change took place quite recently and in the past it was always necessary to go to your local office.) Finally he accepted my explanation, but despite our success, it was hard to be in a good mood after a day spent dealing with Czech state workers.
So that was almost exactly 3 months ago, and now is the time to renew my temporary visa since, surprise surprise, my long-term application has not yet been approved (and in fact I suspect no one has looked at it at all yet). What fresh hell awaits me this time around? Stay tuned for more updates soon!
Apologies for leaving it at such a cliffhanger. Life catches up with you sometimes and you forget that you have a blog. It’s time to finally summarize what happened after that.
The following Monday, the gracious, generous, kind-hearted friend accompanied me back to Kladno to obtain the necessary papers from the social and trade offices. As usual, the process at the social office was so easy I thought I might have dreamed it. The trade office (živnostenský úřad), however, was not so simple.
After you’ve visited the trade office once, the same person must handle your paperwork every time you return. In the case of a foreigner, this is relatively frequent, since visas expire and several papers must be filed each time. In my case, I had the office worker from hell in charge of my case.
The first time I visited this office, I took a Czech-speaking friend with me. The woman was kind, friendly, polite, and helpful. The second time, the friend was unavailable, so I brought a piece of paper with what I needed written on it in Czech and a phone to call a friend to translate if necessary. I might as well have showed up and demanded that the woman deal with me in Chinese, because she was extremely pissed off at my inability to immediately understand every word she spat out rapid-fire when she refused to speak slowly or simply. Eventually I got my friend on the phone and he told me that she basically just wanted to yell at me for not having a translator, and actually she didn’t need anything from me at all. Ever since then, I’ve always brought a translator, but she never forgave me for being foreign, and now every time I visit she tries to find a mistake in my paperwork that would give her the right to reject my application.
It was a different friend with me this time, and one who had never experienced the hate of this state worker before. After drilling me on the details of where I lived and what my job was and not managing to find any inconsistencies, she begrudgingly gave me the letter I needed for the foreigner police. She then pointed out that if I didn’t return in 3 weeks to claim the extension to my business license, she would throw out my file and I’d have to start over from scratch.
On the way out, I had to dissuade my friend from pissing on the building – only because a security guard was watching us.
The insurance receipt was easy enough, still tucked away in my insurance folder (you learn not to throw away anything with a stamp on it in this country, especially official receipts). As for the bank statement, it was easy to get, but they charged me 300 kc for the privilege of putting a stamp on it (see my earlier post on Stamps). Finally, without time to return to Rakovnik to submit my paperwork in person, I made color copies of all 4 items for myself and sent the originals, along with a letter from my boss explaining that I had only been working there for two months but they were very happy with me and expected me to continue working there for several years at my current rate of pay or higher (stamped with an official school stamp of course), to the foreigner police by registered mail.
Just before Christmas I asked my boss to call the office to make sure they had received the paperwork and that everything was in order. They had, they said, and everything looked okay, except (EXCEPT!!???) where was my insurance contract?
My boss and I both took deep breaths and calmly asked what in the hell they were talking about. No one had ever mentioned an insurance contract. They said the insurance card and the receipt were enough. They were very specific about that. The woman on the phone, exasperated, inquired how they were expected to make sure the insurance was sufficient if they didn’t have the contract to read through? The good news was that I could bring the contract when I came to pick up my temporary visa, no more than 1 week before the expiration of my current one (January 14), and everything else looked fine.
Finally, on Wednesday, 11 January, the kind friend accompanied me on one last trip to Rakovnik to get the temporary visa. The line was short and the process didn’t take long. After copying my insurance contract, the woman actually smiled a smile that wasn’t dipped in venom and said everything looks fine. She even returned the original insurance receipt I had mailed her. She put the glorious green stamp in my passport giving me 3 more months to live here legally and left me with the final step of going back to Kladno to pick up my extended business license.
The bus trip between these two cities is horrendously long, and we were grateful for the walk to the trade office to stretch our legs. Sitting in the hallway outside the office waiting our turn, both of us were on edge. I kept fidgeting and asking stupid questions, and he kept snapping at me to stop talking because I was making him even more tense. Finally we were called in. The mean lady at the desk was disappointed to see that I had successfully obtained the visa, but at this point there was nothing she could do. She handed me the new business license, stamped twice and signed by her, and said “that’s it” in a somewhat less than friendly way.
