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EFL Materials

Saturday 13 November 2004

Ever wonder what an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) textbook looks like? I certainly did as I was preparing to come to Poland for the first time back in 1996. After all, how often do you get to see a textbook teaching something you already know fluently? Naturally, after four and a half years’ experience, I’ve seen and used more textbooks than I care to remember. I thought I’d share a little about the books I’ve been using.

Most units tend to be thematic. For example, for practicing modal verbs such as “should,” “must,” and “have to” (among others), this particular book (and many others) use the idea of advice and “Doing the right thing.”

There are certain groups of easily-confused words, and some activities are aimed at improving students’ ability to choose the correct word from a similar pair. This particular book is written specifically for Polish students, and so that influenced the word choice (in other words, they might not seem like similar words in English, but they are in Polish translation, so . . .).

There are three tenses in Polish; there are twelve in English. When to use which tense can be somewhat confusing for students. Even remembering how to make them all can be difficult, so sometimes we have “easy” lessons that just make students think about how to make the tenses. (This particular exercise uses Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner,” a rather popular song in Poland, making this one of the most popular lessons I’ve ever taught.)

Obviously, the most basic element needed to be able to use a foreign language is an adequate vocabulary.

Teaching English in Poland presented some special challenges. For instance, articles: when to use “a,” when to use “an,” and when to use “the.” Polish doesn’t have articles, so the sentence “Id? do sklepu” could be translated “I’m going to a shop” or “I’m going to the shop.” Teaching students when to use which was initially very difficult.

The most difficult part, though, would be orthography: getting kids to remember that the dark part of a 24-hour period is “night” and a medieval soldier is a “knight” and they’re both pronounced the same.

Mushrooms

Thursday 15 July 2004

As a child, I hated mushrooms — or what I took to be mushrooms: slimy little buds that came from cans. Admittedly, I’d never tried them. Eventually, I did, and I came to like what I’d mistakenly taken as “mushrooms.”

I also recall being in the woods and wondering why we didn’t just pick the mushrooms that were all around us. Someone explained that they were poisonous, and my mother later clarified that “We only eat mushrooms we buy in stores.”

That limits things somewhat: champignons, portabella, and shitake are the only non-canned mushrooms I recall seeing in stores in the States. Of course, I never really went out looking for other types, so I’m sure I’m misrepresenting mushroom’s availability.

Then I came to Poland, and all my conceptions about mushrooms changed. Mushrooms became not something you bought in stores, but something you went out in the woods to find.

“Mushrooming,” for lack of a better term, is a popular hobby in rural Poland, and not only, for often people come from the cities for the express purpose of “mushrooming.” It’s a simple concept, really: take a basket into the woods and wander around looking for mushrooms.

Of course, not just any mushroom will do. Some, as a shroomer put it, are “edible only once.” Others don’t taste so good. What everyone dreams of is finding “prawdziwki.” I’ve no idea what kind of mushroom that would be (the mushrooms in the first image are “prawdziwki” — anyone know what they’re called in English?), but the word “prawdziwki” would be literally translated “little real ones.”

The first step is to find them. Most often they’re at the base of trees, or near them, partially covered, growing in damp ground.

A friend told a story of someone who, while out hunting mushrooms, unexpectedly came upon a deer with a broken leg, it’s antlers caught in the undergrowth. The gentleman managed to kill the deer with the small paring-knife he’d brought along for cutting mushrooms. Then he went back into the village, borrowed someone’s van, drove out into the woods, and loaded the deer up, only to find that the animal was much larger than he’d imagined and the antlers were still on the ground. So he tied the antlers up to the roof of the van, drove it home, and had venison for a week.

Once you find them, it’s not a question of jerking them out of the ground. Instead, you have to cut them carefully at the base.

In some ways, it’s a pleasant enough activity even if you don’t find any mushrooms. Fresh air, sunshine, singing birds — a pipeful of tobacco in my case. It’s not a bad way to spend a morning.

But the longer you look without finding anything, two conflicting thoughts start rising. First of all: “I’ve been out here for ninety minutes already and I haven’t found anything edible. This is a waste of my time now.” Second: “I’ve been out here for ninety minutes and I haven’t found anything edible. I can’t possibly go home empty-handed, so I’ll look longer.”

What’s worse is when your shrooming partners are finding “prawdziwki” and you aren’t. Of course, I’m a shrooming novice, and I guess I don’t know how or where to look.

Sola Scriptura

Wednesday 7 July 2004

Having been raised a Protestant and now marrying a Catholic, I’ve been thinking about the nothing of “sola scriptura.”

The facts about sola scriptura as I see them:

  1. The Gospels were probably written by and large after Paul’s epistles. Paul no where makes mention of the Gospels. Therefore, any of Paul’s passages that are taken as proof of sola scriptura cannot be referring to the Gospels.
  2. Paul’s letters were not collected into anything canonical during his lifetime, nor were the other epistles. They were circulated from church to church. Therefore, any of Paul’s passages that are used to prove sola scriptura also cannot be referring to any of the pastoral epistles.
  3. The Gospels are purportedly reporting what Jesus said — in theory (and in faith), they report what happened before either Paul’s epistles or the Gospels were written. Therefore, anything in the Gospels taken as proof of sola scriptura cannot be applied to the New Testament.
  4. The recognition for the need of an authorized list of New Testament books (i.e., canonization) did not emerge until the middle of the second century. The Old Testament canon, however, was handed down from Judaism. That, combined with the above points, means any reference in the New Testament to “Scripture” is a reference to the Old Testament.
  5. Because of lack of canonized testimony about Jesus, early Christians based their faith primarily on oral traditions and the Old Testament.

Does this justify the Roman Catholic position on tradition? Certainly not. But it does make headway in showing the Protestant notion of sola scriptura is not Biblically based, nor logical.
Sola scriptura is even more troubling when we think about all the extra-Biblical beliefs and practices that Protestants engage in:

  1. Christmas
  2. Easter
  3. Sunday worship
  4. The Trinity
  5. Prohibition of polygamy
  6. The use of the cross as a Christian symbol
  7. Rejection of the Jewish festivals

The Trinity is a special case, because Protestants argue that the Bible does teach that there is a Trinity, it just doesn’t use that term. But Armstrongism, Mormonism, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses show that such a conclusion doesn’t necessarily have to follow — not to mention all the early heresies.

Chapels

Tuesday 6 July 2004

Poland is a Catholic country — in spades. Some ninety-seven percent of the population claims Roman Catholicism as their religion, though estimates of practicing Catholics is around seventy percent.

Of this seventy percent, I’m not sure how much of it is from habit and from true faith. I’ve had many a discussion about this with friends here about it. It calls to mind a college professor who’d “accepted Christ” at age five, which seems more from environment than from inner conviction. Regardless, the vast majority of Poles go through the motions, anyway. And certainly, many of them are devout and sincere.

There are quite a few who go to daily mass. It’s mainly elderly women, judging from the small stream of people I see leaving the church. This raises a question: how does one draw the line between sincerity and habit? And what if it seems only to be habit despite the individual’s protests that it’s not? Pious until proven habitual? Or maybe I’m begging the question of them being mutually exclusive.

This Catholic piety spills over into every facet of life here, something striking to someone coming from a relatively irreligious country like the States. Separation of church and state — a completely foreign concept here.

One of the many results of this piety is the proliferation of chapels —roadside chapels, yard chapels, even gable chapels.

Roadside Chapels

Belltower in Jablonka

Roadside chapel just outside of KiczoryRoadside chapels are everywhere in Poland. They’re by highways (or the Polish approximation of “highways”) and roads you think are probably traveled once a year.

And they’re all different: from small, simple, covered crucifixes to elaborate buildings.

I’ve rarely seen people there praying, but it does happen occasionally. It seems to be most common around high holidays in the spring and summer when the weather is conducive to spending all that time outside praying. And in many ways, it’s quite admirable, that kind of religious dedication.

Some Protestants might suggest that building chapels like this is not necessary, that no building contains God.

Theological differences aside, it’s still a pleasant idea for me, even as a non-believer.

