Near Sandomierz the area changes from farmland to orchards. The sweet cherries are relieved of their weight, but the sour cherries, mainly used for juice, still heave under their heavy branches. Anita explains that the prices are so low now that it is cheaper to let them hang than to pay a worker to pick them. The only thing selling well at the moment are the apricots, so those who have them planted pick focus their attention on the prize crop.
Anita shows me a small fruit: “normally we couldn't sell these, but since low temperatures spoilt the crop this year, we sell all grades. Nobody cares about size or spots right now”. When I ask her how old the different trees are, she says: “ten years”, then laughs and continues “that's what i say with every tree, haha, I'm not such a good farmer”. Then serious again: “but it is kind of true. You know, in the past people grew everything around here, tomatoes, barley, cabbage, but about ten years ago it became known that we had great soil for apples. Now look around,” she says, as she waves her arms in the air with behind her the sun rapidly setting over hill after hill lined with rows of apple trees: “No more fields left!”
This year the lack of Ukranian trucks is felt. "Can you recommend Polish fruit in your country?" Anita's mother asks. With a mouth full of apricot I mumble: "I will".
---
I am sitting in a kitchen in a house near Slupia, a small village on the road skirting the Wistla between Sandomierz and Krakow. On the chair next to me sits Maciek, the father of Michal, whom I wrote on Couchsurfing. Michal works in England and sent me the coordinates to his house, where he invited me to stay. The only other two inhabitants are a blind german shepherd named Aza and grandma. Maciek isn't in the least turned off by my meagre Polish language skills and keeps the the conversation going, as we sit sipping our tea that is still too hot.
I'm amazed by how far we get through the required topics of family, marriage, details of the trip, and since last week Thursday, that terrible plane crash. I learn that his wife passed away four years ago, and that he retired from work three years before that. The kitchen is strewn with about twenty jars, varying in size and placed on all possible surfaces. They contain the fresh cucumbers, that are now getting preserved for winter. Maciek explains: Polish garlic, dill seed, oak leaves, water and salt. Maciek leads me to the back of the house, past the waving barley and to some apple trees, where a lonely children's swing rocks in the wind. He explains that the apples are good when they've turned from green to a whiter shade. He tells me to fill a bag for the road and explains he has some work tending the grounds.
When I return to the kitchen I find a message of Dorota, the wife of Maciek's brother Marcin, who lives nearby with her child, while her husband works on a greenhouse construction site in the north of Poland. Her message reads that she likes me to wait for her, and do so as I settle behind the kitchen table with my laptop. After a few minutes two women appear on bicycles, each carrying a child. As I go out to greet them, one of them makes her way to the house, pacifying the old barking dog with a few calming words. She introduces herself to me and from the basket she is holding I begin to understand the purpose of the visit. “You must be hungry!” she says, “sorry for my bad English, I take dictionairy!” On top of the groceries sits a Longman's.
In the kitchen she shows me the wares: chocolate, homemade spaghetti bolognaise, sweet pastry, a garlic bun and Paluszki sausages. I am astounded by the hospitality shown, and try to tell her. While I enjoy the spaghetti, we discuss my trip and her life. After a few minutes she says she has to go. Outside the other woman has been joined by Maciek, who seems to be doing some work on one of the bicycles. She explains that if I need anything, I should give her a call. I tell her that all is well and that a dry place to sleep is already a blessing. She waves my comments away, “if there is anything, call me!” And certainly I should come by for coffee in the morning. She draws me a map, we set a time, and she walks back to her child, who is looking at his grandfather from a distance.
Still at the dinner table, I look around. In front of me a pile of food (that I didn't even need, my own storage filled for at least 24h), in the next room a bed, in another a shower, and my bicycle locked safely in the shed. I feel an amazing gratitude that all of this is so casually provided to the stranger that I am to the people around me. If I would have been only a little more sensitive, this would be moment where I would shed a few tears. If one ever lost hope about humanity, it would certainly be regained at a random dining table, somewhere in the middle of Polish generosity.
