Cultural letter #1
This and that from
Greetings again.
I thought I'd write a
different kind of letter. November 11 is
Veteran's Day in
I thought I would take a few
minutes to write about
In every country there are
pros and cons in living, right? i.e., in
*The bread here is
excellent. When Polish people go to the
states, their automatic reaction is "to long" for their Polish
bread. I can understand that. We have a
bakery about 1/4 mile from our house.
The bread is hot and fresh two times a day (10:15 am and 5:15 pm) and I can
get a kind of wheat/sour dough, whole wheat/ or white bread for about 25cents a
loaf. Needless to say, I don't bake it
unless I want to make cinnamon raisin bread.
They don't wrap it, and most of it is shaped like a loaf of "French
bread." Some of it is
"form" bread, which means, it looks like it was baked in a loaf
pan. It's usually the 100% whole wheat
and varieties like that. I can understand why the Poles "long" for
their bread. We experienced that also on
furlough. American bread tastes like
"fluff" by comparison.
*Over here I really
"cook." I often make pizza or
derivatives (similar to pizza, with dough in various forms, etc.), lasagna,
spaghetti, chili, cakes, cookies, etc, from scratch. My kids were definitely opinionated in the
states when I tried using all kinds of "new" things with mixes and
prepared frozen foods gotten at great prices. They definitely preferred my
cooking "from scratch."
Usually for dinner I make either biscuits or muffins, simply because my
family likes them. We use that good
"fresh" bread for eating with a cheese spread, sandwiches, or topped
with meat or pickles or tomatoes, or all of the above, later in the day, for
our supper. The do miss Kraft Mac kids
do miss Kraft Mac & Cheese, though (the powdered kind, you know--the flea
market had it regularly for 3/$1. There is no such thing here.) While pasta and
all kinds of cheese are widely available, even luxury kinds in the states like
*The Polish ladies are experts
at making soups. (Of course this is a
generality and I'm sure some are not, but I've not heard of any.) Most of the soups have a very good flavor and
are kind of watery. They often put some sort of thin macaroni product in the
soup to help make it filling. Pasta is a
big seller, simply because they use it so often in soups. I'm not sure that they just cook noodles and
eat them buttered, like some of you all do.
(I'm not hungry right now but
just spent 3 hours doing shopping.)
*Lines are common here and
some people do not seem to mind standing in them. Usually I try to avoid
them. Yesterday I was stuck in a line
about 12 people long at the post office when I mailed some letters. I
considered coming back in the next morning when I figured there wouldn't be
anyone. However, I opted out of that since my kids were at a Polish family's
house and I had the time, and I didn't want to come back the next day. So, I found myself in a long line, the like
of which I thought I'd never let myself purposefully get in. It took at least
25 minutes to mail the three letters.
*Mondays seem to be a terrible
day to do banking and other business matters.
I've not figured that one out.
The lines seem long everywhere on those days.
*You receive bills in the
mail, but you have to go to pay for them, either to the office that sent them,
or you can go to your local post office and pay them at a special counter with
usually only one lady working there. We have no checking account here.
Everything is a cash transaction.
*The banks are becoming very
modernized, but yet lack the streamlined efficiency of the states. So far I've not seen any
"drive-through" windows. For
us to get money out, we stand in line to see the cashier, possibly up to 45
minutes and then give our account number to the lady and then our i.d. card is
run through a machine then we punch our pin number into the machine. The
cashier makes sure the pin number is right and then will give us the money we
ask for. We can deposit our checks into
one location only with ease (it takes us a minimum of 45 minutes to do so), but
we can withdraw money at any location, I've been told.
*We now have several large
supermarkets in
*Almost everyone buys potatoes
"in bulk" for the winter. We
bought some (100 kilos--220 lbs.) potatoes for about 5cents a lb, I think it
was. They sell them in 100 lb.
bags. I parked the van close so the man
I bought them from could lug the bags to the van. Mike wasn't with me. I bought two kinds--some white and some more
"reddish". The most popular
way to fix potatoes here is peeled, boiled and then mashed with a potato
masher, and sprinkle some dill weed on it.
Some people add butter or margarine.
I don't think most add milk nor do they mix them with a mixer of any
kind. They are delicious the way the
Poles fix them. My kids add the
"grass" (dill) at the table.
*Many people here seem very
concerned about their health and know about natural medications or home
remedies. Medical care is socialized and
almost every one is eligible for free stays (or very cheap) in the hospital if
they are sick and almost free medicine (I bought a prescription for 50cents for
an allergy Jeremiah had recently--a skin cream. The doctor told me it is "expensive".). You buy the medicine at a store called an
"apteka" where you can also buy bandaids and other things related to
your health. I've not seen Tylenol, but
we have Panadol, which is similar and the other day I saw "Icy Heat"
in there for sale. There are lots of these drug stores around and they are
usually quite small. You stand in line and ask for what you want, sometimes
have to go pay at a different place, then go back and pick up what you asked
for after you show that you paid, even though the 2 people working are less
than 15 feet away from each other. They
do such things as open heart surgery here.