As we stood up, almost as an afterthought, she added, “you know, you don’t have to come to this office every time you need something done on your license. You can go to any trade office in the country. So if you work in Prague, you can just go to the office there.”
Both my friend and I stopped breathing for a moment and the air became slightly thicker as a fine mist of hate was expelled from our pores. She couldn’t have mentioned this sooner, say, on any of the seven or eight trips I had made here in the past couple years? Forcing robotic smiles, we thanked her for the information and practically ran out of the building.
On the way home, my friend was very angry with me for dragging him to Kladno unnecessarily. We argued for a bit as he insisted I should have done more research to find out I could go to any business office, while I assured him that I had done plenty of research and everyone had always told me I had to go to the office in my place of residence. It must have been a recent change. (Future research confirmed this – the change took place quite recently and in the past it was always necessary to go to your local office.) Finally he accepted my explanation, but despite our success, it was hard to be in a good mood after a day spent dealing with Czech state workers.
So that was almost exactly 3 months ago, and now is the time to renew my temporary visa since, surprise surprise, my long-term application has not yet been approved (and in fact I suspect no one has looked at it at all yet). What fresh hell awaits me this time around? Stay tuned for more updates soon!
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Czech Medicine
Czech home remedies tend to center around two things: alcohol and sweat. The first time I got a cold and asked my students if they had any suggestions as to what medication I should try (Nyquil being sadly unavailable in Czech pharmacies), I was quite taken aback to hear a universal recommendation of "slivovice."
If you're not familiar with slivovice, it's a type of liqueur made from plums. It is often homemade by families in the countryside and its alcohol content ranges from 40% all the way up to about 80%, depending on who's making it. You can buy it in supermarkets (the brand Jelinek is generally considered the best), but to really do it right, you need to find a home-brewed batch (and hope you don't go blind).
At first, I thought the locals were simply messing around with the foreigner, but as I continued to ask around, I discovered that this truly is the most common advice. Also on the list of "effective treatments" were Becherovka, another type of strong alcohol produced in Karlovy Vary which can best be described as tasting like Christmas, and Fernet, a similar Czech spirit which tastes more directly of pine needles and bark.
So what is the justification for the consumption of strong alcohol when you're sick? Firstly, the high alcohol content is presumed to kill bacteria. For this reason, slivovice is taken along on trips to countries where water quality is poor, or on long hikes where treated water may be unavailable. Czechs will have a shot of the liqueur each day and any water-borne pathogens are poisoned before they can cause any trouble. For the same reason, it also acts as a surprisingly effective treatment for food poisoning. While the thought of doing shots when you can't stop expelling everything you've consumed for the past month might be unappealing, I can personally vouch for the fact that one shot is actually enough to stop the illness in its tracks - and if you've ever suffered from food poisoning, you'll know what a miracle that is.
Slivovice is also used to treat cough and sore throat. Essentially, the alcohol numbs the throat and stops the pain instantly. (If you've ever had one too many drinks and woken up the next day with a mysterious bruise or two that you don't remember obtaining, you'll know how true this can be.) There is a downside to this particular treatment, however: the effect only lasts for a few minutes before your body recovers and starts to be able to feel pain again. It is not recommended that you do what I did the first time I tried slivovice as medicine and take a tiny sip each time the effect wears off, or the next time you get out of bed to use the toilet you'll likely be reminded just how high the alcohol content is. It is a mistake to be made only once!
The final justification for doing shots when you're ill is that it combats fever by making you sweat. This particular claim warrants closer inspection, as it is founded on the general local belief that sweat is the best cure for fever and flu, and to that end, any and all measures should be taken to force yourself to sweat when you are running a high temperature. This includes wrapping yourself in blankets (especially while you sleep), drinking huge amounts of tea just below the boiling point, and using hot water bottles and heating pads whenever possible.
Now, I'm no doctor, but I think it should be pointed out here that this belief is not directly based in modern medical science. First of all, a fever is not an illness, but a symptom, and part of your body's natural defense system to combat illnesses. Curing a fever will in no way cure the illness that caused it, and it might even cause the illness to persist for longer, since you're partially stopping your body from fighting it. If you do want to cure a fever, you have to lower your body's temperature. You can do so by taking a cold bath or shower, putting a cool damp cloth on your head, or taking an anti-fever medication such as ibuprofen or acetaminophen, or if you wait long enough, your body will often do it naturally by sweating.
