Three Shots of a Developing Girl
the girl
A Walk in the Park
Aunt L is visiting, so we took her to the park downtown.
It was surprisingly empty for a Sunday afternoon. There were small groups here and there, but I guess the heat was keeping most people in.
The Girl had a blast, especially with the ducks. They bonded, and it was a tearful goodbye.
She’s learned what ducks say, and she was thrilled to get independent confirmation that what K and I told her about duck communication was accurate.
Celebration
Saturday afternoon I found myself in a familiar position: a non-Catholic in a place of honor and attention in a Catholic church. With pictures taken beforehand:
L is now officially Catholic.
She fell asleep immediately the actual ceremony, much to our relief: she’d begun barking like a dog and begging to get down just before the baptism.
We made a friend before going into the church — an elderly lady whom no one knew but who acted as if she’d known all of us our entire lives.
With her speaking the Orawian dialect with a tooth-free mouth, I had no idea what she was saying at any point in the conversation. It was like arriving in Orawa again.
After the baptism, Dziadek took everyone out to dinner.
K and L’s godmother, D, danced a little for us.
Then it was back to the house a typical Polish evening with family and friends: more food, alcohol, talking, joking.
Everyone expresses such surprise when we tell them about teetotalers and the lengths to which some American Christians will go to avoid “sin” (card playing, dancing, etc.). “Poor people,” D’s husband replied. He took it especially hard — he was the designated driver.
An odd thing about Polish designated drivers: while on the whole Poles drink more alcohol than Americans, Polish designated drivers are much more scrupulous about drinking than their American counterparts. I’ve known of many “designated drivers” in America who will drink one small beer, knowing that they’ll still be within the legal limits. Polish designated drivers don’t drink anything. I had to twist G’s arm to get him to take a sip of the whiskey we’d brought Dziadek.
This teetotalism makes even more sense in Slovakia, where to exceed the legal limit, one needs only 0.0001% BAC. In other words, no alcohol in the system at all. Which is good, if you’ve ever seen how Slovaks drive.
K and the girls in the family insist that we sat talking until 1:30 — not bad for Dziadek and Babcia, who usually go to bed at or before nine.
Next day, more celebrations. We began by playing around in the yard.
Afterward, we went back to Lipnica for Shepherds’ Holiday — a yearly festival that celebrates regional folk music and culture.
This year it included a mock wedding.
And it ended with a traditional climbing of the May Pole. The safety harness, the emcee explained, was a new addition for EU compliance. Poland is in the EU, and that means certain traditions change — sort of.
But it wasn’t only for the music I went. I was hoping to meet a few former students and co-workers. I ran into the superintendent of schools and chatted with him for a few moments, and I met a few students. So odd to see them as adults now. One started speaking to me in the familiar voice (“Ty” instead of “Pan”), then stopped short.
“How should I refer to you?” she asked.
“‘Ty’ is fine,” I replied. “It makes me feel less old than ‘pan.'”
Another explained that he was working in Denmark.
“How’s your Danish?” I asked.
“I don’t speak a word of Danish!” he laughed. “I use the English you taught me.” He used “pan,” but he was always a very respectful young man.
It’s rewarding to know that something I did is having such far-reaching effects. I almost told the young man — who, despite being polite, was something of a slacker — “I’ll bet you wish you’d done your homework more often,” but he might have taken it seriously.
We left around 6:00, when the girl was growing tired, not to mention her parents. We walked back down the parking lot — undoubtedly the most beautiful parking lot I’ve ever seen.
We returned home and returned to our front-yard games.
It was about this time, when the sun was casting long shadows and giving everything a golden glow, that Babcia suggested we take the kids for a walk.
“Maybe they’ll get to see some cows,” she said.
There were no cows, but the light was incredible.
I went ahead and took a few pictures.
Then K and L came running at me.
We took the kids to a field with freshly-mowed hay and tried to take some candid portraits.
With the Tatra Mountains in the background and the children’s laughter, it was difficult to imagine a more idyllic setting.