Libation

Friday 18 June 2004

There are several drinks one associates with Poland. Surprisingly, tea is one of them. I say “suprisingly” because tea is too English to fit into Polish society, but fit it does.

But who wants to read about tea?

Coffee is another story altogether. In Poland they drink their coffee Turkish style. They simply put coffee grounds in a cup and add water.  No filter, so there’s a sludge (not to be confused with sledz) in the bottom of the cup. My friend’s uncle does strange things with his coffee grounds: He eats them.  He puts eight or nine teaspoons of sugar in his coffee (or rather, he pours a little water of his sugar and coffee ground mixture), then eats the stuff at the bottom of the glass.

“Glass?  Don’t you mean, ‘cup?'” you might be asking yourselves. No, I mean glass. Most often coffee is served in a glass, much like we would drink soda from in the States. In other words, there’s no handle. I think it is actually rather dangerous, because it’s very easy to burn my tender hands holding a glassful of hot coffee. But most Poles just grab the glass, and don’t wince at all.

Vodka

I’m not sure I’d ever drunk vodka straight before I came to Poland. Since coming to Poland, I’ve drunk a fair amount of it (comparatively speaking), but I still don’t like it.

Vodka accounts for many of the little surprises I’ve noticed around here — missing fingers, for instance. Many men in Lipnica have part or all of one or more fingers missing. I knew fairly early on that this would be a result of carelessness in one of the many sawmills in the village, but I thought, “Come on, simple carelessness doesn’t account for it.” Then I saw a man covered with wood chips and sawdust come into a shop and buy a half-liter of vodka.

As far as straight drinking goes, though, Poles, while they out-drink Americans to a lip-numbing degree, are teetotalers in comparison to Russians. I once saw a documentery in Poland, called Z?ota Ryba (“The Golden Fish”), about vodka in Russia. It showed a home distillary that produced 140 proof (i.e., 70% alcohol) vodka that even Grandma was tossing back by the full glass (Not a shot glass, mind you, but the size Poles use for coffee and tea.), without a chaser.

Poles make their own vodka too — to a degree. It’s a tradition to use pure spirits to make wedding vodka. (Kinga’s father and I made it for ours.)

Still, buying spirits and dilluting them is one thing; making your own spirits is quite another.

The Linguistics of Vodka

Vodka in Polish is “wódka.” A perfectly normal word, but its derivation is strange.

First, a bit about diminutives. A grammatical “diminutive,” for those who don’t know what it is and don’t want to look it up, is used to denote the smallness of or fondness towards a particular thing.

In English, we don’t really have them. We might preface some noun with “little” (as in, that’s a nice little dog), or even use “little” in conjunction with “cute” or “sweet.”

In Polish, though, you actually change the word, usually adding “ek,” “ka,” or “ko” to masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns respectively. In the example above, a Pole might say “piesek” as the diminutive form of “pies.”

Poles have diminutive forms of first names as well. You seldom call a friend named Piotr by that name, but instead use “Piotrek,” or if you’re his mother, “Piotru?.” It’s similar to the change from “Thomas” to “Tommy,” I suppose.

Now, back to “wódka.” If you notice, it ends in “ka,” meaning it is, in fact, the diminutive of some feminine noun. What word could that be? Why, it’s none other than “woda,” or “water.”

Beer

I’ll never forget the first time I saw it: standing in a shop at seven in the morning, waiting to buy something for breakfast, I watch a man come in, buy a beer, down it in one long gulp (for lack of a better word), put the bottle on the counter and walk out. Seven in the morning.

It’s safe to say that beer is viewed somewhat differently in Poland than in the States. In fact, when someone in Poland says, “I haven’t drunk in two days!” I take that to exclude beer. “I haven’t drunk vodka in two days,” is what he probably means.

Polish

Friday 11 June 2004

Polish is, beyond a doubt, the most difficult language I’ve ever attempted to learn. In a way, that’s not saying much: I “studied” Spanish in high school and French in college; living in Boston, I began learning a little Russian until the novelty wore off; in Poland, I decided to learn some Greek. But Polish puts them all to shame.

Polish is difficult and strange — even Poles will admit that. The pronunciation is tongue-warping and the grammar is unbelievable.

I recall an instance when four teachers — three German teachers and an English teacher — were writing an official letter of thanks and spent a good three to five minutes discussing how a particular word should be declined (i.e., which ending should be used). One of them looked at me and said, “You see, Gary, you’re not the only one who has problems with this hopeless language.” In fact, I’ve often seen teachers who are preparing some formal paper or task asking the Polish teachers whether something should be this way or that in a given case.

What follows is a basic outline of why Polish is so difficult.

Declension

In English, word order is an essential grammatical element. We know in the sentence “The dog bit John” that the dog did the biting, and not John, from the position of “The dog” in the sentence.

Polish, however, is an inflected language and that means that word order has no effect on the meaning of the sentence. In Polish, you could just as easily order the words, “John bit the dog” without any change in meaning. For that matter, “Bit John the dog” and “The dog John bit” are possible as well.

So how are they differentiated? By their ending. In Polish (in all highly inflected languages) you indicate a word as a direct object, an indirect object, a subject, or whatever by adding a suffix according to a given pattern.

An example may help. Imagine in English that subjects ended in “-doj” and direct objects ended in “-aldi.” Our sentence would then look like this: “The dogdoj bit Johnaldi.” In that case, “Bit Johnaldi the dogdoj” would have the same meaning, as would the following:

  • “Johnaldi bit the dogdoj.”
  • “Johnaldi the dogdoj bit.”
  • “The dogdoj Johnaldi bit.”
The genitive case singular ending of “non-alive” nouns, either -u or -a, is decided by the morphology of the noun, not by its meaning.
Polish: An Essential Grammar by Dana Bielec, page 109.

English does indeed have a bit of declension. Some examples:

  • “-ed” to a verb to make it past tense
  • “-s” to make a noun plural
  • “-ing” to make a verb a gerund (i.e., “Swimming is a healthy activity.”)
  • “-er” and “-est” in the comparative and superlative forms
  • “-‘s” to denote possession (i.e., “Samantha’s mother left for Switzerland.”)

By and large, though, English is not an inflected language. “The dog bit John” and “John bit the dog” are very different sentences as a result.

An inflected language uses cases to differentiate functions and forms. Greek has four cases. German, I believe, has five.

Polish has seven:

Case

Use

Nominative caseThe subject of a sentence
Accusative caseThe direct object of a positive sentence
Genitive caseTo denote possession (i.e., “That’s George’s bag.”)
The direct object of a positive sentence for some verbs
The direct object of a negative sentence
For quantities of five and above (more later)
Locative caseTo specify location after certain prepositions
Instrumental caseTo denote the method or tool used to do something
Dative caseThe indirect object of a sentence
Vocative caseUsed in addressing people (i.e., Did you take it, George?)

These changes even occur to names, providing a clear example of the complexities of Polish grammar.

Case

Example

 
Nominative caseTo jest Bill Clinton.This is Bill Clinton.
Accusative caseLubi? Billa Clintona.I like Bill Clinton.
Genitive caseSzukam Billa Clintona.I’m looking for Bill Clinton.
Locative caseMy?l? o Billu Clintonie.I’m thinking about Bill Clinton.
Instrumental caseRozmawiam z Billem Clintonem.I’m talking with Bill Clinton.
Dative caseDa?em Billowi Clintonowi.I gave Bill Clinton… (s’thing).
Vocative caseWzi??e?, Billu?Did you take it, Bill?

Because of declension, the word order doesn’t make any difference. For example, if you want to stress that you gave it to Bill as opposed to George, you could say, with the proper vocal inflection to stress it, “Billowi da?em.”

-a is a feminine ending, so such nouns[, which are masculine nouns but in fact have feminine endings,] are declined as feminine in the singular but as masculine in the plural.
Polish: An Essential Grammar by Dana Bielec, page 85

But learning Polish grammar is not simply a matter of remembering some endings, for all nouns in Polish have a gender (as in German, French, Spanish, etc.), so you have to learn a hell of a lot of endings.

