Poland 2007

As some of you may be aware I was in Poland from the 21st June to the 2nd July. I went there to teach English as a foreign language with the Cardiff Navigators (Navs). Here is how it went:The Navs lads- Phil, Jonny and I from Cardiff and Clarence from Southampton- met up at London Liverpool Street Station on the Thursday and got the direct train to Stansted airport, or should I say Tesco Extra under Martial Law. Firstly it really does look like a Tesco Extra (see above- sorry for the bad placement of pictures: help in putting them around the screen properly would be appreciated)

Secondly, as soon as I walked into the compound, I was greeted by two burly men carrying sub-machine guns seemingly getting macho highs out of carrying them. The whole atmosphere inside the building generated by the increased security and regulations introduced last year (I now believe its worse after that flaming car was driven into Glasgow airport; makes sense to increase security inside the airport when the problem came from outside doesn’t it?)- the “attempted bombing” at Heathrow which precipitated this, although no evidence of any plot as been aired neither has anyone being convicted of any crime, which was responded by rolling the tanks in a very Fascist fashion- was designed to frighten the travellers into giving up more and more liberty to the state to “protect” us hastening the slide to a totalitarian state. If the security threat is so large the individual airlines and airport authority would impose the regulations themselves: what do you think Ryanair’s sales figures would be like if one of their aircraft was blown up by a terrorist? One must also remember at this point that practically all plane crashes have massive media attention which would further damage Ryanair’s reputation. Also I seem to recall a lawsuit in the US in which a film contained a plane crash bearing the name of an existent firm who sued the makers for essentially slander; such is the importance of safety reputation in air travel industry. Thus the fact that the airlines themselves did not increases the regulations and security proves that the new regs are either superfluous at best, or sinister at worst. (This is an area I will cover in more depth in the future)

Back to the narrative.

When entered we met up with an other member of our team Rachel- she was a member of Navs in Cardiff back in 1989 when she started her optometry degree. We then checked in with no trouble although Rachel’s hold luggage was two kilos over the 15kg limited- this proved not to be case on the way back when she was charged 64 zlotys (£13) for this unfortunate aberration; although Jonny’s was the same weight and was charged nothing at all. We then went through security which wasn’t as bad as expected although at one point I uttered that “you spend more time queuing than you do in prison these days”; however we were spared the ignominy of having to take our shoes off unlike the chosen few.

The flight to Wroclaw, the south-west of Poland, (pronounced vrotz-lav contrary to the woman on the tannoy) was delayed by around an hour due to the plane arriving from its previous flight late. The flight was uneventful except for the landing which was singularly the worst landing I have ever experienced: it at was as if the pilot had forgotten his training and landed on the front wheel. When we arrived we were met by Bev- she is a Navs’ missionary who teaches English in Eagle school in Wroclaw and has been there for the past 13 years (I think)- and Bogusia; the latter was the lads’ host for two nights and for one on the way back . We were then taken back to Bogusia’s flat while Rachel went to Bev’s. On arrival we were provided with some supper: various cheeses, ham and bread which, as we were to learn, seem to be the Poles staple diet; not that I was complaining about that.

On the Friday we had our orientation day in which we met two more members of our team: Amelia and Lauren. The former is now director at Eagle school and the latter is an American from Owensboro, Kentucky who has come to Poland for a whole year to teach English; she was dove tailing this with work with another American team who she was then with. During the day Bev went over what we would be doing and various things to be aware of during our stay. In the evening we went out for a traditional Polish restaurant in which I had fried pork steak in breadcrumbs and fried cabbage (another very Polish food); it was very tasty although the cabbage was slightly bitter. The best thing though was the price- 8zl or about £1.60. The prices for most things were darn cheap: under a pound for a packet of 20 fags and about £40 for a good three piece suit; if I had the time I would probably have bought one. We then retired for the evening in preparation for the mammoth eight and a half hour train journey to Ketzryn the next day; it is in the north east of Poland near the Lithuanian and Soviet border.

