Gina’s Polish Complex

I translate lots of people – status: improving

Sunday, 2 December, 2012 at 7:08 pm (Uncategorized)

Adventures in translating

When I started working at the Museum, one of my major goals was to become confident enough in my Polish to translate meetings between English-speaking groups and our Witnessess to History, the lovely little old ladies and gents who survived the war and come in to tell their stories. Some – like Mr Henryk, Mr Józef, Mrs Lidia and Mr Paczyński – are non-Jewish survivors of the camps; others – like Mrs Zosia and Mr Mundek – were Holocaust survivors; and still others – like Mr Mironiuk, Mrs Miroslawa and Mrs Stefania – were honored as Righteous Among the Nations. I sat in on many, many meetings, took notes, but it took me ages to work up the courage to even try. It’s not the Polish-to-English part, I’d always say, it’s the translating the questions back into Polish. What if I screw up?

So, I put off spoken translation in favor of the safer world of written translations. But, once the Museum was serious about hiring me, I needed to show them that I was a competent Polish speaker. Translating these meetings was a good sign that I was competent enough.

By that time, the numbers of witnesses had dwindled. Mrs Zosia, Mr Paczyński, and Mr Mundek only come in rarely due to a combination of health reasons and just being tired of meetings. Mr Mironiuk and Mr Henryk both passed away. By last summer, our ‘regular’ witnesses were down to Mrs Stefania, Mrs Lidia and the always-energetic Mr Józef.

Mr Józef was my first translation ‘exam’. He was arrested when he was 16 for his participation in the Warsaw City Uprising and sent to Mathausen. He survived nearly being worked to death, nearly being beaten to death by one of the guards, an operation without anesthetics and several selections of the sickest prisoners in the hospital barracks. In fact, out of the 400 people on his transport from Warsaw, only 15 survived. (Interesting historical fact: the people fighting in the uprising were expecting to be treated like POWs, instead the Nazis classified them as “bandits”, meaning that they weren’t subject to the Geneva Conventions and so could be shot on the spot or sent to concentration camps to essentially be worked to death.)

Mr Józef has been a constant presence at the Museum since I started working there, and has essentially adopted all of us as surrogate grandchildren. He is also by far the easiest to translate because he speaks slowly and clearly, knows when to pause so that the translator can catch up, and always tells the same story using the same words. And he’s done so many meetings that he basically has a set of answers to the questions (most are very similar). Plus, he always makes sure to ask you if you understand everything if he decides to add in something very different (like showing newspaper articles or new pictures). In other words, he’s a beginning interpreter’s dream job.

Of course, Mr Józef does like to keep us on our toes. Every so often, he’ll throw in some new details to make sure that we’re paying attention. For example, he once decided to go into the specifics of his work in the Warsaw Uprising, giving everyone a very detailed description of how to make what for all intents and purposes is a Molotov Cocktail. I was going along with this fairly well, until we hit on the word kwas. In Polish, this means acid, which would be logical. My brain unfortunately happened to short-circuit because kvass in Czech is a non-alcoholic beer beloved by my former roommate (and looked at with something akin to horror by me). I managed to avoid saying: “You take petrol and this nasty Czech non-alcoholic beer drink, put them in a glass bottle and the chemical reaction makes it explode on impact,” but it was a close thing.

Then came Mrs Lidia. Mrs Lidia was born in what is now Belarus and deported to Auschwitz with her mother and grandparents when she was 3. She and her mother were selected for life – her mother as slave labor and she for use in medical experiments. Mrs Lidia survived and ended up being adopted by a Polish family after the war because no one had any idea who she was and where she came from – she couldn’t remember, her mother had been evacuated from the camp on one of the Death Marches and was presumed dead, and she basically spoke the camp jargon rather than a native language. After many years, she decided to try and find out about her origins, and ended up being reunited with her biological parents who had both survived the war and were living in Russia. (They had tried to find her right after the war, but had been unsuccessful.) As a result, she became something of a celebrity in Poland and the USSR.

