With the American Congress raging over health-care reform, I found it quite appropriate that one of my first tasks in Poland would bring me nose-to-nose with that creation of Satan himself: socialized medicine. As a supporter of some version of health-care reform (anything, really), I welcomed the chance to go all Michael Moore on the Poland health-care system. Maybe I could do some research and let my good friend Barack (I did kinda work on his campaign) know how this social safety net really works.
So I ventured to the hospital, urine sample in hand (see post below) ready for my ABSOLUTELY FREE examination (well, excluding the 50 Grosze [15 cents] I paid for the piss cup). We walk a couple of blocks and stop at this decrepit monstrosity of a building and I immediately realize why they couldn't afford to provide everyone with their own piss cup. This place was a relic. It was almost as if the powers that be decided that if this place could withstand the blitzkrieg, then it could withstand 70 more years of neglected repairs. I ventured inside with trepidation...
We arrive on the 6th floor to some type of bio-bureaucratic hell. A hallway that goes on forever with 50 closed doors on each side and 200 people sitting in benches on either wall, all clenching their own distinctive color of piss. At various points one of the doors would open and some uni-browed sergeant-lady would yell some menacing polish phrase and everyone on the benches would stir ("There were 8 in the bed and the little one said..."). My translator and I took our place in line.
Eventually we made our way to the first door where I was asked to answer some questions (a task I repeated at every door). And they were always the same: my name, my parents names, my mothers maiden name, my fathers middle name (seriously) and other ridiculous things. In fact, I must have gone through 6 offices before they asked for any medical information. But then I reached the "hearing" doctor.
When I walked in the lady (who told me she speaks well English) was wearing a head lamp the size of a basketball. When she turned it on the room temperature increased by a couple ticks. She then proceeds to use said head lamp, and a large funnel (think beer-bong) to look in my ears. After melting my inner ear wax with her chapeau soleil she asked me (through the translator) to stand by the door and plug my right ear. She stood about 20 feet away and told me that she would say some words softly and then ask me to repeat them. She begins by making some unintelligible noise: "dun-da-dun." I respond: "dun-da-dun." Her next sound was: "horty". I respond: "horty." We went on like this for some time before I realized the old bat with "well english" was asking me to repeat various english numbers (read 'dun-da-dun' as 'twenty-one' and 'horty' as 'forty'). Nevertheless I passed the hearing exam with flying colors and went on the the eye doctor which wasn't without its own hysterics:
doctor: cover your right eye and read the highlighted numbers on the bottom line
me: two-zero-four
doctor: now cover your left eye and read the line again
*doctor does not change highlighted numbers
me: two-zero-four.
doctor: great, you have perfect vision.
So I bounced between the various offices, answering identical questions and receiving various med-evil tests, all the while feeling very much like Arlo Guthrie in "Alice's Resteraunt": "injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected." Finally the translator informed me that there would be just one more test and that it would be a good one because she would get to see my naked. And I had some mixed reactions to this, with one part of me feeling flattered that this gorgeous (like most of the girls here) polish girl wants to see me naked and the other part feeling pretty concerned that the combination of a cold room and an old polish man with latex gloves would leave my manhood lacking its usual robustness (ok, maybe not-so-usual). So it was with some sense of relief that I learned that by naked she only meant the top half and that rather than asking me to cough, another old lady asked me to stand in front of some x-ray machine so they could scan my chest. Regardless, I did my best to flex every sinewy muscle I had as the translator instructed me to contort my frame in various positions to get the best possible picture. I thought that I had impressed the chick until she spent the rest of the walk home talking about her boyfriend, the police officer (who up to this point, she had not mentioned.)
In sum: Barack, please do not follow Poland's lead. Unless of course you're looking to give every drug-addict a better opportunity at passing a government physical. Which in turn would stimulate the economy by giving us non-drug users an opportunity to make some cash on the urine black market. So on second thought...
Monday, October 12, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
The Update
Ok...So I've been here for a little more than a week and a lot has happened. Rather than give you a Rupprecht-like run through on every little detail, let me just cover some initial surprises and we'll call it good.
Surprise #1: No one here speaks English
That's a lie. Many people speak English. But not nearly as many people as I thought coming in. Those that do speak English are normally too uncertain in their own ability to approach me. Until they get drunk of course, and then they want to know everything about America and what sports teams I like and whether high school was like American Pie or not. Then the next day when I try to talk to them they apologize for making a fool out of themselves and tell me that their English is not up to snuff and they can't talk right now bye.
Of course, there are several great English speakers who have pretty much kept me alive since I've arrived. But they're not the norm. And they're all under the age of 27. Which means that if you have to have your paperwork approved by 15 different departments staffed by 15 different old ladies, you're up shit's creek.