Sweating, in general, is your body's way of cooling itself down. So it's true that sweating will reduce a fever. On the other hand, if you really want to bring your body's temperature down, wrapping yourself in electric blankets and hot water bottles hardly seems like the most effective method.
Finally, one cannot address the topic of Czech health without mentioning tissues. As any foreigner who has been in the country more than five minutes will have noticed, Czechs love to blow their noses. In fact, it is apparently considered somewhat rude to sniffle, while interrupting a conversation (or lesson) by loudly blowing a gallon of mess into a ragged, slightly dirty old piece of fabric and then shoving it back into your pocket to be used again a few minutes later is perfectly polite.
I've asked a few people about the justification for this little cultural tidbit, and the general local theory seems to be that your body is trying to expel germs (especially if you're sick) by gathering them from all through your body, all your blood vessels and organs and everything, wrapping them in mucus, and transferring them all to your nose, at which point you must quickly blow them out, otherwise you will either get sick immediately or make your illness much worse if you're sick already.
I'm still just a bit skeptical on that front.
If anyone has any further information or opinions on these matters, feel free to start a discussion! The comments button is right down there and I'm perfectly open to being wrong, as long a you can prove it.
If you're not familiar with slivovice, it's a type of liqueur made from plums. It is often homemade by families in the countryside and its alcohol content ranges from 40% all the way up to about 80%, depending on who's making it. You can buy it in supermarkets (the brand Jelinek is generally considered the best), but to really do it right, you need to find a home-brewed batch (and hope you don't go blind).
At first, I thought the locals were simply messing around with the foreigner, but as I continued to ask around, I discovered that this truly is the most common advice. Also on the list of "effective treatments" were Becherovka, another type of strong alcohol produced in Karlovy Vary which can best be described as tasting like Christmas, and Fernet, a similar Czech spirit which tastes more directly of pine needles and bark.
So what is the justification for the consumption of strong alcohol when you're sick? Firstly, the high alcohol content is presumed to kill bacteria. For this reason, slivovice is taken along on trips to countries where water quality is poor, or on long hikes where treated water may be unavailable. Czechs will have a shot of the liqueur each day and any water-borne pathogens are poisoned before they can cause any trouble. For the same reason, it also acts as a surprisingly effective treatment for food poisoning. While the thought of doing shots when you can't stop expelling everything you've consumed for the past month might be unappealing, I can personally vouch for the fact that one shot is actually enough to stop the illness in its tracks - and if you've ever suffered from food poisoning, you'll know what a miracle that is.
Slivovice is also used to treat cough and sore throat. Essentially, the alcohol numbs the throat and stops the pain instantly. (If you've ever had one too many drinks and woken up the next day with a mysterious bruise or two that you don't remember obtaining, you'll know how true this can be.) There is a downside to this particular treatment, however: the effect only lasts for a few minutes before your body recovers and starts to be able to feel pain again. It is not recommended that you do what I did the first time I tried slivovice as medicine and take a tiny sip each time the effect wears off, or the next time you get out of bed to use the toilet you'll likely be reminded just how high the alcohol content is. It is a mistake to be made only once!
The final justification for doing shots when you're ill is that it combats fever by making you sweat. This particular claim warrants closer inspection, as it is founded on the general local belief that sweat is the best cure for fever and flu, and to that end, any and all measures should be taken to force yourself to sweat when you are running a high temperature. This includes wrapping yourself in blankets (especially while you sleep), drinking huge amounts of tea just below the boiling point, and using hot water bottles and heating pads whenever possible.
Now, I'm no doctor, but I think it should be pointed out here that this belief is not directly based in modern medical science. First of all, a fever is not an illness, but a symptom, and part of your body's natural defense system to combat illnesses. Curing a fever will in no way cure the illness that caused it, and it might even cause the illness to persist for longer, since you're partially stopping your body from fighting it. If you do want to cure a fever, you have to lower your body's temperature. You can do so by taking a cold bath or shower, putting a cool damp cloth on your head, or taking an anti-fever medication such as ibuprofen or acetaminophen, or if you wait long enough, your body will often do it naturally by sweating.
Sweating, in general, is your body's way of cooling itself down. So it's true that sweating will reduce a fever. On the other hand, if you really want to bring your body's temperature down, wrapping yourself in electric blankets and hot water bottles hardly seems like the most effective method.