  • Three genders
  • Seven cases
  • Singular and plural

So when you utter a Polish noun, there are forty-two possible endings, depending on whether it’s singular or plural, masculine, feminine or neuter, and whichever case is necessary.

And the exceptions, for some forms are exactly the same except in given cases.

  • The accusitive plural and the nominative plural of neuter nouns are identical, but feminine and masculine nouns are different.
  • The female genetive and locative cases are the same for singular nouns but not for plural nouns.

Aside from that nonsense, there are various considerations for exceptions. Is it a masculine alive noun? Does it end in “a”?

The genitive case [. . .] is used [. . .] For the accusitive case in (a) masculine singular/plural nouns denoting men and (b) singular nouns denoting living creatures [and] for the direct object of a negative verb[, as well as] after the number five and upwards.
Polish: An Essential Grammar by Dana Bielec, page 106

Genitive Case

My favorite case (I never thought I’d say that) is the genitive case — it shows just how absolutely, astoundingly, and weirdly arbitrary Polish grammar is.

To being with, the genitive case is used for the direct object in negative sentences (as opposed to the standard accusitive). In other words, if you say, “I don’t like cabbage,” the form of “cabbage” would be different than in the positive sentence, “I like cabbage.”

Lubi?kapust?.I like cabbage.
Nie lubi?kapusty.I don’t like cabbage.

It is also used for quantities of five and above. That means there are two plural forms. If you say “I ate two dinner rolls,” you use one form; if you say “I ate five dinner rolls” you use a different form. In English, it would be like saying, “Martin has four brothers.” “No, he has five brotherid.” The “dinner roll” example in Polish looks like this:

Zjad?em jedna bu?keI ate one dinner roll.
Zjad?em cztery bu?ki.I ate four dinner rolls.
Zjad?em pi?c bu?ek.I ate five dinner rolls.

But that’s not all. Once you get to twenty, it’s only for numbers that contain the actual with the word “five,” “six,” “seven,” etc. that use the genitive case. Returning to the dinner roll example, we see how the plural form switches back and forth:

Quantity

Form

1 – 4bu?ki
5 – 20bu?ek
21 – 24bu?ki
25 – 30bu?ek
31 – 34bu?ki
35 – 40bu?ek

Given all there is to think about, it’s no surprise that I once compared my speaking Polish to clear-cutting a forest, or strip mining.

Verbs

All Polish verbs come in pairs: an imperfective and a perfective form. The imperfective form is for actions not completed or for regularly occurring actions; the perfective form is for completed actions and one-time actions.

It’s like an attempt to make up for Polish’s lack of tenses, for Polish only has present, past, and future tenses. (English has twelve tenses, mind-blowing for beginners in Poland.) For instance, using the imperfective form in the past tense is equivalent to using past continuous in English: I was doing something (i.e., an interrupted, incomplete action).

The forms themselves can get crazy. The future tense of the imperfective form is created with the future form of “be” (i.e., “I will be” in English) with the past form of the imperfective form of the main verb itself. In other words, you literally say, “I will be went” in Polish, which is why that particular, odd construction appears often with Polish learns of English.

The perfective/imperfective pairing is all fine and good, but what it means from a practical point of view is that learners of Polish have to learn twoPolish verbs for every one English verb. Often they’re quite similar. “Do” for example is “robi?” in the imperfective form and “zrobi?” in the perfective form. But some of them are completely different:

 ImperfectivePerfective
to find outdowiadywa? si?dowiedzie? si?
to leave on footwychodzi?wyj??
to takebra?wzi??
to watchogl?da?obejrze?
(How the hell do I pronounce all that?)

Polish verbs, like verbs in French, German, Spanish, Italian, etc., change their form according to the person. English does too, but only in present simple: “I go” but “He goes.” In Polish, they all change. For present tense there are twenty different verb ending patterns, though they are, by and large, similar. For example, almost all first person singular (“I”) verbs in Polish end in “-?” or “-am.” Almost all third person plural forms (“they”) end in “-?” with some of the adding a “j” before it (i.e., “-j?”).

The past tense is another story altogether, for its forms are gender sensitive. For example, the first person singular form for a man takes the ending “-?em” and the first person singular form for a woman takes the ending “-?am.” The stem for this comes from the third person singular present tense form. It would be like taking “goes” in English and adding “-ed” for a man and “-eda” for a woman. Sam would say “I goesed” whereas Samantha would say “I goeseda.”

Occasionally the stem even changes between masculine and feminine forms. Stem for “go” in the past for a male is “szed” whereas for a woman it is simply “sz.”

The full pattern is:

Past Tense Conjugation of “i??” (“go”)*

 SingularPlural
MasculineFeminineMasculineFeminine
First personszed?emsz?amszli?mysz?y?my
Second personszed?e?sz?a?szedli?ciesz?y?cie
Third personszed?sz?aszedlisz?y
 * Literally “i??” is “to go once, by foot.”

In the plural forms, the feminine conjugation is used only when there areabsolutely no males in the group. One male, and you have to use the masculine form — a reflection of Polish society’s highly patriarichal standard.

Oddites of Polish Vocabulary

  • The words for “sky” and “blue” are related. Nothing particularly odd about that until you take into account that “heaven” and “sky” are the same words in Polish: niebo. This means that in church, when the priest makes reference to “our heavenly father,” he’s also saying, “our blue father.”
  • The words for “lock,” “zipper,” and “castle” are all the same:zamek.
  • “Wódka” (pronounced “vood-ka” — “vodka,” obviously) is related to the word “woda” (“water”) and could be translated “water-let” (as in piglet). (Read more)
  • There are at least six words that can be translated “go.” The difference lies in three factors:
    • is it a habitual journey or a one-time affair;
    • is it by foot or by vehicle;
    • is it a completed action or not?
  • The word for “door” (“dzwi,” pronounced “jrvee”) exists only in the plural form, like “trousers” or “scissors” in English (which, too, exists only plural in Polish). Other only-plural examples include the Polish words for:
    • birthday,
    • ice cream,
    • holiday,
    • back (i.e., part of the body), and
    • rake.
  • The words for “pigeon” and “dove” are the same, resulting in students coming up with an interesting construction: Pigeons of Peace.

The Other Hand

One great thing about Polish is it’s phonetic. There are some similar-sounding letters (for example “ó” and “u,” or “?” and “si”), but by and large, you don’t find the nonsense you find in English, where “g” pronounced like “j” one time, and like “g” another.

Similarities

For a language that likes to cluster a lot of consonants around a single vowel, Polish has a lot of word pairs in which the meaning is quite different (even completely opposite), but the orthographic difference is a single vowel, often simply the addition of “y”:

PolishPronunciationMeaning
przesz?o??pshesz-woshchpast
przysz?o??pshisz-woshchfuture
   
wej?cievay-shchebuilding entrance
wyj?cievi-shchhebuilding exit
   
wjazdvyazdvehicular entrance
wyjazdvy-jazdvehicular exit
   
wyk?advi-kwadlecture
wk?advkwadrefill
   

The most troublesome is przesz?o?? // przysz?o?? — when explaining grammar in Polish to first year students, one slip of the tongue and suddenly you have some momentarily confused students. “But I thought this was a pasttense, not a future tense!”

Of course if you’re driving, wyjazd/wjazd might be disastrously confusing . . .

All quotes are from Polish: An Essential Grammar by Dana Bielec, as well as details about declension. (You don’t think I could have written all stuff off the top of my head, do you?! I can’t remember all the details, and that’s why I speak Polish like an idiot.)

Information about verbs comes from Prawie Wszystko o Czsowinku (Almost Everything About Polish Verbs) by Dorota Drewnowska and Ma?gorzata Kujawske, as do the declension examples with Bill Clinton.

Both are excellent resources.

Orawian Dancing

Sunday 30 May 2004

Highlander music is an acquired taste, which I personally haven’t completely acquired.

Highlander dancing, though, is a different story. Both graceful and almost violently energetic, it seems to require knees of steel and lungs to match.

Pictured here is the men’s dance called “Zbójnicki” (pronounced “zbouy-nits-key”). If men were birds, this dance would be struting their plummage. In other words, it’s to show their strength, agility, and endurance to potential mates.

