What is an Explorer? Do I Qualify?

Two things happened this week that led to this entry.

1.      My good friend Kevin asked two very pointed questions: what makes me leave all that is known and familiar and strike out for unknown parts? Do I come from a long line of wanderers?

2.      Celebrating Ewelina’s birthday, we got on the topic of where we would go if we could go anywhere.

The plan was that Ewelina was going to win the lottery and treat us each to our dream trip. Luiza said she wanted to give the idea some thought and I popped out with Tristan da Cuhna, a place that any explorer worth their salt ought to have on their list of to-go places.

Ewelina said her dream destination was anywhere she could go with a pack on her back, exploring every crevice to be found along the way.

I contended that, were I in her same age group, that would be my dream trip, too. Now a little more age-advanced and actually needing a few creature comforts, I have become a vagabond with pretentions.

My friends whipped out their phones to research Tristan, we all laughed at my being too old to want to sleep on the ground, and the conversation moved on.

It was a most pleasant evening. The shivers didn’t start till the next day, when I read Kevin’s message.

~~~~~~

I want to take a moment here to thank those people who have stayed with me throughout this vagabonding adventure. 

These are dear people with whom I have had the pleasure of crossing paths with by sheer happenstance. Literally, an accident of geography brought us together; we lived in the same area and worked at the same plant.

Now, nearly a decade removed from that place of employment and having not been on the same continent for years, we still send text messages, emails and even maintain a fairly regular video calling schedule.

These people I am privileged to know, who don’t see my acts of wandering as acts of abandonment, are my bedrock. For them as for me, friendship transcends miles and time zones.

I find their devotion to our friendship remarkable. I only hope I give those ties, and those people, their due.

~~~~~~

Kevin  is currently traveling. Taking a welcome break from our (my former, his current) place of work, he is now back in his family fold, where he will wallow for the next two weeks.

Perhaps it is the permanence of ‘the ole homestead’ and the four generations of kinfolk living there that made him ask, after all of these years, why I wander.

I suppose that, for him, the timelessness of ‘home’ might have caused him to wonder how anyone can stand to blow around the world like a tumbleweed, without ever putting down roots.

His innocent and obviously well-meaning query has been knocking around my head all day.

The short and ultimately unsatisfying answer to it is: I like to travel and learn new things.

It is unsatisfying because it is a slippery slope: there’s plenty to learn in the country of my citizenship and plenty of places to go... why don’t I just stay there and do my traveling?