Sunday, 27 July 2014
Wednesday, 23 July 2014
A Non-Sentimental Piece About the Passing of a Peer
Leading up to the 17th of July, I had death on my mind. A few days prior, I was informed about the sudden and tragic passing of my mother's husband's brother, and with 7 hours a day by myself on a bike, I was presented with the opportunity to overthink a thing or two. One of the topics that came to pass that day was my own mortality. You can say what you want about the hobby to cycle around Europe in your days off, but it can hardly be sold as healthy. Many a car or truck in area's where the emancipation of two-wheeled carriers is still to take off, might mistake my panniers for a hit-me sign, and that would be that. The grim reaper drives a lorry.
I thought about what I would write in my will, and which of the things I owned would even be welcomed by those around me (I could see my brother's concerned frown when hearing the testamentary executioner read: “And all my books will go to my brother".. imagine all those trips to the paper bin or the local opp shop). I concluded that for the moment, those left with my earthly belongings would find a way. Later that day I heard about a Malaysian plane laving from Amsterdam having crashed.
The day after, people I would speak to in Poland would mention the accident. When the guy I was staying with (no internet) mentioned that 200 of the people in the plane were Dutch, there was a faint flicker of panic when I realised: I might know some of them. But the actuality took over, as my mother was burrying her brother-in-law. My thoughts were with her and the family.
Another half a day I cycled until I opened my email. There I found, between the updates about the crash that were sent by my newspaper, a message by my Amsterdam based basketball club with the heading: “A sad message”. Now I knew I knew someone. But with the message still closed, I could try to charm the truth. Schroedingers cat. The person in that message was, and wasn't anymore. There I sat, sweaty, greasy, in my unbecoming bike gear on and with my laptop in my hands on a Polish railway station, knowing and not knowing. All of this happened in a second.
I opened the message. The shitty internet connection of the Polish Railways made the message load slowly enough for me first to make out the name Laurens van der Graaff, before his picture confirmed the verdict. Fuck man. Laurens. What a shitty deal.
What I knew in that instant, but what will take me a few lines to explain here, was the intimate knowledge of this guy that years of playing and practicing at the same basketball club had built up. Playing in the 2nd team, Laurens was my direct adversary, as our 2nd and 3rd team play in the same league. Every season half ends with a derby, and Laurens had been posting against me in quite a few of those. But that wasn't all there was to remember in that instant. I knew about Laurens' ability to write beautifully, his sense of humor, and his presence at the club's social activities. Laurens was one of those guys that everyone likes, and who likes them back in return.
The defense mechanism I have encountered in a few other occasions kicked in straight away, and I frantically read the text again, trying to find a different meaning: it was someone who Laurens knew that was on the plane, anything but this. Even though I try to tell students in my cultural studies classes again and again that you can read a text differently and that there is not one meaning, reading the passage over and over, the message remained the same. The shocking detail that his girlfriend was with him started to do it's work. Fuck, fuck, fuck. The world is unfair.
Within a few clicks I was on Facebook. There I found the expected madness: post after post, some directed at Laurens, some directed at the other visitors of his page. Different in content but similar in outcome: ... it is impossible to fathom that our sweet friend, colleague, teacher, cousin, and friend is no longer alive... Jesus fuck, what a horrible situation. And there I sat, and I read and I read and I read.
And by reading, I learned. It is this experience in a case of mourning that I have so far found most distressing every time: it turns out there are so many details worth knowing about someone that suddenly come to light, at a time when it is too late to fully appreciate them, since that person has ceased to be.
It happened to me in the days after my friend and lover Krishna died in 2010, it happened when my good friend's girlfriend passed away in 2011 and it has happened in the last few days. And with Laurens the proof is going through the roof: even though I knew Laurens from a medium distance and harboured a heartfelt companionship, I have dealt myself a bad hand by not knowing him better, by not appreciating all those sides of him that now make up a bright three dimensional picture. And the tragedy of it burns: all of that potential has come to an unfair halt.
Laurens will be missed. He will be missed by me. He will be missed more by his direct team mates, and by the team he coached. He will be missed by his rowing friends, his students, his co-editors, his family. And all of them will miss him even more because of the evidence they give each other. In its final form, distance cristallizes the image of a person. And what an image it is.