When I was pregnant with Daniel, I had a very modern "ultrasound"
which cost me the equivalent of $10, with a no wait and no appointment necessary. We watched the baby move on a miniature
screen while the doctor moved the pointer around. That equipment was very
modern. Probably ladies under the socialized system do not have ultrasounds,
though I'm not sure of that. We paid for
things as we went along and are not under the socialized system of medical
care. We use the same doctors as anyone else can, but we pay for it. The doctor I saw privately was also the head
ob-gyn at the hospital where I delivered. I just saw him in the basement of his
house during his private office hours.
I'm relatively sure that money just went in his drawer never to be
reported or seen again. Each visit cost
about $10--I went about 3 times I think. Dont' fuss at me--he didn't! :) He was very philosophical when I apologized
the last time I went in after it being so long, and he said, "Well, the
baby hasn't been born yet!" I like
that "Laid-back" approach simply because I've had no problems in
delivering babies. For others it is very stressful.
*Trains and buses are very
much a part of life here. Many people
still do not own cars, though I think the prices have come down on them some
since we arrived. For 50cents apiece, we
can take a bus into
*The ladies tend to dress up
more in public here than in the states.
I've seen people in what appear to be "office" clothes (and
shoes) at the open market, shopping. Often
workers will take their clothes in a bag and then change into their work
clothes and before they return on the bus, they will change back into their
"street" clothes before leaving the place of work. They don't want to travel in the buses in
their work clothes. That seems to be
very prevalent. Many young ladies/women
dress in very short skirts and black hose and relatively high black heels. It seems to be quite common, but still gives
the appearance of the "oldest profession" to us. Prostitution is legal here and they sometimes stand beside
the roads in very short skirts and high heels or florescent colors, usually in
groups of 2 or 3. Often they are Russians or other minority group..
*We still have a horse and
cart that goes in front of our house every now and then pulling stuff into
town. Some farmer who doesn't own
anything else uses it as his mode of transportation or method of carting things
around.
*Bartering and trading is
common still here, I do believe, at least among friends. We had a dead tree in
our yard that Mike cut down. I asked a
lady who lives kind of close if they wanted it for their furnace and she said
it would be great, and that later, if they had something we could use, we could
have it. (At least I'm pretty sure that
is what she said!) One of our neighbors
regularly brings us eggs in exchange for us giving him some food scraps
suitable for his chickens or Mike has given him quite a bit of wood (our
property had a lot of trees on it.).
*Mike has gotten even store
owners to come down on prices if the store is small and not one of the big
supermarkets.
*It costs us about $75/month
for electricity for our house (that doesn't include heat.). We have everything electric except heat and
will have heat, Lord willing by the end of this month. (We've not had any
system of heating other than 1 free standing propane heater and 2 electric
heaters if we needed it up til now. There have been times it has been in the
50's in the house :) in the winter. We are looking forward to being able to
"turn on" the heat with a thermostat.
Mike is from
*Gasoline and diesel prices
have gone up to about $2.00 and $3.00/gallon.
Prices used to be more in line with the states. I've been told they've risen about 14 times
this year. Each time they go up it is
"by the liter" not "by the gallon" (it takes roughly 4
liters to make a gallon).
*Religious holidays here have
little difference than political ones.
November 1 was All Saints Day, a very Catholic day where the people
honor their dead loved ones. Thursday is
Independence Day. I think possibly that the Catholic ones are even more
important and more widely observed. Most
people are Catholic, however, a good number of them do not regularly attend
church except during the holidays. Does
that sound familiar?
*Mike will be travelling about
6 hours from here Friday through Monday to participate in a conference here in
Poland. He will be going with Jan Tolwinski.
There are a group of 6 or 7 churches over towards Germany who have
separated from the Brethren and wish to associate with Jan as being the most
fundamental in Poland. This group is one
that has been previously unknown to us. The Polish leader of this group called
Mike about 3 weeks ago and requested him to come along with Mike after Mike was
at an all-day pastor's conference on a Saturday about 3 hours from here.. Mike is now preparing his sermon/s and would
appreciate your prayers. Needless to say
if he is over there for 4 days with Jan, he won't be here, and so we would
appreciate your prayers in his absence. The boys are learning to take more
responsibilities and so it is helpful to me, especially in Mike's absence.
That's all for now.
Keep praying for us here in
Warsaw. We aren't
"technically" in Warsaw, but we are only about 3 miles outside the
city limits, so we say that we are "in Warsaw."
I'll send you another note in
a couple of days. I wanted this one to
be "different."
In Warsaw,
Becky