Little Town

I could live here :)

My language levels:

• English: first spoken language
• Spanish: imperfect fluency
• Polish: basic survival 
• Finnish & Indonesian: I forgot most of what I knew
• German: Danke! (that’s it—that’s all I know)
• The-language-spoken-when-you-don’t-know-the-language: fluent

I arrived in the Warsaw Airport, and for the first time in a long time, my breath caught in my throat—and not in a good way. In Indonesia, I was in a group; in Chile, my host family greeted me; in Germany, Lisa picked me up; in Finland, my sister was there. In Poland? I had to find my way to a house in the suburbs of a little town two hours away, using public transport; without google translate; without google maps or any navigational app; with the most BASIC Polish, in a country where only 30% of people speak english (which is a lot compared to other languages, but still). 

Sorry, train tracks pretty much look the same everywhere.

Context: AT&T—that JERK—charges $12/day for international service AND locked my phone so I can’t use any esims. In other words? I can only use my phone when I have wifi.

Survival skills:

• Non-ASL sign language a.k.a. pointing
• Looking not-dangerous
• Decent inner compass
• Asking for help

No matter how much of the world I see, I can’t help but believe “there are good people everywhere.”

At one point, I asked a lady on a bench where/when I could find my next train “Przepraszam (sorry)”, points to map, “Name of city?” She jumps up and points to the train on the next platform, across the rails. She spoke rapid polish and ushered me to the tunnel under the rails, saying “Szybko! Szybko!” which I figured was “HURRY!!!” (I was right). I ran with my luggage down and up the stairs to the other platform. I reached the surface, heart beating, just as the train pulled away. Ughhhhhh.

Welppppppp, I tried. After reading a sign that said my next train would be in 30 min, I found a bench and sat down. A couple minutes later, a woman comes up to me, pointing at a sign and speaking more gibberish. I smiled awkwardly, “Przepraszam, nie mówie po polsku (sorry, I don’t speak polish).” She looked at me skeptically (like she didn’t believe me?!?!?) and pointed again to the yellow warning sign. Long story short: the woman was Ukrainian and didn’t speak very good Polish either. The sign said that if you touch something, the electric shock will kill you. To test my theory that it was the rails (that I pointed to), I touched the metal structural beam next to me, and she batted me away from the beam, laughing, saying something with “nie (no)” and “eksperyment (experiment)”! Like this, we kept trying (and sometimes succeeding) to communicate. I may have missed my train, but I made a friend. We hugged goodbye when her train came. We could have traded contact info, but there’s something about knowing that you’ll never see someone again—it makes the time with them all the more special.

Anyway, I freaking did it. From Minneapolis, I took 3 planes, 3 trains, and a bus to a house in Polish suburbia. That’s 100% public transit—where a thousand ways things could have gone haywire—yet I arrived at the volunteer lodging at a lovely 2 pm.

Right pic: my room. The bed turns into a couch, and I just shove all the sheets, pillows, and clothes in drawers and BOOM. Classroom.

Thank you for reading! Bee kind ♥️