Naturally, this is a slightly more complicated story because it has many parts. You have to know what Mrs Lidia was doing, what happened to her, what happened to her mother, what happened after the war, and so on. She is also a bit more philosophical, and so takes time to talk to the kids about the differences between what they saw/will see when they visit Auschwitz and what it was actually like for the prisoners. Needless to say, I’ve picked up a lot of vocabulary. Fortunately, she too is very patient and tends to use the same words and descriptions during the translations. Answering questions gets a little tricky because of her philosophical point of view, and also she is very detailed. But, I generally am able to muddle through and at least give a summary of what she says.

And then there is Mrs Stefania.

Let me be clear: Mrs Stefania is one of the sweetest Little Old Ladies™ ever to live. She always is so cute and sweet, and gives lovely hugs. She also has an incredible story about how her family sheltered a Jewish family out in the countryside near Nowe Brzesko for 18 months. At first, the family lived with them legally and openly, but then were forced into the ghetto in Nowe Brzesko, across the river from their village. When rumors about the ghetto’s liquidation began to circulate, Mrs Stefania helped the family (a father, mother, aunt, grandmother and two daughters) sneak out of the ghetto, cross the river and come to her family’s house. When the rumors turned out to be false, she helped them back to Nowe Brzesko, and then when the liquidation was certain went back and got them across the river and to her house again. She tells this story very matter-of-factly and also does have some very (darkly) funny moments: how one of the daughters was her age and they used to play records together and have dance parties with the neighbor boys – but only when there wasn’t planting to do! Or about how she and the daughter had to carry the grandmother across the river (who got hysterical and was having none of the whole ‘escape from certain death’ thing): the daughter took the grandmother’s legs, Mrs Stefania her arms and they tried to make her comfortable by propping a pillow on Mrs Stefania’s chest for the grandmother to rest her head on. And at one point, the pillow was dislodged and fell in the river, making the grandmother unhappy and Mrs Stefania (and this is a direct quote) “feel terribly guilty.”

The problem is this. Mrs Stefania, despite being as awesome as all get-out, is deaf as a post. So this means asking questions is like pulling teeth. Additionally, she has a very thin, wavering voice and tends to speak in paragraphs rather than in sentences. Both of these make it hard to translate. Also, she tends to jump around, so that she’ll talk about Events A, B, C and D, but then start talking about Event R, Event Z, then back to Event C and B, then Event F, G, Back to Event R… you get the picture. Trying to weave that into a comprehensible narrative is really hard.

Generally, I try not to translate Mrs Stefania because I felt I’d be terrible at it and that it wouldn’t be so good for the groups. I did end up having to do it one day, and it wasn’t bad. I got her story down all right, and she wasn’t in the mood to answer more than two questions. This was actually very good, because she couldn’t hear what I was asking her. Normally, I would have taken that as a sign of OHMYGODICAN’TSPEAKTHISLANGUAGE!!!11!EXCLAMATIONPOINT!! However, there was a boy in the group who was a Polish heritage speaker and even he couldn’t get her to understand the question. So, I just accepted it as a product of Mrs Stefania’s deaf-as-a-post-ness and got over it. On the whole though, I was rather pleased with myself.

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Back once more, and ready to try this again

Tuesday, 13 November, 2012 at 7:45 pm (Uncategorized)

So I fail at keeping up this blog. Like, really fail. Zero. I do apologize for that, mostly because writing is fun and I promised myself that I would update this at least semi-regularly for my three readers (hi, three readers!) who are now probably more like -3 readers.

Part of the reason why I didn’t update over the summer was because, honestly, a lot of things happened. Some of said things were part of an ongoing process that I didn’t want to jinx until I was certain that it was over. So, I will update about those things now.

Nowe mieszkanie, part the whatever

So, my lovely and fantastic roommate from the last three years got herself an awesome internship in Luxemburg. That of course meant that I needed to find a new flat. I decided that at 26, it was probably high time for me to at least try living on my own, so I began looking for a very cheap studio flat with a washer somewhere in the center. While this might seem like an impossible challenge, there actually are some places where the rent is less than 1000 zloty a month. You just have to be really, really patient.

The decision basically came down to two places. One was relatively close to my old flat (though not in the osiedle itself) and very near good tram connections. It was quiet, the landlord seemed nice, and it had ogrzewanie miejskie (aka heating provided by the city, which is much cheaper). Unfortunately, it had a shower-bath, which is one of those things that really annoys me, and lacked a washer. The agent said that it would be possible for the landlord to buy a washer for me, but I wasn’t sure if that was a particularly good idea. Additionally, the landlord was about to go on holiday and was going to return after I was supposed to turn my papers in for my new residency card, and I honestly needed at least a night to decide.

