First Rehearsals - Vagina Monologues in Istanbul

Great movements often start in coffee shops.

Vaclav Havel famously met

with his fellow Czech dissidents

in the Cafe Slavia across from

the National Theatre in Prague.

My expatriate American friends,

Donna and Kendra,

newly arrived in Turkey,

had decided to organize a VDay event

with both expatriate and Turkish women.
They decided to produce the play
"The Vagina Monologues"
in Istanbul.

Auditions were over.

Our first rehearsal
was at an Istanbul coffee shop.

We shyly came together,

that day in February.

I was struck by the beauty of the women there.

Each one wanted to help other women

through her own personal participation

in Eve Ensler's famous play.

 I had heard about the "Vagina Monologues" for years

and finally saw them in Madison, Wisconsin.

Eve Ensler, the writer of the play, wants to end
the great global silence
about the ongoing epidemic of violence
perpetrated against women and girls
around the world.

The play represents the experiences of women
all around the globe,
most notably, women in the Congo.
Each year, a new monologue is added
reflecting the news of the day.
I wish that wasn't necessary.

I didn't know about performing a play

like this in a conservative country,

but I took faith from the courage of our

producer/directors and the other women present.

 I have no interest in acting.

I don't have that bug at all.

But I do want to support

everything Eve Ensler does.

Her life's mission is

to wipe out violence against women worldwide.

Yes, I know.

You probably think she's crazy.

Yet the impossible happens every day.

Do you think Vaclav Havel and his Czech friends

believed the Berlin wall would eventually fall?

Do you think the black people who started

the NACCP expected they would be so wildly successful

in seeking change that less than 100 years later

there's a black man in the White House?

I am not sure they would have dreamed it.

They just started with the first step.

Can't you just imagine how

hopeless those situations

looked at the time?

I wonder what it will be like for women

100 years from now if all of us just take that first step

toward ending the culture of violence.

VDay believes the reason for the global silence

about what women are experiencing is

 the indifference of authorities worldwide,

 the instinct of denial within families,

 and the lack of public outrage

about the violence

that millions of women experience every day.

But on this first day,

it was just interesting to learn about the play

and to meet the other women.

Kendra, one of our producer/directors

listening intently to a first reading.

V-Day dreams of a world in which

women and girls will be free to thrive,

rather than merely survive.

Please click on my title to learn more.

"How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed"

Imagine living in a country where your political system did not consider your needs as a woman and mother important enough to provide for. It's easy enough in the West to bemoan the superficiality of a consumer culture, but how long could you last, Western ladies, in a country that had no consumer culture at all?  Imagine a life without cosmetics, any sort of feminine hygiene products, where fruit was available only sporadically if at all, and where recycling was not about ecology but about the complete lack of any goods to replace worn-out items.

"How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed," a book by Croatian writer Slavenka Drakulic is a wonderful description of what it was to live as a woman trying to create a normal life under a totalitarian regime. Encouraged by her feminist friends in the West, Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan, Ms. Drakulic describes what it was like for women in the first few years after all of the regimes fell.  While pundits described grand political theories about what just happened after the Wall fell and what was continuing to happen, Drakulic was among the first authors writing about how these regimes affected ordinary women.

This book is a quick and wonderful read that shows communism didn't necessarily end when the Wall came down.  It will take future generations for all of that communism to leave the mind. I don't think any other writer has helped me see how communism breeds incredibly reactionary outlooks in people since making a mistake could be so well...fatal...plus job #1 was to survive it until the next day.

You might enjoy my post about Slavenka Drakulic's other book:

In Prague, you can enjoy reading "Cafe Europa" at the Cafe Europa

Remembering the Fall of the Berlin Wall

When the fall of the Berlin Wall happened, I remembered being 100% glued to my television set. I was 30 years old at the time. Old enough to have never known anything but the Berlin Wall dividing Eastern and Western Europe. It had become so institutionalized, so flat out hulking, ugly and immovable, it would never have occurred to me that it could go away. It just was. The Soviets were a great power like America and weren't going anywhere. That wall was there for good.

If you were to describe to kids today that people were so evil they would build a wall to keep their own people in (as opposed to keeping others out) and those people were comfortable enough with that they would shoot any of their own people who tried to get away, I think kids today could scarcely believe that such insanity could exist. Going to the site of the Berlin Wall, the insanity is obvious in two seconds, and yet it existed!