When I read the gruesome details of Olaf Koen's report at the scene, the day after th crash, I became irritated with his use of words. He was mentioning 'bodies' and 'torn open stiffs' (lichamen en 'opengereten lijken'). These were words that did not fit the image that all those memories and odes of Laurens added up to. It stung, as it stung before in 2010: so much greatness in life, but in the end; a crushed body stuck in a car, a torn open stiff in an airplane seat.
So when the international tug of war about rebels, bodies, cooling wagons, identification teams and disaster investigators started taking centre stage, I had a hard time staying distanced. It was building into an anger that fed the pumping motion of my legs while riding. Those bodies were people. The main thing this should be about is the people whose lives were cut short. Let the image of Laurens' greatness shine bright next to the inexplicable tragedy of his passing. Let his unknown sides be narrated, shaped and shared and put on view for all those grieving.
This has not turned into a non-sentimental piece about the passing of a peer. But I can live with that.
I thought about what I would write in my will, and which of the things I owned would even be welcomed by those around me (I could see my brother's concerned frown when hearing the testamentary executioner read: “And all my books will go to my brother".. imagine all those trips to the paper bin or the local opp shop). I concluded that for the moment, those left with my earthly belongings would find a way. Later that day I heard about a Malaysian plane laving from Amsterdam having crashed.
The day after, people I would speak to in Poland would mention the accident. When the guy I was staying with (no internet) mentioned that 200 of the people in the plane were Dutch, there was a faint flicker of panic when I realised: I might know some of them. But the actuality took over, as my mother was burrying her brother-in-law. My thoughts were with her and the family.
Another half a day I cycled until I opened my email. There I found, between the updates about the crash that were sent by my newspaper, a message by my Amsterdam based basketball club with the heading: “A sad message”. Now I knew I knew someone. But with the message still closed, I could try to charm the truth. Schroedingers cat. The person in that message was, and wasn't anymore. There I sat, sweaty, greasy, in my unbecoming bike gear on and with my laptop in my hands on a Polish railway station, knowing and not knowing. All of this happened in a second.
I opened the message. The shitty internet connection of the Polish Railways made the message load slowly enough for me first to make out the name Laurens van der Graaff, before his picture confirmed the verdict. Fuck man. Laurens. What a shitty deal.
What I knew in that instant, but what will take me a few lines to explain here, was the intimate knowledge of this guy that years of playing and practicing at the same basketball club had built up. Playing in the 2nd team, Laurens was my direct adversary, as our 2nd and 3rd team play in the same league. Every season half ends with a derby, and Laurens had been posting against me in quite a few of those. But that wasn't all there was to remember in that instant. I knew about Laurens' ability to write beautifully, his sense of humor, and his presence at the club's social activities. Laurens was one of those guys that everyone likes, and who likes them back in return.
The defense mechanism I have encountered in a few other occasions kicked in straight away, and I frantically read the text again, trying to find a different meaning: it was someone who Laurens knew that was on the plane, anything but this. Even though I try to tell students in my cultural studies classes again and again that you can read a text differently and that there is not one meaning, reading the passage over and over, the message remained the same. The shocking detail that his girlfriend was with him started to do it's work. Fuck, fuck, fuck. The world is unfair.
Within a few clicks I was on Facebook. There I found the expected madness: post after post, some directed at Laurens, some directed at the other visitors of his page. Different in content but similar in outcome: ... it is impossible to fathom that our sweet friend, colleague, teacher, cousin, and friend is no longer alive... Jesus fuck, what a horrible situation. And there I sat, and I read and I read and I read.
And by reading, I learned. It is this experience in a case of mourning that I have so far found most distressing every time: it turns out there are so many details worth knowing about someone that suddenly come to light, at a time when it is too late to fully appreciate them, since that person has ceased to be.
It happened to me in the days after my friend and lover Krishna died in 2010, it happened when my good friend's girlfriend passed away in 2011 and it has happened in the last few days. And with Laurens the proof is going through the roof: even though I knew Laurens from a medium distance and harboured a heartfelt companionship, I have dealt myself a bad hand by not knowing him better, by not appreciating all those sides of him that now make up a bright three dimensional picture. And the tragedy of it burns: all of that potential has come to an unfair halt.
