Cultural letter #4 Vacation
Dear friends,
Back by
"popular demand". Another cultural letter.
:) If I tend to be seasonal in my letters, it's because that is what is around
me. As a disclaimer, I do try to be
"deadly" accurate because I have at least 4 Polish people who receive
these letters and various other "Slavic"
people. However, any time you are quoting other people, giving interpretations
of 'culture' there will always be those who differ. The main ones who might
differ are the ones who have had the most interaction with "the west/
other cultures."
Attitudes towards vacation:
Polish people take their
vacations very seriously. Apparently
tradition says that kids must leave the area for camps for at least 2 or 3
weeks of the summer, or there is a major feeling of
"deprivation". (This is after
spending some time with some people who live down the street and listening to
tone of voice and attitudes about poor kids whose parents can't afford to send them
away for camp.) Unfortunately I feel
pretty hard-hearted about their complaints--sending all of our kids would take
a good chunk of money--I can't imagine the typical Pole being able to afford it
but about half of the ones from
Camps:
There are all kinds of camps,
from Christian geared for Christians to evangelistic/Word of Life, to totally
secular/ English camps, etc. Mike and I went with the young people from the
church in Anin several years ago on a
"camp" that the young people had that was about 7 hours from Warsaw,
and was primarily evangelistic in effort.
We pitched tents and had showers without any curtains! (YUK!)
(at least there were separate men's and women's
showers.)
Our camping experiences in the
states (AK, WA, FL and NC) have all been rather "full" times with a
heavy spiritual emphasis--counsellors in every cabin
and such. This isn't the way it's done
here, as we have seen it, as a normal thing.
My kids participated in a Christian children's camp a couple years ago,
and in the boy's cabin there wasn't any adult in the cabin to deal with them
(there was with the girls). The one Mike is in right now--it is for youth ages
15-30 and because Roger has had so much contact with it--it hasn't fallen in
the typical mold (see disclaimer at the beginning of this letter. :) ). I'm not sure what kids would think of a camp
with competition between teams, organized ball games and memory verse contests,
etc. I've no idea whatsoever. However....camping is a whole ministry in
itself. I know that in the states we are
spoiled with camps and full time staff and lovely facilities.... (We had a conference in June here but it was
very "American" in style in that there were several sessions per day,
little free time to sit around and gab, and you know what? I think the
attendees loved it!--it was planned and executed by Polish people with strong
ties to the
Summers in
Weather can be
unpredictable. You can need a sleeveless
shirt and a/c one day and 2 days later, a sweat shirt is appropriate. July has been cool--a good portion of it was
in the 50's & 60's, but April and May this year were beauties--even up in
the 80's in April. Favorite things to
grow are cucumbers, sunflowers (they eat the seeds), potatoes, beets, dill,
radishes, lettuce, cauliflower, red and black currants and other fruits, and
lots and lots of flowers--. Many people try tomatoes every year but often are
thwarted by the weather. Many times
people take almost their whole yards--which tend to be like a small suburban
lot in the city in the states, at least here in the
Birthdays:
Today is mine, so I guess
that's why I'm thinking about them at the moment. (I celebrated by taking the
kids to McDonalds.) I've been told that
Polish people (nonbelievers) don't like their birthdays and it is a sad time
for many of them since it reminds them that they are growing older and closer
to death. They, instead, celebrate "name day" which is a Catholic
holiday. Every Polish name has a saint
that he/she is named after. There are two name days in every calendar year that
correspond to your name. In order to find out your name day is, you look on the
calendar and determine which name day is closer to your birthday and that is
your name day. (i.e. Your name is Eva--your birthday
is November 12. On any given calendar
that you purchase in
These are a few of the things
that I've learned. There's always more
to learn, and its for sure I don't feel like an expert
on Polish culture--merely an outsider looking in/participating somewhat. Sometimes missionary questionnaires that we
have to fill out ask very interesting questions like, "Do the nationals look upon you
as one of them, or are you an outsider?"
Well, since we ARE outsiders, I think it would be extremely unusual if
they looked on us as anything different.
I'd like to think that they look at us as outsiders, but they love (?)
accept us anyway. :) I imagine if you live in one culture long
enough, you may begin to think like one of them--at this point, I can only
begin to know what some of the Polish people are thinking--much less think like
that myself. I know that in some ways
I've changed, however, and that was exhibited by some of my reactions when we
went back on furlough....but I can save that for another letter.
Have a great day. I'll update
you more on the camp where Mike is once it is over.
In
Becky Petersen
.
Mike and Becky Petersen
http://home1.gte.net/mjpeter
Mike and Becky Petersen
http://home1.gte.net/mjpeter