By 30, I had seen millions of Americans willing to pay acres and acres of tax dollars they had worked hard for to prevent a "domino effect" of further communist states without question because once a state had gone red, it had entered a static non-changeable state. It just seemed like things wouldn't and couldn't change.

But then it did. It did change. I don't want to say out of nowhere, because I'm sure to Central and Eastern Europeans and to the Russians it wasn't out of nowhere. But back home in the states, that's exactly how it seemed. The unthinkable was happening. Kudos to Ronald Reagan, John Paul II, and Mikhail Gorbachev for the vision and leadership to demand and facilitate change. Most kudos belong to the citizenry who had the intellectual honesty not to believe.

I appreciated that when the wall fell, President George H. W. Bush was graciously muted. He didn't feel the need to crow victory for capitalism or for America. The people's voices were the ones we heard. Pure unadulterated joy. On Christmas Day of 1989, I remember the chills I got when Leonard Bernstein led Berlin musicians in an "Ode to Freedom" when they played Beethoven's 9th symphony with the word 'freedom' sung in German at the strategic moments in the final movement.

The lesson I take away from the Berlin Wall is that anything is possible. Indefensible ideas fall. The most hopelessly sclerotic ideology gets abandoned cause it's just too exhausting to defend the indefensible. Communism couldn't escape the marketplace of ideas. There are a whole host of things happening today in the world that may solve themselves, because eventually, people just get tired of defending the indefensible.

"We are here because enough people ignored the voices who told them that the world could not change!"

What's Latin for "they came, they saw, they charmed?" That's what President and Mrs. Obama did when he spoke to the Czech people on April 5th, 2009 on a hazy Sunday morning at Hradcany Namesti (Prague Castle Square).

Beginning with Czech history from Chicago (something well-known to Czech people and hardly known outside of Chicago within America), President Obama shared his Chicago roots in a way that charmed the Czechs and Americans like me in the audience. He honored Czech people for things they love about themselves and by extension, that Czechs teach foreigners to love about them as well: their humor, their high level of culture, their "unconquerable spirit despite empires rising and falling, and the "revolutions ... led in arts and sciences, politics, and poetry. "

My very favorite part of the speech was one I did not expect. When he was establishing connection with his Czech audience, President Obama talked about the improbability of him serving the United States as President and of Czech people being free to live their lives in democracy:

"We are here today because enough people ignored the voices who told them that the world could not change."

What a perfect thing to say to a nation of skeptics who don't believe that democracy will change anything, who don't believe that corruption can ever end, and that don't believe their politicians will stop arguing and start governing. President Obama was asking Czechs to believe. It was easily the most moving part of his speech.

He was asking them to recognize their own power as citizens and visionaries if they organize and work for and believe in change. After all, it was their first democratically-elected President, President Vaclav Havel, who proved that "moral leadership is more important than any weapon." Believe, Czech people, believe!

He did not come here to argue the merits of the proposed missile defense system to the Czech people. He aimed much bigger than that. He came to propose a nuclear-free world. Now if any other politician proposed such a thing in a speech, I have to admit, I would roll my eyes that he expected me to believe such a Pollyanna vision is possible. But if there is anything I have learned about my President is that he accomplishes things that others might not even dream up. This is a man who had his credit card denied trying to get into the Democratic convention in 2000 in Los Angelas just so he could attend and eight years later was the nominee of his party. I'm not discounting the possibility that he could actually do it.

He broke the whole idea of eliminating nuclear weapons down to manageable short-term goals, any one of which would be an accomplishment in it's own right. Godspeed, Mr. President.

He even labeled the Czech Republic as a being in the heart of Central Europe, not Eastern Europe! Americans labelling the Czech Republic as "Eastern Europe" drives Czech people crazy. We Yanks can't help it, we still have that Iron Curtain line in our heads. When I talk to Czech friends my age, I realize they do too. It is a new generation, born in freedom, that has a new reality. Major charm points, President Obama. Thanks for coming to the Czech Republic!

There are great photos of President and Mrs. Obama in Prague on the White House blog dated April 9, 2009 at http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog.

Three Hours in Berlin

No, I did not tell them it should read "Welcome TO Berlin."

