Scribbling #38: The Babka Army

The "babkas", or grandmothers, or, in extreme cases as seen in a previous post, OLM (Old Lady Mafia), are to some extent the backbone of Slovak society.  Unfortunately, it could do with some sort of lumbar support, as there are various pains and complaints that surround the aforementioned back area.  Maybe even a bit of sciatica for good measure.  To put it bluntly, most of them see the 80's during Communism as some sort of Golden Age where they knew where they were, knew where they stood in the bread line, and also knew that it was going to take an impressively long time to get their own car, if they could afford it.

The ones in the village are the worst and the best at the same time.  They will give you vegetables for free, while dishing out "advice" (scantily-clad orders) for the husband to find a better job so that he can finally fix that roof, repair that hole, and get rid of that, that and especially that.  Their pensions are tiny, as back in the bad old days, everyone got the same and everyone was more or less on the same level regardless of experience or skill.  A doctor would only earn a little more than a factory worker.  Once they get to a certain age, the beige, brown and off-white clothes come out, and they would rebel against any sort of fashion sense and stick with those colours, thankyou very much.  There are some fundamentalist extremists that go the other way, and insist on doing the high-heel, I've-still-got-it look, but those are in a tiny minority, and none of them can pull it off.  The other small minority are those who actually do try to keep working everyday, and have some appreciation of other colours in the visible spectrum.

And let's not forget the "everyday advice" (basically more orders).  This could range from anything.  The babkas are, mostly, some of the most pessimistic bunch there are, while being the most friendly.  It's a strange mix, and it really doesn't have to be experienced.  You can live without it and die happy, it's fine.  During our lil' Joseph's baby dedication, I was bouncing him on my knee so that he didn't squirm too much, get over-stimulated from all the people looking at him, and cry.  I was dead in the water.  Almost instantly, I was set upon by a couple of ladies who wanted to give us their so-called help.  After what happened, we were lectured on what not to do... not what to actually do in the first place, but what not to.  Nothing positive really came out of it, as happens when you're given a tongue-lashing for the sake of it.  As new parents, we're thankful we're not that type who ignore the child by just shutting yourself away.  We show love to him, we play with him, we attend to him.  We keep it healthy, because we want him to have a healthy relationship not just with us, but with others as well later on down the line.

There's one massive difference of almost biblical proportions between the babkas and today's generation.  We have passports, they didn't.  They could only have permits to go around the other countries around Eastern Europe, such as Hungary.  It is becoming more and more common for Slovaks to leave the country and find work abroad, and then come back with new, positive ideas.  One of my colleagues wishes to open up a community park, as he saw one at work in Dubai.  Another knows the importance of being successful while having a balanced life, and not getting sucked into the "new wealth" of the country.  There are always nay-sayers and there always will be, but taking a fresh, reasonable approach to things is a great start to this post-Communist time.  We've probably gone into post-post-Communist, and it might end up being pre-(insert something here) at this rate.

Working towards establishing a community through actually doing something rather than telling other people what to do should be a growing trend here, or anywhere for that matter, and if today's people can do that, then they can stand tall.

Scribbling #37: The London Riots

Taken from the viewpoint of somebody that is British but actually lives away from The Motherland, and since there have been a fair few questions from my Slovak colleagues, my first response to the inevitable query is that, well, "it's sad".  I feel disappointed about our country and culture, and having to defend them since I'm an expat.

However, I believe that the government has handled it well, although definitely not as quickly as one would like.  The individual can move a lot faster than an established group, and this is seen here as random people are pilfering from shops, throwing rocks at police, setting fire to buildings, along with horrendous muggings and even murder.  This isn't all disenfranchised hooded youth either, as is shown on television.  People that have been caught have ranged from the guy who takes away your rubbish every Monday, to university students, and even a primary school teacher.  Yeah, the people who were looking after your children, where were they?  These people have seen the opportunity and taken it, since it means that they get to have more stuff.  More shoes, more electronic items, more clothes, more food.  The UK is a very expensive country to live in, especially when compared to here, and people who don't make the grade may feel continually trodden on until they just don't care anymore.  Others may never have cared in the first place, and just want to see the world burn.