And it implies that my likes take precedence over the people in my life. I REALLY don’t like that thought!

~~~~~~

What is an Explorer?

By definition, such a person is also called a discoverer, a traveler, a rambler, a globetrotter...

As such, both Ewelina and I qualify as explorers. Are we in the same league as Gertrude Bell or Nellie Bly?

In my case, definitely not. I can’t speak for my friend; her spirit and thirst for adventure just might put her on par with those ladies one day.

On the other hand, the set of circumstances that women operated under a century ago make it doubtful that any adventuring female today could match the daring of past explorers who were women, even if they embody that sense of élan.

Naturally, that question is moot for explorers of the male persuasion; it is true that they face all of the challenges inherent in exploring but they are not likely to face obstacles thrown up by their gender.

But then, nor would they gain extraordinary recognition for any feats they might accomplish, whereas a female explorer might. But I digress...

Where, as Kevin asks, does my travel bug come from?

I believe I can discount my father’s side of the family; hardly any of those relatives ever left their home state and even fewer have left the country.

There is potential for inherited wanderlust from my mother’s side, though. The men were mostly all engineers and, according to my uncle, my family’s male ancestors helped run oil pipelines through west Africa. 

Bearing that assertion out is a collection of photographs, over a century old, including several of them in which my grandparents were dressed in ‘colonial garb’ while assigned to work in Senegal. My grandmother stayed at home (another picture reveals a house with servants) while her husband tromped all over the countryside in search of optimal pipeline territory.

If that epoch in my family’s lineage is the cause of my need for travel, that supposes that the desire to travel is hereditary. That the lust for distant shores and adventure is genetically programmed.

That sounds rather absurd. This next postulate does too.

According to family legend, I was born in the back seat of the taxi that was taking my mother to the hospital for my imminent arrival.

So the story goes, by the time the cabbie stopped in front of the hospital doors and  the medical staff trotted out to meet the laboring mother, I was already in this world, lying serenely on the seat with my eyes wide open and my thumb in my mouth.

Thus, because of my vehicular birth, I am doomed to a life of travel, never staying in one place for too long.

It could have happened the way they say it did. I might have been a beautiful baby, all wide-eyed and placid on the back seat of a cab.

However, having given birth to a couple of children myself, I find it hard to believe that there wouldn’t have been absolute mayhem in that cab and that the driver wouldn’t have cussed a blue streak at the mess he would have to clean.

A thumb-sucking, wide-eyed baby, serene in the middle of all of that? And being doomed to lifelong travel simply because of accidental taxi birth?

It makes for a good party story but I’m not buying it.

I think what really doomed me to wander my whole life was moving, my whole life.

Before I was fully conscious of the world around me, we left the land of my birth for my father’s home country. Once there, we moved four times – to four different states in five years, after which we boarded an airplane and headed back overseas. 

Four years after that, it was time to move to another country again. And then, two years later... and the year after that, and then – oh, joy! - we stayed in one place for a full seven years! Not at the same address but in the same city... for a whole seven years! 

There was traveling during that time, just no relocating.

Those seven years were the longest stretch I stayed in any one place during the first 20 years of my life. In fact, I still identify with that city and country: that is where I graduated from high school, found my first job and where I transitioned from adolescent to adult.

Having been a traveler from birth, I have no true idea what it feels like to have a sense of continuity brought on by ties to a locale (or to extended family, but that’s another matter altogether).

I cannot imagine what it’s like to stay in one place more than a few years, to put down roots and to see what grows from them.

Well, I can’t say I have no idea; I see plenty of people with that sense of permanence. Kevin is a case in point: returning year after year to the city he grew up in, to the house he grew up in, to the people he grew up with...

Would I trade places with him, if I could?

Probably not. His family wouldn’t know me, I wouldn’t know any of his landmarks or even where his family lives.      

It’s probably best I stay an explorer.

  

Old Men, Fussing with their Cars

From my lofty perspective at the top of a tall building, I glance down onto a ramshackle collection of sheds and lean-tos, haphazardly scattered around the yard. Each one contains a prized vehicle.  

There are a total of 9 sheds in this picture. Can you count them all?

Those makeshift garages were most likely not included on the original building plans, nor were they designed with any idea toward aesthetic beauty. Their very irregularity decries any forethought to symmetry or timelessness.

Although not an authority on the matter, I suspect that, as lucky apartment owners acquired their vehicle, they were beset with a desire to see it protected from the elements and the feral cats that occupy our yard.

To say nothing of the many pigeons who roost in the trees above that green space.

As though to lend credence to that notion, every Monday, two of my neighbors – both elderly gentlemen, meet in the courtyard to wash their cars.

Carefully, they back out of their hand-built garages, fill their buckets and hose down the vehicles, and then proceed to scrub and rinse and vacuum, talking all the while.

I’m generally clued in to their exercise by their loud chatter, which echoes off the walls in this horseshoe-shaped enclosure.

As far as I can tell, they seldom drive anywhere. Leaving the yard entails opening both double doors, one at each end of the foyer, and easing their car through the building and onto the street.

Obviously, such a sequence would be audible and, in fact, it is. When they do drive out, I can hear them very well, even though I am so high up.

~~~~~~

On the other side of the fence, a man who lives in the building across from ours opens the doors to his lean-to and backs his car out. Once assured he has left enough room for the doors to swing shut without hitting his car, he gets out and secures his enclosure before carefully driving out of the parking lot.

At the time he performs his routine, 8 AM, I am usually seated at the kitchen table. Watching his short ballet has become routine. I am not always there when he returns, generally five hours later.

I don’t know his status but I do know the two gentlemen in my building are retirees. Their daily routine – opening the garage doors, fussing around, and then smoking and talking together, and their once-per-week car wash seems to provide them with a sense of purpose.

A long time ago – well, eight years ago, I wrote an article about leading a purposeful life. In it, I averred that people need to have a purpose, something to do every day or most every day.

