Forty-one years ago I traveled to the birthplaces of my grandparents and the capital city in Slovakia, which was still part of both Czechoslovakia and the Soviet bloc. Reducing the risk of a journey behind the Iron Curtain, my maternal grandmother arranged for me to stay with my grandfather’s relatives in Bratislava, the capital, and with her relatives in the Liptov region.
No one in Liptovský spoke English, and I knew no Slovak, but that didn’t stop us from talking and laughing. We used translation books, although Grandma’s nephew’s wife spoke at length to me as if I understood every word. At times I somehow understood her.
Last week my sister Nancy, her husband, Bob, and their daughters Alex and Ashley retraced my trip, with a few differences. The Iron Curtain is no more, of course. They stayed in hotels and saw relatives only in Liptovský. They were able to have conversations because two cousins in their 40s speak English.