People who leave comments on various news channels have said such things as using water cannons and rubber bullets, in some cases to bring back the rope, burn them at the stake, water torture, and even bringing in the British Army.  Remember the bit when Labour was in power and they used the Army to quell a minor prison riot?  That didn't go down so well...  Although the water cannons and rubber bullets (which can both kill) are on standby, the streets of London have been (according to news reports) flooded by police.  This is totally the right thing to do.  Police keep order, infantry kill people with big frickin' guns.  Happily, the guy in charge is David Cameron, not Pol Pot, so when he eventually came back from holiday, he had a sit-down with the police or Cobra or Sylvester Stallone or whoever, formed a plan, then talked to the press.  Instead of talking like Theresa May, saying that all the rioting won't be tolerated, he spoke about what the police will do and then carried it out.

People can be like sheep.  If somebody does something, and they don't get caught, then someone else will see them and do the same thing.  This young man here (the video above) caught on camera what people do when they just follow each other.  An idea from this, then, is to be a rebel.  To do something that nobody else is doing.  Joining the riots because everybody else is doing it is moronic.  Helping to clean up the streets afterwards goes against UK culture, in that current thinking is that the government should pick up the pieces afterwards.  To be an actual, living, breathing community within a crowded society is a wonderful thing.  This is exactly the time for the good ol' C of E to get out of their four walls, volunteer and help out.  After the hockey riots, the people of Vancouver went out in force and cleaned up the place afterwards, taking holidays if needs be, since they were so embarrassed about what their fellow countrymen had done.  England should do the same, in that we should be proud of the place in which we live.

Scribbling #36: Welcome to Earth

It's 4 a.m and I've been awake now for the last half an hour due to Mrs. C accidentally knocking over a glass while attending to JJ, which shocked me completely awake as opposed to the near-sleepy-wakefulness that happens when you're concerned with your two-month old.  The cleaning up and making sure everyone was fine period happened vaguely smoothly, with not even a peep from the baby.  Me, on the other hand, still had that "I'm now wide awake enough to be annoyingly awake so that I can't actually get back to sleep again".  So I turn to my secret weapon.  I turn to BBC News.

I didn't know it was my secret weapon until I used it just now.  That's how secret it is.

So, anyway, I decided, after seeing some worrying Facebook statuses, that I would look up the current financial crisis that's happening in the Eurozone, with a side order of "look how well UK is doing in comparison, see?" or something to that effect.  There was a nice little graph that went with it, and according to that, Slovakia still has the highest GDP growth in Europe.  It's higher than Germany.  Germany. With all their big machines, and their precision, and their chocolate and watc- no, wait, that's Switzerland.  I always get the two confused...

Maybe I shouldn't be so surprised to see this, since a lot of top management are very ambitious.  I teach English at a couple of firms, and there are a lot of nice cars outside the front door... and I mean like Audi R8s, big Mercs, Jags and the like.  It's good to see, and half of these guys don't even have a degree, it seems.  It's mostly just the will to work long hours and getting on with the job at hand, and of course, having the right connections, which is all part and parcel in this bit of the world.

Swinging lazily from one extreme to another, the other one is bears.

The conservation of bears in Slovakia has really taken off in the High Tatras, according to some charity groups (like Bear Project), and they're now taking interest in the goings-on and the food in the local villages.  I mean, the bears are now taking an interest.  Not the charity groups.  Although both are probably true. Most bears are now going home with new fashion accessories, sporting the latest collars, which was a far cry from the 80's where the latest gadget to have given to you by a human was basically a space shuttle clamped to your forehead.  Wife bears wonder where the heck their husbands have gone to, rummaging through Mrs. Olgarova's rubbish again and coming back to the forest at all hours of the morning.

I'm getting tired.

Good night.