Laurens will be missed. He will be missed by me. He will be missed more by his direct team mates, and by the team he coached. He will be missed by his rowing friends, his students, his co-editors, his family. And all of them will miss him even more because of the evidence they give each other. In its final form, distance cristallizes the image of a person. And what an image it is.
When I read the gruesome details of Olaf Koen's report at the scene, the day after th crash, I became irritated with his use of words. He was mentioning 'bodies' and 'torn open stiffs' (lichamen en 'opengereten lijken'). These were words that did not fit the image that all those memories and odes of Laurens added up to. It stung, as it stung before in 2010: so much greatness in life, but in the end; a crushed body stuck in a car, a torn open stiff in an airplane seat.
So when the international tug of war about rebels, bodies, cooling wagons, identification teams and disaster investigators started taking centre stage, I had a hard time staying distanced. It was building into an anger that fed the pumping motion of my legs while riding. Those bodies were people. The main thing this should be about is the people whose lives were cut short. Let the image of Laurens' greatness shine bright next to the inexplicable tragedy of his passing. Let his unknown sides be narrated, shaped and shared and put on view for all those grieving.
This has not turned into a non-sentimental piece about the passing of a peer. But I can live with that.
Wednesday, 16 July 2014
Day 0: An Afternoon Walk in Gdansk
Every time I when I answer the question of why I am spending my holiday in Poland with a 'why not?', I am met with surprise. Here I will tell the story of how an afternoon walk through a residential area of Gdansk made me understand my own fascination a little better.
Behind my friend's house, a hill raises sharply. The path going up that hill led me onto a cemetery. Surrounded by a friendly anarchyof trees, the gravestones blinked in the afternoon sun. Black, marble and simple grey tones determined the scene. Because most of the people who pass away are froma bygone eras, gravestone styles are almost always a little outdated, even when they're new. A light uncomfortable feeling sprung up when I passed an elderly lady tending the plants around a grave: how do you respectfully hold a water bottle? She doesn't seem bothered by my presence.
As I took random turns, reading the names to myself, practicing pronounciation, the strong noise of heavy machinery pierced the air. It always strikes me that in former socialist countries, some municipal service will be set to destroy piece and quiet, and it seems that even this most annointed place presented no exception. Workmen drudged in a cloud of dust.
After another few turns through the rows of graves, I arrived at the chapel. The building was as classic as you can achieve with concrete as building material. At the top of the roof, flaked off plasterwork showed the skeleton of the construction in rusty red tones. The doors were open and judged from the small number of cars and the wheelchair parked at the door, the person being sent off has reached a respectable age.
I walked down the main lane to the official entrance. At the boomgate, the next party was waiting. This crowd was bigger, the men who were jovially greeting each other were younger: grey, but modernly dressed, holding silver wrapped lillies in their left hand and shaking hands with their right. Near the entrance two trucks with gravestones and cemetry benches were parked, each manned with a person sitting on a plastic green garden chair on the pavement. The commercial logic is unmissable; the stonemasons business is right here.
I crossed the street and entered a residential neighbourhood. Unlike some of the blocks of flats, this neigboorhood leaves me guessing of its origins: is it pre- or post '89? I provisionally decide the latter, as the extensions show a deviation from the usual box-like shapes and the window take up quite some wall space. The ornamental details of the cemetry are echoed in the barriers and railings of the houses.
I entered a small shop and bought a candy cigarette saying “Smoking is bad for your healt” for Maciej, who has a hard time staying away from tobacco. On the way back through the cemetery the two gravestone trucks were no longer manned and the chapel was locked. Halfway up the hill I'm met by a priest, hunched over, casually holding a bible in his hand, his drapery trailing after him in the strong wind.
I realize that I have a more complete answer on the question why I like visiting Poland than the 'why not'I have been giving out. I like visiting Poland because it has become dimensional to me. Many of the places I have visited have received a few days worth of attention before I moved on. These places are usually enjoyed and sometimes disliked at face value. In those cases I am aware of my limited experience: I know I have barely scratched the surface.
