Rome to Bratislava: one-way ticket?

When I was turning 50, a special milestone that forces many of us, if not most, to stop and reflect—perhaps even deeply, I decided to do something that seemed, at first glance, simply crazy. I said goodbye to the corporate world, where I had spent more than 27 years, and became a teacher. Of all things, a teacher of English. Until that moment, I had enjoyed a rather successful career, as an International Marketing and Sales executive in the IT and Defence industry, in Europe and North America. But, to make a long story short, I was no longer happy. Then, a second unorthodox thought popped up in my mind: “See if you can do that abroad”. That’s when the wheels of destiny started to spin around, faster and faster, and, of all places, I ended up in … Bratislava.

From Italy

I guess I have always been stuck in some sort of middle ground. My mother was born and raised in a small town in southern Italy, on the Adriatic Sea. In what would once have been called a working-class family. Life was tough. Tilling the land or toiling in a steel mill, if you were lucky. One of my maternal grandmother’s sisters was forced to emigrate to the USA, to escape poverty and the worst mindset of all: atavism. Travelling by ship, a two-week journey in an era when long-distance communication was a significant challenge and burden. Every day.

My father, on the other hand, comes from a wealthier family of landowners and teachers. Until, that is, the day WW2 broke out, and everything was lost, except their lives. When things get a bit rough for me I think of my paternal grandfather who, in that sunny spring of 1945, at 45 years of age, had to start from scratch (again), with just a few pots and clothes, a wife, five kids, and no home. And yet that’s what he did, together with countless others who, in the space of one generation, rebuilt a country, and a continent, with what they had.

So, I always felt, I always “knew” that we can approach file as a threat and the world as a wild place. Or as a gift and an opportunity, even in the face of defeat and insurmountable odds. After much dithering, I chose to hope.

To Slovakia

Even to this day, it is a bit strange to think of Slovakia as an actual country. At school, we were taught no such place existed, and for as long as the Austro-Hungarian Empire lasted. For five centuries, if I am not mistaken. Then, after the Versailles Treaty in 1919, we were told that Czechoslovakia was the answer to the hopes and aspirations of Western Slavs, south of Poland. And that was the end of the story. This idea of a single, historical, linguistic, and spiritual community, was drilled into us in a “matter-of-fact way”. The years spent behind the Iron Curtain only solidified this narrative, as one people, united in their struggle against the evil system of the West. On this last point, however, we had some doubts, despite our teachers’ best intentions.

After all, when, as a teenager, I started travelling across Eastern Europe, passport and visas ready at hand, I couldn’t help noticing that Prague was more westward than Vienna and that Bratislava was also incredibly close to “our” world. In fact, I never really had the feeling that I was in the “East” but rather only a bit farther away from home. Still, I kept those revolutionary findings to myself, lest I disappointed the elders. You never know what can happen in life…

[to be continued]

This article was brought to you by Marco Talia from the Bridge, specialist English language training centre providing high quality, professional English language courses for students with a variety of needs and goals.