Finally, one cannot address the topic of Czech health without mentioning tissues. As any foreigner who has been in the country more than five minutes will have noticed, Czechs love to blow their noses. In fact, it is apparently considered somewhat rude to sniffle, while interrupting a conversation (or lesson) by loudly blowing a gallon of mess into a ragged, slightly dirty old piece of fabric and then shoving it back into your pocket to be used again a few minutes later is perfectly polite.
I've asked a few people about the justification for this little cultural tidbit, and the general local theory seems to be that your body is trying to expel germs (especially if you're sick) by gathering them from all through your body, all your blood vessels and organs and everything, wrapping them in mucus, and transferring them all to your nose, at which point you must quickly blow them out, otherwise you will either get sick immediately or make your illness much worse if you're sick already.
I'm still just a bit skeptical on that front.
If anyone has any further information or opinions on these matters, feel free to start a discussion! The comments button is right down there and I'm perfectly open to being wrong, as long a you can prove it.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Czech Bureaucracy: Obtaining a Long-Stay Residence Permit (Part 3)
You and your friend both get up early and catch the 8:30 bus to Kladno. On the way, you show him all of your paperwork and the list of information the foreigner police had given over the phone, explaining everything so that he can answer any questions necessary later on. Then you try to chat about other things, but it’s hard to keep your mind off the situation. If things don’t go well today, there’s hardly any time left to fix it.
The first stop in Kladno is the social office. You walk into the office, your friend says who you are and what you need, and the woman grabs a document from a bin, asks you to sign it, and hands you your bezdlužnost. Step one: complete. God bless the women at the social office in Kladno.
In fact, let’s all just bow our heads and take a moment to appreciate these amazing ladies. If everyone in the Czech public service was like them, there would never be a problem with paperwork.
Thank you.
The second stop is the finance office. Your form is ready (oh thank god) and you need only sign for it. The woman at the desk is less than friendly and happy, but she doesn’t give you any trouble. You thank her very politely and are on your way.
So far it’s only taken about 30 minutes to get everything done. Unfortunately, you’ve just missed the 9:25 bus to Rakovnik and have a few hours to kill before the next one. Time to get some food and celebrate how smoothly everything has gone so far. Your stress levels have dropped considerably and you have a feeling today is going to go very well. Soon you’ll have your two-year residence card and everything will be okay.
After a nice early lunch and a leisurely stroll through the only nice part of Kladno, you make your way to the bus station and pass the long trip to Rakovnik with conversation completely unrelated to paperwork. It’s a nice day, you’ve got a good feeling, and this will all be over soon.
The police station is in the center of Rakovnik, just a few minutes’ walk from the bus station, but the foreigner police are located somewhat less conveniently. In fact, it’s about a 25-minute walk down a long road with no bus stops, located in a rusted metal building in an industrial park. The police officer at the front window tells you to go on in, and you enter the room where you will spend the rest of the day.
There are a lot more people in here than you expected. All of them appear to be either Vietnamese or Ukrainian. There are two open windows, and a cardboard box with numbers on slips of paper. You get number 32, and they’re already on 29. This should be relatively quick and painless.
An hour goes by. There are no toilets. Only one person is called. It’s not that they seem overwhelmingly busy. Everyone is just sitting around waiting. What are the people behind the window doing? One large woman is staring at a computer screen with a confused look on her face. Two others are chatting, partly about work, and partly about some social event they had both attended. A man walks into their office smiling and starts a friendly chat with one of the women that lasts for what feels like an eternity. Finally, they call number 31.
Your friend goes up to the window and asks if you’re waiting in the right place. Irritatedly, they say yes, now go and sit down. Simultaneously, you think you hear someone call 32, but you’re not sure. Your friend walks back to the window to ask the woman which number she had called. She’s just about ready to throw out number 32 and call 33 when he stops her and says you’re 32. Angry, she demands that you move a little quicker if you don’t want to lose your place.
It’s understandable, really. After all, you’ve only been waiting 90 minutes, and she had to stand at that window for nearly 30 seconds before you got there.
You join your friend at the window with your binder full of paperwork. There is a woman standing there with a smile on her face. It is the smile of a loan shark with a crowbar informing you you’re very late paying back your debt. The smile of a supervillain who has you and your loved ones dangling above a pit of starving wolves. This is the woman who will decide if your paperwork is acceptable or not.
The first problem is your application form. There are some fields left blank, such as “spouse” - since you don’t have one. She gruffly informs your translator that you must write “nemá” in each of these fields.
No problem, you say. Right away. So sorry for the mistake. You never stop smiling.