Who couldn’t sit and look at a view like this for hours daily:
On the way back, our freshly Catholicized little girl got sleepy.
We stopped at a little neighborhood chapel on the way back.
During summer evenings local residents meet at the small chapel to pray.
It also provided a depressing reminder of how Poland is changing. Scratched into the side of the chapel were two common examples of Polish profanity. (I won’t provide a translation. If you know someone who speaks Polish what it means, they’ll probably tell you. Hesitantly, if they’re from an older generation.)
It seemed profane in the truest sense of the word’s meaning. Childish curse words scratched on an object held sacred by many.
Finally, a different kind of sacred:
That pretty much covers Saturday and Sunday. Today — well, I’ll put that off a little bit and return to more important matters here at hand.
Rain and Ice Cream
“We need the rain” everyone said throughout the day, but we didn’t need the rain — a handful of days in Polska and we don’t need one filled with rain. But rain it did, all day.
Tomorrow is the baptism, so we did some shopping. First, to a bacowka for oscypek.
One step inside and you know you’re getting something traditional, something with character and heart.
True, it is a little frightening — from hygiene’s point of view — how they make the cheese.
But that’s really just my hyper-clean American safety-sealed conscience speaking. We consume so many germs by the second that it would probably terrify most of us, and put OCD-clean folks into a catatonic state.
The price of oscypek is a good indicator of inflation in Poland. When we bought it before our 2005 departure, one cost 15 zloty; we paid 100 zloty for four of them today.
The price of everything in Poland is on the rise in a way that doesn’t compare to anything America’s experiencing. One friend told us she earns about 2,000 zloty a month, but spends 500 zloty a week on food for their family of five. One whole salary just for food. Add to that gas (we paid 100 zloty — about $50 these days with the falling dollar — for a little less than half a tank of gas, which costs about $9 a gallon), electricity (our electric bill here would be 500 zloty a month, K’s father informs us), and the various other costs and it’s difficult to imagine how anyone can survive in Poland.
Afterwards, we continued with the traditional theme, visiting friends who live in a traditional Podhale home, complete with connected barn.
K and her university friend played with the children for a while
and talked for a while
while I snapped pictures
and the kids played.
Lastly, it was back to Nowy Targ to visit my Peace Corps buddy C and his family.
On the way we stopped for ice cream (literally freshly handmade — so good that it’d difficult even to consider describing it), but fighting the rain and a sleepy girl didn’t inspire any photographic moods.
It’s not supposed to rain anymore for a while, so perhaps tomorrow the Girl and I will go to the river and entertain the dog, or maybe we’ll walk to Jablonka’s center for some ice cream. Babcia and K will be busy preparing for the baptism — one of the main reasons for the trip.
Market and More
Wednesday in Jablonka is market day. And by “market” I don’t mean what most people in the States think of. Sure, you can buy fresh produce, but you can also buy underwear, belt sanders, pirated CDs, shoes, pig intestines (for sausage), Russian cameras (“Zenit was my first real camera”), chimney cleaning equipment, mailboxes, baby chickens, car parts — anything and everything you can imagine is available.
During my seven years in Poland, I spent many hours wandering around markets in Jablonka and Nowy Targ (which literally translates to “New Market”). Over the years I bought a camera (The man banged a nail in with one body to show how tough the camers was; I asked for a different one as politely as possible.), clothes (This is dangerous: there’s a great possiblity for buying clothing of absolutely zero quality.), cheese (pretty safe), and just about everything else. The one thing I didn’t buy was a suit. But I could have.
L found something she wanted, but unfortunately, it was not something that could fit in our baggage.
The market is also a place to go to see and be seen — sometimes, though, you wish some had stayed home.
After lunch, it was time for swinging.
And bicycle riding
L then took a nap and we went for a walk down Jablonka’s main street. There’s still a lot of evidence of Polska’s rural past here. It’s still present, in other words.
We did a little shopping in its most famous building — the GS shop. Now, it’s a ruin. There was a time it was impressive, I’m sure — in a Stalinist, Social Realist kind of way.
