Everybody’s Related to Aliens

It turns out that more English is spoken in Krakow than in the Polish section of Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago. Since I want to learn Polish, I try my best to pretend I’m Polish so people won’t speak to me in English. But when I say things that roughly translate to “Please, a table to the first person,” it’s not surprising that waiters in the more touristy sections of town switch to a language which they know better than I know Polish.

I can honestly say that I’m getting what I paid for at Glossa, my language school. Polish is a hard language, hard as Latin probably, and it’s not unusual for me to begin a sentence at noon and finish the same sentence at ten past. Most folks will give up on me within that time, but when you pay someone to speak to you in Polish, they tend to be a whole lot more patient. Glossa, as a good language school should, insists on never speaking English unless absolutely necessary.

My host family and I know very few words in common. I believe this is a good thing because, like Manuel the Spanish waiter in Fawlty Towers, my broken and confused Polish provides a constant source of amusement. Only, like Manuel, I’m the one who never really quite understands what’s going on, and like John Cleese’s character, they probably suffer from some very real frustration. But since I don’t really know Polish, I’m off the hook.

Like a foreign language comedy, I’m not really sure why people are laughing when they are laughing, but it might look something like this:

“What do you like on your bread?”
“Yes!”

“Are you feeling any better?”
“Yes, the rice is good!”

Oh well.

Trains are technically part of a journey, not the destination, but even so they can be one of the high points of a trip. Or one of the low points.

Polish trains are typically made up of closed compartments with four seats each on either side. This enables an intimate and private journey with your family or a group of friends, provided you have exactly eight in your group. If you’ve got less than eight, then your fortune will be assigned by chance.

Given that I had only slept one hour the night before, I was pleased that I only had one other person in my compartment, a sleepy looking middle-aged Polish-looking woman. My assessment of her was correct- she was asleep in no time. I was hungry and wanted to snack on rice cakes, and so I crunched on the cakes as quietly as possible. Despite my best efforts, she lifted a tired eye open. I refined my silent crunching technique, and soon she was back asleep. And then there was sleep for me.

Next thing I knew we were both startled awake. It was my wind-up alarm clock. I apologized profusely, and we both slipped back asleep. And then…

Our compartment was abruptly thrust open by an imposing woman with booming voice. I had no idea what she was going on about, but I looked at my compartment companion and she nodded okay. So we had a new neighbor. This new neighbor didn’t know anything about needing sleep, and so there would be no sleep for any of us. She stood up in middle of the compartment and brushed her hair, stray hairs landing on the book I was trying to read. Not having a common spoken language, I resorted to sighs, surreptitious dirty looks, and eye rolling. Come to think of it, I would’ve done exactly the same even if there was a common language.

I was still busy judging my compartment companions and pretending to read my book when my new neighbor asked me if I spoke English. Then she made some comment about how I looked exactly like another American that she knew, and that she didn’t realize that all Americans looked alike. News to me. From there, the conversation actually got a little better. It turns out she was a Belarusian literature reviewer (I didn’t know they had such things), which I have to admit is a pretty interesting job. I tried to get a list of recommended Belarussian authors, but sadly no one has been translated into English. Well, that’s more than I would have figured out by rolling my eyes and sighing.

Then I transferred to the next train, and found the first open space, in a compartment next to a couple of unshaven smokers. They spoke only Polish and German, but the older one showed infinite patience and extensive curiosity. He wanted to know: Why was I in Poland? Was I there to steal their beautiful women? Why did I visit in the winter? What textbook was I using to learn Polish? Thoughtful enough to speak Polish to me as if I was a mentally delayed five year old, he was the first Polish person I could understand. It turns out he was a grade school teacher.

Approach to P&#322ock by Train

Still high from my discovery of the thriving and innovative jazz scene in Krakow, I was hoping to find at least a little of the same in downtown P&#322ock (pronounced “Pwotsk”). I walked by the one reputed music club in the main square, but it sounded like ska, which I might never be in the mood for. So I walked across the street to a promising looking club with a Russian flag, and asked the first person I saw where I could find jazz. On this street, he answered sluggishly, as if the weight of the entire world was on his shoulders.

Further down the street I heard some vaguely organized sound coming from this coffee shop with a sad-looking half-deflated plastic cat hanging from the balcony. It was just some very amateurish blues band, so I continued on.

I got past the “liveliest” part of town, turned down a few brightly lit but abandoned streets, past a cemetery, and found a place with a “Zywiec” sign. Zywiec is Poland’s second biggest beer export, and seems to be king in much of Poland. Shyly I found a spot at the small bar next to rascally looking types and a bartender who seemed to be counting the days to retirement even though they numbered in six figures.