While you’re doing that, she rifles through the rest of the papers. “What’s this?” she says, as though she had discovered a dead rat right in the middle of the pile. She’s pointing at your work contract. Your friend explains that the work contract is part of your reason to stay in this country, along with your business license, and also proof of income, since it states your monthly salary. She stares at you for a moment as though he had just told her that YOU were the one leaving flaming bags of dog poo on her porch every Tuesday for the past six months, then sighs and shrugs. She’ll have to discuss it with her colleague. She walks away from the window into the office. You can plainly see and hear her chatting with another one of the women. They are not discussing your case. They laugh at some private joke, then she walks out of the office entirely.
Several minutes later she returns, a look of triumph on her face. No, they cannot accept your work contract as proof of income. You must also provide a bank statement demonstrating for AT LEAST the past three months that you are actually getting paid this amount.
But you only started the job two months ago.
Well, that’s not her problem, is it?
Anyway, the business license is completely unacceptable. It expires on the same day as your current visa. You tell her of course it does - they won’t extend it until you have a new visa. She looks at you again with a whole new expression of annoyance. Maybe she misheard - did you accidentally just tell her that shirt makes her look fat? You’re pretty sure you didn’t.
She takes a deep breath. It’s clear that she’s very tired of having to explain this to you. How is it that you haven’t psychically taken the information from her brain by now and saved her the trouble? But she’s a patient woman, and she manages to explain to you with almost complete calmness that you must first go to the business office in Kladno and apply to extend your license. They will give you a letter stating that you have applied for it, which you must then give to the foreigner police to prove that you’re really going to do it. Until they have that, there’s no way they can even consider your application.
But being the kind-hearted woman she is, she will look through the rest of your papers to make sure they’re all in order. The bezdlužnost from the finance office is fine. So is the one from the social office. But where is the proof you’ve paid your social insurance?
Well now you’re truly confused. Isn’t that what the bezdlužnost is? It’s a document stating that you don’t owe any money. If you don’t owe any money, then you must have paid your social insurance, right?
The woman reacts to this bit of logic as though you’d tried to prove that the Easter Bunny is real and living in a condo in southern France. She shakes it off like a blow to the head and repeats, you need a paper from the social office listing each and every payment you’ve made.
It is around this point that your friend turns to you and says, still smiling and in the calmest of tones, that this woman is not making any sense whatsoever (even in Czech), and that her attitude is making him want to punch a hole through the wall. You need to hurry up and finish as quickly as possible so he can go outside, scream, and smoke an entire pack of cigarettes.
I’m going to step back a moment now and simply summarize the rest of the encounter, because you’re getting the idea, and to continue to write it out in such detail might trigger an attack of PTSD. Of the documents you were told by phone to bring for your application, more than half of them are unacceptable and many are missing. Your lease is fine as proof of accommodation and the bezdlužnost papers are fine. Your application form is now okay. Your work contract will be considered as part of the application but you need the official bank statement. Your insurance card is good, but you also need to provide “proof of payment” for your insurance - meaning your receipt from the purchase. (The implication here is that people are going around forging insurance cards, but that it would be impossible to forge a receipt with a stamp on it.) Your business license is useless and you must go to Kladno to apply for the extension. You need to visit the social office and get a stamped paper listing all the social security payments you’ve made.
So the complete list, now, of what you still need, is:
1. letter from the business office declaring you have applied to extend your business license
2. official list of social security payments
3. receipt of payment for health insurance
4. stamped bank statement proving your income
You write this all out neatly on a piece of paper and show her, and she confirms that if you bring these four things, your application will be complete. Your friend politely asks how it’s possible that when you called weeks ago, they gave you completely different information. Her face turns angry and she insists that this is not possible - you must have called the wrong office, or misunderstood what you were told, because this office does not make mistakes.
Of course not.
Regarding the matter of temporary extension for your visa, there is another problem. Once your application is officially submitted in its entirety, they will give you a temporary visa extension for up to three months while they process you (and then you have to go to the business office to get a similar extension for your business license), but they won’t give you this until there are no more than seven days left on your visa. So you’ll have to come back again and spend another day here waiting in line just for that.