The second place was in an old kamienica (tenement house) right in the city center – about a block from where I lived when I first moved back to Poland. The one problem was that everything was electric, and there wasn’t a lot in the way of furniture (a bed, wardrobe, table and small stools were provided). I already have a desk and a bookshelf, so I figured I only needed a wardrobe and some kitchen storage. Most vitally, the flat had a washer. The landlady also seemed very nice and she owned the whole building, so I wouldn’t have to worry about Local Drunks(TM) in the courtyard the flat looked out onto. Plus, the price was so low that even if my electric bills were high during the winter, the price was still very reasonable.

My gut instinct was a little wonky, since both places had their advantages. When it came down to it, I sprang for the flat in the center. It just seemed like a really good place, and it already had a washer. So, I said I’d take it. Of course, on the way back home, I agonized about it. Fortunately, one of my good friends told me that I’d probably made the right decision. After all, having everything electric is quite a bit safer if you’re going to live alone and the location is to die for. Feeling much better, I signed the contract and began moving in my stuff piece by piece. A trip to Ikea also happened, and I augmented the flat’s furniture and felt very grown up in the process.

I moved somewhat piecemeal because I still had a couple of months left on my contract. At first, I stayed at my old place, but then another friend came to Poland for a language course, so I let her sleep there and moved into my new place. Another friend helped me find a mover, who helped me get my stuff back across the river. The only slightly unpleasant part was a minor, but explosive, confrontation with the (pardon my language, but there really is no other way to describe her) crazy-ass old lady who lives on the ground floor of my old building. It went something like this:

The scene: G is standing in the entryway with the remnants of her stuff. The Mover is outside loading things into his truck. The main door of the block is propped open. Enter Crazy-Ass Old Lady and Husband.

G (in Polish): Hello!

Crazy-Ass Old Lady (also in Polish): Look at what you’ve done! You’ve broken it!

G (in Polish): What?

CAOL (in Polish): You broke it! You broke the door!

G (in Polish): What?! The backpack’s keeping the door open so my colleague can put things in his truck.

CAOL: drags G and marches over to the door. She points at the upper hinge that holds the door to the frame and keeps it from opening at a 90-degree angle. Look at what you did! You broke it! My daughter saw it and told me! You broke it!

G: Um, maybe you should talk to my colleague. I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding.

Mover: shows up.

G: (in English) PLEASE HELP ME NOW THIS LADY IS CRAZY.

CAOL: YOU BROKE THE DOOR!

Mover: Um, no. I just took out the screw so that I could get some big stuff out the door. I’ll put it back-

CAOL: YOU BROKE IT. I’m reporting this to the building administration!

Mover: What the hell for?? It’s going to get fixed.

CAOL: Cultured people would not do such things!

Mover: picks up more of my stuff. Lady, you’re nuts.

CAOL: to G. HE BROKE IT.

G: is moving stuff and has had quite enough of this. (in English). I’m sorry, I don’t understand a word of what you’re saying to me.

CAOL and Mover start to shout at each other. G occupies herself with moving more stuff. CAOL tries following G and talking to her, G has had more than enough.

CAOL: blah blah blah blah…

G (in English): Look lady, if you’re going to shout at me in a language I don’t understand, I’m going to shout at you in a language you don’t understand.

CAOL: backs off of G and goes to shout at the Mover about how she’s going to report him to the administration.

Mover: Lady, I couldn’t get that table out the door without removing the screw. It’s going to be put back together in like 5 minutes. So why don’t you shut up and let me do my job?

CAOL storms off to her flat, comes back with some notecards and makes a big show of writing down his license plate number (presumably so she can report him). By this time Mover has finished his work, and has fixed the door.

Mover: VOILA YOU CRAZY ****. See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya!

CAOL: I hope I never see you again around here, sir!

G: Crap, I still have to come back and clean the flat and give Landlord the keys back! Whimpers miserably.

Fortunately, besides that minor incident, the move went smoothly. I did make a point of coming back to the flat really late at night when I figured CAOL would be in bed, watching TV or listening to Radio Maryja (yes, I automatically assume people I don’t like here listen to the reactionary conservative Catholic radio station whatchagonnadoboutthat?). In hindsight, creeping up the stairs to the second floor and calling the elevator from there was probably a bit silly, but how was I to know she wasn’t lying in wait for me?

