Throwing a grenade

Zuzana consumed quite a bit of sugar and coffee in London. This was good because it helped her get through our 19-hour day. But it also made her very talkative. On our 10pm flight back she spoke at rapid pace about how much she loved sugar when she was a child growing up in Slovakia under communism, and how back then, even a banana was rare.

She then seamlessly segued into a description of how she was trained to fire a gun and throw a grenade when she was six years old in the communist era school. She didn't realize that this was atypical for Westerners until a German friend of hers marveled at how well she held a rifle from his gun collection.

Under communisim, school children fired actual guns, Zuzana said, but they did not throw actual grenades; they threw objects that were the size, shape and weight of grenades. If they did not throw the grenade-like objects more than 25 meters, they would get in trouble with their teachers.