This past week one of Ken’s students, Pravoslav Smřz, invited him to an open house at his company, Lafarge, a large cement manufacturing companies. This French company has plants in over 60 countries, including the USA. We felt honored to be invited and were eager to go. While touring a cement plant may not be the most exciting thing to do on a Saturday afternoon, building relationships with people is always enjoyable. And besides, we had never been through a cement plant before. We boarded a double-decker bus brought in just for the occasion. We learned a great deal about making cement – from mining the limestone, crushing the rocks, processing the powder, temperature control, types of cement, and quality control, to distribution. The bus had an open-top and the temperature was 33°C (91°F) making it a very hot tour with the long stops and explanations of each processing step. We know, the excitement is just too much for you, but we really did enjoy it.

After the bus tour we received a private tour to Pravoslav’s office. He is the IT manager for the plant and is responsible for all computer operations. That may sound like a boring job, but in his plant, most of the processes are computer controlled. It’s not unusual for him to get calls at night or on weekends since the plant operates 24/7. We even met his son and daughter who came over just to meet us! Then we were treated to a picnic lunch and enjoyed the rest of the festivities – raffle prizes (proceeds donated to local charities), cement bag races (of course), and a Czech “swami” performing magic tricks (including lying on a bed of spikes and sword swallowing)! By this time you’re wishing you had been there, no doubt. The primary purpose of the open house was P.R. What we learned about cement manufacturing plants is that they produce more air pollution than many other kinds of manufacturing plants – and they are noisy. We also learned that they use old tires as part of their fuel system (we wondered where all the old tires went!). They actually pollute less than the brown coal they also use.

This week has turned out to be the beginning of several “good-bye” dinners for us. It doesn’t appear that we can simply say farewell. Dinners and gifts seem to be a ritual for guests – just as it was in China. You may recall that we had to mail several boxes home because we could not carry everything in our suitcases. That won’t work this time because the gift of choice seems to be wine from local wineries. That’s really a great choice except: 1) we couldn’t possibly drink it all before we leave, and 2) U.S. Customs limits the quantity of alcohol one may bring into the country. Since we still have a few days to go before we leave Litoměřice, we’re not sure what to do. It would be impolite and (maybe) presumptuous to say no more bottles of wine and we certainly can’t suggest gift ideas. We’ve indicated very kindly that gifts are unnecessary but our words seem to have fallen on deaf ears – so we just accept the ritual for what it is and say thank you.

We’ve had some great dinners and lots of fun. There is one side of the dinners we like very much. The C/R has very strict rules about driving and drinking and nearly everyone seems to abide by these rules. It is very common for someone to drive their friends home if they have more than two drinks. But what’s even more interesting is that we seldom see any public intoxication! Either they are great actors or we go home to early and miss the action (it’s probably the latter)!

Yesterday was a big day. I was invited to participate in the famous Dragon Boat Race in Prague on the Vltava River. Each dragon boat holds 20 paddlers, one helmsman man, and one drummer (see photo). During the week we even practiced at the Olympic water sports arena in Račice, built in 1986. The 2,350 meter pond accommodates races up to 2,000 meters long and it has hosted the World Rowing Championships – singles, doubles, fours, and eights. A interesting side note is that the American men’s single’s rowing champion, Martin Doktor, who lives in Atlanta, GA, grew up in the C/R and is regarded as a hero in the C/R. Why not? After all he is not only an Olympic champion but holds the European and World Canoeing Champions, winner of the World Canoeing Cup, and international Sportsman of the Year! He holds many other titles as well.

Back to the Dragon Boat Race. The boats race in groups of five. The top two finishers move into the “A” semi-finals and third, fourth and fifth place finishers move into the “B” semi-finals. The top five places then compete in the finals. Our team finished seventh overall – not bad for a group of men and women who just completed their first competition just one month ago. It was actually an international competition with people from the Ukraine, Slovakia, Austria and the U.S. (me)! After our second race, my arms felt like limp dishrags, and after our finals race, they felt like they would drop out of their sockets! I felt greatly honored to be asked to participate. The truth is (I think), since one of my students had a previous commitment and couldn’t paddle in the race, I think he twisted an arm or two so I could take his place – thank you, Josef Vašeley, I owe you one.

Dragon boat races have a two thousand year history, but in China not the C/R! It seems that dragon boat races have become popular all over the world involving millions of people world wide – and came to the Czech Republic 14 years ago. It started in China – we heard about them while we were there but never saw them. The custom comes from the fabled attempt to rescue the patriotic poet Chu Yuan who drowned on the fifth day of the fifth month in 277 B.C.E. Chinese citizens threw bamboo leaves filled with cooked rice into the river so that the fish would eat the rice rather than their heroic poet, but to no avail. It is also a celebrated time for protection from evil and diseases for the rest of the year. Fresh herbs are hung on the door, various nutritional drinks are consumed, and portraits of the evil nemesis Chung Kuei are displayed. If one manages to stand an egg on its end exactly at 12:00 noon, the following year will be a lucky one. Of course none of that tradition is followed in other countries, just the boat races. For additional info, click on www.theculturedtraveler.com/Festivals/Archives/Dragon_Boat.htm. (There’s a space with a line between “dragon_boat”).