Getting on the train however was made difficult by possibly the worst designed train doors I have ever seen: there was a central bar down the middle left after opening the doors thus making it difficult to put luggage on. The journey itself wasn’t too bad after we had commandeered most of the luggage space of the carriage. My defence of Open Theism at the behest of Phil was probably the most noteworthy. Upon arrival we were picked up at the station by a member of the Ketrzyn Baptist Church and taken to the church which would be our base for the next 9 days or so. The Church is attached to the Pastor’s residence and a small school which is where we taught the lessons and is where the year round teaching is done; the Pastor was President of the Baptist Union of Poland for 8 years. Our decampment was delayed due to a wedding in the Church which boosted the congregation numbers the next day. We ate that evening in a small restaurant which was practically smoke free- unlike here the Poles still have the liberty to smoke in places where the proprietor agrees. Upon return we settled in: the girls in the attic and the lads on the balcony at the back of church; that wasn’t too bad except that to turn the lights on and off required walking downstairs and across the church which made coming back up again, after turning them off, more difficult than for the girls who had lights next to each bed. After we had unpacked we played cards in the kitchen- this came to be the past time in the evenings after the organised events. That evening we were introduced, by Amelia, to a game called Phase 10 which lasts an inordinate length of time.

On the Sunday we attended the morning service at which Fonda, who was to be the last member of our team, gave her testimony and Bev translated the sermon. During the service an interesting custom of bringing greetings from various places and churches was observed. The rest of the day we relaxed.

The format for the working week was as follows:

Breakfast: 9am

Cleaning

Bible Study: 11am

Lesson Preparation: 11:45am

Dinner: 12:45pm

Free Time: 1:30pm

Tea: 5pm

Lessons: 6pm

Evening Event: 8:30pm

Breakfast, as previously indicated, was mainly cheese, meat and bread. Cleaning entailed washing up, cleaning the kitchen and mopping out the showers; by the time I arose they were mainly cold except once when I got lucky and it was vaguely warm. The Bible studies were on the Psalms including 119 and before you ask it wasn’t on all of it. Most of them went pretty well and were of existential use especially the discussion of true rest however there was a collision between my methodology and the rest. I think I came across as over theoretical with my talk of means and ends even though this was intended to be the sound base from which to deduce practical ideas.

Dinner was ordered in from a local bar offering an array of food such as Goulash, Birgos and Pirogi; it was mainly meat and potatoes. In general it was rather tasty, and cheap; on one day Lauren and I had strawberries and pasta, a traditional Polish dish, which was surprisingly good.

In the free time we generally relaxed: reading, walking into town and to the castle and going to the internet café. However Rachel used some of time to carry on lesson prep; she somehow had the most to prepare, or took longest to do. In fairness however she had the lowest ability group. On the Wednesday we went to the Wolf’s Lair: one of Hitler’s secret wartime bases. The site was 10km sq and consisted of mainly concrete bunkers in various states of decay. We climbed to the top of Goerring’s collapsed bunker where there were gun emplacements. Climbing was the operative word since it required us to climb a ten foot of rock face and then a ladder- a collection of steel rungs- to the top. Neither while climbing, nor on the top, were there any barriers stopping us from falling off; in short Poland has practically no health and safety laws- cash back! The lair was also the place of an attempted assassination of Hitler.

For tea it was some food to complement the bread, cheese and ham; one night there was some meat and sauce but beyond that I don’t remember much.