Cost of Surviving

Tuesday 10 February 2004

I recently bit the cliche bullet and bought a cell phone. It was a question of necessity — having no phone in my apartment, I really had no choice if I wanted any contact at all with the outside world.

A summary of the plans I was offered:

Plan“Free” minutes“Free” SMS’sPrice
Plus 20101030.50 zł
Plus 40202042.70 zł
Plus 60303054.90 zł
Plus 100505079.30 zł
Plus 200100100128.10 zł
Plus 400200200225.70 zł

So I was wrong — it wasn’t ten złoty for ten minutes. If only. (Prices include the value added tax.)

Take a look at that first plan: that’s 3.05 złoty per minute! And you get a whopping ten of them for that price. Super! “Buy this cell phone plan and you get one free conversation a month!”

Who in the States would pay $3.05 per minute for a cell phone!?! Who in France would pay €3.05 per minute for a cell phone? What would the public reaction be to such a wonderful, generous offer?

Sitting there across the desk from the squeaky-clean young salesman who looked to be all of twenty-one, I just started laughing and said, “I’m sorry, but these ‘offers’ are simply absurd. They’re jokes.”

The reason he gave was simple: of every złPlus GSM (the cell phone company in question) gets, they have to pay TKP, the only phone company in Poland (read: monopoly) either 60 or 80 groszy (I can’t remember which, though I’m fairly sure it was “only” 60.) Even though Plus GSM is an independently owned company. What do we call that, boys and girls? Mafia? Extortion?

Of course the government is trying to do all it can to stop this, especially considering the fact that TKP is state-owned. They’re doing all they can to divest the state of ownership. And stop fleecing the Polish public? Yeah, whatever.

Still, I’m not sure I buy young Mr. Squeaky’s argument. So they have to give 60% of their income to TKP — so what? Cell phone systems don’t have lines they have to maintain. They don’t have big switching buildings. And Plus GSM doesn’t really have a lot of offices. It’s 60 grosz per dollar, not per minute (as it was explained to me), so that has no effect on the price per minute, simply on the company’s net earnings. Giving 60% of their profits to the government is a sorry excuse for not offering a better plan.

All of this simply makes me realize anew how much better some things are in the States. Regardless of how they got better (a fraction of the world’s population taking the lion’s share of the resources — true of the West in general, I realize), the fact is, Americans economically have it better than most people even in Western Europe.

When I originally wrote this, gas cost about 3.50 złoty a liter. Upon entry into the EU, it jumped, within a matter of two or three weeks, to 3.90 a liter.

An excellent example of this is gas. I’ve no idea what the price of gas is in the States these days, but I’d hazard a guess that even if it’s “ridiculously expensive,” it’s not even close to $2.00 a gallon. Here, gas costs about 3.90 złoty a liter. That would be almost 12 złoty a gallon. Remember — an average monthly salary in Poland is about 1,500 złoty. Converting the sum directly to dollars (i.e., $1,500), that’s a lower-middle class income, which means the buying power of a złoty for me here in Poland would be the same as the buying power of a dollar in the States. All that being said, imagine if the price of gas jumped up to an equivalent level? What would happen? What would be the general public reaction to having to pay over $100 (at $12 a gallon) to fill up your car?

Compact discs provide another excellent example. To determine the price of a CD in Poland, take the price in America, find out the dollar/złoty exchange rate, and convert the price to z?oty. Simple. In other words, CDs here cost about 60.00 złoty. How many CDs would you own if each one cost $60?

Entry into the EU has indeed caused the prices to go up, but it is taking a bit longer than expected.

Entry into the European Union in about seven months is supposed to make prices go up even further. A pack of cigarettes now costs about 5.00 zł (depending on the brand — that’s an estimated average) and rumor has it that the price will double come May.

This has me particularly worried because, though I only rarely smoke a cigarette while having a beer, I do enjoy a pipe. My favorite pipe tobacco, Dunhill’s “My Mixture 965,” already costs a fortune: 33 złoty for 50 grams. If that doubles too, then I might find myself out of a hobby. (And all the better for it, I’m sure some might say.)

Cheating in Poland

Tuesday 11 November 2003

Though I was previously warned about it in Peace Corps teacher training sessions (and it was probably even mentioned in “cross cultural” sessions), I was shocked at the level of cheating among students in Polish schools. Simply put, ninety-nine percent of students here will cheat in any and all perceived opportunities. They will whisper to each other; they will attempt to peak in their books; they will write on desks before a test; they will hide cheat-sheets in more places than you can possibly imagine; they will write on their hands, arms, and legs; they will copy their homework from each other — and that’s just the stuff I’ve caught them doing.

It is, though, a cultural difference. They don’t even see it as cheating, but more as “helping.” Intellectual honesty is, in my experience here, hard to come by. Cheating begins in elementary school and continues through university and into the workplace.

Two examples show the tolerance Poles seem to have for cheating:

  • A friend was working on a development project in the north of Poland some years ago. Individual cities wishing to participate in the project had to submit budget proposals. One town copied another’s proposal.
  • A high-ranking minister (I believe in the Ministry of Education, if memory serves) admitted to having plagiarized his doctoral dissertation some years earlier. It was deemed “excessive” punishment to revoke his doctoral degree, though I can’t remember what ultimate punishment was.

It’s no wonder, then, that students cheat. It seems to be in the blood.But how do they do it?

To begin with, they talk. Literally, if I turn my back for one moment a murmur spreads across the classroom. But I usually watch them like a cliche hawk (no reading books whihle they’re taking a test here . . .), so they have to resort to written methods.

The most common method (aside from writing on hands) is to make cheat sheets what are then hidden in shirt sleeves, taped to the knee (if it’s a girl wearing a skirt), taped to the inside of clothing, or numerous other places.
Another place students like to use these little “aids” is in conjunction with a pen. A little unbelievable, but here’s the proof:

 

There’s two methods: the cruder form is simply to take the small, virtually illegible sheet on the outside of a pen. The more sophisticated way is to put it inside a pen with a clear casing.

Whenever I happen to find these, I keep them — so there’s at least a minimal consequence to cheating: loss of a z?oty.

Despite my best efforts, I can’t seem to stop this. I might have better luck trying to get my friends to give up smoking and drinking. It doesn’t matter than I have a zero-toleration policy, that I remind students of beforeevery test or quiz. Students know that there’s no questions asked, no arguing tolerated, and begging is ignored — they cheat in any form and I fail them for the assignment.

And still they cheat.

Usually I’m remorseless about failing them. After all, I’ve warned them repeatedly. But sometimes a usually hard-working, generally honest student (in other words, someone I really like) cheats. And that’s when it’s difficult to fail them. But I do, explaining my desire not to show favoritism and be fair at all costs.

 

English Camp

Tuesday 22 July 2003

Camp

From 22 June to 19 July, I was at a summer English camp in Augustów, a small town in the northeastern lake district of Poland. I was there for two sessions — a rewarding experience, but not having had any break between the conclusion of the regular school year and the start of camp, it was also an exhausting experience.

My duties were simple: conduct English lessons/sessions in the morning (some of which were much more successful than others . . .) and accompany the kids during their afternoon and evening activities. Said activities included softball, kayaking, sailing, waterskiing, frisbee golf, horseshoes, Scrabble (in English, of course).

Sunsets

Water Skiing

Some got up on twoSome got up on one
Some fell after a few momentsSome fell a bit earlier

The concept was simple: why not use snow skiing as a model for water skiing? It would eliminate the necessity for need for a boat, thus allowing more people the pleasure of waterskiing in a shorter time.

A German thought of it, I believe.

So, engineers put four towers in a rectangular shape, ran a tow-cable through it and use that to jerk people off a dock and haul them round the lake. The result is above.

Now, it’s not an entirely bad idea. Just, for someone used to skiing behind a boat, it’s a little weird. I passed on trying. Most didn’t.

For most, I believe, the most stressful was the preparation — the waiting simply to be jerked forcefully and sometimes unexpectedly into the water.

Some got up . . . some didn’t.