The Brandenburg Gate

In the strange logic peculiar to governments, several of my TEFL classmates and I needed to go to the Czech Embassy in Berlin to do paperwork to allow us to stay exactly where we are in the Czech Republic.

"Don't get into any trouble," our guide said,
"since your passports are all back at the Embassy.

It seems odd to ask thousands of foreigners such as my classmates and myself to help warm the planet by requiring a drive out-of-country four hours each way all in the name of filling out three forms. But I, for one, am willing to put up with quirky governmental requirements if it allows me to work in the Czech Republic, plus go on a delightful trip to Berlin with my compadres.

Actually, being in Berlin was a bit sobering. We had three hours of "liberty" while our paperwork was processed. The Czech Embassy is in old East Berlin. We set out on foot to see the sights from there.

In three hours, we saw three commemorations of shameful acts of the German government. If someone comes to my country's capital and has three hours there, please dear God, I pray that it will always be inspirational.

First, we saw the Brandenburg Gate. That's the inspirational part of what we saw. If it looks familiar, it's because it's probably one of the most recognizable symbols of Europe. President Kennedy, Reagan, and Clinton have all spoken at this site. Reagan's words were probably the most powerful:

"General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
We walked over to the Tiergarden and realized where we were standing was exactly where the wall had been. It was so obviously insane that this large united city was divided there for decades. I found it unfathomable. Yet when the wall was up, I found the idea of it ever coming down unimaginable.
We noticed a giant new memorial and wandered over. None of us knew anything about it so we started to explore. It's called The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. It went up in 2005. We learned later that there was a museum underground to explain it. We missed the museum because we came from the Brandenburg Gate (like I assume the majority of tourists would) and the entrance was in the opposite corner.

I couldn't imagine a more solemn theme but the design of the memorial at first brought out the playfulness in everyone. I know that's not the reaction the architect was seeking - but all of those blocks of stone cried out for tag or hide-and-seek.

The stones get larger and larger
as you enter, eventually engulfing you.

But as we spent time among the stones, the feeling of being buried underground, beneath layers and layers of ash was overwhelming and oppressive. The memorial made it's point.

It's not everyday you see the word homosexual
in a street sign.
We assumed this was
pointing to a memorial for
The Murdered Homosexuals of Europe.

I felt my usefulness
since none of these young people
would have known what the giant banners
with the word "Stasi" all over them
referred to: The German Secret Police!
It was a museum in the actual headquarters
of the Stasi describing how the
East German Government
continually spied on it's own citizens.

Before coming to the Czech Republic,
I did not realize it wasn't just the Soviets

who invaded during the Prague Spring.
It was all of Czecho's neighbors, like the GDR, too.

Trying to escape meant death.

"An Iron Curtain has descended"

Driving through Missouri is a pleasure because the glaciers did not make it down this far from the North to flatten the earth. All the county roads are hilly and curvy. Walt, my Couchsurfing host, told me about a terrific one, Road WW, that I should use to arrive at my next destination. I felt like I was in a car commercial, such was the pleasure of the drive!

Just 30 miles from Columbia, Missouri, where daughter #2 goes to university, is the charming small town of Fulton, Missouri. It looks like the kind of community that would be terrific for raising children. It's small enough to be safe for riding bikes all over town but with intellectual stimulation for the community from the local college.

The Winston Churchill Memorial

It was here that the local institution of higher learning, Westminster College, took advantage of having a Missouri native son in the White House, to see if they could finagle Winston Churchill as a speaker for their annual address on international relations. President Harry Truman wrote a handwritten note on the bottom of the invitation telling Mr. Churchill that he would introduce him. Winston promptly accepted.

In 1946, in this small town in Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill named and described what was happening to Eastern and Central Europe after WWII. It was forever to be known as the "Iron Curtain" speech.

This is the actual hard copy of Winston Churchill's speech describing "the iron curtain" that had descended over the ancient capitals of Central and Eastern Europe. It's impossible for me to look at the page without reading it mentally in my best Winston Churchill imitation. How about you?

Winston Churchill's life experience is shared through the exhibits. A recurring theme is the ability to foresee what would happen before others could.

The exhibit makes the point again and again that no Czech was present
when the Munich agreement was negotiated
between Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler.

