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Lucie Soukupova
I have been thinking about how to tell you about my living abroad and here, back in my home country the Czech Republic for a long time.
Now I know where I should start. I was only a twenty year old girl from a small village in the north – east of the Giant mountains when I made the decision to go to a foreign country. There were a few reasons to make this journey. First, I couldn´t find any job after I graduated from the grammar school because it was and still is very difficult to get a good job in this part of the Czech Republic. The second reason was that I felt the necessity to change something in my life. You must understand, all of my friends went abroad or they studied in universities or just left their native home to find a job in another town of our country. I was alone and depressed every day. I didn´t want to have children and a hard¬working husband. I wasn´t ready to live like that. I wanted something more and new. So, here we are. To improve my English language and the longing to explore the new life¬style, culture, friends, and to become a new woman, were the main reasons to travel abroad.
I worked as an au ¬pair in a Jewish family in the last northern suburb of London for one year. It was very interesting, but of course it was very hard to stay there sometimes. Not just because of homesickness, but also because of the discrepancy between the mentality and the religion. It was really different, because most people were without any religion in my country. Maybe because of the state system called communism which was beaten hollow not long before my moving abroad or because of the fact that people weren´t led to the any religious faith in the Czech Republic.
Secondly it was the different life¬style, and I would like to say a few words about the life¬style of women in England and in the Czech Republic. I don´t want to be a liar or unfair , because my family was really, as I think, a well situated English family, so I can´t compare the family from the middle class in England with the same class in my country. But I want to tell you my experience with the life of women there and here. The biggest problem for me was that I wanted to learn something more of the English language. So I thought that my work would mainly consist of looking after the children, because before my arrival I had been working with children quite a lot, but the contrary was the truth. My job was just cleaning their house. Baby¬sitting was given to me sometimes three times a week, mainly on Saturday. There was no chance to improve my English, so I paid some money to start learning English for au pairs at one of the local language schools. It was a big pity for me, because talking to people continuously could give me a little bit more knowledge than just going to the school twice a week. But I didn´t care. I found some friends, but not native English friends, who I could speak to. I didn´t understand why the Englishmen resisted us. Now I know why I felt the abomination. They thought that the girls from the east came here to get married and become rich and well situated. They thought that we took their jobs and money. They were just scared of the people from middle and eastern Europe and you can´t be surprised, because they knew nothing about us. So we were only thiefs and miseries for a part of them. But who was the misery in fact? Again, I can´t speak about all English people and I know now that this problem can be seen in every country today. But let´s go back to the thing I wanted to speak about at first. In my opinion the life of Czech women is a little bit harder than life for women in Britain. If you want to be a good and successful Czech woman you must do all that work. I mean to have a good job, be a good cook, cleaner, mother, lady¬-companion and wife together. It´s quite difficult and I can say now that you are under pressure and tired. But it´s not the same in the England that I know. My lady always told me her way of how to be successful. Mainly to have my eyes open wide and get married well.
The first advice was really good and I have been doing that since I came back to the Czech Republic. On the other hand I can´t do more, because if you want to get married well here you must have some effects and I don´t have these at all. So after I came back I studied art at university and after graduating I started to work as a teacher at a secondary school not far from Prague. But again, to be a teacher is not a well ¬paid job in this country, it had never been. I met Tom at the same time. He´s my boy¬friend and he works in an air¬-conditioning company. His job is better paid than mine, so when we had been a couple for two years we bought a small house just three kilometres from my employment. But it was just the beginning. To buy a house or start to live without your parents isn´t as easy as it looks. If you don´t have any cash or parents who can help you, you can´t start so easy. Lucky us! Tom and I had some savings and Tom´s parents have helped us to pay for a lot of things since we started to re¬build our more than one hundred year¬ old house. We also had to go on a hook for that for the next twenty¬five years. It´s not easy for us, because as I´ve already said we don´t have huge wages, we´ve already got debts and not finished the house yet. There will be many more costs to finish it and live in it normally with the furniture and maybe with some children too. But I don´t think about it yet. I think about the best way to get more money to build our house. Believe it or not I have to think and choose between a holiday abroad and building the house.
