[Leica] IMG: Pretty young woman, with a twist...

[Peter Klein]

There is a "twist" to this photo, and it's not just the shape of the 
potato kabob:
<https://www.flickr.com/photos/24844563@N04/35664244563/in/dateposted-public/>

The young woman may appear to be enjoying her lunch, but actually, she 
is working.  I took this picture on our way up the Prague "Castle 
Steps." When we came back down several hours later, she was still 
there.  She spoke Ukrainian, so Katya could talk with her. The economies 
in Ukraine and some other former Soviet republics are so bad that many 
people repeatedly get four-month visas to work in a more prosperous 
nearby country.  They do low-level service jobs like working in hotel 
and restaurant kitchens, cleaning hotel rooms, or, in this case, being a 
living advertisement for the food kiosk nearby.

We heard similar stories everywhere we went in the Czech Republic. A 
middle-aged woman at one of our hotels told us she was an office 
manager, but she could make far more cleaning rooms in Czech hotels than 
she could at her real profession back home. Her daughter is a lawyer in 
Odessa, but has to work a second job at a "beez-nez" to make ends meet.

On a more cheery note, here is another Prague night shot:
<https://www.flickr.com/photos/24844563@N04/35664246733/in/dateposted-public/>

Enjoy,
--Peter