This gives one a sense of personal value that goes a long way toward maintaining mental health and emotional perspective.

~~~~~~

Early in my China adventure, I made a case for the elderly – specifically elderly women.

Often illiterate (no time for education when there are entire fields of crops to tend, said Chairman Mao!), women in China who are 60+ have very few leisure and enrichment activities available to them.

They might gather to dance in the evening or, if that particular community is close-knit, gather to play mahjong during the day. Some will tend their garden plot, often illicitly planted, in the morning and evening, prior to gathering for the dance.

If there are small children to care for in the household, that too will be one of their tasks, as will be cleaning and cooking.

However, for women who have no babies to take care of and whose daughters or daughters-in-law insist they may not clean or cook, there is little to nothing for them to occupy their hours with.

Trapped in a highrise community, far from everything that is known and familiar to them including people, they can be seen ambling around their living complex with a terrible absence of purpose.

Oddly enough, I find that elderly women here suffer the same fate.

Returning home one day, I found a woman who lives one floor down from me standing on the landing in her house dress, fuzzy slippers on her feet and silver hair askew. She held a pill dispenser in her hand and, bewildered, asked me if today was Friday or Saturday.

At least I think that’s what she asked; her gestures and the pill box made things clear enough.

Unfortunately, I did not have the words to calm and comfort her. Fortunately, my neighbor was rushing up the stairs and he cleared things up for her... rather rudely, I thought, he shouted at her over his shoulder, never breaking stride as he climbed, as though the least contact might commit him to talking with her for hours.

In the park, at shopping centers or just walking around town: old dears, alone, leaning on their canes with varying degrees of heaviness... how is it I see far fewer old men in that same situation?

To my knowledge, there is very little here for seniors. No activity centers, no support organisations... not even the opportunity to plant an illicit garden! However, pet ownership is rampant and quite a few elderly women have a dog for company on their walks. 

But not the old men who, daily, fuss with their cars.

A New Perspective

Remember, a few posts back, how I groused about this city’s magnificent and not so magnificent edifices being marred by seemingly nonsensical graffiti?

I often wonder, in the case of this particular type of vandalism, where the perpretrators get the money to buy the paints and where they find the time to put their mark on buildings all over the city.

Would it be reasonable to think that those vandals must be adolescents or young adults? Or could gainfully employed citizens, possibly with a family to support, lead a double life: contributing member of society by day and ruffian by night?

Because surely, these acts are perpetrated at night. I have a hard time imagining, with all the people out and about during daylight hours, and the wailing sirens that proclaim an abundant police presence, that any paintbrush wielding miscreant could possibly dare practice his ‘art’ in front of an audience.

Unless marking buildings up is not illegal, here. More on that in a minute.

On the other hand...

The other day, I was getting ready for my daily walk when I heard a ruckus in the stairwell. I held off on leaving the house because I have a weird propensity for crabbing down the stairs backwards and don’t care to be seen doing so.

Why go down the stairs backwards? For one, it is easier on your skeleton: your knees and lower legs don’t suffer such an impact because the ball of your foot absorbs the shock.

For two, it’s safer – at least, for me, it is. As the bannister is on the left and my left arm is somewhat compromised, should I miss a stair for whatever reason, I would be unable to catch myself with my left arm. My right arm, on the other hand, is plenty strong, ensuring that, should I misstep when crabbing backwards, I would be able to catch myself.

Besides, you are less likely to misstep when going down the stairs backwards because that method is a more natural body movement. And your ankle giving way is less likely, too, because there is less tension on it.

Back to the story, now...

The stairwell noise continued unabated for several minutes. Clearly, this was not a case of rowdy neighbors coming home or leaving.

Remember that dog I told you about, the one that howls all day and wears a muzzle when out? I had not heard that dog for a couple of weeks already, nor had I seen those neighbors.

Assuming the persistent noise in the stairwell was them moving out or even someone else moving in, and that the stairwell would be occupied for a while, I decided to go, whether anyone would see me crab or not.

Turns out, the hoopla was generated by a couple of youths carrying takeout boxes and drink cups. I met them on the landing one floor below me, whereupon the boy that had rushed up the stairs past me asked which number apartment was next to mine.

Assuming (again!) that he was a university student and knowing that my next door neighbor is also a student, I presumed the boy on the stairs was looking for his classmate.

I had no qualms telling him which apartment number that door represented and continued down the stairs to discover upturned boxes on one landing, spilled soda on the next and the window hanging wide open on the lowest landing.

Making my way down the last treacherous set of stairs, those boys again rushed past me and, instead of going out the main door to the street, went out the back door, through the courtyard.

Their behavior being so strange, I pursued them and observed them leaping the fence encircling our little patch of green. They then took off running through the next building’s parking lot.

I thought ‘exhuberant youths’ and idled no more about it, instead enjoying my bit of exercise and fresh air. When I returned home, though...

As noted before, there was evidence of mischief on every landing: the spilt drink, the upturned boxes and, on my apartment’s landing, the roof access ladder had been taken off of its storage brackets and placed so that it blocked our landing’s third apartment door (not my door or the student’s door).

What else could I conclude other than vandals at work, in broad daylight?