Now to the teaching: There were four groups- elementary (Rachel), lower intermediate (Phil and Clarence), intermediate (Jonny and Lauren) and upper intermediate (myself and Fonda). The teaching went pretty well supported by the fact that Bev, who organised it, was asked, by the students, to bring the same team back next year. However there was a slight problem with Rachel’s group on the first day: two ladies complained that the group was far too easy and they claimed that they were near a first certificate in English (a Cambridge accredited exam) which was above the level my lot; they clearly weren’t, as ascertained by Bev’s interview prior to being assigned their group, and so left. My group had four to six people depending on what day it was; the other groups were of similar number. I got on very well with my group in particular a lad called Jakub who was at Warsaw University doing Journalism. The lessons mainly revolved around getting the students to converse in English rather than teach them grammar et al. Subjects discussed ranged from childhood to the health industry. The latter was rather amusing thanks to Janusch who displayed a level of cynicism approaching mine: he complained that one had to queue for hours in a doctor’s surgery only to have a quick check over and be told to take vitamin C; and that if there was anything actually wrong with you they merely referred you to a specialist. He further complained that they were currently on strike and could be replaced by other people to do most of the referral job. The problems cited by Janusch are mainly due to the State’s monopoly and continuing intervention in the health industry which are mainly manifest in restriction of supply. In one of the lessons we played a game of life in which Anna became a pop star, I a baggage handler and Janusch was arrested on fraud charges; this went down a treat. Working with Fonda was great even though she is an extrovert character like me; she did though tell me I annoyed sometime during teaching after correcting her pronunciation, she is American after all, although I was entirely oblivious to this.

In the evening events we did different things each night. The first was a games evening with coffee and biscuits: games included Phase 10, Uno and Scrabble; I got beat playing the latter by four Poles! - I hang my head in shame. The second evening comprised of silly games such as the famous chocolate game and the mummy game: who is the fastest at wrapping a team mate head to toe in toilet role. The next night was Scottish Dancing which went down well although I did nearly injure one of the girls by being slightly over enthusiastic which led her to connect with the floor. Then it was British night which was just a quiz with music, pictures and standard questions. We had decorated the room up with post cards, flags, pictures and tea towels to give it a vaguely British flavour. We also supplied a small array of British food including Jelly babies and shortbread. Bev’s team won on a tie breaker of guessing the population of Wales which is either three or four million. On the last night the Yanks (sorry Confederates) did line dancing and supplied some good ol lemonade and strawberry and cream flan- they have a name for it but I’ve forgotten again- darn senility. The line dancing was entertaining however that doesn’t mean I was any good which one can see by viewing the video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5JtOfa7ZsI

On that evening we were joined by Tomick’s friends who are in a rap group called The Real People; think of wiggers and you know what they look like. Tomick was the person who affected me most while I was out there. He has only been a Christian for less than a year, he attends the local charismatic church bizarrely called the Granary Church, but has turned his life around: he no longer smokes weed, drinks or watches television for Jesus now; he also prays and fasts every Friday, he used to do it Friday and Saturday, because of his love of God. He is an example to us all of how our lives should be radically different after believing in Jesus for salvation. Note it may not require any of the above; again it is an area I will discuss in the future.

During one of the evenings I had a good chat with Antoni which started off about cameras: he had a digital SLR while I still use my fully manual film SLR. He said that cameras in the US were cheap but he wouldn’t import any due to the tariff imposed upon them. I then told him about how we (Brits) go on Booze Cruises to France due to the tax disparity. He then said it was the same on the Soviet border: Poles go over every day and bring back booze and fags to sell on the black-market because they are even cheaper than the Polish prices! Do Ryainair fly to Russia yet?! Another example of making naturally law abiding people into criminals by providing a service other people want.

On the Saturday we had a day of site seeing around the local area. We visited a Catholic “church” which was very beautiful and contained an exceptionally ornate organ which had moving angels and spinning stars on it. While we were looking at the merchandise one of the clergy, an elderly gentleman, started talking to us and took particular liking to Rachel and attempted to teach her “I love you” in Polish; Rachel tried to respond and asked him to say what “I love God” is in Polish. After this we travelled to a small town which had a Teutonic Castle and a church with a large bell tower- 180 feet high. When we reached the top of the bell tower, which had magnificent views of the surrounding country side, all there was stopping us from falling off was a bit of plastic fencing bought from the local garden shop. Not that it was unsafe: if one used a slight bit of common sense while up there and didn’t go up there when it was particularly windy it was perfectly safe. However this Polish common sense, I was informed, will be replaced by our ridiculous laws within the next twenty years or so. While standing outside the ice cream shop, opposite the castle, a black dog ran past panting, for at that point it was rather hot, upon which I remarked “I’d hate to be black in this weather” which was responded with a suitably black look from Rachel. We then took an hour off and then went to an excellent local restaurant. I had a sort of thick stew with pork, garlic, cheese and potatoes which was delicious. On the walls of the restaurant were some wild boar furs. We were then taken to a local folk museum which had various rooms mocked up to be different periods. The building was actually four houses: each with a quarter of the building to share one communal chimney in the middle. The reason for this strange set up was: TAX! The Polish government taxed the number of chimneys and thus distorted house building in this way.

