Language Barrier

Ever since coming to Australia at the beginning of 1996, I have always seen English as foreign to me. I clearly remember my first day at Elermore Vale Primary School where I had to say “I don't know how to speak English” to people so that they wouldn't think I was strange when I didn't answer them because I didn't understand what they were saying to me. I also remember going to a shop wanting to buy eggs for my aunt and coming back with the wrong change because I didn't know how to tell the man that he didn't give me enough, and then getting in trouble for it. Even today I keep being teased because of my accent or for pronouncing a word with the wrong intonation, like the time when my boss at work thought I said “A freaking child” instead of “African child”. The situation was funny, and I laugh at it, but in my mind situations like these kept reinforcing that English was foreign to me.

My early experiences with English have played a huge part in helping to mould me into the type of person that I am. When I first came to Australia, I felt that most of my experiences with English were negative. I felt that every time that I would open my mouth I would either say the wrong thing or would keep being corrected. I would try to avoid it by simply listening to people in conversations instead of participating. Even to this very day I feel that when I'm in a group I'm too self-conscious to talk or to make conversation for the fear of people making fun of me.

And now, 15 years later, I feel exactly the same.

My native language, the language that I once felt comfortable with, has now become foreign to me. I've always seen Polish language as central to where I am from and who I am, yet over the last few weeks I have struggled to come to terms with the fact that English has now replaced the role that Polish has played in shaping my identity.

I now no longer think in Polish but in English, I structure my sentences in English, my unconscious response is to answer in English, I do everything in English so now having to speak Polish all the time is an effort and a source of many frustrations. My sentences no longer sound right, I can no longer find the right words, and I no longer use words that are current. Like yesterday for example, I used the word “frajda” which meant “something fun” when I lived in Poland but as I was informed by my cousins that word hasn't been used for over 10 years and so I just look old-school using it. Instead I need to use the word “bajer”, which means the same thing but is “way cooler”.

For me this element of acclimatisation has been difficult, it has also been frustrating having people correct me all the time. In Australia I have been the one correcting people, checking spelling, grammar and so forth, while now others are doing it to me but on a larger scale. I feel like a kid again. I feel like once again I need to learn how to read and write, which for me professionally and personally is a bit condescending, but I'm trying to get used to it and learn as much as I can so that I can learn as soon as possible.

I am determined to learn Polish again as soon as possible so that I can once again feel like I can speak my language. My aim is to read as much as possible so that I can start to pick things up, so that I can express myself, so that I can do more than just listen and so that people can stop correcting me every time I speak or write. I want to regain my self-confidence which is being eroded by feelings of inadequacy.

Wish me luck!

Religious Poverty

So another week has gone again. Each week I vow to write more than once but each day something comes up and steals my time away. The last couple of days have been quite hectic after work. I have been helping out Irena, the lady that I live with. But before I tell you what I have been doing I have to give you a bit of a background.

You see Poland is a highly religious country. Majority of it's citizens (90% or so) are proclaimed Catholics. Some may be highly devoted Catholics and go to church several times a week and others are just religious in that they go to church during holidays. Majority of Polish people however are the former.

Nevertheless regardless of whether a person is devout or not, the church and clergy play a major part in people's lives. From early on, Polish people are affected by church influences. Soon after they are born they go to church to be Christened, then their First Communion, then to get married, then to be buried at their local cemetery and lastly, but most importantly, to avoid purgatory. But these major events are just an overview of the amount of time and effort that people go to to make sure that they are right with the church and that they are accepted by their community.

The Catholic community is something that also plays a huge role in social interactions in Poland. Since Catholicism is such a prolific religion, social interactions at church dictate social interactions outside. Therefore in many cases strong religious discrimination occurs towards people that are anything but Catholic as they are considered to be a minority. This often results in exclusion, ridicule, and overall ostracism. In a way when I look at the situation here in Poland I am saddened and feel sorry for the people as many of them they act out of social pressure created by their religion rather than their free will. The following story illustrates this.

My land-lady gave a religious book to a lady she met at a food distribution centre for the disadvantaged. The book she gave out was a book produced by the Seventh-day Adventist Church (an Ellen G. White book). The lady read the book and thought that it had some very interesting points and wanted to know more. However, wanting to make sure that the book was ok with her religious leader she asked her priest about it. The priest hearing that it was a book produced by the Seventh-day Adventist church told the lady that Adventists were some kind of a sect and not to get influenced by them. The lady not wanting to be ostracised by her community told my land-lady that she was no longer interested.

