Cześć friends of Ramol,
Here is ALE, Ja jestem Włochem I mam dużo włochuw [włosów ;)].
I’ m from Tivoli, a city not far from Rome, and as beautiful as Rome is.
I’ m the new EVS volunteer of OWA, actually I’m not really new, cause I arrived in Poznań more than three months ago.
But since that day I didn’t have time to take a look of the beautiful Stary Rynek because I was extremely busy!
NO!!!! (...The English no!), don’t think that the staff from the office made me working so hard that I didn’t even have time for a beer in the Stare Miasto…
In fact the only Stary Rynek which I haven’t seen during the summer is the one in Poznań.
What I did during this summer was mainly travelling… Probably most of you already know that for this summer, I was the “Peace-messenger” sent by OWA to all the polish work-camps.
Because of that I had such great opportunity to travel all around Poland and to get to know with this country in a very amazing way.
The “Peace messenger” is a volunteer that is supposed to make the volunteers reflecting about the message of peace hidden in their work and to talk a bit about the organization that made it possible.
So as I said, once in the office, just the time to have a look of the list (and info-sheets) of those work-camps and to take a note of all the camp-leaders phone numbers, that I was already running to get the train going to my first destination: Strzelce Opolskie (Barka work-camp).
Of course my backpack was not very heavy; I took away all my winter clothes which unfortunately I will need in the next cold winter (L …I’m going to miss Włochy!!!).
But, by the end, in September, back to Poznań, when I unpacked my backpack, I found so many things, so many memories which I collected on my way, that the first feeling I had, it was just getting into another train, no matter which destination!
Sometimes was quite hard this jumping from a work-camp to another one, leading my workshop and then… say already: „goodbye” to the group.
In general I never had problems of integration within the groups, but also because of this it wasn’t easy to leave some people, people you feel you like, already after few days. But then I got used to it and I enjoyed all the people I met, even for few hours.
In fact I haven’t been only in work-camps, because often I had to travel across one side of Poland to the opposite one, and it was in those moments that I realized about this new country, about the Poles and how many different things are between Włochy and Polska.
It seems to be yesterday for me when after many hours of traveling through Italy, Austria and Czech Republic, I finally watched from the window of my euro-lines coach the first picture of Poland. We stopped in Opole (beautiful city) and we had something like half hour break.
Of course I quickly get off and the first thing I did, was just going to the TOALETA of the station. Actually I didn’t really need it, but I was so curious to see how a public toilet looks like in Poland. Perhaps it sounds stupid, but from my previous trips, there are some basic things of a country that talk more about it than any impressive monument.
And this first experience was quite interesting…
First because of the price which was 1 zł or 50 euro cents (which is as you know 2 zł and of course, I didn’t have any złoty with me), and second because of the look of the polish Madame Pipi asking for money.
She looked like taken directly from the eighties, with short blonde (fake) curly hairs and big glasses (a bit like Dustin Hoffman in TOOTSIE).
Afterwards, I met such kind of women several times on my way in Poland; if you don’t understand what I mean, just take a look in all the “BIUROS” of PKP albo PKS stations.
Yeah, the stations in Poland are definitely something to visit, especially if: “NIE MUWIESZ PO POLSKU!”
The first thing that made me crazy was the word: “PERON” (…one of the first words I learnt, that I haven’t understood yet :)).
In fact if you look at the ODJAZDY (…albo PRZYJADZY…nie wiem!) screen, you read a number which should be the number of the track.
…. You have 50 % of probabilities of standing and waiting next to the right track…
ALE still, if you are a bit inattentive (as I am!), and you wait smoking a cigarette, you may miss your train because you had also the other F* 50% of probabilities of standing at the wrong TOR! …but don’t worry, just fill the 2 hours gap for the next train with a PIWO and ZAPIEKANKA (better known in the USA as Pizza bread) …hopefully a long one.
Take a walk in the underground market of most of the stations, you will find everything there, and it is even cheap; it is in places like this that you feel the people!
But never try to change your ticket and anyway, before of doing it, just scream loud to the people running everywhere if there is anybody who “MUWIESZ PO ANGLIESKU!”.
Yes, at the station you don’t have to be worried because of the thieves, but stay far from those blonde ladies sitting in the BIURO. If you ask for something at the INFORMACJA they will send you away to the KASA BILETOWA and vice versa, and they easily get upset!
But I also noticed that in PKP stations like in Gdańsk Głowny or Lublin, which are totally renovated, the situation is different….
It sounds strange, but also the ladies at the office are renovated, not curly blond haircut anymore, but something new, something modern that fits more with the context.
Of course they are unexpectedly very kind.
Anyway through the window of the never ending OSOBOWE or the very old fashion PKS bus (with music and old MASKOTKAS hanging behind the windscreen), I admired the beautiful landscapes, lakes and mountains; beautiful and not so nice cities of Poland!
Afterwards, it’s very interesting putting together the social-historical information I collected on the road with the imagines I’ve still in my mind.
From the former concentration camps and ex ghettos, to the communist BLOKS distributed everywhere, to the modern skyscrapers that are growing up around the Palace of Culture in Warszawa…
That’s what I see! That’s what I like, Ale w Polsce.
ALESSANDRO PIACENTINI