Anyway, I resorted to my standard icebreaker- an explanation that I didn’t know Polish very well. They didn’t know a word of English, so we had something big in common- the lack of a common language. I found I was able to communicate about my reason for being in Poland, my search for my family, my time at the language school, etc, and one of the guys eagerly continued to ask questions, some of which I understood. Like others before, they were suspicious I was in Poland to find a Polish girl to marry, apparently a popular motive of budget-minded British in one of the most affordable regions of Eastern Europe. The other guy, a fellow with tinted glasses and a cane, was speaking to me at turbo speed, and I didn’t understand too much. He just didn’t believe that I could speak some Polish but not understand him. This made him pace across the floor, angrily.

Being a beginner in a language really makes it easy to be self-centered. With just a thousand or so words, it’s much easier to speak than to understand. You can express yourself clearly in general terms about a couple of topics that you care deeply about, or express complex ideas using simple words. Conveniently, you don’t know everyone else’s vocabulary, and so really have little chance of understanding them…

After some time, even I got sick of hearing me talk about myself, so I left the bar and moved on to another activity that doesn’t depend on language skills. Sleep.

Weary-eyed from a night of not sleeping all that well and flipping through channels of Polish-language A-Team and a Wheel of Fortune episode with an obvious answer like “a jednak sie kieci”, I made my way to my breakfast.

Everything was going well as I plowed through bowls of cornflakes, a heaping plate of sausage, bread, cheese, hardboiled eggs, and something I had taken from the buffet line but on further consideration was deathly afraid to eat (jello with vegetables in it?). And then, a man who looked like a retired NFL player burst into the room. “Dzien dobry (good day),” he said, and I didn’t answer because my mouth was full, and then “fdas jaksldfj asdjkg asdjgkl” (or something else in Polish) and next thing I knew he wanted my key. I got the sense that my good times were coming to an end when he was joined by another figure of similar build, who nodded in agreement. Then he went on about how breakfast cost 20 zlotys. This should not have been a problem, because I already paid for it. I explained this to him, and he didn’t seem to believe me, so I ran upstairs. He must have ran after me, because he was already at my door when i was rummaging for my receipts. Anyway, after some more confusion, I brought the receipts down to the front desk, confirmed that I had paid, and that was that. No apologies or nothing, but at least my life was spared, so i guess i should be thankful? I may never really be sure.

Last night I walked by a “duchowne” building the night before, and forgetting to learn what a duchowne was, I didn’t think anything of it. This morning I went to the historical society of the diocese, and asked the museum director where I could find the church archives. The director, dressed like a pastor, exhibited pastorial patience.

“Sit down,” he told me in Polish, as he wrote out the name and the address of the diocesian archive on a slip of paper.

“Stand up,” he told me, just as I was sitting down. I looked at the slip of paper, and it turned out that the archive was in the “duchowne”.

I walked across town to the duchowne. The curator opened the door, I tripped over a few Polish words, and she told me to step inside to help me relax. I wrote down some info, and she came back with a hefty tome.

I was overwhelmed. Not only was the handwriting illegible, it was in cyrillic. I had heard before that archives were switched to the Russian language in 1868, but had conveniently not had time to study cyrillic before my trip. This was completely incomprehensible!

I was staring off into space and thinking about how I would have to settle for just partying the rest of my time in Poland, as is proper for a vacationer. I could see Poznan, I could visit Gdansk! Just then another researcher asked me if I wanted help. His command of English spanned all of about 15 words, but they were all key genealogical terms, and he was able to find the record of my great grandfather’s birth. I literally had to stare at the strange cyrillic code for a good two hours before I began to find the patterns and locate siblings of my great grandfather. What looked like an “ir” was actually an “l”, what looked like a “b” was actually a “w”, and what looked like “@” was an “s”. And the female names had a different ending. Some progress…

My second stop was at the national archives, where I met a man who at first looked like he was too busy coping with a hangover to be of any help to me let alone to himself. Fortunately, what I thought was a debilitating migraine was just intense concentration. The man proved to be extremely helpful and patient, lecturing me for at least ten minutes straight at one point about the challenges of Polish genealogical research, even after I had explained that I didn’t understand much Polish. I had felt enormous guilt at having him haul out some 30 tomes for me. But the archival office had its revenge- following office protocol, the archivist insisted that I fill out and sign a small form for each of the 30 tomes I had reviewed- even the ones in which I didn’t find anything. Okay, if I had known, would I really have wanted to look in all those books? Such are the hardships of genealogical research…

Miscommunicating in my new language is an ongoing adventure. Waiters and waitresses are usually patient as I read the menu with a dictionary at my side. Others deliver their finest monologues in Polish, sometimes not noticing my vacant look of incomprehension until 20 minutes later when they are done. Sometimes they never notice, and just think I am very shy. This “shyness” ploy works very well in English, for that matter.