Anyway, all ended well and I am now happily ensconced in my new place. Hooray!

The new job, (mostly the) same at the old job

So, after two unsuccessful attempts to become a paid staff member at my museum, I finally managed to get a job. Granted, it’s only for 6 months while my boss is on maternity leave, but I desperately hope it will turn into something a little… longer. I didn’t want to mention the process while it was going on because I frankly didn’t want to curse myself.

(I happen to be a very strong believer in cursing myself by thinking/mentioning things. This applies not only to Vanderbilt athletics and Spurs basketball, but also to job processes.)

Basically, the last time I got rejected, it was over the fact that my Polish goes out the window when I start thinking about it and/or getting nervous. But, there was lots of room for improvement. So, my goal was to show that I could function in Polish without getting too flustered. I started off with small things: translating our survivors, trying to only talk to my colleagues in Polish, listening in on Polish tours and workshops. My test would be guiding around the museum and conducting an exhibition-based lesson. I prepared. And prepared. And prepared. And freaked the !(*$& out. And prepared some more. And cried a lot. But, I ended up doing it.

All that I had to do was get the paperwork together.

Immigration is really easy (if you know what you’re doing)

Just like in America, I had to reapply for my residency card so that I could stay in Poland. Applying as a working person is slightly more difficult than as a student, because you frankly need a lot more paperwork. Like a work permit. This is why everyone in Europe hates hiring Americans. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told variations of “We only hire EU,” “You’re lovely, but we just aren’t in a state to hire non-EU citizens,” and “Go away, you’re too much paperwork and taxes.” Wailing and gnashing of teeth do not help either.

Fortunately, Poland is unlike most countries in Europe in that it doesn’t have a large influx of immigrants. Because of this, despite the large amount of bureaucracy, it offers some relatively decent options to immigrants. If you come here to study, each year of study (whilst on a residency card) counts for 6 months toward permanent residency. If you come here to work, you get 12 months/year toward permanent residency. (This also is a safeguard against people who would try to come here and get permanent residency by pursuing fake studies.) Additionally, a 2006 reform makes it so that people who hold diplomas from Polish universities can work without a work permit in Poland. The catch, of course, is that being a graduate doesn’t automatically give you the right to stay. However, just that one little thing makes employers about 7 million times more likely to hire you.

The catch in all of this is getting someone at the Foreigner’s Office who knows all of this and will tell you it. Unfortunately, like most bureaucratic organs, the Foreigner’s Office is a place where souls (and questions about immigration) go to die. Call four times, you’ll get five answers, and then you’ll find something different on the website. Needless to say, I was in a right state about all of this, and not just because I’m extremely OCD.

First of all, there was the whole diploma thing. I kept insisting that it was true, and the various bureaucrats kept saying that it wasn’t (even when it was on the website and a I know people who have taken advantage of it). Then, there was the whole issue that the decision about my hiring wasn’t going to happen until the end of August and I had to turn all my stuff in at the beginning of the month. That turned out to be less of a problem, as I just had to submit a letter stating this. Then, of course, I got a very angry letter from the office demanding that I turn in my work permit application, my contract and my proof of registration in ZUS (the national healthcare system – boo yah!). I was supposed to turn all of this in by September 15. I was hired by then, but in Poland you can’t give out contracts until they actually start. So, if your work contract begins on 1 October, you have to print and sign it the day of. And don’t get me started on the work permit thing.

Needless to say, I freaked out.

Fortunately, our accountant at the Museum is a no-nonsense lady who called up the Foreigner’s Office and yelled at them to sort out their elbows from their rear ends. It included the line: “I call four times, and I get five different answers and there’s something different on the website. This is unbelievable. Do you know this poor girl is American and she’s freaking out?”

Thanks to our accountant, everything was sorted. I was ordered to present my diploma to the office (which I did) and then take my contract and ZUS registration when they were aktualne (in force). So, I did that too on 1 October. I got the decision very quickly – which was actually surprising, even though I knew they’d had my application for a good 2 months at that point – and the card even quicker. Usually, it takes 2 months to get the actual card (you originally get a court decision), but I got mine in 2 weeks. HAH.