We picked up some candles for Babcia’s grave,
then went back for a little relaxation. The Girl by this time was running around the yard as if she’d lived here all her life, chasing the dog, throwing the dog’s nasty toilet-plunger toy, and generally bringing joy to everyone.
After dinner — fresh baba (soft, slightly sweet bread) with fresh butter (about an eighth of an inch thick — rural Polish style) and homemade raspberry jam. As Nina might say, fresh and honest — we headed to the church to pay our respects and discuss L’s upcoming baptism with the priest.
Lastly, K’s best friend from high school — well, from primary school, high school, university — came over for a first visit. The daughters got along very well.
Swing
2
There is a swing in K’s folks’ backyard that is more of a pendulum than a swing. The seat hangs by iron rebar rather than chains, and as such, it has an arch a little different than what swing enthusiasts are probably used to — if there is a Swing Enthusiast Association of America.
L likes to swing. She also, it turns out, likes to slide.
Yesterday afternoon, we took her to a new park — new for us, at any rate — and she could not get enough of the sliding boards. Nor could she get enough of the small climbing wall leading up to one of the slides:
And of course slides and climbing walls weren’t the only attractions:
In two days, I tell her, we’ll be swinging “u Babci i dziadka.”
Music
3
In Polska, L will be exposed to a whole new world of music, hopefully. Granted, we do try to expose her to traditional Polish music here in the house, but to hear it live…
Right now, she’s fond of “Gloria in excelsis Deo” from Vivaldi’s Gloria. I play it in the car and she just swings her head back in forth in time with the music. Once the exciting beginning is over, she makes the sign for “More” and says her own special version of the word: ma.
She’s excited during the first part, but the second — “Et in terra pax” calms her down significantly. We played it in the car last night and a minute into the piece, she was looking calmly out the window.
Our Daughter
Wide-Angle Photos
8
We got a bit of new equipment yesterday: a Sigma 10-20mm wide-angle zoom.
Thinking of what’s possible with this lens in, say, Zab, overlooking Zakopane and the Tatra mountains — almost makes us (well, me) giddy.
Really — in Zab it’s going to be spectacular. Not to mention ulica Florianska…
Pattern Recognition
10
Obviously one of the things K and I both are looking forward to is introducing everyone to L.
We left three years ago as a pair; we return as a family.
In the Park
Weekend in the Mountains
Saturday evening, as the sun was setting and the fog was settling in, this is what K and I saw:
Getting to that moment was just as enjoyable as the moment itself, though.
We set off Saturday morning — after my Praxis test — on a trip to the mountains: Asheville. Hippy-ville, land of the sky, where the patchouli flows like water.
Our first stop was actually a good bit north of Asheville, in Hot Springs, at the annual Bluff Mountain Festival. Bluegrass, old-time music, clogging — a fine festival.
K and L danced and twirled
L made a new friend,
only to discover that the new friend was not wild about hugs.
After the rain finally chased us away, we went to stay with friends in Madison county — friends who live on the top of a mountain and keep bees:
We spent the evening as all evenings should be spent: on the deck, surrounded by nature and friends, without a mosquito to be found.
I took the time to talk with someone knowledgeable about bees about what’s going on with the bee population in the States. It’s fairly frightening. One word: monoculture:
Many worry that what’s shaping up to be a honeybee catastrophe will disrupt the food supply. While staple crops like wheat and corn are pollinated by wind, some 90 cultivated flowering crops – from almonds and apples to cranberries and watermelons – rely heavily on honeybees trucked in for pollinization. […]
For many entomologists, the bee crisis is a wake-up call. By relying on a single species for pollination, US agriculture has put itself in a precarious position, they say. A resilient agricultural system requires diverse pollinators. This speaks to a larger conservation issue. Some evidence indicates a decline in the estimated 4,500 potential alternate pollinators – native species of butterflies, wasps. and other bees. The blame for that sits squarely on human activity – habitat loss, pesticide use, and imported disease – but much of this could be offset by different land-use practices.