~~~~~~~~~

Thursday night, the Szczecin English Language group met at the Venice Cafe.

Shortly after moving here, I started looking for groups I could join on Meetup and found two that welcome English speakers. That is how I met the lovely Emilia, who told me about Manhattan and Społem, and Jerzy, a worthy debate opponent.

Unfortunately, the former could not attend this get-together so it ended up being only Jerzy and I. The coversation rambled over a variety of topics including my frustration with my Polish language teacher and the global economy.

Somewhere in there, probably right after I insisted that learning a language and understanding a culture go hand in hand, we got on the subject of the local problem with graffiti.

“Really? There’s graffiti? I hadn’t noticed!” said Jerzy, much to my amazement.

I whipped out my phone and showed him the various images I had captured of such. Upon my expression of disbelief that one could hardly not notice it for its prevalence, he said:

“This is not bad. Twenty years ago, immediately after the fall of communism, there was such social unrest! People had nothing: no money, no job, no prospects and little chance at a higher education. At that time, graffiti was everywhere!”

That assertion begs the obvious question: if no one had any money, how could they buy paint?

“People would steal it: from factory yards, from building sites... even from stores.” he returned.

Through his descriptions, I got a vivid picture of what this city must have looked like at the time and how charged the atmosphere must have been. Coupling those visions with assertions I had read of organized crime and gang warfare, so rife in this city back then...

Seen from that perspective, but for a few untalented squiggles painted on building walls, the Szczecin of today barely resembles its past. Through Jerzy’s descriptions, I got a more realistic perspective on what I perceive as this city’s pervasive graffiti problem.

And those boys rampaging up and down our stairwell – clean-cut, well-dressed and polite when they asked me the question of apartment numbers, gave a new face, neither loutish nor brutish, to those who eagerly contribute to ordinary citizens’ discomfort.

Considering this city’s recent past – indeed the unrest and evolution that beset this entire country a mere 20 years ago, could one postulate that certain minor acts of vandalism are tolerated in order to stave off larger crime?