Baseball (well, okay, softball)

Ewelina gets a hitRed team fielding

One of the highlights for most kids at the camp was baseball. Sort of. To make it easier and safer, we in fact played softball, but the difference for most of them would have been minimal.

One thing I learned anew is how many many rules there are that just seem commonsensical to us. For example, not having two people on base at the same time — a frequent occurrence on second base.

Paintball

Though paintball was not one of the “offical” camp activities, some of the folks from the second camp got together and spent an evening hurling plastic, paint-filled balls at each other while running blindly through the woods, desparately trying to see through the well-worn, virtually opaque protective masks.what else would you expect?

Polish paintballs: a guy shows up in a forest driving a Maluch (Fiat 126p) filled with paintball equipment…

surrenderbystandersin the fieldplans

The Wounds including one from a paintball that somehow got around/under the protective mask)

Polish Strings

Friday 13 June 2003

I recently bought guitar strings. “Recently” is of course a relative word, in this case meaning a month ago.

“You bought guiatr strings a month ago and you’re complaining about them? They’re ancient! Get new ones!” You who play guitar might be thinking along those lines.

Easier said than done, for like many things here in Poland, they’re atrociously expensive. Good strings (i.e., something like D’Adario) cost more than forty zloty. As I’ve explained earlier, that would be the same as paying forty bucks in the States for a set of guitar strings!

Needless to say, I’ve taken to buying Polish-made strings because they’re cheaper — in theory. But as the Polish saying goes, “What’s cheap is expensive.” Or as we might say, “You get what you pay for.”

I did buy D’Adario strings once here — they lasted probably three months. Yes, that’s a ridiculously long time for strings, but how often would you change them if they cost forty bucks? Anyway, they sounded dead as a brick by that time, but they were still intact. None of them had broken, or even frazzled.

The Polish strings I bought lasted about three weeks before the D string started to fray. A close-up reveals that it might last a few days more until it completely unravels and morphs into another E string.

Then I’ll trek back to Nowy Targ, buy a new set of strings, and kick myself for not buying decent ones in the first place.

EU Vote

Thursday 8 May 2003

There is a referendum on the seventh and eight of June for Poles to decide if they want their country to become a member. Hungary and Slovakia recently voted in the affirmative, as did Lithuania some time ago, I believe.

In order for the referendum to be valid, there has to be at least a 50% voter turnout. Some of those opposed are not even going to vote “No” for fear of raising the voter frequency. (If the turnout is less than 50%, then the Sejm (parliament) decides. “At least we’ll know by name who’s responsible then,” said one opponent.)

There seems to be a chronic shortage of concrete information about the effects of joining the EU. The pro-EU placards posted everywhere have pictures of individuals with something vague like, “I’m voting ‘Yes’ because I want to have a better future,” written in a stylish, script-like font. Marketing. There are concrete advantages, to be sure: EU subsidies for farmers, the ability to work abroad legally (though after a waiting period for most EU countries), and so on. Other than that . . .

Opponents, on the other hand, distribute photocopied fliers with dire warnings about how the EU standards for television will allow godless, sexually perverted programs to flood Poland and create hedonistic egoists out of the younger generation. More marketing, without the big złoty backing.

Where do I stand on the issue? I think it would be foolish for Poland to remain out of the EU — Polska is no Switzerland, after all. The short-term disadvantages (namely, more expensive food and such) will eventually disappear. That’s the hope. As an American living here, though, membership won’t have the same advantages, I guess.

And of course, there’s always the concern that I’ll be living in the territory of the Beast Power of the Book of Revelation, which will rise up any day now and kick America’s immoral . . . or wait, is that the UN? I can never keep those fundamentalist prophecies straight . . .

The Matura

Wednesday 7 May 2003

PrzemekFew things seem to cause as much angst in a Polish teenager’s life like the matura: a series of compulsory written and oral exit exams. Required of all students are two exams from Polish: a written and a spoken test. Students must pass the written before they are allowed to take the oral exam.The written matura consists of four essay questions read aloud at precisely 9:00 a.m. on the same day in high schools throughout Poland.Matura 2003This year the questions included the interpretation of a Wis?awa Szymborska poem, and a question, “Od Adam i Ewy…” (From Adam and Eve), about the loss of one’s home and one’s place in society as illustrated through literature. Another question began, “If you want to know a person, look at his shadow…”

The second day brings the chosen exams, with most people picking history, with math coming a close second. (Ironically enough, most of the students who chose math were girls — probably something like 80%.) This year there were about six people taking the matura in geography and one girl chose biology. No one chose English, and for good reason: it’s adifficult exam, concentrating mainly on the irregularities and exceptions of English grammar.

Once the students’ pain is over, it’s time for the teachers to get their dose: grading all those exams according to strict criteria.

Then comes the spoken exams — when my pain begins.

The spoken English matura consists of three parts.

  1. There’s a text students must read and be prepared to discuss. Topics include smoking, living in the city, my dream holiday — nothing too taxing, in other words. Usually the exam begins here, with the examiners asking one or two questions about the details of the text and then inviting the victim to “share his/her thoughts” about the topic. Free talking, in other words. This is where the truly good students show they’re truly good, and the less-than-great students struggle.
  2. There are eight grammar questions. They cover everything from tenses to specific grammatical constructions.
  3. There five situations. The situations themselves are described in Polish, but of course students are required to respond in English.

Students are given the situations and text beforehand; the grammar they see for the first time when they sit down for the exam, though they know possible topics.

 

Grammar

‘Samuel didn’t come here last night’. She said __________.Reported speech — gossiping, in other words. The key is in changing tenses and selected words. The correct answer: She said that Samuel hadn’t come/gone there the night before.
If I were the President of the country, I __________ .Conditional, namely the second conditional. Impossible condition (If + past simple), imaginary result (would + verb). If I were president of the country, I would give all teachers a substantial raise.
They enjoy (go) __________ on exotic holiday, but they wouldn’t like (live) __________ outside the USA.Verb patters — or when to use “to” and when to use “-ing.” It’s basically a question of memorization. They enjoy going on holiday, but wouldn’t like to live outside the USA.
Robert (read) __________ a book about English grammar when David (leave) __________ last night.Verb tenses. Since Polish has three verb tenses and English, twelve, it makes senses that students have a bit of trouble keeping all of them straight. Robert was reading a book about English grammar when David left last night.

Situations

Buy a one-way train ticket from Warsaw to Pairs. How would you ask about a return ticket?The situations are fairly straightforward, and even a little boring. Usually one of them is fairly involved, requiring interaction with one of the examiners, but the rest are often a matter of one or two sentences.
You returned very late from a friend’s house. Apologize to your parents and explain that the bus driver had to repair the bus.

“[Not] Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”

Wednesday 19 March 2003

“Knock” in Polish is “pukać,” but you’d never know that the word even exists in the language, for many Poles (around here at least) have a habit of literally walking into your house unannounced. Or they knock once and walk in without waiting.

It can lead to some particularly embarrassing situations, as you might imagine: walking in when someone’s taking a nap, for example.

And it’s not just friends and acquaintances that do this. The first time I was here, a lady going door-to-door selling apples tried to walk in after a single, quiet knock. Fortunately, my door was locked (a habit I quickly acquired), for I was just changing clothes.

And then for some friends, it was difficult to explain why I always knock.

Smalec

Wednesday 5 March 2003

A friend once described mayonnaise as “whipped fat.” That name somehow seems more appropriate for a particular, traditional Polish highlander dish called “smalec,” with the “c” pronounced “ts.” It is, in a word, lard. Seasoned lard, with big chucks of boczek in it (which is basically smoked fat-back — yum). The funny thing about it is that they add something to the lard so it’s not so solid (not like the solid white blob I bought to make tortillas with the other week), and then whip it. Yes, I’ve literally eaten whipped fat, smeared it fresh-baked bread.

It took a moment before I could actually bring myself to eat it, though. I sat there, looking at the piece of bread with the glistening concoction smeared all over it, the blobs of smoked fat sitting like burnt raisins in the whipped fat that looked more like dirty whipped cream, wondering if I could go through with it. Obviously I did, else I wouldn’t be rambling about it.