I felt very sorry for this lady. I felt sorry that she relinquished her freedom to search for the truth herself, that she didn't want to exercise her right of free will, and that she might never get to know a God of love but will continue to think that God is a God that's just waiting to punish her and let her suffer in purgatory.

The issue of purgatory is another interesting topic associated with the Catholic religion. In Catholicism people seem to be constantly working to make sure that they don't suffer after their death. They continue to do their “Hail Mary's”, pay their penances, participate in many traditions and festivals just to avoid the suffering that they believe God is waiting to inflict on them. As a result they continue to live in fear while continuing to line the pockets of their religious leaders. Many times I have heard people say that there's no better way to control people and make money than through religious propaganda, and over the last few weeks I have seen how this works. Take this story for example.

There was a lady whose husband had died. They were both Catholic and so she wanted him to be buried at their local parish. So she made arrangements with the priests who told her that everyone in her family had to go to confession so that the husband could be buried. During confession the priest told each member of the family that they had to pay a substantial amount of money to make sure that the amount of time the deceased spent in purgatory could be shortened. So this lady and her family were now not only faced with grief from their loss but now were also faced with having to pay penance, something that they could not afford.

Anyway, these stories are the things that have not only stirred my curiosity but have also motivated me to take Irena's invitation when she asked me to help her hire-out religious literature produced by the Seventh-day Adventist church. And I'm so glad that I took the opportunity. I strongly believe that people have the right to be given opportunities to choose for themselves, to learn and to decide what they want to do with their life and so I was happy to participate in a bit of “literature evangelism”. But this experience was also an amazing experience because learnt a lot about the state of poverty in Poland.

The place where I had to go to hire-out the books and where food was being distributed from was this really run-down apartment situated on the bottom-floor of a seven-story building. It was situated down an alley-way which was dirty, abandoned and creepy. Yet people were lining up by the door to get their food rations. These people didn't care about the state of the place, all they cared about was that they would be fed for the next month.

I was amazed at the types of people that came. There were pregnant women, mothers and fathers with children as well as the elderly. There were people whose clothes looked warn down while others were dressed in their best vest-and-tie combinations. There were all types of people from all walks of life.

A few interesting people esspecially caught my attention. There was this one elderly gentleman that was dress nicely in a shirt, tie and a matching vest. When I offered him a book he told me that he had lots of books and that he loves to read. I was impressed by everything about this gentleman, his clothes, his manners, his education, his attitude, his passion for life. I wondered what he was doing at a place like this. It was later on that I learnt that this gentleman used to be a well known journalist in Wrocław but lost his job and could not get another one due to his age (he is close to retirement). It was then that I saw how poverty can strip person's dignity and how unpredictable life is.

Then there was another woman that came to the distribution centre. When she came to collect her rations she could barely stand. I wondered why that may be, in Poland when person can not stand it's usually because of alcohol and so I automatically thought that she's either drunk or sick. But I was wrong, this lady was suffering from what my mum, Eva and I suffer from, and that is low blood-pressure. I learnt that I shouldn't judge a book by it's cover but to reserve my judgement, something that I think many of us struggle with.

It was nice though to be reminded of my family. I was also reminded of my family when a family of six came to collect their rations and I thought of the the time that my family had to go to a distribution centre, probably similar to the one that I was sitting in, to collect blankets that Caritas was distributing.

I never talk about it but my family was not always as well of us we are now—not to say that we are very well off, but we do ok. I remember a time when it was very tough for my family. When I would hardly see my dad because he was working 2 full-time jobs to provide for us while at the same time trying to look after our farm. Sometime dad would also go to Germany to where my aunt lived to make some extra money there. He would work for a week or so illegally but the amount of money he made there was quite a bit bigger than when he worked in Poland.

My parents would also always think of creative ways of making a little bit extra money for the family to live on. During summer we would pick plums from our plum trees in the orchard and sell them at a popular tourist spot. At other times my parents would go to the flour-mill and grind our wheat to make flour. Life back then was interesting but also hard. How hard? I don't think that I will ever know, but what I do know is that I have a weak-spot for people that are facing similar situation.

When I was sitting at the distribution centre I kept fighting tears, which was a bit strange for me since I try never to cry, but in this situation seeing people who are facing such dire circumstances brought back memories. The emotions that flowed as a result were so pure and so heart-felt that I was surprised at myself. I felt like for the first time I was honest with myself. This truly was an amazing and enlightening experience for me.