Moving away from monoculture, say scientists, and having something always flowering within bee-distance, would help natural pollinators. This would make crops less dependent on trucked-in bees, which have proved to be vulnerable to die-offs. (Christian Science Monitor)
Once the ladies came out to the porch, though, we changed to less depressing topics, but not for long: “Who knows when the Girl will wake us” we said, trotting off to bed around eleven.
L woke us up at her usual hour, which meant we got to see a mountain sunrise:
L played with the dogs for a while. Our friends have four dogs, but only three of them were interested in L.
She got a face-full of tail a couple of times but took it like a trooper and insisted on staying with the dogs.
It was wonderful seeing how the dogs sensed L’s fragility and were so gentle with her. They didn’t attempt to jump on her and would gently approach to lick her in the face — which she loved and showed the baby sign for “more” again and again.
After breakfast, we drove back down to Asheville, to visit other friends, who also have a dog.
We were pleasantly surprised at how patient all the dogs were with L. She’s so obsessed with hugging animals that she’s got an arm-full of scratch marks from where she shares the love with our cat a little too forcefully.
Finally, we met still more friends at the NC Arboretum for walk.
14
It was a busy weekend, undoubtedly a foretaste of what’s our trip to Polska is going to be like — a trip that is rapidly approaching.
Too rapidly, in some respects.
We leave in two weeks.
Boy, [you’ll have to] carry that weight…
18
One of the things we’re hoping to do in Polska is a lot of walking — hiking, sightseeing, general wandering. And the Girl gets heavy toting her. And she can’t yet walk very long distances. And we really didn’t want to carry our bulky backpack-carrier with us. So — we bought an Ergo Baby Carrier.
We gave it a test-walk yesterday. Other than L being very close to my back, it was relatively comfortable. The hugginess will only be a problem here, in the super-humid South Carolina.
I have visions of walking with her in places like Chocholowska Valley or the market square in Krakow…
Only eighteen more days.
Swimming
We bought a small “pool” to put on the back deck for the Girl. She took to it hesitantly at first.
And it’s really not that she took to it–she likes splashing at the edges, but that’s about it right now.
And she likes building towers:
In Thought
The Girl looks more and more like a young lady and less and less like a baby every day.
Words
L has begun talking. Single words, mixing Polish and English, but words all the time.
“More” is “ma,” often with the accompanying baby sign.
“Shoes” is “shas.” We discovered only yesterday that she’d learned that word when she was walking about with one of her shoes in her hand, trying to get one of us to put it back on.
“Ba” or “baba” can be a number of things. First it was banana. Then it became her name for our cat. It’s become so ubiquitous that, when in doubt, we refer to something as “ba.”
Of course, “dac” has been around for some time now.
Most of the words she speaks are English, but she understands both English and Polish. The dominance of English is an obvious function of living in the States, but I could help the matter by speaking more Polish at home.
Co Powie Tata?
L loves music. One of her favorite albums is a CD of Natalia Kukulska’s childhood songs. When I listen to them, I feel like I’m at a Polish wedding, for the music has that ’80’s, canned-music sound in which wedding bands tend to specialize. I’m not to crazy about it, but L loves it — and that’s all that matters.
One of the songs on the album is “Co Powie Tata?” — “What Will Daddy Say?”. (The English version of the song translates it “Please Tell Me, Daddy,” but that’s really only to make it fit the melody — literary license and all that.) It’s a song about all the questions a little girl has about ladybugs and whether it’s possible to love a snail. Cute lyrics, like all most children’s songs.
K tells me that today, when they got home, L was listening to that and recognized one word: “tata.” She looked at K, asked quizzically “Tata?”, then began the search. She looked in the bathroom, peeked in the shower, and generally wandered about the house looking for me.
Before we know it, she’s going to be demanding to know where I was when she finally sees me after such a search…
(As an aside, this is what Natalia’s up to these days.)
Out for a Walk
Out
In Thought