When I first arrived, one of my most useful phrases was “nie rozumiem” (I don’t understand); often I’d just say “nie rozumiem po polsku” (i don’t understand polish) and then they’d usually just give up altogether. After a week or so of classes and with some confidence, I threw in a “rozumiem” (I understand) once in a while for every few “rozumiems”. But experience has hardened me, and made me realize that understanding 75% of what someone is saying very often leads to disastrous miscommunications. So, today, I have adopted my new Polish phrase, “rozumiem, może” (I understand, maybe).

In summary, my speaking “style” in Polish, if I have one, is to say “nie rozumiem,” “rozumiem,” “rozumiem, może,” and occasionally another word or two of Polish thrown in here and there just for style.

Very often, I lack the benefit of ever really knowing what a miscommunication is about. There was more reliable feedback during my Polish classes in Krakow and Chicago. For example, I was told to write a letter to a friend, following a model in our workbook. In the workbook, the sample letter seemed to say something like “Hello dear friend, it’s warm here in Greece.” I made my own version, hoping to say, “Hello dear friend, it’s cold here in Krakow.” My teacher was there to tell me, no, that wasn’t right. The workbook example translated as “Hello dear friend, warmly, from Greece,” and my version was “Hello dear friend, coldly, from Krakow.”

Here in Płock, my great grandfather’s homeland, there’s not a whole lot of English spoken. I love this because it gives me real practice in Polish. Very often, people are friendly and patient. Very often, though, I get a glimpse at the hardships of life as an immigrant. Maybe these are some of the same challenges that Ignacy faced. Sometimes, incomprehension can be a convenience, such as today when I wandered around a government building and opened some door I wasn’t supposed to, blissfully ignorant of what I presumed to be a stream of Polish profanities that followed.

Searching for any clue I can find to my family history, I request several tomes of parish and civil records at a time. The search is seemingly endless, but it’s still exciting trying to deciper patterns through incomprehensible cyrillic and quasi-comprensible Polish to pick up key words and phrases such as ages and places of birth. The poor archivists have the hard part- they need to take my requests, trudge up and down stairs to get my requested volumes (I scanned through some 30 books today), and worse yet need to sign and date a form for every book that I look at. I do feel some guilt, but what am I to do? At the state archives, the desk clerk was busily transcribing an old volume with crumbling pages, with pen and ink to a new blank notebook. At least I gave him a break from one tedious task to another.

For the researcher, though, the process is anything but tedious. I took a gamble today (the only negative consequence would be the diminishing strength of the poor archivist’s back) and decided to look at parish records for a parish neighboring the one where my great grandfather was born. Jackpot. Page 1, record 1, was an unknown sister of my great great grandfather, and with this record, mention of a great great great grandfather. Another 25 years back in history, and now I can trace my family back to 1825.

This search could go on forever, though presumably the discoveries would be fewer and farther between with time. But tomorrow, I will finally look for something a little more tangible than a record on paper. I will visit the tiny village which my great grandfather left behind some 100 years ago, and where today there is still a family by the same name.

Maybe they’ll run. Maybe they’ll bring out a bottle of vodka. Maybe they’ll take all my belongings and tell me to go back to America. There’s only one way to know.

Any time my alarm clock goes off at some ungodly hour when it is still dark, the first thing that comes to my mind is “what the hell was I thinking?” The same was true this day, only doubly so, because I was wandering off to an unknown village in the middle of a foreign country where I had little reason to expect anything more than frustrating miscommunication. But this was to be the culmination of months of family history research and a few weeks of Polish study, and at the very least I wanted to come back with a story.

The beginning of the trip was ominous. I waited at the freezing bus station for half an hour in the dark, wondering if I misunderstood the instructions for where to wait for my bus. But then the bus rolled in, late as it was, and I was on my way to Staroźreby. It was only then that I decided to look at my map, and noticed that my destination was some 7 miles from Staroźreby, and I would have to walk there. This was something I decided to do weeks ago, when it was still pretty nice outside. When I got to the Staroźreby station, which turned out to be little more than a concrete shelter, things seemed even more ominous. I double and triple checked the bus timetables to ensure I could in fact get back and not end up like the frosted plastic water bottles littering the side of the road. And then, my first steps through town were accompanied by a chorus of barking dogs.

The walk was beautiful; the sun was rising and a faint mist was rising from the icy road in the midst of pure farm country. Because there are few roads and many signs, I had little trouble finding my way to the village. Just as I had arrived in this tiny village, I walked by a woman with a shopping bag. “Do you know where this family lives?” “Yes, second house” Now that’s the kind of Polish communication I can handle.