Surprise #2: Apparently I'm an English Teacher
First conversation with my boss:
Boss (one of the few 40 somethings that speaks English, albeit mostly broken): Greetings
Shawn: Professor Witchovsky, thank you so much for this oppor...
Boss: You will teach English 150 hours this semester.
Shawn: Ok, but how...
Boss: Iwona will give you the details, let me introduce you to your department head...
And that was it. And the details were skimpy. Two classes, once a week plus some private lessons to Asian students on the side. No materials. No instruction on how I'm supposed to do this,. Just a location and a roster. But teaching English is easy, right?
And lets not forget that my real job here is to be the student government adviser/director of student activities. Yeah, that's still on.
Surprise #3: (Relatively) Great Running!
The area I'm in doesn't exactly scream 'running mecca'. Has anyone ever been to Morgantown, WV in February? Sort of like that. Only way more post-communist-industrial-behemoth.
So it was quite to my surprise that less than a block away from my dorm is a wonderful little park. And if you run through that park and cross a highway (Mainers think Rt 1, Juniatians think Rt 22, Massholes think Rt 7) you get to a much larger park. And if you run a mile and a half to the end of that park you get into these sprawling community gardens (like 500 acres worth) that are parceled off to 2,000 different citizens (more on these later). And then after you've run through that there's yet another park with the feel of a very much scaled-down central park. In all there's probably 6-7 miles one-way without really hitting much pavement.
While on my first run through these parks I noticed that everyone had their dog unleashed. As I approached the first unleashed pup, I readied myself for a sprint and desperately tried to prepare some sort of way to communicate to the owner (and dog) that I didn't particularly care for a chase. But then, like magic, I ran by the dog and it didn't so much as fart. Every other dog I've passed has elicited the same reaction: indifference! My first impulse was to be delighted and amazed at the ability of Polish owners to train their dogs so well. But then I realized that these dogs are probably just the last bastions of a communist way of life that demanded strict obedience and discouraged volition. And that's when I began to appreciate (if only for a brief second) being chased by some devilish (but truly free) dobermans one day in Livermore Falls, Maine.
Surprise #4 Where art thou Peanut Butter?
I knew there would be some comfort items not available to me here: NESN, Allagash White Ale, and Man vs. Wild Marathons come to mind. But one thing I was assured of was that Peanut Butter would be readily available. In all of its various forms. I need not worry.
Well that's bullshit.
It took me about 12 days of harrowed searching to come across the salty-smooth treat, and when I finally laid thine eyes on thous sumptuous bounty, it whilst be devoid of several of its relations, and instead offered in the standard chunky and creamy varieties that you can probably get at 7-11 or Sheetz. But instead of commiserating about the amount of trans-fat I was about to intake, I did what any other warm-blooded American would do and promptly bought 8 jars of the stuff and lathered it all over every other item I had purchased on the bus ride home. And oh...at that moment...I was oh so close to heaven.
Ok, there are many other surprises i could detail, but its getting late and I have an early morning work-required physical/piss test (which I administer myself prior to arriving at the doctor's- apparently swapping samples is not a problem here, or as my Polish friend put it: "In Poland, unlike America, we just trust each other to do what is right." I think she was joking, but nevertheless I was reminded of Hobbes "Leviathan" and it was a very long thought indeed.)
Surprise #1: No one here speaks English
That's a lie. Many people speak English. But not nearly as many people as I thought coming in. Those that do speak English are normally too uncertain in their own ability to approach me. Until they get drunk of course, and then they want to know everything about America and what sports teams I like and whether high school was like American Pie or not. Then the next day when I try to talk to them they apologize for making a fool out of themselves and tell me that their English is not up to snuff and they can't talk right now bye.
Of course, there are several great English speakers who have pretty much kept me alive since I've arrived. But they're not the norm. And they're all under the age of 27. Which means that if you have to have your paperwork approved by 15 different departments staffed by 15 different old ladies, you're up shit's creek.
Surprise #2: Apparently I'm an English Teacher
First conversation with my boss:
Boss (one of the few 40 somethings that speaks English, albeit mostly broken): Greetings
Shawn: Professor Witchovsky, thank you so much for this oppor...
Boss: You will teach English 150 hours this semester.
Shawn: Ok, but how...
Boss: Iwona will give you the details, let me introduce you to your department head...
And that was it. And the details were skimpy. Two classes, once a week plus some private lessons to Asian students on the side. No materials. No instruction on how I'm supposed to do this,. Just a location and a roster. But teaching English is easy, right?
And lets not forget that my real job here is to be the student government adviser/director of student activities. Yeah, that's still on.
Surprise #3: (Relatively) Great Running!
The area I'm in doesn't exactly scream 'running mecca'. Has anyone ever been to Morgantown, WV in February? Sort of like that. Only way more post-communist-industrial-behemoth.