Which immediately begs the question: what if one had been?
Would the outcome have been different?
Or would that poor Czech and his descendants have had to live with that?
What do you think?

It goes without saying, but I will say it anyway --
this was not the West's finest hour.

What is that quotation?
"Those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it."
The museum described that when Churchill assumed leadership of his country,
it was exhausted by war and broke.
He had to decide if he could afford troops on the ground in Iraq
or mere influence. He accepted reality and chose influence.

To commemorate this important speech, Westminster College administration and trustees, pursued importing and reassembling an English church designed by the great Christopher Wren to memorialize the wisdom of Winston Churchill. There were so many churches damaged in the Blitz that the English could not restore them all and were happy to let this one go.

The stones, while marked, became all jumbled when they were used as ballast in the ship's hold coming over (using them as ballast lowered the shipping cost). Then they were jumbled a second time when they were transported across country. Walt's uncle was the lead stone mason on the project. He had the job of puzzling which stone went where.

Winston Churchill's granddaughter created an additional commemoration entitled "Breakthrough" utilizing a segment of the Berlin Wall.

The West German side

The East German side lacking any individual expression

Winston Churchill is my hero so I can't recommend this visit enough. I'm excited to know that I haven't read everything he has published. His writing gives me strength and inspires me.

Great leaders who have followed Winston Churchill to this site include Presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, British Prime Ministers Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher, and Sir John Major, Polish President Lech Walesa, and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.

Touring this site takes about three hours. Admission is $6. I would like to recommend a lively restaurant downtown with great value. A local told me about it. It's called Bek's.

My History with Czechs (part one)

It's very hard to know or remember now, just how forbidden and mysterious everything was behind the Iron Curtain before it fell. Americans didn't know much about the people and places involved. All the news that seemed to come from there was always produced with a "minder" in tow, so therefore suspect.

It's also hard to remember just how completely mind-blowing it was when the Berlin Wall fell. It turned out nobody in those countries believed anything their governments were spouting. I never thought I would see the fall of the Berlin Wall, never even dreamed it was possible, and when one country after another demanded change, it was incredibly moving.

No people's story was more moving than the Czechs. I remember how they would gather in Wenceslas Square and demand their freedom. Their ability to achieve all of that, with deliberate and collective non-violence was simply awe-inspiring to me. It still is. I believe 500 years from now, 1,000 years from now, future Czechs will savor that moment of themselves at their finest.

The Velvet Revolution made me want to get to know these mysterious people, and as corny as it sounds, reach out my hand in friendship. Welcome to the world! I signed up for a pen pal exchange started by a Minnesotan who was equally inspired by the new freedoms to connect. I began a correspondence with a woman in Plzen named Hana and a woman in a small town near Karlovy Vary named Lenka. We dubbed the woman near Karlovy Vary "Big Lenka" to not confuse her with Hana's daughter.

It was deeply interesting to hear about their lives and all the changes they were going through. Instantly, entrepreneurial tendencies surfaced. During communism, the lady in Pilzen's husband had worked at the giant Skoda Works. It sounded like the sort of place that would be featured prominently in a May Day poster celebrating labor -- communist heavy industry and dreary beyond belief.

Big Lenka's husband began his own business as a truck driver. He was ripped off by a business partner and it made me sad that their first experience with capitalism was one of the pitfalls. But both couples persevered. I enjoyed being the "entrepreneur cheerleader."

We invited the oldest daughter of the couple from Pilzen to come live with us for a summer to experience American life and enjoy our daughters. I truly believe we changed her life. She came to America speaking hardly any English and learned mostly from my children. At that time, Little Lenka was 15 years old.

What I think Little Lenka enjoyed learning most, and what changed her life forever, was the American idea of delaying marriage until one had first invested in oneself with college and independent single life. She asked questions about this idea constantly. All of her friends back home would be married with babies on the way by age twenty. She decided the American way of delaying marriage was better.

Talk about entrepreneurial! Little Lenka immediately sought and received a scholarship to attend an American school when she got back home. Then she sought and received scholarships from generous Czech Americans to attend university in the United States. She went to Rotary clubs all over the American Midwest to talk about the evils of communism and how great America was. No pay involved. Just gratitude. She then married an American. I'm embarrassed to say that I have lost touch with her and her family. Nonetheless, I'm proud of the role we played in changing this young woman's life.