The biggest problem now is not that you will have to miss more work, but that you are rapidly running out of time. It’s only the middle of December, and you have until the last day of the month, but in a week and a half it will be Christmas and everything will be closed. You won’t have a chance to visit the business office in Kladno until Monday, and Christmas is the following weekend. If they say they require a week to process your request to extend your business license (as they typically do), or if the social office requires time to provide your list of payments, you’ll simply be out of luck. If you had known about these requirements, you would have had these documents already - but it doesn’t matter that you called them, asked what you needed, and they gave you the wrong information. It’s still on you to find a way to make this work. And let’s not even think about how you’re going to deal with this proof of income. It’s too much to process right now.
Appropriately enough, when you finally leave the office, the weather has changed from sunny and warm to pouring rain, strong winds, and near-freezing temperatures. Couldn’t make this stuff up.
This mess is so far from over.
The first stop in Kladno is the social office. You walk into the office, your friend says who you are and what you need, and the woman grabs a document from a bin, asks you to sign it, and hands you your bezdlužnost. Step one: complete. God bless the women at the social office in Kladno.
In fact, let’s all just bow our heads and take a moment to appreciate these amazing ladies. If everyone in the Czech public service was like them, there would never be a problem with paperwork.
Thank you.
The second stop is the finance office. Your form is ready (oh thank god) and you need only sign for it. The woman at the desk is less than friendly and happy, but she doesn’t give you any trouble. You thank her very politely and are on your way.
So far it’s only taken about 30 minutes to get everything done. Unfortunately, you’ve just missed the 9:25 bus to Rakovnik and have a few hours to kill before the next one. Time to get some food and celebrate how smoothly everything has gone so far. Your stress levels have dropped considerably and you have a feeling today is going to go very well. Soon you’ll have your two-year residence card and everything will be okay.
After a nice early lunch and a leisurely stroll through the only nice part of Kladno, you make your way to the bus station and pass the long trip to Rakovnik with conversation completely unrelated to paperwork. It’s a nice day, you’ve got a good feeling, and this will all be over soon.
The police station is in the center of Rakovnik, just a few minutes’ walk from the bus station, but the foreigner police are located somewhat less conveniently. In fact, it’s about a 25-minute walk down a long road with no bus stops, located in a rusted metal building in an industrial park. The police officer at the front window tells you to go on in, and you enter the room where you will spend the rest of the day.
There are a lot more people in here than you expected. All of them appear to be either Vietnamese or Ukrainian. There are two open windows, and a cardboard box with numbers on slips of paper. You get number 32, and they’re already on 29. This should be relatively quick and painless.
An hour goes by. There are no toilets. Only one person is called. It’s not that they seem overwhelmingly busy. Everyone is just sitting around waiting. What are the people behind the window doing? One large woman is staring at a computer screen with a confused look on her face. Two others are chatting, partly about work, and partly about some social event they had both attended. A man walks into their office smiling and starts a friendly chat with one of the women that lasts for what feels like an eternity. Finally, they call number 31.
Your friend goes up to the window and asks if you’re waiting in the right place. Irritatedly, they say yes, now go and sit down. Simultaneously, you think you hear someone call 32, but you’re not sure. Your friend walks back to the window to ask the woman which number she had called. She’s just about ready to throw out number 32 and call 33 when he stops her and says you’re 32. Angry, she demands that you move a little quicker if you don’t want to lose your place.
It’s understandable, really. After all, you’ve only been waiting 90 minutes, and she had to stand at that window for nearly 30 seconds before you got there.
You join your friend at the window with your binder full of paperwork. There is a woman standing there with a smile on her face. It is the smile of a loan shark with a crowbar informing you you’re very late paying back your debt. The smile of a supervillain who has you and your loved ones dangling above a pit of starving wolves. This is the woman who will decide if your paperwork is acceptable or not.
The first problem is your application form. There are some fields left blank, such as “spouse” - since you don’t have one. She gruffly informs your translator that you must write “nemá” in each of these fields.
No problem, you say. Right away. So sorry for the mistake. You never stop smiling.
While you’re doing that, she rifles through the rest of the papers. “What’s this?” she says, as though she had discovered a dead rat right in the middle of the pile. She’s pointing at your work contract. Your friend explains that the work contract is part of your reason to stay in this country, along with your business license, and also proof of income, since it states your monthly salary. She stares at you for a moment as though he had just told her that YOU were the one leaving flaming bags of dog poo on her porch every Tuesday for the past six months, then sighs and shrugs. She’ll have to discuss it with her colleague. She walks away from the window into the office. You can plainly see and hear her chatting with another one of the women. They are not discussing your case. They laugh at some private joke, then she walks out of the office entirely.
