It’s been almost two months we’ve been in Czech – take few days off and the stamp date in my passport from an immigration officer will match the day of the month soon.
Although it might seem like it, we’re not just sitting here waiting for the rain to end (which is rather often, I have to say), but Dori’s getting quite adventurous with her grandpa taking bike trips around the town and woods, even secretly going to a lake to play with water – that of course is happening against my wish and will, because as an overprotective mother I’m so much concerned about her ear if she tried to swim, and about her womanly parts as well, considering grandpa doesn’t think swim suit is necessary for kids and sitting on a stone in the dirty lake water with leeches is all right.
Besides her secret adventures like that, me and my mum do take her around too. Dori was so excited to go by train with us – we’ve got a rare one here, so it’s fun – and then to a castle where princesses used to live. She was rather disappointed when she found out the “used to” part as she was clearly hoping to see a princess for real, and big paintings just weren’t the right thing; although we adults can imagine a lot of things going on in the beautiful rooms filled with historical furniture, scripture, books and even every day mundanities, my child just really wanted to see the princess – and get it over with.
We enjoyed a nice lunch in a nearby restaurant as well and got completely overeaten by a very simple but delicious meal, and I bought myself a new handmade bag (there’s a shop in that town which for years already sells unique hand-crafted things, from mugs to toys and bags and clothing – every single piece is original, unique and completely hand made, awesome things, really; also the prices kind of reflect that) with about 3x more space than my previous one. It was from the same shop I always buy my bags, but since the kiddo grew up from the last visit, the amount of things I grab and carry around with me grew as well – plasters, napkins, disinfection for hands, lipbomb and a lot of other emergency tools, and of course the fact I can completely sink in my Pentax and a 700-pages-long book is a big plus. Although… I found out it has its negatives as well, and when you really, really need to find something small very quickly, it will always get completely swallowed up by the depths of the giant purse. Such as your passport when an embassy guard requests it. Oops…

It’s mainly me who travelled in the past days however, with Dori staying back at the town with her grandma while me and my father were en route to Prague or Jihlava or Pelhrimov, trying to get the paperwork done and solved – for real already. During one day we managed to walk by feet 16km of pavement and roads within the Old town of Prague and Letna, up and down and straight or not; I have to say that the castle stairs are real deal when it’s humid and hot outside and you’re a hijabi not particularly in form. I swear I sweated down at least three kilograms in that climb. No worries, I put them back up at home with a huge chocolate treat!
Alhamdulilah after so many weeks of obstacles and problems popping up one by one trying to make our life miserable, and surprising cooperation of a person whom I didn’t expect to do so, we managed to get it over with – be it by sheer stubbornness or the fact our jinnie got tired for a day which I managed to snap out of her program – the paperwork is now on the way to Kuwait, yay us!, (or by the DHL tracking site already is there, but not delivered yet, since 5 am already!), signed, verified, stamped and paid for.
Inshallah it won’t get harmed in any way and the Kuwait part will be smoother and easier now, because Ramadan is so close and it’s obvious I can’t avoid fasting in Czech, but I’d like to cut it to the minimum for many reasons. Long days, short nights, as for one, no AC for another, and mainly we’re residing at a really small town so eating any meat doesn’t come into consideration here, and our diet here is very sparse and non-healthy, overly vegetarian besides a fish time to time – which doesn’t go well with all the healthy fasting.