So it was quite to my surprise that less than a block away from my dorm is a wonderful little park. And if you run through that park and cross a highway (Mainers think Rt 1, Juniatians think Rt 22, Massholes think Rt 7) you get to a much larger park. And if you run a mile and a half to the end of that park you get into these sprawling community gardens (like 500 acres worth) that are parceled off to 2,000 different citizens (more on these later). And then after you've run through that there's yet another park with the feel of a very much scaled-down central park. In all there's probably 6-7 miles one-way without really hitting much pavement.
While on my first run through these parks I noticed that everyone had their dog unleashed. As I approached the first unleashed pup, I readied myself for a sprint and desperately tried to prepare some sort of way to communicate to the owner (and dog) that I didn't particularly care for a chase. But then, like magic, I ran by the dog and it didn't so much as fart. Every other dog I've passed has elicited the same reaction: indifference! My first impulse was to be delighted and amazed at the ability of Polish owners to train their dogs so well. But then I realized that these dogs are probably just the last bastions of a communist way of life that demanded strict obedience and discouraged volition. And that's when I began to appreciate (if only for a brief second) being chased by some devilish (but truly free) dobermans one day in Livermore Falls, Maine.
Surprise #4 Where art thou Peanut Butter?
I knew there would be some comfort items not available to me here: NESN, Allagash White Ale, and Man vs. Wild Marathons come to mind. But one thing I was assured of was that Peanut Butter would be readily available. In all of its various forms. I need not worry.
Well that's bullshit.
It took me about 12 days of harrowed searching to come across the salty-smooth treat, and when I finally laid thine eyes on thous sumptuous bounty, it whilst be devoid of several of its relations, and instead offered in the standard chunky and creamy varieties that you can probably get at 7-11 or Sheetz. But instead of commiserating about the amount of trans-fat I was about to intake, I did what any other warm-blooded American would do and promptly bought 8 jars of the stuff and lathered it all over every other item I had purchased on the bus ride home. And oh...at that moment...I was oh so close to heaven.
Ok, there are many other surprises i could detail, but its getting late and I have an early morning work-required physical/piss test (which I administer myself prior to arriving at the doctor's- apparently swapping samples is not a problem here, or as my Polish friend put it: "In Poland, unlike America, we just trust each other to do what is right." I think she was joking, but nevertheless I was reminded of Hobbes "Leviathan" and it was a very long thought indeed.)
Sunday, October 4, 2009
The Syllabus
Hello all and welcome. After much thought I've decided that the well-worn blog would be the best way to stay in touch with those of you back home who like me well enough to slog through my sloppy prose. Out of respect for your time (and my own desire to keep your attention) I'll do my best to keep posts short and exciting, with a focus on cultural transitions and ridiculous stories. That said, I can't rule out a diatribe or two. And if the Hoovers actively comment, that diatribe number will likely climb higher.
As the main purpose of this blog is to communicate with my friends back home en masse, I'd love to see this function more as an open forum and less as a journal. Though we're all busy and receiving various communications from all directions, I hope you can find the time (and incentive) necessary to let me know you're out there listening. So when you get the chance...tell me your thoughts, disagree with my posts (shouldn't be too hard for some), and bring a new perspective to the table. I especially look forward to any advice from former and current expats, particularly when it comes to finding peanut butter, dealing with angry non-english speakers, or finding a free way to rip red sox games off the net.
I will try to post every day, and am extremely optimistic that I won't get burned out and end this thing in a couple weeks. If you see me faltering, give me a kick in the ass and get me going again. If I have some incentive to post beyond my own desire to maintain my English skills (which is difficult considering i'm listening and responding to broken English all day), it will be a huge help....so thank you in advance for your assistance and cooperation.
As I've already broken my no-diatribe rule, I'll leave the post as is and trust that you understand what I'm trying to do here. Here we go...
As the main purpose of this blog is to communicate with my friends back home en masse, I'd love to see this function more as an open forum and less as a journal. Though we're all busy and receiving various communications from all directions, I hope you can find the time (and incentive) necessary to let me know you're out there listening. So when you get the chance...tell me your thoughts, disagree with my posts (shouldn't be too hard for some), and bring a new perspective to the table. I especially look forward to any advice from former and current expats, particularly when it comes to finding peanut butter, dealing with angry non-english speakers, or finding a free way to rip red sox games off the net.
I will try to post every day, and am extremely optimistic that I won't get burned out and end this thing in a couple weeks. If you see me faltering, give me a kick in the ass and get me going again. If I have some incentive to post beyond my own desire to maintain my English skills (which is difficult considering i'm listening and responding to broken English all day), it will be a huge help....so thank you in advance for your assistance and cooperation.
As I've already broken my no-diatribe rule, I'll leave the post as is and trust that you understand what I'm trying to do here. Here we go...
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