Pasadena Students Making History in Czechoslovakia

What, exactly, does the well-heeled teen-ager take with her to Prague?

Christie Clason and Lisa Riddall of John Marshall High School took rap music to wow the locals and chocolate chips--to make Tollhouse cookies, of course.

Christie and Lisa, friends who are both 16, are among 10 teen-agers nationwide participating in a historic student exchange program with Czechoslovakia. Sponsored by the American Field Service, this is the program’s first foray into Czechoslovakia since 1948, when the Communists seized power and slipped the nation of 15 million into Soviet orbit.

Now, with a newly elected democratic government, Czechoslovakia has thrown open the doors once again under the sponsorship of Jara Moserova, vice president of the Czech Parliament, who herself spent two years in the United States in 1947-49 as an AFS exchange student.

Christie and Lisa, who left Saturday, will spend six weeks studying Czech history, culture and language, staying with families and splitting their time between Prague and the university town of Marianske Lazne, known for its 40 mineral springs and baths.

“We’re amazed at how rapidly the changes are going,” said Lisa, who last week admitted to some last-minute nervousness about making the right plane connections and finding Czechs who speak English.

In addition to the chocolate chips, she is bringing Alka-Seltzer and other medicines. “I hear the food is heavy and sinks right down to your stomach,” she said.

Christie spent her last hours in Southern California polishing up on Czech phrases such as “yes,” “no” and “help” and trying to remember that a Czech “c” is pronounced like “ts.”

And Christie also took yarn to weave some Guatemalan friendship bracelets for the new friends she expected to meet. “We’re thinking about making one with the colors of the American flag and one with the colors of the Czech flag,” she said.

Both girls learned about the trip through their soccer coach, Mel Smith, and his wife, Alice, a counselor at Marshall High who is AFS coordinator for eastern Los Angeles.

Aside from the strangeness of buying crystal from Bohemia and visiting the birthplaces of Franz Kafka and Milan Kundera, the teen-agers from the San Gabriel Valley can count on being greeted by one familiar sight.

“Czechoslovakia is one of the most industrialized of the newly opened countries,” Christie said with some authority. “And Prague is supposed to have a bad smog problem. I’m from L.A. I can totally relate.”