Poland 06 - Przemek- A Rose by Any Other Name...

Przemek is not an uncommon Polish name, but it is certainly far from being the most common. You meet many with names like Jan (John), Pawel (Paul), Michal (Michael), Jakub (Jacob/James), etc. due to the heavy Catholic influence. So Biblical names abound.

Przemek is derived from an old slavic name that means clever or ingenious. I'm not sure if I'd classify Przemek as ingenious (sorry buddy), but clever, yes. He is fluent in English, although he'd have some problems from time to time. Idioms across languages are about the toughest.

Since we spent most of our time with Przemek, he was Poland's representative to us. He's all we had to go by. So for the first few days, we could only assume that all Poles were like him. True to form, he was like others who grew up under communism. He was nice, but conversations were sometimes stilted. I think it was partly because he was guarded, at first, while he tried to figure us out. By the third day, however, I started to pick up on a sense of humor.

We had dinner one night with Przemek and his family at their home, and, toward the end of the evening, Michael went to another part of the room in order to Skype with his wife. Joseph and I visited with the family, and 45 minutes later, Michael rejoined us. Przemek quickly remarked, "I notice a difference between you Americans and us Eastern Europeans. Here, we can't think of anything that would take 45 minutes to talk to our wives about!"  A ha! A joke! Now we're getting somewhere.

Of course Michael knew he was joking, but seeing that he is Mr. Romance, he took the comment as a challenge to get Przemek to be romantic toward his wife. This became a theme that surfaced off and on throughout the rest of our trip. We traveled the second week, and when we'd stop anywhere that had free Wi-Fi, Michael was instantly in touch with his wife. Przemek would often look at me and Joseph and make kissy faces. One constant for Michael was blowing a kiss to his wife every time they ended a Skype conversation. Oddly enough, he'd never do it with his whole hand. Przemek noticed that he'd done it with just two fingers. One day, he did it with three. This amazed Przemek. He looked at me and Joseph and said, "Oh! The romance is growing! Now we're up to three finger kisses. Tomorrow, it will be four!"

Gosia & Przemek (Note his body language. Isn't this how
you imagine all Eastern European men talk?)

While the topic of romance was joked about, it was clear that Przemek and his wife Gosia (a variation of Malgorzata, which is Polish for Margaret), shared a great amount of love for one another. They married after only their third meeting. They knew from the get-go that they were meant to be together. I am not sure how long they've been married, but it's been long enough that their oldest daughter is 19.

Gosia is a very sweet lady. She was more open than Przemek and liked sharing about Polish life and culture and answered many questions I had. She also had many for us. We spent some time telling her about where we are from and showed her photos on the internet.

Joseph, Ela, & Ola having fun
with a statue

Przemek has two daughters, Ela and Ola. Ela's name is simply Ela. Could that really be Polish if it's that easy? Ola is actually short for Aleksandra (Alexandra, the same as my middle daughter). Here, in Przemek's two daughters, we saw a major difference in Polish people across generations. They were much more talkative, much more open, and more free to be themselves right off the bat. We found this to be true with most anyone under the age of 25 or so. Just being young may have something to do with  it, but those we asked said there is a big difference socially between those who were under communism and those who were not. The young people seemed to have a greater sense of curiosity about us and were more willing to ask questions. They were also more excited to share with us about themselves, their families, and Poland. It's not that those inclinations did not exist in the older generations, but they didn't act on them. We did discover that being a teen is universal.

Because all of us Americans do tend to be more open than the average Pole, the younger generation read that as a sign of self-confidence and tended to think of us as very confident people. To borrow and modify a joke from Garrison Keillor, do you know the difference between a normal Pole and one who is outgoing? An outgoing Pole will look at your shoes instead of his own during a conversation.

Emilia & Sylvia

By the time we left, we'd discovered that Przemek was a real cut up. I think you can probably see that from some of the photos I've included with this blog. We'd become so close over the course of the trip that it was definitely hard to say good bye when he took us to the airport to leave. It was hard to say goodbye to everyone. We'd grown so close to many people, especially in Ciechanow. It had become home. When we traveled around Poland and came back to Ciechanow, it felt like we were coming back home. From Przemek and Gosia, to Emilia and Sylvia who took great care of us in their home, to new friends like Jacek (Jack) and the two Pawels, we had a hard time leaving our new friends.

I can't say I know what it is like to visit a foreign nation as a tourist. I'm sure it is fun. But we visited Poland as new friends of an amazing group of people. And we're really more than new friends now. I feel like we are family.

Nations are more than places to see and cities and terrains. Nations are people, and they are what made this trip to Poland most memorable. I can say we truly love our new, extended family, and we were certainly blessed to be able to experience Poland in such a way. Here is the heart of a country, for the culture, the architecture, all the amazing things to experience, and the very life of a nation start in the hearts of the people of the land.

(Click on any of the photos to see it larger)