The one downside to this is that because my contract is only for 6 months, I only have the card for 6 months, meaning that in February I get to do this all over again.

My job

Okay. I love my job. I really do. There are some days when it’s mad busy and I’ve got a million billion translations and everyone is asking me stupid questions and the phone keeps ringing and I have to speak in Polish to the callers, but it’s great.

So far, I’ve been doing a lot of the stuff that I’ve been doing the last four years. However, I am doing a lot more Polish stuff. I led a lecture about Jewish holidays in the autumn, which went okay. I was very nervous and kept making a lot of mistakes, but then I sang Kol Nidre and distracted everyone. The teacher was actually really nice and the kids were supportive – mostly I think because I violated the CES school of powerpoint presentations and wrote absolutely everything up on the slides – so they honestly barely needed me in the first place. A couple of weeks later, I gave my first tour in Polish and led an exhibition-based workshop that went well. I was nervous, but there was improvement.

When I say I’m getting better, I’m actually noticing it. Like the time last month when I had to go to Starachowice (near Kielce) for a commemoration festival. I was supposed to give a lecture about post-war Jewish life in Poland and spent hours preparing a powerpoint presentation and notes for my speech. Well, after many adventures, I arrived in Starachowice only to discover that there was no projector for me to use. Ordinarily this would have made me melt down into bad!Polish. But, I managed to keep my cool (and thank GOD that I’d basically copied out the slides word-for-word in my notes) and muddled through. Fortunately, I was so totally not the star attraction, so any mistakes I made were overlooked. Besides that, I’ve made a lot of improvements translating Ms Lidia, one of our survivors who is a bit harder to translate, and Ms Stefania, one of our Righteous Among the Nations.

Oh, and I’ve also picked up an extra job as the English-language editor and translator of my MA adviser’s history journal and have some translations jobs I inherited from my roommate when she moved. I have retained a couple of my students, so I have some extra pocket money for beer and random items from the sales rack at Orsay.

My life

My life in general has been really, really good the last few months. Last year was all in all a really miserable year. I didn’t know what I was doing, I was lonely, I was doing a job I didn’t really like, it was cold and I felt like I was wasting my time. Anxiety about my job status, immigration and life path made me really miserable and I spent a lot of time making all the other people around me miserable too. Things have really straightened themselves out though. Yes, I still stress and freak out from time, but I’m ok. I’m really, really ok.

In the last few months, I’ve done a lot of things I’m really proud about. I got a job. I’ve had my Polish skills validated. I’ve travelled, and not just in Poland. I’ve been published as an editor and translator. My thesis was chosen as a finalist in the Jewish Historical Society’s competition for best thesis on Jewish topics and Israel – and it was the only one written in English and by a non-Pole. I’ve spent more time with my friends. I’ve eaten better. I’ve met someone really wonderful. I’ve discovered that I actually can be a responsible, capable adult and can handle a lot of what life throws at me (with minor freakouts to relieve stress along the way). I got health care and am actually going to find a doctor here so that I don’t have to import American meds all the time. (Except Nyquil. My God, I love Nyquil when I’m sick.)

So, things are good. And I hope I’ll be updating more. My friend and I have decided to meet every Wednesday for beer and writing sessions, something we’ve been talking about doing for ages. I think that I’ll be doing more time for beer and blogging.

I also think that if all goes according to plan, I’ll get internet in my flat sometime in the next week.

And my beloved Commodores are BOWL-ELIGIBLE.

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Addressing a serious issue

Monday, 16 July, 2012 at 6:59 pm (Uncategorized)

I will write up the positive aspects of Festival, as well as some general updates on my stressed out existence, but I wanted to address this issue.

Honestly, I’ve thought long and hard about what I want to say about Uwe’s report on the antisemitic incident in Moment during Festival. My first reaction, of course, was disbelief. That was then followed by disappointment that such an incident could happen in Kazimierz, on the night of the Festival’s final concert – the culmination of 10 days of positive feelings, progress and discussion that is the essence of Jewish Cultural Festival.