And — surprise — it was tasty. Tasty in a cholesterolly, carnivorous kind of way, but tasty all the same.

Kinga informed me that she’s had much better, and that I shouldn’t judge all whipped fat on that one experience, but I think I will anyway.

Tired of worrying fat content, always thinking about calories-from-fat percentages and cholesterol levels? Try smalec. No need to worry about fat content here — it’s a nice, round 100%.

But how to make it? Simple. Put some lard and boczekinto a pot and let it simmer all day.

Next, pour the mixture through a sieve and place the now-soft chunks of fat in a ceramic container, careful not to drain entirely the now-clarified fat from the now-soft fat.

Smile as you think of the glistening mixture sliding through your body.

If your curious what the insides of your veins will look like shortly, leave the remaining mixture to cool.

Next day, dig in. Your neighborhood cardiologist will thank you for the business.

So apparently, I was wrong. It’s not whipped fat. It’s just boiled fat.

It’s amazing there are any Poles who, eating like this, live past the age of, say, fourteen.

Universally Empty Rhetoric

Friday 5 October 2001

In what is shaping up to be an east-versus-west, worldwide conflict, it is not surprising that both sides have been spewing its share of rhetoricand propaganda. It is also not surprising how similar the propaganda has been. A point-by-point comparison of Bush’s post-attack speech and bin Laden’s post-attack statement (though, being filmed during the day, it was clearly made before the nighttime raids) reveals that both men are saying essentially the same thing. In what follows, I have simply cut and pasted comments from each individual’s speech, usually with no altercation. Where I have made changes, I have done so only for contextual clarity, with inclusions indicated with brackets and omissions with ellipses. In addition, I have not indicated the individual sources. For most examples it will be obvious, but for some, its eerily similar.

To begin with, both sides see themselves as the liberatorand defender of freedom while calling the enemy an oppressor:

  • The winds of change have come to eradicate oppression from the island of Muhammad, peace be upon him.
  • We defend not only our precious freedoms, but also the freedom of people everywhere to live and raise their children free from fear.

Each side accuses the other of killing innocents:

  • If any government sponsors the outlaws and killers of innocence, they have become outlaws and murderers themselves.
  • They supported the butcher over the victim, the oppressor over the innocent child.

Each side has given its demands unequivocally:

  • I gave Taliban leaders a series of clear and specific demands.
  • we [must] live [security] in Palestine, and . . . all the infidel armies [must] leave the land of Muhammad

In the case of non-compliance, each side has explained the consequences:

  • neither America nor the people who live in it will dream of security . . .
  • And they will take that lonely path at their own peril.
  • And now, the Taliban will pay a price.

“Terrorism” is the key term in describing each others’ actions:

  • This military action is a part of our campaign against terrorism
  • They have come out in force with their men . . . to suppress people in the name of terrorism.

Each man sees the situation as the definitive “us-them” battle, with no middle ground:

  • Every nation has a choice to make. In this conflict, there is no neutral ground.
  • These events have divided the whole world into two sides. The side of believers and the side of infidels, may God keep you away from them.

Each leader has made a call for support from his people, no matter what the price:

  • Every Muslim has to rush to make his religion victorious.
  • [We] patience in all the sacrifices that may come.

(Recall that the Taliban leader recently pledge to sacrifice 2 million lives to defend Afghani freedom.)

And, as is the case in every war, each side has made an appeal to God and believes that God is on its side:

  • God is great, may pride be with Islam. May peace and God’s mercy be upon you.
  • May God continue to bless America.

With two equally stubborn, stupid individuals at the forefront of this conflict, there can be little doubt that a horrific conclusion lies somewhere in the future.

On September Eleventh

Monday 1 October 2001

The attacks on New York and Washington have called into question many things that until now had been taken for granted, such as the safety of life in the United States and the level of hatred some feel towards America. Now that some time has passed, even more urgent questioning is taking place.

The initial shock seems to have worn off and everyone is left asking who did it, why, and what should be the proper response, without the roar of emotions everyone felt in the initial days after the attacks. Immediately after the attack, the initial answers to those questions were more the consequences of emotion, anger, and pain than the result careful thought. Hopefully, most people now realize that it is indeed time for careful thought and not emotive reactions. To that end, I offer my own answers to those three questions that seem to be plaguing everyone.

The first question everyone thought was probably something along the lines of “Who would do such a thing?!” In the days immediately following the attacks, the then-unknown perpetrators were completely vilified. The general consensus seemed to be that they were not human beings in any real sense of the word. They were monsters. Bush continually called them “evil” and the rest of the administration referred to the in similar terms. Those who did not go so far as to say they were the epitome of evil at the very least thought they were very sick individuals, people in dire need of mental help. Sick and demented, in other words.

Yet they were human beings. Indeed, they were “normal people” in many ways. They all undoubtedly had hopes, worries, and fears; they all probably loved their mothers with great devotion; they laughed occasionally (as evidenced by the suicide note found in one attacker’s luggage); they felt weak and frail (again, as shown in the suicide letter). They were like me in many ways, I’m sure.

How they differed, though, is in the grounding of their worldview. The ultimate reality for them was Allah. Reading the things left behind by the attackers, one cannot possibly deny that for them, Allah’s will was everything. They were devout and strict – so much so that they were willing to give their lives to fulfill what they felt was Allah’s will. I of course cannot answer whether or not it was Allah’s will, nor can anyone else. I can say that I certainly hope that the most powerful being in the world wouldn’t require or even condone such actions, but that is a question beyond my finite abilities to answer. The point, though, is that they felt it was Allah’s will; they felt they were doing their religious duty; they thought they were pleasing God. It seems that most followers of the three monotheistic religions should give at least a grudging respect to these men’s devotion. The outcome was tragic, but single-mindedness with which they pursued their goal is strangely admirable. If we were to try to eradicate world hunger with the kind of devotion they had, everyone would be well fed by week’s end. [1]

Even before most people began asking, “Who would do such a thing?” the Bush administration had already decided Osama bin Laden was responsible. At first his name was mentioned couched in words that seemed to soften the fact that he was immediately assumed guilty. Bush and others didn’t want to be seen as acting in violation of that most-American judicial assumption of innocence before being proved guilty. Soon, however, the niceties were dropped and it was generally assumed that bin Laden was responsible. All eyes then shifted to Afghanistan where the Taliban was hosting him and his organization, and this led to the crisis that seems only to be increasing.

It is here that the Bush administration seems to be failing most miserably. Bush has demanded, “Hand over bin Laden.” The Taliban, in response, has made a very reasonable demand: provide evidence that bin Laden is responsible. Yet the Bush administration seems completely unwilling to do such a thing. “No!” it seems to cry, “Our demands are not negotiable! Hand him over or be destroyed!”

It’s more than a little disturbing that Bush in fact was demanding bin Laden’s extradition before the BBC was reporting that the FBI had announced that it finally had proof of the attackers’ ties to bin Laden’s organization. Guilt was assumed from the beginning, and that assumption (however logical it might be) has informed all of Bush’s actions.

Yet is the United States asking for something it would be willing to do? What if another country were to demand the extradition of some American on charges of terrorism, but refused to provide any evidence? It is doubtful that the US would be willing to hand over the accused. Yet that is exactly what it is demanding of the Taliban. What if, further, this country seeking to try an American gave the American leadership an ultimatum: hand over the accused or face attack? How would America respond? Probably in a manner similar to the Taliban: “Any attack will be seen as an act of war and we will respond accordingly.”

One might respond to this line of reasoning that the two situations are completely dissimilar. “Bin Laden has been accused of a most heinous crime, of killing thousands of innocent people, of committing an unbelievable injustice – in short, of being a terrorist. America would never protect anyone accused of doing such a thing!” So some might argue, but the argument brings to the table one of the most critical points of this whole crisis, and that is the definition of terrorism itself. America seeks to try bin Laden on charges of terrorism, as America and the rest of the Western world defines “terrorism.” But is it not inconceivable that certain acts America has committed or financed could be defined as terrorism?