I have seen only a few foreign countries since I was born, because my parents weren´t rich and I´m not rich now and I can see I won´t ever be in my life. But I don´t mind, because I love my family, friends and my dog and I am happy when they are happy and I also think that there are many other people who are much poorer than me even if they have got a lot of money and everything that I can only dream about. When you are healthy and happy with the small things around you, who cares where you live or who you are. So I try to live in my best conscience, and if there is something very expensive to buy, I have the choice, to wait till the prizes fall down or choose something cheaper and so on. But there is one thing I still do. I have my eyes open wide.
Who are the people working abroad? It´s a difficult question to answer in one sentence. In my opinion there are many reasons. People have been doing it for ages, haven´t they? I think that they go to get some new experience, to learn English and other studies, to earn some extra money or find a new job and a better path, or also just to spend their free time and have some fun, to get new friends or lovely feelings of travelling without restraint. Some people try to catch the chance to try to live and work in foreign countries because they couldn´t do that for many years before. On the other hand they may just be curious about the different lifestyle, countryside, habits, routines, food. Sometimes all of these things can be mixed together to make someone leave his home and go to a foreign country, where he knows nobody.
Many of my friends only go to work in the countries of the United Kingdom during the summer months. Many people who go there to earn money do quite different work than what their capability is in the Czech Republic. I mean the jobs which are normally a little bit under their dignity. But they can earn more doing this job in foreign countries than doing the same job in their home country. For many of my friends going abroad alone is a chance to try to take care of themselves, to learn English and to meet a new lifestyle and friends. The moneymaking is a necessity to live, so if you have a higher mission, you have to take anything at the beginning.
Others are Czech students, who are just increasing their language education while they are working there on farms, making some extra money to have a little better life here and also to see some tourist attractions of the land.
The last group of people I know of are those who are just taking advantage of traveling abroad and working on different terms, because as I said they didn´t have the chance before. They very often start from scratch and if they were used to living in comfort they are very often surprised at the different level and they very often find their position disadvantageous.
In the end a lot of them, mostly everybody, come back to the Czech Republic to live. It isn´t important how long they spent abroad. They are more open to the whole world, they can speak English better, they have new friends and mainly, they have several experiences for the rest of their life. Simply all their life is changed again and it is the thing which some people need to feel. Most of us are glad to start again somewhere else or just try to do that. I think that everyone should have a chance like that, don´t you think?
Karel Kucera
That I am here is more or less an accident. Back in the Czech Republic I worked as a marketing director in an international company with a head office in the USA. I have university degrees and I wanted to work abroad. However, there was no real option for me in up-coming years to get this within the corporation.
One day during our family holiday I saw an advertisement in the newspaper. A company, based in Northern Ireland, was looking for people who would work in a factory as production operatives. Manual job, 12 hour shifts, days, nights. I applied, passing a kind of assessment, and was chosen. Within three weeks from my decision I was in Northern Ireland.
The company organised all I needed and I started to arrange the arrival of my family. At that time I had a son and daughter, nearly one year old, twins. I got help from guys in the factory. Probably the most important thing for me at that time was to buy a car. One chap explained everything, showed me garages and went with me to an insurance company. I got advice on where to get prams and high chairs. One month after my departure, my family was here. Then I have to say, good luck lived with me in the house from the beginning. The company arranged group accommodation and I lived with another father who had the same intention as me – to bring his family here. The guy is five years younger then me but has a three year old son. He helped us a lot as well.
I already had one not so pleasant experience here. I had a car accident. Fortunately I was insured and nothing really serious happened. It was down in Newcastle and we met very nice people there. They helped us a lot. As my wife was little bit in shock they took her and the children to their house, offered them soup and some sweets and in the end brought my wife and children back home to Lurgan. That man did not want anything for that service. I think this is something that you do not encounter so often (at least in my country).
During the summer while our children were back at their grandparents we spent our holiday travelling around Ireland. That was a really good holiday. We were camping so there were no arranged arrivals and departures. It was some kind of adventure because you do not know till the last moment whether you will find a camp or not. We have seen nearly the whole island.