Let me be the first to state that these rambles are my own reflections. I was not there when the incident occurred. However, Uwe is a friend of mine and I’m inclined to believe his version of events. It’s a pity, because I rather liked the Moment restaurant, but I will no longer be giving them my business. Whether this was an isolated moment of assholery is irrelevant. First of all, I have boycotted other businesses for MUCH less – I have not set foot in Davis Cookware in Hillsboro Village since I was treated to a xenophobic and racist rant about Obama, same story for a very nice bookshop on Elliston Place. Others have a justified right to continue patronizing such places if they like them enough to ignore these incidents, but I also have the right to take my business elsewhere. Having people attempt to pressure and/or shame me into one position or another is guaranteed to only make me a more cranky bunny than I already am.

I also want to say that there is NO reason on God’s green earth for Uwe to make something like this up. If people claim he’s doing it for media attention… he just released a BOOK and is an established journalist. So, strike one.

Strike two is this: I recall from my days at The Restaurant that I had a coworker fired for a much more insignificant moment of assholery than what occurred at Moment. While I understand that the Polish restaurant business is not the American restaurant business, I believe that there are some basic standards. It was certainly drilled into my brain that you do NOT get belligerent with customers EVER, you attempt to diffuse the situation by walking away or bringing in your managers/bosses to handle the situation. And I was only a lowly hostess. I couldn’t imagine what either of my managers at The Restaurant would have said if they heard of their staff behaving in such a grossly unprofessional manner. Horrified and beyond furious barely cover it.

And, strike three. I have a very large quibble with those who claim that this incident should not have been reported because it “damages Kazimierz’s reputation as a paradise for Jews”. This is an understandable reaction, but let’s call it what it is: a knee-jerk response. Sensible people ought to know that there are assholes and antisemitism and antisemitic assholes everywhere (in Poland, in France, in the US, in Canada, etc.). One incident does not destroy a reputation or the impressive progress made. Rather, it serves as an illuminating counterpoint, to say basically that, yes, progress has been made – but we have a very long way to go. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: saying that there is no antisemitism in Poland is like saying that there’s no racism in the US. Has the situation improved? Heck yes! By leaps and bounds! Refusing to acknowledge that there is still work left to be done benefits no one except those who wish to twist history and avoid talking about major problems, undermining the impressive strides that have been made in the last 10-20 years. Pushing this under the rug benefits NO ONE except the nutjobs: Compare: “I told you ‘tolerant Kazimierz’ was only a facade, a Disneyland for Jews run by antisemitic Poles!” with “There go those !(&$! Jews again, slandering Poland.” Ultimately, both extremes will use this as justification for their own beliefs and, at the end of the day, nothing will be accomplished. Worse, the conversation is set back two steps and we have to claw our way back to our original position against that much more resistance.

My three readers (hi, three readers!) know that I love Poland. That I feel perfectly comfortable as a Jew here. That my aliyah was not to Jerusalem, but to Krakow. This is my home, this is my life, these are my people. But, I accept the good with the bad. I’ve heard people saying nasty things about Jews in the Wal Mart in Nashville, in diners in affluent Chicago suburbs, on the train in New York City, in the library in a small town in Louisiana. All places near and dear to my heart. And, you know what? I’ve heard very positive things said about Jews in a bar in Krakow, a Chinese restaurant in Wlodawa, a train going to Lviv, a hostel in Bucharest and an airport waiting room in Frankfurt. One does not cancel out the other.

Ultimately, this “scandal” will blow over. Those making hysterical reactions will probably look back on their actions and be (at least somewhat) embarrassed. We’ll all get over ourselves and move forward once again.

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Never, ever get smug about the mini-buses

Monday, 30 April, 2012 at 7:11 pm (Uncategorized)

Remember how I once said that it’s a bad thing for me to get smug about my mini-bus skillz. Yeah, today was a good reminder of that.

Because tomorrow and Thursday are national holidays (Labor Day and Constitution Day respectively), a lot of people are taking the week off. Almost all of the language schools I work for opted to just give a week-long holiday, as students are planning to be away and we teachers need a break every once in a while too. However, because I am a greedy little weasel a diligent teacher, I agreed to meet two of my Skawina students this morning. “I’ll make a little extra cash, and it’ll be easy,” I thought.

That, of course, was my first mistake.