What about its support of oppressive regimes such as Pinochet in Chile and Marcos in the Philippines? What about the enforcement of embargoes against countries that result in millions of people being pushed to the brink of starvation while leaving the people the U.S. is trying to punish completely untouched? What about its unquestioning support of Israel (which has included providing weapons, training, and information) in the Middle East conflict? What about the simple fact that America is the only nation in the world to use a nuclear device in a non-testing situation? What about its carpet bombing in Dresden and Cambodia knowingly resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians? What about the help America provided oppressive regimes to overwhelm democratically elected governments simply because the former espoused capitalism and the latter communism (I’m thinking here of Central and South America)?

These are just the potential “sins of commission.” One could also argue that America has committed several sins of omission. This is particularly true when one thinks about American intervention in Kuwait in the early 1990’s. George Bush (and others after him) explained the action as one of humanitarianism – saving the Kuwaitis from the horrors the Iraqis were committing. While this may very well be true, it doesn’t hold well when one considers all the other atrocities that America has set back and allowed to happen: in Rwanda, Cambodia, and Bosnia, for example, there was attempted genocide. For several years now the Taliban has been committing the most atrocious human rights violations. During the Second World War, America knew of the Nazi’s genocidal actions and did nothing about it (i.e., destroying the death camps). America sat back and watched while Pol Pot and Idi Amin destroyed their own countries, killing thousands. The point is this: if the American intervention in Kuwait was a truly humanitarian effort, then America should have also stepped in and tried to stop all these other horrors. But Kuwait has something that Cambodia, Europe, and central Africa don’t have: oil.

So whether by omission or commission, America has done plenty of things that others could easily regard as unjust, or even “terrorist.” American relations with Iraq and Iran provide a good example of something that someone might label as “terrorist.” For a while it suited America’s interests to support Saddam in his war with Iran, and all the while he massacred Kurds in his own country. His regime did to the Kurds what they later did to the Kuwaitis. Why didn’t America do something about Saddam then? Because he was useful. He severed as a distraction for Iran. When Iran was busy fighting Iraq, it couldn’t devote as many resources to sponsoring terrorism against the West. Problem solved. And in the meantime, thousands and thousands of innocent people were killed in a senseless war America helped sponsor. Now America has switched positions – Iran seems to be a little more moderate, so we can now play them against Iraq. One can say, “Well that’s because Iran is now a more humanitarian, less repressive regime, and we’re rewarding their changes with a new openness toward them.” That might be so, but that’s not the point – the point is that throughout all this, Iraq has been an oppressive, murderous regime, and America only did something about it when the threat spread beyond its borders. America created Saddam Hussein, and when he was no longer convenient, America destroyed him.

The reason I’ve been putting the words “terrorist” and terrorism” in quotes is because it is, after all, a relative term. One man’s terrorism is another’s patriotism. This leads to the second question people have been asking – “Why?” Though no direct information is available, it seems reasonable to assume that these individuals who attacked New York and Washington did so because something America did provoked them. This is not to say that America got what it deserved, and that this justifies or excuses the attacks. I’m simply saying that people do not commit acts of this horrific magnitude without extreme provocation (at least provocation in their eyes). In attacking the Pentagon and World Trade Center, these men felt they were righting a wrong, that their act was an attempt to bring about justice. In other words, these men acted in response to a perceived injustice, something they might also have labeled “terrorism.” Whether or not America meant to, it has done something that has angered many people in the world enough that they are willing to sacrifice everything to enact some kind of “justice.”[2]

This is where things start getting really interesting, though; where our common humanity comes into sharpest focus. The same kind of rage that Americansfelt immediately after the bombing (and many still feel, certainly) must surely be similar to what drove these men to do this. No one in the American mainstream media (from the limited bit I get) seems to be admitting let alone discussing this. Some senator said, “We’ve got to be somewhat irrational in our response. Blow their capital from under them.” Yet however “just” that might seem to Americans, Afghanis would feel the same pain and resentment toward America that some Americans now feel toward them. As Salon magazine put it, “You might as well hand out box-cutters and directions to Kennedy Airport to every kid in Afghanistan unto the third generation.”

Our common humanity is evidenced in other ways as well:

  1. Both people feel that a great injustice has been done to them. This drove certain individuals to commit one of the most horrific acts in history. Who knows what that itself will cause America to do in retaliation. But it will retaliate, and that leads to the second point:
  2. Both groups feel that their retaliatory action will rectify the situation. The men who killed all those people in the States didn’t do it because they thought they were being evil; they did it because they thought they were acting justly. We can of course question their sense of justice, but the fact remains: they most likely felt that this act would tilt the scales of justice in their favor. America feels that its retaliation will accomplish the same thing.
  3. The injustice they feel has inspired many of them to volunteer their services in operations that might result in their own death in order to get justice. European news agencies showed footage of bin Laden’s minions training, and no reasonable person would deny that these men are willing to give their life for their beliefs. At the same time, the American public seems okay with the idea of casualties in its search for justice. Additionally, there have been reports of common soldiers expressing an eager willingness to take part in missions that might result in casualties.
  4. Both groups see themselves as virtuous and the other as the epitome of evil. Of course the US has been branded the Great Satan by the Islamic world for ages. Now Bush is continually referring to those people who planned and committed this act, as well as those who harbor them (read: the Taliban) as “evil.”
  5. There is a certain fanaticism among both people. When Bush visited the disaster area in New York soon after the attack, he was talking to all the rescue workers through a megaphone. At one point they spontaneously began chanting, “U.S.A.!!! U.S.A.!!! U.S.A.!!!” pumping their fists, with a look of just indignation on their faces. Change the language to Arabic and put a beard on Bush and it would look eerily similar to what we see in the Middle East from time to time.
  6. Both groups see the loss of a certain number of innocent lives as an acceptable price to pay to reach their objectives. Senator Zell Miller said the U.S. should “bomb the hell out of Afghanistan.” This would probably result in significant civilian losses, but this is apparently not a concern for Miller. Loss of civilian life is not an issue, obviously, for those who carried out the attacks. And of course both groups would define “innocent” differently, and I highly doubt that Miller would call the Afghani citizens who died as “innocent,” because, after all, they support bin Laden. Those who killed the people in the States would probably not call their victims innocent, because, after all, they support Israel’s anti-Arab war and so on.
  7. Neither group will ever say, “We deserve that act of retaliation because our own last attack was so awful. The scales of justice are now even and we, as an evil state, have been justly punished.” In other words, a military attack will just bring about another terrorist attack.

This brings us to the final question: what should America do? The temptation at first was for me to frame that question as “what should America do in retaliation,” but that begs the very question I’m raising: should America retaliate? It is at times like this that at least a tinge of nationalism touches most people and even the most liberal critic in America probably, for at least a moment, would have answered unhesitatingly affirmatively. But one thing is certain: unless America can somehow convince the world that bin Laden is responsible for the attack and it is an unjust act that deserves punishment, whatever America does will only provoke another attack.

One thing America should certainly do but seems unwilling to do is provide evidence to the world at large that indicts bin Laden in this attack. Yet the objective itself of Operation Infinite Justice (as the Bush administration is calling it) — capture and try bin Laden in a court of law – ensures that America will not provide such evidence (and this in turn will create more motivation for terrorism). [3] In the effort to capture bin Laden, America will commit acts a, b, and c. These three acts will be justified, no matter what they are, simply by saying that they were done in the pursuit of justice. Even if act b is the accidental killing of 500 civilians, it will still be “covered” by the “pursuit of justice” clause. One act (of omission, certainly) may well be the starvation of thousands of civilians. Another might be the re-creation of a power vacuum like the one that, upon Soviet retreat, led to years of civil war. This would be the same as destroying the country, and Bush has already told us what the results of that would be — leave it alone, because we’re “not into country-building.”

Now my main point is this: these three acts are defined as ultimately just because they lead to the capture of bin Laden. But what if someone decides these very three acts are “acts of “terrorism?” What if only 5,000 Afghanis die of starvation because of this war (a number that seems ridiculously low in early October) and the leadership of Afghanistan wants to try George Bush on charges of terrorism? What will America do? Laugh, basically.

