matching tracksuits

I’d left it on the counter as I’d cooked dinner earlier tonight, and as I picked up the bottle of sesame oil, I suddenly fell back through the years and found myself standing in my kitchen in Lipnica Wielka in the late mid-90s, holding the bottle of sesame oil I’d inherited from Roy, an American returning to the States. Standing here in Greenville, I closed my eyes and for a few moments, I could almost feel myself back in that odd kitchen: the little refrigerator in the corner; the old wood-burning oven that I’d covered with a tablecloth and pressed into service as a dish-drying counter; the overhead light hanging from a wire, casting a harsh yet dim light throughout the room.

I imagined myself putting the sesame oil back in its place. I’d been so happy when I realized, a few weeks after moving into the apartment, that everything in the kitchen finally had a home. It was another sign that the small village in southern Poland was becoming my home. The rice lived a shelf up from the herbs and seasonings, which also housed the sesame oil. Everything had its place, including me.

I imagined myself putting the sesame oil back in its place and wandering into the living room, sitting down to look over lesson plans for the next day. My rock star status mitigated many of the challenges of being a new teacher. I had an advantage over every other teacher: I’d crossed an ocean and half a continent to teach the kids. I was from the land of 90120, Coca Cola, and highways. The honeymoon lasted longer than one might have expected: although I was soon just another teacher, I never became just another Polish teacher. “I learned how to be a different kind of teacher from you,” my Polish counterpart English teacher told me when I left. I enjoyed what I was doing; I was teaching by choice. The kids recognized that.

I imagined myself putting the sesame oil back in its place and wandering around the apartment, feeling lonely. Despite the incredible friendships I developed in Poland, I often found myself alone, and that solitude sometimes bore down upon me.

I imagined myself putting a bottle of sesame oil in a box to give a Polish friend before I left in 1999, thinking I’d never return. A vegan in a land of meat and potatoes, she appreciated different cuisines and figured she could do something with the oil.

I imagined all these things tonight, and for a moment, a familiar nostalgia and longing slid up beside me, brushed me, and moved on. Such an experience ten years ago would have sent me into a depression that might have lasted the evening. It eventually sent me back to Lipnica. Tonight, it brought a smile and chuckle at the power of sesame oil.

Hungary had its 1956 uprising, when it appeared that the Soviet satellite might gain its independence. The USSR moved in and reasserted control by force.

Prague had its Spring: reforms and liberalizations in 1968 by the puppet Communist regime that eventually warranted a full scale invasion by the Soviets to settle things down.

Poland never experienced such a “corrective” invasion, though there was always the thought that the Soviets might have invaded had Jaruzelski not imposed martial law on December 13, 1981. Lech Wałęsa’s Solidarity party was gaining too much influence and there was concern that unrest might spread throughout the nation.

The conventional Polish wisdom (as I understood it) has been that Jaruzelski imposed martial law in a bid to preëmpt a Soviet invasion. Antoni Dudek, a Polish history professor, has published on his blog contents of a note Jaruzelski said to Viktor Kulikov, a Soviet general,

Będzie gorzej, jeśli wyjdą z zakładów pracy i zaczną dewastować komitety partyjne, organizować demonstracje uliczne itd. Gdyby to miało ogarnąć cały kraj, to wy (ZSRR) będziecie nam musieli pomóc. Sami nie damy sobie rady”.

It will be worse if [the protests] spread from the workshops begin devastating the party committee, organizing street protests, etc. If it were to spread throughout the country, you (the USSR) would have to help us. We couldn’t manage it alone.

And so the possibility for a Polish Winter to match the Prague Spring was very real.

Wałęsa, in the meantime, has suggested that Jaruzelski might be brought up on charges of treason. Dudek admitted that while Wałęsa usually likes “strong words,” these words might indeed be “adequate.”

Jaruzelski of course denies all of this. Words were taken out of context. Shades of meaning have been applied that were not intended. It seems to be just the beginning, and given the generally closed nature of the Polish archives (compared to the open archives of the former East German government), it seems a resolution is distant, if not impossible.

Dudek’s blog is available here. The Onet story includes information about Wałęsa’s reaction. Hat tip to the beatroot.

Some daycare centers seem to attract a certain international clientèle. Every year, the school sponsors an International Day when families can show off their heritage and learn a little about the world at the same time. The kids receive passports; each country receives a stamp. The kids arrive and it’s an endless cycle of visitors and visits.