I walked in front of this second house, which was a gated home with a vast farm for a backyard. I waited in front of the gate until the chorus of barking dogs and clucking chickens reached a crescendo. This is the rural Polish equivalent of a “doorbell.” Just then, an elderly but agile man shuffled out of a barn, yelling something I didn’t understand. I mentioned something about being a relative, and he said, yes, they had received a letter from me a week ago, and he directed me inside their home. Inside was an elderly woman, a bit younger and more agile. Above a coal-powered stove was a pot with two chicken feet sticking out.

Neither spoke a word of English, but apparently, they understood my letter, which my Polish teacher in Krakow had helped me to write in perfect Polish grammar. I tried to share with them my latest research, and the two of them began throwing out Polish dates and years as if they were brainstorming a connection. Yes, their relative Józef must be my great grandfather Ignacy’s brother. But, I wasn’t clear how, and couldn’t even figure out if my two hosts were married to each other or were brother and sister. Why was the woman’s phone number the one in the phone book? As we attempted communication, the matriarch insisted that I have some herbata (tea), some bread and bacon, another herbata, an apple, and a bowl of soup. And then some chocolate crackers. And then another apple (good for teeth!). And then another herbata and a donut.

There was some intermittent success with communication. And there was a whole lot more confusion. The matriarch was remarkably patient and seemingly very sharp. She insisted that I take my time and write my questions and comments in Polish, using my English dictionary. The man of the house seemed to be yelling at me the whole time, but I felt better when he explained that he was just hard of hearing. He was a farmer, grew potatoes and rye, and kept bees (i think)- different enough from me that I’d be proud to be related to him.

But it turned out I’m not related to him…

Just then, a much younger women came in the house. This was their granddaughter, my third cousin, apparently. And then later two more- a man with a mustache and a woman a bit older than me, and later a teenage boy. I was hopelessly confused after the initial introductions. However, although no one spoke a word of English, their daughter had a remarkable ability to communicate simply and clearly, which transcended language barriers. So this elderly couple were not my relatives, after all, they were live-in in-laws of my relatives! In the end it turns out I was directly to three of the other four. Two third cousins, and a third uncle. Now that’s cleared up- almost. I don’t have a birth record proving Ignacy and Jozef were brothers, but the village was too small for us not to be related…

I shared with them a motley collection of gifts- a bar of chocolate, a Chicago shot glass (to represent my home), and a Boston Red Sox hat (to represent my birth). And, I promised that if they came to Chicago I would make them drink five herbatas to get them back. They told me they wanted me to write again, and that next time I should visit them in the summer. Success?

My last day in Płock, I returned to the state archives one last time, looking for absolute evidence that I was in fact related to the strangers from Piączyn. The archivist seemed happy to see me back and tried to shake my hand, but I had misread and thought he was reaching for my pen. I ended up stabbing him in the hand with my pen. Such miscommunications transcend all language.

Sifting through the parish birth records one last time, I found another kind of miscommunication, this one over a century old. My great grandfather did have a brother Józef after all- his name had been misspelled in Cyrillic. So we were related, after all.

Before catching a bus to Warsaw, I celebrated the week’s findings the only way I knew how- with a return to my favorite restaurant, Tessa. I ordered a pork chop with surówka, a tasty salad based on red pepper and cabbage. Indecisive between a coffee and a beer, I chose both. Another meal alone, but this time I had the Polish version of MTV. This featured mostly American videos, but with Polish text messages submitted by lovers. For all Płock lacked in a jazz scene, it made up for in excellent food and televisions.

To be honest, I had dreaded having to face three weeks of Polish food. Like most other travelers, I found pierogies to be the most accessible cuisine, and borscht (barszcz) to be tolerable, but was expecting a bland meat- and potato- heavy diet. Turns out I was very wrong.

Żurek, a rye-based soup with sausage and whole hardboiled egg, turned out to be one of my favorites. This is certainly not for vegetarians, but I did discover another soup, ogórek, based on sour pickles, dill, and potatoes, that was wonderful. One place in Płock featured naleśnik, a pancake filled with just about anything and covered with your choice of tomato or garlic sauce. The tomato sauce was excellent, including basil and other Italian spices. The Polish are crazy about mushrooms, and typically distinguish between several different kinds of mushrooms (including pieczarka, a favorite). Polish pizza can be very good, although interestingly, the sauce often comes in a teapot and you have to add it yourself. One of my favorite restaurants in Kraków served only pierogies, but about 30 variations. The “Mexican” pierogi was the best, though I’m still not exactly sure what all was inside it. In Warsaw, food was about as eclectic and good as anywhere else in the world.

In short, this is a perfect diet for a genealogist, student, or tourist.