Home Outside Home

Judy. Ted’s already told you about the “A guest in the house is God in the house” way of thinking in Poland. Let me tell you it extends far beyond the house. As in many Slavic countries, hospitality is a way of life.

Robert’s parents, Roman and Barbara, were in their country home for a week, so our home for our visit in Bialystok was their apartment there. What a joy to spread out and make ourselves comfortable! They stocked the refrigerator with homemade pickles and jams, and there were new bags of both coffee and tea. Behind the building is a small grocery store, so if we needed something, it was easy to buy it. Not that we ate much more than breakfast there. Ted’s already told you about the food we ate.

We were guests at several high school English classes. Karolina, Robert’s sister and a guest in our home some years ago, had us speak to classes at the private school where she teaches, and Ania, Robert’s wife, to three classes at the public school where she teaches. The students of English spoke well and asked informed questions, and Ania’s Polish literature students had a fun time with us talking about body language and playing a type of charades. We were given a book, hugs, and high fives as we finished, as well as great memories. Helena’s class, if you are following the blog, Hi to all of you!

Ania's Polish Lit class

Karolina's group

Helena's class

Goodbye hugs and high fives

Ania took me to her Bollywood dance classes—she actually leads a group of dancers who perform regularly. If you’re on Facebook, check out Bollywood Bialystok RANG to see some of their work. The core dancers helped Ania teach us six new students, and we all had a fantastic time. These ladies are so graceful!

Ania's to the left of me. Can you guess the newbies?

Piotr and Michael, Ania and Robert’s sons, took an afternoon off from school to show us around Bialystok, where we discovered the museum of Esperanto, museum of Siberia, and a stunning new Opera House. This place has grown!

Piotr & Michal, best tour guides in Bialystok!

As he did seventeen years ago, Robert took us to Wysokie Mazowieckie, where Ted’s grandmother was born and grew up. There’s been quite a change in all those years—we hardly recognized the little village we visited before. We took candles to the cemetery to honor Ted’s grandparents, and were reminded that All Saint’s Day in Poland and Day of the Dead in Mexico have many of the same traditions: candles and flowers on freshly-scrubbed graves, and visits on that evening to honor their loved ones.

A special moment was a visit to the train station where Grandma began her journey to Chicago.

Beginning of a long trip

Barbara and Roman welcomed us to their country home with food and good friends who toasted us long into the night. Barbara took us for a walk the next morning, and after Mass at the church where Roman grew up, they showed us the graves of his family and let us take part in placing the candles there. They even gave Ted an extra to put on the grave of Fr. Sokolowski, who may or may not have been part of the family.

Ted & Fr. Sokolowski

Robert, Damian, and me

On our return to Bialystok, we were invited by Robert’s friend Damian for a tour of the Opera House. Damian is general manager/producer, so we had the run of the place, even during the performance of DOCTOR ZHIVAGO! First we visited the roof garden, with stunning views of the city, then Damien took us to the catwalk in the flies to see the opening number, to the dressing room area (they have a cafe for the actors!), and into the theatre to see two of the production numbers. It was quite a lagniappe, an evening I won’t soon forget.

View from the roof of the Opera House

Bu wait! There’s more!  When we returned to Warsaw, a family we met in Cambodia—yep, Monica, Andrej, and Gabi from the boat tour—picked us up at our hotel and took us to a traditional Polish restaurant for a delicious dinner and the chance to get caught up travels all five of us have experienced. Monica has been following the blog and saw we were in Warsaw, so they contacted us, which made for a fantastic evening.

Monica, Gabi, Ted, me, and Andrej

Yep, we were treated royally, and feel we have family and good friends in Poland.