This year, at Mexico’s booth, seasoned grasshoppers were available. I’m not certain they were a hit with the kids, but I took a handful to try. Salty, crunchy, proteiny, Israelitish. “We use as snacks, for tacos — that kind of thing,” says the host. “Not quite what you find in the typical Mexican restaurant,” K comments later.

While I was munching salty grasshopper, L was visiting her friend. Actually, since I tend to refer to L as “the Girl,” I suppose I could call this young lady, J, the Friend. “We hear L’s name all the time at home all the time,” J’s father tells me.

Not surprisingly, we hear J’s name at home all the time. For a while, L declared that her baby doll — generally referred to as “Baby” — was “J”, but that lasted only a few days. Perhaps it was odd to have a best friend and a baby with the same name.

L sees an elephant — her favorite — at the India and hustles over for a quick visit. This particular elephant is not supporting the world on its back; indeed, it seems to be supported by a soccer ball. I’m sure there could be some kind of symbolic significance, but before I have a chance to think further, L is off, returning to K. As usual, I tag along behind.

Keeping kids in touch with their non-American heritage can be tough. The Girl hears Polish daily, but still rarely speaks it.

Even rarer is the opportunity to dress traditionally.

To hear Catholic Mass in one’s own language was, for centuries, impossible for the majority of Catholics. Vatican II changed all that, allowing Mass to be celebrated in the vernacular. As a result, Catholics worldwide hear the same Mass yet different sounds.

Poles in America experience a certain foreigners in the English Mass, regardless of the individuals’ fluency. This goes a long way in explaining the significance of the Polish Mass celebrated in Greenville today. A Polish priest, on loan from Polska, is stationed in Columbia, a mere hour-and-a-half from Greenville. After much persuasion, he came to a little church outside Greenville proper, and probably almost every Pole in a thirty-mile radius was there. The kids stood and knelt at the all the proper times, but being raised in the States, they didn’t know the hymns or the responses/prayers. They seemed lost. I would imagine that’s what they’re like visiting Poland as well: strangers in a land that sounds strangely familiar.

For me, it brought a smile. The first time I ever attended a Catholic Mass was in Poland, and Polish is, for me, the language of liturgy. From hearing alone, I know the prayers and formulations in Polish better than English.

Aside from the language, there are subtle and not-so-subtle differences. Poles still do the mea culpa in the Confiteor. “Moja moja, wina, moja wina, moja bardzo wielka wina,” all chant in the church, jabbing their thumb into their chest with each “moja wina.”

At the end of the Mass, he asked for a show of hands for a commitment to a monthly Polish Mass. Every hand in the church went up, including mine (after some prodding from K — I was simply absent-mindedly daydreaming about the oddity of hearing a Polish Mass after so many years).  Critical mass achieved, the priest then announced that there would, henceforth, be a monthly Polish Mass. Applause broke out, and it was then that the significance of the moment was clear. A bit of their heritage, their youth in Poland, their past given place right here in Greenville, home of Bob Jones University, one of the most virulently anti-Catholic institutions in America.

While I was living in Poland, the closest I ever got to getting a taste of my own culture was to drop into McDonald’s or watch the latest American blockbuster.

When you get a large group of Poles together (especially expats), there are two things that are certain to happen:

1. At some point, all participants will be herded into one room for a speech. The topic is variable, but it will happen. And it will at some point seem like something out of the film Rejs.
2. There will be singing. Masses of people will join together, singing songs from childhood, songs of national significance, songs that seem to sound best when sung at the top of one’s voice.

That predictability is somehow comforting.

Several of my Polish friends spoke of having to re-learn some elements of history after the fall of Communism in the late 1980s. History (as well as art, music, the social sciences, and even the physical sciences) was dominated by ideology. Because Communism represented the pinnacle of human achievement, something “the masses” for centuries had been working for, it could not be wrong. It had become a religion, in that sense. And so the mistakes and crimes of the Soviet government were recast as wise planning that had been necessary; the achievements of capitalist countries (read: America and Western Europe) were due solely to capitalists’ deviousness, usually stealing the ideas from the honorable Socialists.

With the fall of the Soviet empire, it seemed that such nonsense would never happen again. Yes, well, it has. As Putin seeks to rebuild Russian strength, he’s turning to nationalism, stoking a pride in the achievements of Soviet Russia. This means recasting a few, unpleasant episodes in Soviet history. No worries, though: “We’ve done it before,” Russian media services must be thinking. “We can do it again.” And so youngsters in Russia will be learning “history” that’s a little different from, well, reality.