My quest is clear: find what there is to find on the social condition of this city 20 years ago.

~~~~~

Looking at the Polish language Wikipedia page, I found a list of festivals and social events that take place in Lodz.

My search for past photos and news articles led me to the Polish language Wikipedia site; the page  about festivals in Lodz came up because of a certain keyword. Let’s thank Google Translate that I was able to read it!

The International Graffiti Festival takes place every July.

First held in 2002 and annually since then, participating graffiti artists swap techniques and clue each other to the best paints for their favorite means of expression. The event culminates in a massive cooperation to create ‘a huge graffiti’.

That might indicate that city’s tolerance for that form of expression; indeed it might reflect the wider country’s attitude towards blowing off steam by marking up a few buildings with nonsensical doodles.

However, further scanning that list of festivals we find that, a few months later, that same city hosts the Colorful Tolerance campaign, whose main purpose is to expose, confront and oppose xenophobia and vandalism.

Now I’m torn: would I attend the Graffiti Festival for a chance to meet artists like Banksy and Robbo, or should I stand firm in confronting xenophobia and vandalism in general?

That question notwithstanding, the bigger issue is: would graffiti be considered vandalism?

If so, the two festivals are at cross-purposes. If not, I can now understand why lifelong dwellers of this city turn a blind eye to... what to me, are noisome scrawls.

I would like to discuss this idea with more Szczecin natives. However, our English club turnout is generally very small, in spite of the group boasting 50 members online, Jerzy has no intention of promoting any activities that would ensure greater turnout.

I guess I will have to work harder to learn this language so that I can ask others their thoughts on the topic of what I persist in seeing as petty vandalism.  

         

Happy Holiday!

Today, I woke up to an eerie calm.

Well, that’s not exactly true; I woke up to the whirring of a small fan, as I do every morning. It serves as a white noise generator, ensuring my deep slumber amidst bottle clinkings, dog barkings and other assorted noises.

Today, after turning off my noise generator, my ears tuned in to an eerie calm. There! That’s much more accurate!

The normal traffic of daily life here – the rumble of trams, the chatter of students heading to classes in the nearby university; even the particular growl of well-maintained tires rolling on cobblestoned roads... all were absent.

Under the cloud cover, silence reigned: today is the 1^st of May.

Countries all over the world celebrate this day for a variety of reasons. Some ascribe their observances to International Workers’ Day and may even consider it their nations’ Labour Day.

Others follow more traditional roots: the Greek festival Anthesteria signalled the start of the Spring season; a time of rebirth and fertility. All across Europe and in the UK, typical activities include gathering flowers, wearing traditional costumes and perhaps even conducting special church activities.

Of course, May celebrations feature heavily in South American countries and even in Africa.

In Poland, May 1^st is known as Cursed Soldiers’ Day.

Even if you are only remotely familiar with 20^th Century history, you are most likely aware that Poland and her people suffered greatly at the hands of the Soviets on one side and the Germans on the other.

What is less well-known is that the Poles did not take all of that lying down.

Toward the end of the Second World War, staunch souls subverted Soviet and Nazi rule by forming an ‘underground’: a network of communications and sabotage units working against the communist and Soviet regimes that lasted well into the 1950s.

They launched military-style attacks against Soviet state security offices, detention centers (read: prisons) and concentration camps while being hunted down by Soviets determined to bring them to their end.

Not the end of the organizations; the end of those individuals’ lives.

The NKVD agents had their work cut out for them. At the height of Polish resistance to communist rule, there were no fewer than 8 major groups operating across the country. There is no exact tally of the actual number of such groups, large or small; suffice to say that the people native to this country did their very best to retard or outright thwart any Soviet progress.

So, as select towns in Great Britain hoist their maypole and dance around it, as western Europeans pick flowers and conduct rites to celebrate the arrival of Spring, in Poland, people commemorate that day by taking the day off.

Cursed Soldiers’ Day is the unofficial designation. Officially, May 1^st in Poland is Labor Day and, like so many other countries, the working public enjoys either an abbreviated work day or the entire day free from official labor.

Plenty of people here labor inofficially – with no wages being paid, not undocumented workers.

For example, the buzz of lawn mowers echoes across the city. Our early spring brought out carpets of dandelions; looking down on our yard from my lofty position 75 feet off the ground (yes, I measured it!), our lawn looked gold rather than green.

The two elderly gentlemen that maintain our building spent their Labor Day mowing and raking, much to the dismay of the feral cats that prowl our yard, and much to my amusement.

Isn’t lawn mowing the traditional activity of homeowners everywhere across America on Labor Day?

The more important celebration here, the one that caused every building to be adorned with a flag, is Constitution Day, which takes place on May 3^rd.

The Polish Constitution, the first of its kind in all of Europe, is the second-oldest in the world. It was drafted on May 3^rd, 1791 – a mere 15 years after the American document was ratified.

The remarkable fact is that Polish Enlightenment lagged behind Europe because its commonwealth was in crisis and its upper class was not firmly cemented in the socio-political arena.

Philosophers and scientists in Poland had no time to make great, intuitive leaps like Descartes and Newton did; they were too busy trying to survive!

So how did Poland manage a feat that other, more forward-thinking nations couldn’t get their heads around?

Whereas western European monarchies’ rule was absolute, the Polish king had very little power; the country was governed by a parliament that, oddly enough, advocated for what amounted to anarchy – the near-total elimination of the rule of law.

Seeking a balance between the excesses of French and Spanish monarchs and the ineffectiveness of the commonwealth’s king, Poland strove to establish itself as a constitutional monarchy. Those efforts came to naught: civil war erupted and Lithuania, its commonwealth neighbor, rose up in arms as well.

Nevertheless, in the course of these doings, Poland did draft the world’s second-oldest constitution and managed another remarkable feat: they established the world’s first ministry of education that, ultimately, other nations would strive to emulate.

So, how to the people here celebrate Constitution Day besides hanging flags everywhere?    

Warsaw likely saw greater patriotic displays than this burg I dwell in. A parade, surely; concerts and other public events, naturally.

Picnics in the park and outdoors activities in general feature prominently, all across the country. Having strolled around the parks in my neighborhood, I can attest to the fact that those green spaces were well-attended indeed!

This year, the celebration known as Majówka (pronounced my-oof-ka) – the Labor Day / Constitution Day combo coincides with the weekend, making the occasion stretch to a full five days. Thus, some have taken to the roads.  

Sadly, high winds yanked our building’s flag off of its pole; we are left with a bare stick protruding from the façade.

Those same winds kept me off of a bike, too. That’s almost as sad as losing our flag.