Just me and Krakow.

This morning I said good-bye to Vova, Mihal, Bartek and Monika and departed for Krakow with Julie, Ala and Charles. Leaving the Wojewodzic family was a lot tougher than I ever imagined it would be. Though I've only known them for just over a week, we had a great time together and we all found ourselves holding back tears as I left. I miss them already!

Now that I'm here in Krakow, sitting in Hostel 7 on the beautiful main square, I actually find myself wishing I were back in Nowy Sacz. Sure, I was able to spend a fun afternoon here today with Julie, Ala and Charles walking around Kazimierz (the Jewish neighborhood) and seeing beautiful architecture... but now it's just me and Krakow for a day and half - and I have to say I'm lonely. Marc - where are you?

Tomorrow morning, I will venture out into this beautiful city to see more of the amazing architecture, meet other travelers, buy some Polish memorabilia, see some more synagogues and churches, and eat a few final Polish meals before I head home on Thursday. It's been a great trip! I have met some remarkable people along the way and I have been to some pretty crazy places. Now, I believe I'm quite ready to come home and start processing everything I learned. Just me and Krakow tomorrow and then on Thursday it's Boston, here I come!

Checking in before my last weekend in Poland.

This weekend will be my last here in Poland - for this trip, at least. Time has been passing by so fast. I can't believe that this time next week, I'll be home already! (Sad, really.) I'm not exactly sure what my plans will entail for the weekend - I am at the mercy of my host family, which has proven to be just fine so far. However on Tuesday, I will be traveling to Krakow to spend (my final) two days/nights exploring the town. I have managed to coordinate my schedule perfectly so that I will be in town for the Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow! This means I will get to attend different concerts and exhibits, as well as a workshop or two - maybe on Jewish cooking, or Hasidic dancing, or paper cutting... Or maybe I'll simply wander around the town and enjoy the sites. It sounds like it will be a peaceful and reflective ending to a busy trip.

Of course, there are so many observations I still have yet to put down in blog format, so I hope you all will continue to check this site even after I return home. In the meantime, I just wanted to say have a good weekend, whether you are in Japan visiting Hiroshima (and your husband/wife to be), or Vancouver celebrating a 30th wedding anniversary, or in Tennessee visiting schools, or lounging around at home enjoying the summer weather. Have a good one!

My host family.

The Wojewodzic family quickly has become my Polish family. Monica and Vova (pictured here with me in Krynitsa) are both about forty years old and have their own business - making and selling designer bags. Evidently, this is the real deal. They have their own factory and designers and sell their products all over Europe. I am expecting to take a tour of their office and factory before I leave. They even have a website, which I will post under the links tomorrow. (It seems I wrote down the wrong website this morning.) The two of them work very hard every day to provide a nice home for their boys. Monica says she believes they are different from many Polish families in that they have a rigorous schedule (working from 8am to 6 or 7pm everyday) which means that they do not spend tons of time together as a family during the week. But they do sit down every morning and evening together to share a meal. This is a lot more than many American families can say!

Their home (to the right) is situated just outside downtown Nowy Sacz. It is beautiful - and it was designed by Monica and Vova over many years. It is a completely open space with no walls separating any of the rooms on the first floor, except the hallway, closets and bathroom. Upstairs, there are 4 bedrooms, plus 2 bathrooms. It is very comfortable here - to the point of making me feel as though I'm on vacation somewhere far away from Poland. They have a decent sized yard with a large pond, hammock and barbecue pit. Do I have to come home?

Monica and Vova have been very kind and gracious since I arrived last Friday. Monica's English skills are limited, but we have been able to find a way to get across all important ideas. And she surprises me with certain words sometimes like "grave" and "stain." They just seem like unusual words to me. Anyway - we get along so well that stayed up until midnight my first night just talking about life and the many differences between life in the US and life in Poland. This is our most popular topic of conversation.

The boys, Bartek and Mihal, have been great, too. Bartek has been at school most days, so I have limited interaction with him. He's also a 16 year old boy who is anxiously awaiting summer break, so he's off with his friends a lot. Mihal is a wonderful young man who is getting ready to head off to the university in Krakow next fall. He has been a great help transporting me everywhere, showing me different sites and serving as translator between me and Vova. Vova speaks no English and a lot of Russian and Polish, while I speak a lot of English and minimal Russian and no Polish whatsoever. It is difficult living here for these 2 weeks knowing that I came here with little interest in learning Polish. Monica and Vova knew the situation (that I only speak English) before agreeing to take me in, but I can't help but feel as though I am being disrespectful for not trying to learn more Polish. I have been making an effort lately to learn phrases and words, but I think my brain is just so full of information that I hardly retain anything for long.

Despite the language issue, we have been having a great time together these past few days and I am looking forward to the next week. Maybe we will get to go out for ice cream again tonight?