What if any country demanded an American citizen for trial but provided no evidence? America too would be unwilling to give up the accused person.

This is the main reason why Bush is unwilling to capitulate to the Taliban’s very reasonable demand: give us evidence. To this point, as far as I can tell from the news, the United States has refused. It has said, “Our demand is non-negotiable.” What if any country demanded an American citizen for trial but provided no evidence? America too would be unwilling to give up the accused person.

And this leads to exactly why the U.S. will never provide the evidence. If it does so, and the later some country does the same to the US, it will be obliged to turn over the accused. In other words, it has to play fair. It has to realize that it’s not always right, that its citizens and even government do things that other find reprehensible. And of course America has committed acts that others define as terrorism, but I highly doubt it will be willing to turn over anyone for trial in another country as it’s asking the Taliban to do. Especially without evidence.

It’s precisely this selfish, biased behavior that leads others to hate America. America, like any other country, has always acted in its best interests. Even the greatest acts of generosity America has committed have been inspired out of national interest. The rebuilding of Europe after World War Two, for example, was not an act of charity. It was a way to make sure that another regime with visions of global (or at least European) domination didn’t arise from the rubble just as the Nazis had arisen from the ashes of World War One. No one individual or nation does a single thing from purely selfless motives. Even the greatest martyr gets some sort of personal satisfaction out of her death.

It seems clear, then, that the answer is not simply retaliation. You don’t calm an angry dog by kicking the shit out of it every time it bears its teeth. If America (and the Western world as a whole) truly wants to stop these types of things from happening, it has to take into account what causes the conditions that make people feel this way.

The answer to the question “what to do” lies in the very facet of human nature that led these men to attack Washington and New York and may well lead America to attack Afghanistan, and that is human’s tendency toward dualistic worldviews. And with dualism, it’s really a matter of perspective. Some see all of America’s actions as just; others see all their nation’s actions as just. There are few people in the world who say, “We as a people and a nation are bad — inherently evil, in fact — and we just want to wreck havoc on the world.” Everyone sees themselves as the good-guy. But everyone can’t be the good-guy all the time. There have to be bad-guys, and I think most Americans are unwilling to admit that their country has ever been a bad-guy. Much like Islamic extremists are unwilling to admit that their country has ever been a bad-guy. “We’re backed by God’s justice.” “We’re backed by Allah’s justice.” Both statements can’t be right.

This dualistic view that so many people seem to have — on both sides of any given political coin — will do nothing but encourage and fuel such actions as we saw on 11 September. Americans have to be willing to look at themselves and say, “What could we have done that could have possibly resulted in someone feeling such fury towards us?” In other words, they have to walk a mile in others’ cliché moccasins. Are those on the other side going to do the same? I don’t know. Maybe they would continue to be close-minded, but their close-mindedness would never justify our own.

If America provides an equal response, that’s exactly what it will get — more of the same. People who share the same views and opinions as those who committed the attacks will see America’s action as something that needs to be avenged, and will strike again. America will hit them again and say, “Justice has been done.” They’ll feel injustice has been done, and hit America back. Sort of like how practical jokes seem to spiral out of control. In this case, though, the consequences (for both sides) are a little more dire than short-sheeted beds.

Flaki

Sunday 11 May 1997

It looked like perfectly harmless soup. I could see a bit of carrot and potato, and a sip of the broth revealed a nice, rich flavor. Then I saw it: A bit of bumpy white mystery that was vaguely meat-like. I moved it around a little with my spoon and thought to myself, “Oh, please don’t let this be flaki.” I took a bite. It was rubbery and had a very pungent flavor. I swallowed and it was at that point that my host brother asked, “You know what that is?” Before I could say, “Wait–don’t tell me. I don’t want to know,” he informed me, “Flaki!” He smaked his lips and rubbed his belly. “Ummmm,” he said with a sly smile. “Go ahead,” he prodded, “It’s great!” I tried to eat more, but I simply couldn’t. After all, how much intestine soup could you handle? Yep, flaki is basically soup made from cow guts. While the broth can be tasty, the meat itself isn’t, and the while it cooks it positively stinks.

This was only one of my culinary adventures during the 1996 Christmas holidays. I returned to Radom to spend Christmas with my host family and I was introduced to the wonders of the Christmas feast. On Christmas Eve there is a huge meal with anywhere from nine to fifteen dishes, none of which have meat (unless you count fish, which the Poles don’t). There were a couple of geletin dishes with bits of veggies and fish suspended in a suspect looking gel and sledz (herring).

The highlight of the dinner is the carp. Traditionally it is kept alive in the bathtub until the day of Christmas Eve when the grandfather bludgeons the poor thing to death and then it becomes the central entree of the Christmas Eve banquet. I’d never eaten carp, and if you haven’t, I wouldn’t advise it. Fishermen throw it back for a reason! It is basically a bone with some skin and a little meat trapped in between. Breaded and fried, the carp I had was rather difficult to finish. When I finished the pile of bones was somehow bigger than the actual piece of fish was.

Christmas day is a day of meat. While none of the Christmas Eve dishes had meat, almost every single Christmas day dish had meat. This was when the flaki made its appearance. I was somewhat surprised to find that the desert had no meat in it. I thought, “Why not a mincemeat pie? Perhaps some chicken ice cream? Or even a pork cake?” but I kept it to myself.

As a general rule, though, Polish fare is quite good. It’s a bit on the starchy side, but tasty. Potatoes are served with almost every meal to which I’ve been privy, cabbage appears on the table frequently, and pork is the meat of choice. Beets are rather common (in soup–barszcz–and as a side dish), and every meal is washed down with warm kompot which is an incredibly sweet drink made from various fruit (apple and pear seem to be the most common in Lipnica). Occasionally chicken will show up (though most often in soup) and I’ve even had rabbit on once. While I ate, Elmer Fudd kept singing, “Kill da wabbit, kill da wabbit . . .” and I felt a little guilty, but I have to admit that wabbit is wader wonderful. No wonder Elmer’s so intent on bagging Bugs.

Crucifix

Saturday 1 February 1997

There are crucifixes in each and every classroom at my school.  Separation of church and state is not a goal of the Polish democracy.  So every day I teach with a little statue of a man nailed to a tree hanging right above my head.  “It gives some people comfort,” says Danuta, my counterpart English teacher.  I suppose that’s possible.

Early in the first semester the director told me to come down to the new English classroom to tell him where I wanted the bulletin boards.  (The boards were actually sheets of styrofoam attached to the wall.  Economical.)  He drilled the holes, put up the styrofoam, then drilled the hole for the crucifix.  I wondered how he would respond if I said, “I don’t want that in my classroom.”  No doubt he would be confused, and maybe (probably?) a bit upset with my irreverence.  Of course I said nothing.  “When in Poland . . . ”

It’s got me to thinking about the whole religious symbolism in Christianity.  The cross is a sacred symbol because it represents Christ’s death to millions of Christians around the world.  It is a simple character, almost reminiscent of minimalism in its barest form.  Most people wear crosses because it is an outward expression of their inner convictions.  Yet I wonder: If Jesus had slipped in the shower and bonked his head, would we be wearing Soap-On-A-Rope?  Would giant bath-size Dial bars replace steeples at churches?  Would we make bathing motions every time we enter a church?  It would shed new light on what Pilate said: “Okay, I wash my hands of the whole issue!”

Anyone seen Monty Python’s Life of Brian?  Remember the scene where they’re trying to decide what symbol they’ll use to indicate that they are followers of Brian?  “The shoe!  The shoe!”  I suppose that scene prefigures my own speculations.  Yet both point out how virtually arbitrary religious symbols are.  If Christ were to be put to death today, I suppose twenty-first century Christians would use the electric chair or a hangman’s noose as the primary symbol.

The crucifixes are just one indication of how strong Catholicism is in Poland.  For many, to be Polish is to be Catholic.  They are virtually synonymous.  In fact, next to every crucifix is a relief in plastic of the national symbol of Poland.  Religion and nationalism, hand in hand, as they so often are.