However, my liason with Poland has passed this initial phase. I see things I like, I see things I don't like, but the most satisfaction is derived from the complete picture I can form in my mind. And don't get me wrong: it is a very vague and basic picture. Yet the action of completing the puzzle is exciting and rewarding.
Behind my friend's house, a hill raises sharply. The path going up that hill led me onto a cemetery. Surrounded by a friendly anarchyof trees, the gravestones blinked in the afternoon sun. Black, marble and simple grey tones determined the scene. Because most of the people who pass away are froma bygone eras, gravestone styles are almost always a little outdated, even when they're new. A light uncomfortable feeling sprung up when I passed an elderly lady tending the plants around a grave: how do you respectfully hold a water bottle? She doesn't seem bothered by my presence.
As I took random turns, reading the names to myself, practicing pronounciation, the strong noise of heavy machinery pierced the air. It always strikes me that in former socialist countries, some municipal service will be set to destroy piece and quiet, and it seems that even this most annointed place presented no exception. Workmen drudged in a cloud of dust.
After another few turns through the rows of graves, I arrived at the chapel. The building was as classic as you can achieve with concrete as building material. At the top of the roof, flaked off plasterwork showed the skeleton of the construction in rusty red tones. The doors were open and judged from the small number of cars and the wheelchair parked at the door, the person being sent off has reached a respectable age.
I walked down the main lane to the official entrance. At the boomgate, the next party was waiting. This crowd was bigger, the men who were jovially greeting each other were younger: grey, but modernly dressed, holding silver wrapped lillies in their left hand and shaking hands with their right. Near the entrance two trucks with gravestones and cemetry benches were parked, each manned with a person sitting on a plastic green garden chair on the pavement. The commercial logic is unmissable; the stonemasons business is right here.
I crossed the street and entered a residential neighbourhood. Unlike some of the blocks of flats, this neigboorhood leaves me guessing of its origins: is it pre- or post '89? I provisionally decide the latter, as the extensions show a deviation from the usual box-like shapes and the window take up quite some wall space. The ornamental details of the cemetry are echoed in the barriers and railings of the houses.
I entered a small shop and bought a candy cigarette saying “Smoking is bad for your healt” for Maciej, who has a hard time staying away from tobacco. On the way back through the cemetery the two gravestone trucks were no longer manned and the chapel was locked. Halfway up the hill I'm met by a priest, hunched over, casually holding a bible in his hand, his drapery trailing after him in the strong wind.
I realize that I have a more complete answer on the question why I like visiting Poland than the 'why not'I have been giving out. I like visiting Poland because it has become dimensional to me. Many of the places I have visited have received a few days worth of attention before I moved on. These places are usually enjoyed and sometimes disliked at face value. In those cases I am aware of my limited experience: I know I have barely scratched the surface.
However, my liason with Poland has passed this initial phase. I see things I like, I see things I don't like, but the most satisfaction is derived from the complete picture I can form in my mind. And don't get me wrong: it is a very vague and basic picture. Yet the action of completing the puzzle is exciting and rewarding.
Wednesday, 9 July 2014
The Radio Reality of 7 to 1
In a time rife with imagery, a time of audiovisual bombardment, not watching a game of football - but listening to it instead - allowed for an ivestigation of my idea of reality.
As the eastbound Jan Kiepura night train snaked through a darkening Germany, I sat up in my seat rearranging the chord of my mobile phone, that was doubling as a radio antenna, trying to catch the first semi-final of the Football World Cup, broadcast live on the radio.
The signal would come and go, the rapid German grow and wane, but within a few minutes I could make out the words 'Tor' from the agitated German commentator, followed after a few crackles by the name 'Mueller'. I shared my excitement with some of my neighbours, most of them seamingly unimpressed. When a few minutes later another goal for Germany was anounced, a group of ticket inspectors was going over the seat arrangement in the isle next to me. I informed them about the sudden and unexpected second goal, but before I was done, another goal was announced, and then another one. 4-0 in the first half of a semi-final? Let's say that only happens very rarely.
But this happened to be one rare night at that, experiencing it through an increasinlgy rare medium made it all the more special.