On the Sunday we attended the church service at which Jonny shared a few words about what God had been doing in his life recently; Phil gave them some words for thought from Mark 5 (he though that is what the reading was from but in fact it was Matthew 5); and Clarence gave his testimony (this was all translated btw). The Church is a mixture of old and new- most similar to Emmanuel Baptist Church for you Cardiff lot. On the previous Sunday I recognised most of the tune which included Amazing Grace; however that day I recognised precisely none of them. During the service the Pastor and his wife sang a duet which translates something like whatever trouble you may face Jesus will always be there. However the reason why I remember it was because it was just pure 80s: the song was pure synth from a tape deck and had a fade out ending. After the service we all went to different families houses for dinner. I went to one of the elder’s house which was around 15 miles away. And yes, if that were possible, Polish roads are worse than British roads. He didn’t speak English although his grandson fortunate did; we conversed in the car mainly about basketball of which he is a big fan. For my dinner: I had chicken soup with homemade pasta; followed by various cuts of duck, pork stew, potatoes, salad and some disgusting vegetable looking like a small cucumber; this was finished off with cake, ice cream and biscuits. All in all it was a great lunch. After this I returned to the Church whereupon I had arrest and got ready for the next days train journey. Fonda didn’t arrive back until around 9 after being shown the sights and sounds of the area by Janusch, his wife and daughter.

On the Monday we disembarked for the station. We got on the train fine although we then had a heated rush down a few carriages to get to a cabin to ourselves. After this however the journey was again uneventful: we read, listened to music and at one point Phil and myself had a fruitful discussion of free market anarchism. However about 40 miles from Wroclaw the train stopped and we were informed that there were trees on the line. We then proceeded to wait an hour then travel for ten minutes then weight an hour and so it continued. During this time we were reduced, at my suggestion, that we should play the game think of a category and think of words for it going through the alphabet. We had innovative categories such as films, actors and actresses and Bible characters; Rachel was excellent at the latter. This was brought to an end when we rolled up to the station around three hours late. We were later informed that there had been a storm in there which probably caused the trees to fall; well it’s a better excuse than leaves on the line, isn’t it? We were collected by Andrew, Bogusia’s husband, and taken back to their flat where we were fed with-you’ve guessed it- ham, cheese and bread. Basha, Bev’s flat mate, picked her and Rachel up.

The next day the lads gave presents to Bogusia and family including a Love Spoon, a model of Salisbury Cathedral, a British flag and a book of Japanese Logic Puzzles- Marius, there son, was good at maths so I figured he’d like it, which he did. We then met up for a final meal in Wroclaw square then headed to the airport. Security was not as tight heading through airport which pleased me somewhat; however I didn’t expect them to be as generous as they were: I had accidentally not put my toiletry bag, which contained my razor blades, in my case and left it in my hand luggage. Yet know one in security batted an eye lid. The flight was again uneventful except for continuous inane pre-recorded adverts coming through the sound system; and the landing was suitably better. We survived immigration said goodbye to Rachel, who was catching a coach on the way back home, and headed into London and then went our separate ways.

To see a collection of photos of the trip see here:

http://cardiffuk.facebook.com/photo_search.php?oid=2374809620&view=all

PS. I forgot to say what the weather was like. It was variably with quite a bit of rain although it got rather warm and sunny of some days. I donned my Hawaiian shirt on a few days anyway.