Coober Pedy

The Czech and the Croatian belong to the same group of languages (together with Polish and Russian and a few others). I haven’t come across it with any other nation but for some reason the Croats believe that Czechs understand Croatian as if it was their own language. (Which is a myth. We don’t – except for those with a Slavonic Babel fish in their ears!)

Some years back, I spent 4 months working as an au-pair and there was a Croatian au-pair living round the corner. She used to look after a 3-storey house, 2 spoiled girls, was earning the legal £35 a week (out of which she used to send £20 home to help her mother - this was in 1997). She never went out because she didn’t have money, she didn’t go to school because she didn’t have money and didn’t go to church because it was too far and she was not allowed to leave the house for that long. To crown her misery, she was called Fanny.

She used to visit me every week, followed me round the house telling me about the world’s injustice - in Croatian! (When she returned home, she sent me a Christmas card telling me that I was her best friend and helped her so much during the difficult times in England – by being silent because I didn't undertand her - and the card was in Croatian also.)

Coober Pedy is a little mining town in the middle of the Simpson Desert and is known as the opal capital of the world because of the quantity of precious opals that are mined there.

I arrived at 9pm, found a hostel, checked in and set off to find the pub that offered the fantastic "Backpackers' Menu" for 10A$. There was ONE person on the street at that time. He stopped me for a general chat (people in the desert tend to do it – it’s nothing unusual)

- Hello mate. First time in Coober Pedy?
- Yes, first time.
- How do you like it?
- I’ve only just arrived and found a hostel but it looks cool. Thanks for asking.
- Where do you come from?
- Czechoslovakia.
- Češka ili Slovačka?

And here it was – the man was a Croat! He gave me 25 minutes worth of life stories including his years in Prague, his love for Czech women, his troubles with the communists and immigration to Australia, and his grandfather’s bravery during the First World War. All in Croatian. Then he invited me to his house because his wife would love to meet me too.

The speech left me silent. Despite the training during my au-pair times, my brain was still trying to fill in the blank spaces from his 3rd sentence. I politely refused. In Czech of course.

“Never mind, it was nice to meet you," he said he gave me a little opal. I couldn’t think of a better welcome.