Maminko!

Another anecdote about Czech children... This one takes places in two scenes.

Scene 1
A foreigner sits on a bus, the bus is travelling from Smicovske Nadrazi train/metro station out to the suburbs of Prague 4 early one summer afternoon. She is trying to look the part of a local, with mixed success.

The rest of the four-seat area in which her seat is located is occupied by a group of locals of about her age. She has no idea what they are talking about but there is no mention of vocabulary related to the topics with which she is now familiar: food and groceries, shopping, place names and tourist words.

Across the aisle a woman sits in a single seat. She holds shopping bags on her lap and is ostensibly alone.

The bus continues as normal across the river Vlatava. The ride is this far uneventful. Until...

"Maminko!".

Immediate recognition of this word by the foreigner, at home this would be "Mummy!". A girl of maybe six or seven years comes bounding up to the woman across the aisle. She has a very round face and a delirious grin. She bounds up to her mother and smothers her in a hug. Her grandmother is following closely behind. The girl is wearing black leggings, sandals with socks and a lemon t-shirt with a picture of a kitten sitting in a denim pocket on the front. Her hair is unusually naturally pale blonde for these parts. It is worn is in pig-tails high on her head.

The girl blurts out a voluminous amount of information, doubtless about her schoolday. The mother Produces a clear plastic packet from her shoppping bag abd presents it to her daughter. The recipient is almost delirious. Opening the packet she reveals a white t-shirt with a pink cord tie at the neck. The girl is raving. She clearly loves her gift.

The young girl turns the t-shirt around to hold it up to herself and there revealed in a rather alluring pose is a drawing in black ink of a busty woman with the title "Here is the sexy girl!".

The foreigner winces as the complement of her seating arrangement see the t-shirt and are clearly amused. Again, it seems, there is a long way to go.

Scene 2
The foreigner having returned to the communist-style apartment in which she has been living for a month has now ventured to the local Obchodcentrum or mall. After a routine visit to the Tesco hypermarket she is making her way back to the apartment.

In the, enter stage right the selfsame girl from scene 1, grandmother in tow. She has now changed her clothes. The black leggings have been replaced by a frilly full pastel skirt. The lemon t-shirt remains. And now she is wearing an inflatable bouyancy ring/lifesaver around her waist. Eyebrows raised the foreigner exits the mall. The young girl skips ahead, in the direction of Tesco.