Village - the beginning of the journey.

On Friday, June 1, we arrived in Vidin, Bulgaria - our first destination. It took us 2 days to get there by car - and I must say we saw many amazing sites and met some true characters along the way. During the drive, we stopped to visit different villages and cities in Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria where former synagogues still stand - some in a better state of repair than others. In Subotica, Serbia, we spent our first night of the journey in a brand new hotel in the city center. It was so new that no one in town even knew it existed. (Mind you, it is situated on the main pedestrian square in the center of town.) There, we met with a group of budding activists who wanted to learn more about the Polish Solidarity movement of the late 1980s. The next morning, we continued our journey and saw more synagogues and sites, mostly churches and municipal buildings. That second evening, we stayed in a roadside hotel connected to a gas station in a village called Svrlig, still in Serbia. Gordana, Chedo and Gaga, partners of MTO, warmly welcomed us into their home for dinner and a long discussion of the irrational processes and procedures related to receiving grant funding from the EU. The following afternoon, we reached our destination - Vidin. Can you believe that we bypassed both Belgrade, Serbia and Budapest, Hungary in order to arrive in Bulgaria on time? I guess that means I'll have to come back at some point to explore these places.

OK. So - to the point of this post...

On Saturday, June 2, we began our workshop - the Village Project. As I have mentioned before, Village is a kind of curriculum that encourages democracy, civic participation and social responsibility. It is intended to be carried out by children ages 8-12. In Vidin, we conducted a very basic workshop on this program with 12 Serbs, 12 Bulgarians and 2 Moldovans - all educators - with the idea that they would take the information back home and implement the program in their schools. Village Project is a dynamic event with unique aspects that depend very much on the interest and motivation of the group of participants. Therefore, it is difficult to describe the project in concrete terms, but I will do my best to give you the overview (see link for more details).

During Village Project, the group of participants actually physically builds a village from scratch, but everything is done on a scale of 1:25, which means that it's miniature and there is a lot of math involved (YUCK!). Each person or "peep," the name of the being that lives in the village, receives a plot of land on which to build a home - and then you build your home with the craft materials provided. Just imagine 26 adults in a room making small houses out of cardboard, paint, paper and glue over the course of 8 days. It was a remarkable sight. Some of them took the task very seriously and considered every last detail down to the leaves, stones, and roof tiles. But, alas, this is not the point of the project.

The brilliant idea behind Village is that once you have done all that you can do on your private property, you start to think about the village as a whole, and different questions start to arise. Will there be any public buildings in the village? If so, where will they be located? And who will build them? How will the community make decisions about these things? Will we have a system of governance? What will it look like? Who will be in charge? How will we determine who will be in charge? Will each peep have responsibilities? Jobs? As these questions arise, the peeps come together to discuss issues and make decisions. Sometimes good decisions are made and everyone is happy, while at other times poor decisions are made that frustrate the village citizens. So - then the meetings and conversations continue... It is a very hands-on way of teaching children (and adults, too) about government and the common good.

Because we only had 8 days to implement the project, it was difficult to take people away from building their homes and to get them to recognize the issues that make the Village Project such a useful tool. Another MAJOR obstacle we encountered was language. The workshop was conducted mostly in English, but many of the participants did not speak English. Some translation was needed into Bulgarian, Serbian and Romanian, which took up a lot of time. Despite this, the project was well received by the participants and the community of Vidin. The local media came to document the final ceremony and to see our village, Oaza ("Oasis"). I also spoke to many participants who already were thinking of ways to implement the program in their schools.

It was a great experience for me to see the project in action, and to debrief with Julie, Ala and various participants each day. Through those conversations, some participants were able to work through the finer points of the project and gain a deeper understanding of the possible impact that this curriculum could have on children. If even ten percent of the program participants take what they have learned back to their schools, then we have the possibility of teaching thousands of children in the region about some very important issues. I have received e-mail addresses from many participants, such as Holly from Vidin, Milan from Svirlig, and, of course, Galina and Mariana from Cahul - and I hope to remain in contact with them throughout the year to learn about the successes and challenges of the Village Project in their communities.

I'm back!

My whirlwind tour of Eastern Europe is over - I'm back in Nowy Sacz. On Friday morning just after midnight we returned after about two weeks of workshops and driving - I will write more about this in a later post. Now, I am living with an amazing host family, the Wojewodzics (Vohevodich) - Vova (dad), Monica (mom), Mihal (19) and Bartek (16). They have a gorgeous home just outside downtown Nowy Sacz, and I already feel quite at home here. We stayed up until midnight last night just talking about life. I am looking forward to a great few weeks with them.

This weekend, I expect to spend time resting and seeing different sights. Internet time is limited at home, so I will not write much from here. But I will check back in during the week.