I simply have never been used to the reality of radio: when Nelson Mandela was released from prison and when the planes hit the WTC I first heard it on the radio, but then I put the TV on to check whether it was true. The sight of that old man waving to the crowds, the images of those tumbling towers made it real.
So when Tony Kroos scored the fourth goal, it was as if the radio commentator sensed the growing disbelief of me and my fellow listeners. A few times he repeated that this was not some sort of satire or a joke, the reporters had not drank too amny Caiparinhas, Germany was beating the home team and.... DA KOMMEN SIE WIEDER, JA: TOR! FUENF ZU NULL! FUENF ZU NULL! DAS IST DOCH EINFACH UNGLAUBLICH! And there he captured my problem at hand; the scenario painted was simply so improbable that I had a hard time imagining it. I just didn't see it happen.
The situation my fellow radioless travellers found themselves in was even more uncertain: since I was the one listening to the radio via my earphones, I was relaying the broadcast message to the other people in the train. In the hierarchy of credibility, word of mouth is bottom rank. One of the ticket inspectors insisted to wear my earpiece for verification, while a second one asked me if their goalkeeper had scored one yet.
At the end of the match, WDR continued their broadcast for hours from a turbulent Belo Horizonte stadium and announced the match as football history. The presenter stressed that this was one of those events, along with the Kennedy shooting or the first steps on the moon, where people would ask one another: where were you when it happened? Since I haven't been able to see for myself the visual proof of a 7-1 semi-final I'm still not entirely convinced if it actually did happen, but when someday people will ask me where I was when it happened, I can say: I was in Oberhausen, Duisburg, Hagen, Dortmund, Hannover... and everywhere in between.
As the eastbound Jan Kiepura night train snaked through a darkening Germany, I sat up in my seat rearranging the chord of my mobile phone, that was doubling as a radio antenna, trying to catch the first semi-final of the Football World Cup, broadcast live on the radio.
The signal would come and go, the rapid German grow and wane, but within a few minutes I could make out the words 'Tor' from the agitated German commentator, followed after a few crackles by the name 'Mueller'. I shared my excitement with some of my neighbours, most of them seamingly unimpressed. When a few minutes later another goal for Germany was anounced, a group of ticket inspectors was going over the seat arrangement in the isle next to me. I informed them about the sudden and unexpected second goal, but before I was done, another goal was announced, and then another one. 4-0 in the first half of a semi-final? Let's say that only happens very rarely.
But this happened to be one rare night at that, experiencing it through an increasinlgy rare medium made it all the more special.
I simply have never been used to the reality of radio: when Nelson Mandela was released from prison and when the planes hit the WTC I first heard it on the radio, but then I put the TV on to check whether it was true. The sight of that old man waving to the crowds, the images of those tumbling towers made it real.
So when Tony Kroos scored the fourth goal, it was as if the radio commentator sensed the growing disbelief of me and my fellow listeners. A few times he repeated that this was not some sort of satire or a joke, the reporters had not drank too amny Caiparinhas, Germany was beating the home team and.... DA KOMMEN SIE WIEDER, JA: TOR! FUENF ZU NULL! FUENF ZU NULL! DAS IST DOCH EINFACH UNGLAUBLICH! And there he captured my problem at hand; the scenario painted was simply so improbable that I had a hard time imagining it. I just didn't see it happen.
The situation my fellow radioless travellers found themselves in was even more uncertain: since I was the one listening to the radio via my earphones, I was relaying the broadcast message to the other people in the train. In the hierarchy of credibility, word of mouth is bottom rank. One of the ticket inspectors insisted to wear my earpiece for verification, while a second one asked me if their goalkeeper had scored one yet.
At the end of the match, WDR continued their broadcast for hours from a turbulent Belo Horizonte stadium and announced the match as football history. The presenter stressed that this was one of those events, along with the Kennedy shooting or the first steps on the moon, where people would ask one another: where were you when it happened? Since I haven't been able to see for myself the visual proof of a 7-1 semi-final I'm still not entirely convinced if it actually did happen, but when someday people will ask me where I was when it happened, I can say: I was in Oberhausen, Duisburg, Hagen, Dortmund, Hannover... and everywhere in between.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