I got to Rondo Grunwaldzki at a decent time and stood at my normal place ready to flag down one of my buses. My regular one didn’t show. “No problem,” I thought, “I have plenty of time,” and so I stood enjoying the glorious weather and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Okay, I thought after about half an hour, this was not so good. Fortunately, one of the city buses came by and I hopped on. Sometimes the mini-buses take the underpass below the Rondo, avoiding traffic – but also avoiding my stop. Generally, the best solution is to jump on one of the city buses and go a couple of stops further, ensuring that you’ll be able to catch one of the mini-buses. I usually go to Rondo Mateczny, which is the next big intersection. The problem is that all of the city buses stop on the far side of that particular roundabout, meaning that I have to run across four lanes of traffic and two tram lines to get to the stop where my mini-buses go. I decided to jump off one stop before, because I really was not in the mood for getting stuck at the zebra crossing only to watch my bus go flying past me.

This was mistake number two.

I stood at the stop and waited. And waited. And waited. During that time, I counted 15 buses – 6 to Myślenice, 4 to Wadowice, 1 to Gdów and 4 to Wieliczka. That is not counting the large buses heading to Bielsko-Biała and Zakopane. At this point I was definitely going to be late.

I stood at the stop peering at the bus signs and swearing with increasing violence as not a single bus to Skawina passed by. Finally, one did and I waved like mad at it. It looked like it was going to simply drive off without me, but fortunately stopped at the farthest end of the stop. I sprinted and jumped on, spluttering the Polish equivalent of “thankyouthankyouthankyou!”

The driver was completely unimpressed. “What are you doing standing there?” he asked me. “I don’t stop there. I never stop there.” He didn’t say idiot, but it was heavily implied.

Facing the disapproval of the driver and my fellow passengers, I slumped into a seat and we bounced to Skawina. We were actually making very good time, and I was only going to be about 10 minutes late, which wasn’t bad considering how late I’d left Kraków. “Relax,” I said to myself, “nothing else is going to go wrong.”

This, naturally, was mistake number three.

When we got to the Skawina Rynek (Main Square), ten thousand people decided that they wanted to get on the bus. I must remind you that these buses are really only meant for 20 people, plus maybe 6 standing passengers. There were definitely many more than that on this particular bus. Just as we were about to pull out, a woman with two kids flagged down the bus and hopped on. The kids were eating some very delicious looking ice cream. They got settled and off we went.

Trying to get the bus driver’s attention to get him to stop is tough at any time, particularly for a soft-spoken American like me, but it’s especially hard in a bus that is filled to bursting. Fortunately, I managed to be sitting in the very front, and so was able to get the driver’s attention and began maneuvering with some of the other passengers so that I could get out.

And that was when I felt something cold sliding down my arm.

The kid’s chocolate ice cream was melting in the extreme heat – as ice cream is wont to do. I managed to avoid getting it on my dress, but it was down my arm and had spilled onto my bag. My very nice Longcamps bag (yes, said bag has seen better days, but it didn’t deserve to have ice cream dribbled on it). I made some noise like, “FOOO!” (Polish for “EEEWW!”). The little brat just stared at me, while his mother yelled at him to eat his ice cream faster. If I’d had enough Polish, I would have said something about how tacky it is to eat something melty in a crowded bus, but the bus pulled into Bahlsen and all I could do was attempt a Polish Glare of Death and Disapproval(TM) before jumping out.

I was 20 minutes late, but my student was very cool, so it was ok. Next year though, I’m taking the whole blasted week off. 😀

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Opening the curtains

Saturday, 7 April, 2012 at 12:40 pm (Uncategorized)

It looks like I once again “pulled down the curtain” on this blog. For a variety of reasons – some of them seasonal, some of them of my own making – the last few weeks have been extremely rough. I was stumbling along through my days feeling exhausted and miserable and completely unable to enjoy life. I spent a lot of time focusing on the things that were wrong with my life, to the exclusion of appreciating the things that made me happy or making time to enjoy myself.

