Poland 04 - It's Pronounced Chi-hon-off

Ciechanow, Polska

I wondered what it would feel like to be in another country. Oddly enough, I didn't feel any different. Sure, the scenery was not the same, but I was the same person there as I am at home. I don't know what I expected, but nothing really happened. It was kind of like you've seen in the movies. The character goes through a time warp for the first time, and, when they get through to the other side, they give themselves a pat down in order to make sure all the bits came through. I woke up in Ciechanów all present and accounted for.

Ciechanów is s city of about 46,000 people. While that is a good number of people, the city is not that large. Amazingly, it is a little over half the land size of Paducah, and yet has almost twice as many people in the city limits. The difference is in how people live. Most Polish people live in large apartment or condo complexes in what they call flats. Very European, ain’t it? So the population is much more concentrated. Ciechanów is no exception. There are plenty of houses, however, but most are not large, they are built close to one another, and there is little to speak of in regards to having a yard. Many of the houses are duplexes.

Home

I was blessed to stay in a house. The first and second floors were divided into two seperate living areas. As you entered the house through the side door (the only door I knew of), you either went right into the downstairs living area or upstairs. A simple curtain was the only barrier between the bottom of the stairs and the home of Sylwia (Sylvia) and Emilia Przybylska, a mother and daughter who rented the downstairs. We stayed upstairs, which was vacant at the time. The length of the home had a wide hallway, three bedrooms, a bathroom, a small kitchen, and a little living room area just off one of the bedrooms. This was a simple, yet roomy Polish home.

And simple is the key word here. Americans in general are more affluent that Poles. Yet Poland is financially better off than most European nations. The average Pole is not destitute, yet their lives are not full of many of the frills we enjoy. The home we stayed in reflected that. The stove and refrigerator in the kitchen were small and the dishwasher is you and a rag. There was a tiny front load washing machine in the bathroom and no dryer. I did not see a clothes dryer the whole time I was in Poland. Space is a luxury, and therefore a dryer is too. Laundry is dried on outdoor lines, rigs mounted above bathtubs, or anywhere clothes can hang or lay. Most of the larger flat buildings have small outdoor patios with a short railing. I saw everything from clothes to comforters hanging from the rails. 

Air-conditioning is also absent from homes, but Poland does sit at a higher latitude than the U.S., so summers are not as oppressive as those in the American South. Heating a home is of much more importance. Many of the standalone and duplex houses are heated with coal. The home we stayed in used a radiator system that was kept warm by a coal burning furnace in the lowest part of the house. Only the rooms are heated, thus doors to all rooms are normally kept closed, and the hallways remain fairly cool. Hot water was also provided through coal heat. 

In general, there are three main times during the day that the coal furnaces are fired: first thing in the morning, when returning home in the evening, and before going to bed. The first round in the morning is of importance if you want to take a warm bath. The afternoon/evening time provides a warm-up after the cooling during the day, and the bedtime stoking gets you through the night. I often went to bed rather warm and woke up a little cool. The main problem with burning coal is the city air quality. I would suppose what I experienced was smog. The air gets very thick, especially in the early evening. Some homes have black smoke pouring out, and in places, it is difficult to breathe outdoors. At first, I thought people were burning trash. Turns out it was mostly coal burning. Amazingly, some homes seemed to burn it more efficiently than others. I never noticed black smoke at our home. But we did have warm baths.

Speaking of warm baths, I will close with the bathing situation in Poland. Most homes have a bathtub with a length of hose and a shower head, but the head is not mounted to be used as a shower. It simply rests above the hot and cold faucets. There are also no shower curtains. I guess most people take baths, or as I grew accustomed to, sit down showers. It took some getting used to at first, but after a while, it was no big deal. I did miss regular showers, however. It really wouldn’t take much to have a regular shower in most homes. A simple install of a shower curtain and a clip to hold the head would suffice. But this is not what the Polish are accustomed to, so the bathing situation will likely remain the same. After all, if you stood up to bathe, you’d lose valuable real estate. In some of the homes I visited, families used that area to dry laundry.

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