Several minutes later she returns, a look of triumph on her face. No, they cannot accept your work contract as proof of income. You must also provide a bank statement demonstrating for AT LEAST the past three months that you are actually getting paid this amount.
But you only started the job two months ago.
Well, that’s not her problem, is it?
Anyway, the business license is completely unacceptable. It expires on the same day as your current visa. You tell her of course it does - they won’t extend it until you have a new visa. She looks at you again with a whole new expression of annoyance. Maybe she misheard - did you accidentally just tell her that shirt makes her look fat? You’re pretty sure you didn’t.
She takes a deep breath. It’s clear that she’s very tired of having to explain this to you. How is it that you haven’t psychically taken the information from her brain by now and saved her the trouble? But she’s a patient woman, and she manages to explain to you with almost complete calmness that you must first go to the business office in Kladno and apply to extend your license. They will give you a letter stating that you have applied for it, which you must then give to the foreigner police to prove that you’re really going to do it. Until they have that, there’s no way they can even consider your application.
But being the kind-hearted woman she is, she will look through the rest of your papers to make sure they’re all in order. The bezdlužnost from the finance office is fine. So is the one from the social office. But where is the proof you’ve paid your social insurance?
Well now you’re truly confused. Isn’t that what the bezdlužnost is? It’s a document stating that you don’t owe any money. If you don’t owe any money, then you must have paid your social insurance, right?
The woman reacts to this bit of logic as though you’d tried to prove that the Easter Bunny is real and living in a condo in southern France. She shakes it off like a blow to the head and repeats, you need a paper from the social office listing each and every payment you’ve made.
It is around this point that your friend turns to you and says, still smiling and in the calmest of tones, that this woman is not making any sense whatsoever (even in Czech), and that her attitude is making him want to punch a hole through the wall. You need to hurry up and finish as quickly as possible so he can go outside, scream, and smoke an entire pack of cigarettes.
I’m going to step back a moment now and simply summarize the rest of the encounter, because you’re getting the idea, and to continue to write it out in such detail might trigger an attack of PTSD. Of the documents you were told by phone to bring for your application, more than half of them are unacceptable and many are missing. Your lease is fine as proof of accommodation and the bezdlužnost papers are fine. Your application form is now okay. Your work contract will be considered as part of the application but you need the official bank statement. Your insurance card is good, but you also need to provide “proof of payment” for your insurance - meaning your receipt from the purchase. (The implication here is that people are going around forging insurance cards, but that it would be impossible to forge a receipt with a stamp on it.) Your business license is useless and you must go to Kladno to apply for the extension. You need to visit the social office and get a stamped paper listing all the social security payments you’ve made.
So the complete list, now, of what you still need, is:
1. letter from the business office declaring you have applied to extend your business license
2. official list of social security payments
3. receipt of payment for health insurance
4. stamped bank statement proving your income
You write this all out neatly on a piece of paper and show her, and she confirms that if you bring these four things, your application will be complete. Your friend politely asks how it’s possible that when you called weeks ago, they gave you completely different information. Her face turns angry and she insists that this is not possible - you must have called the wrong office, or misunderstood what you were told, because this office does not make mistakes.
Of course not.
Regarding the matter of temporary extension for your visa, there is another problem. Once your application is officially submitted in its entirety, they will give you a temporary visa extension for up to three months while they process you (and then you have to go to the business office to get a similar extension for your business license), but they won’t give you this until there are no more than seven days left on your visa. So you’ll have to come back again and spend another day here waiting in line just for that.
The biggest problem now is not that you will have to miss more work, but that you are rapidly running out of time. It’s only the middle of December, and you have until the last day of the month, but in a week and a half it will be Christmas and everything will be closed. You won’t have a chance to visit the business office in Kladno until Monday, and Christmas is the following weekend. If they say they require a week to process your request to extend your business license (as they typically do), or if the social office requires time to provide your list of payments, you’ll simply be out of luck. If you had known about these requirements, you would have had these documents already - but it doesn’t matter that you called them, asked what you needed, and they gave you the wrong information. It’s still on you to find a way to make this work. And let’s not even think about how you’re going to deal with this proof of income. It’s too much to process right now.
Appropriately enough, when you finally leave the office, the weather has changed from sunny and warm to pouring rain, strong winds, and near-freezing temperatures. Couldn’t make this stuff up.
This mess is so far from over.
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