A few highlights:

• The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was not an agreement with Nazi Germany to split Poland between the two of them. It was a defensive move, for Poland and Japan were planning a two-pronged attack on the Soviet Union. (Source)
• World War II began when Germany attacked Russia in June 1941. The rape of Poland that began almost two years earlier was a defensive move, remember? (Source)
• Stalin’s purges and mass murders were entirely rational and logical — for the good of the country. (Source)

The bottom line: Stalin is a hero who was defending the country from malicious outside influence and outright Polish/German aggression.

The temptation is to mutter something about this never happening in America, but of course it does. The whole premise behind Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States (Amazon) is just that. It’s a play on the maxim, “history is written by the winners,” which means the losers are misrepresented and underrepresented.

A few highlights:

• America was founded as a Christian nation.
• The rise of American power has always been a benign influence on the world.
• American foreign policy has always been a beacon of reason and justice; America respects democracy worldwide.

Not all of these myths are taught or were taught in school, but they are spread evenly enough in our collective conscious (and conscience, possibly) that they might as well have been. And, to be fair to America, the notion that America was founded as a Christian nation is not all that morally repulsive (it only becomes so when one sees that believe in action); the notion that Stalin’s purges were ethically justifiable is completely morally repulsive.

But there is a level playing field now: thank God for the Internet, that beacon of tried and true information. It will surely save Russians and Americans alike from the national myths.

Source: the beatroot

“There are places one returns to as if returning to home.” Thus begins a sweet little montage of photos from the school in Poland in which I taught for seven years. Images of life in the school are interspersed with youthful sentimentality.

I know few of the students, but they’re all familiar: all Polish students become familiar at a certain point. There’s just a look about them. K and I see a woman walking down the street here in Greenville and almost simultaneously say, “She looks like a Pole.”

The halls, the classrooms — all so warm and familiar.

The text belies the author: a young graduate, somewhat longing for the simplicity of high school:

“There are people whom one never forgets,” followed by images of teachers I worked with, one of whom was a student when I first arrived in 1996.

“These people will always been in our hearts.” Sentimentality is excusable when one is young. It should probably be so when one is old, as well.

“There are moments which we will always remember.” They pile up, though, and act like a sieve: things we thought we’d never forget, never get over, sift to the bottom and are all but forgotten about. This young film maker probably hasn’t realized that yet. Maybe he/she will never have to.

The final words: “All of this is in one place, and that’s here.” Cut to an elevated image of the school, and a smile on my face.

I wrote a quick note to the YouTube user who posted it: “I taught at that school for seven years — I appreciate your video. You have at least one picture in the video of students I taught.” No response.

Still, I watch the video from time to time, and it always makes me smile and read my journal from my time in Poland.

Now who’s being sentimental?

When I moved back to America from Poland in 1999, I had a difficult time adjusting. I missed my friends in Poland; I missed my students and working with them; I missed the adventure.

It was a rough time.

Listening to the last album purchased before leaving Poland, Kayah i Bregovic, didn’t help.

Kayah is a Polish pop star; Goran Bregovic is a composer from the Balkans. An odd pairing, but effective. It became the best-selling album in Polish history, if memory serves.

You’ll find no other popular music so utterly filled with yearning as this one.

All the tracks have at the very least a ting of longing, but one drips it: “Trudno Kochac” (“Hard to Love”). Though obviously a love song, the refrain captured the duality of my feelings for Poland:

Tak trudno kochac
Lecz trudniej jest
Nie kochac wcale cie

What a summary of the love-hate relationship many of us have with Poland: difficult to love, difficult not to love.

05-trudno-kochac-hard-to-love-e-c

I recently mentioned that Kapela ze Wsi Warszawa (Warsaw Village Band) had released a new album, Infinity (the album name is in English), that we’d ordered. It came this week, along with several other CDs ordered from Polska.

In a word, brilliant. They’re fast becoming my favorite Polish band, with only Lao Che (more on them later) giving them a run for their money.

The album begins with a tense mid-tempo piece, “Piesn Madrego Dziecka” (“Song of a Wise Child”), which got a fair amount of air time on Polish radio. (It might not initially grab you, but listen to the whole thing.)

Piesn Madrego Dziecka

From that, it moves to “Potorej Godziny” (“Hour and a Half”):

1.5 h

A couple of tracks after that, “Chmiel” shows what an amazing groove the band can create. If you’re not tapping your foot to this one, there’s something dreadfully wrong with you!

Chmiel

It is in fact available at Amazon; if you like these three tracks, you’ll probably like the whole album.