In all honesty, it reminded me a lot of some of my lowest points in high school and college. I have some form of mild depression, which was diagnosed back in high school. It’s generally pretty minor (I tossed out my pills my freshman year of college and haven’t needed them since), but sometimes it rears its ugly head in the form of extremely low self-esteem, paralysis and feelings of inadequacy. I generally don’t talk about this because, in my opinion, my little struggles are so small and insignificant compared to what some of my friends deal with every day of their lives. It doesn’t seem right to me to advertise my unhappiness or low points when people I know and love battle much worse. Generally, I beat myself up over feeling bad, telling myself that I have no right to be unhappy or depressed or paralyzed with fear over my future, but then I get stuck in a circle of feeling bad and beating myself up for feeling bad and then feeling worse and so on. Breaking out of that cycle is extremely difficult for me, since Voices of Reason are few and far between when it’s nasty and cold and gray and all I want to do is phone in on my lessons and sleep.

Several things happened that have pulled me out of my funk. First of all, I found the guts to quit a job I hated. Quitting things is really hard for me. I hate quitting. It makes me feel like I failed. But, it was getting to the point that I was dreading going to the lessons to teach, I wasn’t preparing well, and I was starting to get apathetic about the whole thing. When I would fall to that low place as a student, that was bad because my grades would slip, giving me another thing to be miserable about. That’s bad enough, but ultimately I was mainly hurting myself during those low points. Now is a whole different ball game. My sucky performance wasn’t just going to hurt me, it was hurting my students. I realized I needed to get the heck out of dodge and have the company find a teacher who would actually help them learn. So, I quit. And it felt bloody good.

The second thing that has sort of pulled me out was resolving some stressful bureaucratic stuff. All of that turned out to be me making a mountain out of a molehill based on some very bad information, which was easily enough resolved by going to the appropriate office with a Polish speaker and asking the right questions. No worries. I won’t go into too much detail about this, so I’ll just say: if you get advice that looks like BS, sounds like BS and quacks like BS – it’s probably BS and you should go to the right authorities to get your suspicions confirmed.

The third thing that has made me a very happy little clam indeed is that I will be doing a lot more work with the JCC here in Krakow. I’m going to be helping write some grant applications, and I’m hoping that will lead to more work in the future. I absolutely love the JCC and am hoping to get more involved there. Unfortunately, a lot of the really awesome stuff I’d love to do happens at the times I have lessons. 😦 I’m going to have to do some creative rescheduling so that I can actually do this.

I also owe you, my three readers (hi, three readers!), a couple of additional posts. One about my amazing trip to Amsterdam, where I did lots of Jewish things and did not visit any sketchy cafes ;). Another about some of the things I’m looking into for the future. I have notes and outlines for both of those, so I should be posting those soon-ish.

And also? It’s getting on spring here. We had a week of delightful weather, but it’s been gross again for a bit. Looking out of my window today, there are blue skies and it’s starting to be green. Thank heavens, I was beginning to worry that winter would never end…

All in all, it’s ok now. My curtains are open and light is streaming in. Who knows, tomorrow I might even try opening a window.

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When there are no words

Tuesday, 21 February, 2012 at 11:58 am (Uncategorized)

In the morning we met at the water
And swam with no reason to speak
Out past the arc of the heron
And the flash in the kingfisher’s beak

You gave up your tears in deep water
When the weight of the waves met your chest
Choking on words that were broken
When the wind cut off waves at the crest

Keep your eye on that Rising Star
It’s where we’re from, it’s who we are
When no hope is rising
We’ll reach out for that Rising Star

Those who settled these hillsides before us
And pulled all the stones from the fields
Now rest in straight rows in the churchyard
Where, on Sundays, their grandchildren kneel

Some of those stones became thresholds
And some still lean over their graves
One, by the hour, ground the grain into flour
Where the wheel met the weight of the waves

Keep your eye on that Rising Star
It’s where we’re from, it’s who we are
When no hope is rising
We’ll reach out for that Rising Star

When we all come to the table
With the light and the lines on each face
To be broken like wheat and still able
To reach for the words that say grace

For to measure our lives by our fences
Is forgetting these creeks all entwine
And to say that this river’s just water
Is to say that communion’s just wine

Keep your eye on that Rising Star
It’s where we’re from, it’s who we are
When no hope is rising
We’ll reach out for that Rising Star

– LJ Booth, “Rising Star”

RIP Mr Henryk, you lovely and amazing gentleman. Your courage, warmth, humor and love will be greatly missed. Thank you for sharing your story with us – and for acting as a surrogate grandparent for all of us at the Museum. You were not just a hero, not just a witness to history, but a very much beloved part of our lives. Your memory will always be a blessing.

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