Now, we are here already more then 15 months. I would say we are quite settled. I still work in the same company but in a different position. I gave myself one year to be promoted or to get some better job here. Immediately I started work, I ask if I could co-operate on some project on quality. The company does not have a real marketing department and quality is something I did before. To make the story short in the end and after one year I was chosen as one of four who got training in six sigma. Back in the Czech Republic I thought of it but there were not many chances. To get a really good trainer is not easy even now, and for here the training was held in the Netherlands. I must admit it was excellent. I also studied marketing (CIM), accounting (CIMA) and English in Belfast. I do not have much time. It’s usual. My wife has lot of to do as well. Mondays she has some community centre activities. Tuesdays and Wednesdays she has English lessons in Belfast. The children are in crèche there. Wednesday evenings are English lessons here in Lurgan, Thursday community centre and Fridays English in Belfast while the children are in nursery. She does not have time.
Weekends are fully for children. I have to say that here there are many more opportunities then in the Czech Republic. I mean mainly playgrounds. It is fantastic and they are so happy there. And the country is beautiful too. We try to get away every weekend with them and they are excited about everything. On the other hand and to my surprise they were not as excited as I was when they saw the sea for the first time. They simply took is as quite a big puddle. They simply think that it is normal, and it’s not. They do not realize that they are from a country that does not have the sea. Despite their communication disadvantage, they already have a lot of friends in the neighbourhood. They do not speak English much (actually at all) but it seems to me that it does not matter to them. They do not need words, they have their own world.
We still have still a big problem in front of us. My wife is very well educated in chemistry and has worked in a pharmaceutical company. The children will go to school and next September my wife would like to get a proper job. We already started looking for some information so let’s hope that everything will end well.
A few words about culture, feelings and freedom of the spirit.
There are many things to write about if we look at the differences between cultures in the country I came from and the country I live now. Everyone has their own opinion and it could be the angle of view they have that shifts it to something else. Probably everyone will write about how it is nice to be here, the country is beautiful and people wonderful. Problem is that something is being said and something else is being felt.
Sometimes we can be surprised when somebody is behaving in a way totally different from our expectations, in a positive or negative deviation. Worse, sometimes we are not surprised at all. The point is that where there are people there is communication and where there is communication there are problems; and it does not matter if they are so small to be nearly invisible or so big to be very painful.
I want to speak about probably an absolutely new way of communication. The freedom of the view. And I will start with my memories. I remember a visit by some friends of my parents when I was a child. They were from South Bohemia, part of the country with a lot of hills. We could say small mountains. We lived in a part with an absolutely flat landscape. The ‘aunt’, let’s call her like that as for children everybody is uncle or aunt, expressed her feelings as that she cannot breath because she cannot see the slopes of hills or what is close to her. At that time I did not understand. Now I do. Even though I lived in a large valley with no real hills, I could always see fields and ponds or forests when I was driving. And if you grew up in some area with this unbelievable possibility it is deeply inside you. The freedom of the view.
Here, the situation is totally different. The country has a beautiful landscape with little hills and lot of small valleys. But you cannot see it. The hedges surrounding roads simply do not allow you to see what is behind. And if you are sitting in a car, driving somewhere for more then an hour, my feelings are that I am driving in a tunnel. I do not know where I am. Sure, one could say, it is not true, there are roads without hedges as well, but it is my feeling because I have had the chance to compare. I have mentioned this to several people here and probably the 'best' answer was, "But it is good for birds". I agree, but this answer is exactly the way of communication which cannot be simply translated. I expressed my feelings and he defended his country.
Where there is communication there are problems because we do not have anything better than language to express what we feel. I know that it is not only a problem for different countries with different languages, it can happen within one country as well. There are still an incredible amount of hedges around us. And it is up to us to teach birds to sit on trees in fields. Then anybody could see them singing from all roads.
Sean Duffy
Dawn of a new Northern Ireland
In recent years the north of Ireland has seen as influx of migrant workers to its shores and fair play to them I say.
Due to its many troubles this part of Europe has been a 'no¬ go' area and for so long no one has had the chance to experience the wide range of cultures and scenery it has to offer. At the moment the economy is booming, and with the introduction of our own government this can only lead to a prosperous future for Northern Ireland. Sure there will be some opposition to our foreign friends but these are a small minority of narrow¬minded people who need to open their mind to the fact that multi¬cultural societies prosper much more in the long term.
The range of job opportunities and affordable housing here is second to none, and the 'welcome mat' will always be put out for all who wish to cross it..
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