The Truth

“The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”

You’ve heard that one, right?

My students often ask why in English we say the truth but a lie? I always explain that there is one truth but many possible lies. My students always disagree.

Their explanation – Yes, there is the truth, but there is also the gospel truth and let’s not forget the “shit” truth which is the Polish translation of bullshit.

prawda –the truth

święta prawda – the gospel truth

gówno prawda – bullshit

Speaking of the truth or something like that…

I have a fresh Duży Format all for me. And so begins my DF weekly ritual. First, I scan the front page headlines. Then I flip through the pages making a mental note of what I want to read first. I glance through the felietony (columns) and then take a peek at the last page zdarzyło się dzisiaj (it happened this day). If I have time to start reading, I do. If not, I hide the paper from Rosie who likes to cut (or cut–ać as she says) every newspaper, magazine, electric bill in sight, until I have more time to concentrate on what I am reading. Then I start with Kajet konesara, the column of Krzysztof Varga. This week’s column is entitled “Cała prawda o prawdzie” (The whole truth about the truth) and discusses how we desire truth and are sometimes so blinded by this desire that we believe everything, even quite obvious falsehoods. Varga gives the example of a “documentary” or shall we say “mockumentary” made by Joaquin Phoenix. The film “I’m Still Here” appeared to show the downfall of Phoenix mentally, physically and in his career, except it was fake. A commentary on television/filmmaking today? On our naiveté? On both? Perhaps.

Vargas says, “Phoenix i Affleck dokonali rzeczy zupełnie zwykłej, ale nie wiedzieć czemu coraz rzadziej podnoszonej – udowodnili, że za pomocą filmu i telewizji można oszukać dokładnie każdego, nawet robiąc tak masywnymi nićmi szyte oszustwo.” DF 22 Wreśnia 2001

Translation mine ;) "Phoenix and Affleck have pulled off something quite ordinary, but who knows why so seldom attempted – They have proven that through film and television it is possible to fool just about anyone, even weaving such deceit with the thickest thread."

Varga’s column made me think of another documentary I watched this week. “Game of Death”, a French documentary in which people participated in a fake pilot game show where they agreed to administer electric shocks to the other “contestant”. Luckily, the other contestant was only an actor and the “shocks” were not real. It was surprising to me and to the researchers conducting the experiment how many participants were willing to see the “show” through. The contestants believed that they were helping to fine tune a new game show and were aware that they would not actually win anything. So why did they go on? Obedience and authority?

posłuszeństwo – obedience

I am as obedient as the next guy. Ok, I live in Poland so maybe we should say I am more obedient than the next guy, but come on, at one point in the show the “contestant/actor” begged for mercy and the contestants kept going. 80% of the contestants kept going in fact.

Disobedience isn’t my middle name and I’m no Lisbeth Salander but how could the people continue and how could the audience sit without protesting? Obedience of authority plus the power of TV?

We’ve already started to teach our children to be obedient (well, obedient-ish), but at the same time to question authority. It means that I get a bit more back-talk than other moms, but so be it, at least it is smart back-talk. It all started when I was watching the news with Lizzie about 2 years ago after she had just started pre-school. They were showing footage captured from a camera inside a Polish pre-school. The footage showed the principal of the school walking down the hall holding 2 kids by the hand. One kid did not want to walk for some reason, but the principal continued on and dragged the child down the hall. Lizzie was in shock. I was less in shock having performed a similar act with Lizzie dragging her from couch to bathtub during her favorite bajka. This footage opened up a dialogue between us and we were able to discuss (at age 3 1/2) that it was wrong for the principal to do that, that she should have tried another way and that teachers, principals, moms, dads and adults aren’t always right and don’t always tell the truth.

It is good even for us adults to remind ourselves that authority, television, journalists, our doctor, our boss, our parents, other adults are not always right and do not always tell the truth. I recently read an article about FOX News watchers. A large percent of the audience of FOX News believe that President Obama is not a US citizen. These are the same people who believe President Bush found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. That frightens me.

Last week there was a nice documentary about Władysław Bartoszewski on Planete. He talks about his life story but also about the paralyzing power of fear. He also discusses obedience and disobedience -at one point commenting that when everyone was saying ‘someone should do something’ he thought to himself ‘why not me?’ Exactly, why not me?

We try to follow the ‘why not me’ philosophy too, although we have never been challenged in the way Mr. Bartoszewski and his generation were challenged. I remember when we witnessed some guys breaking into a car. Misiu took off after them and I called the police. Nothing had been stolen yet, but the passenger-side window had been smashed. The police asked if it was my car to which I replied that it wasn’t. The police asked if I was hurt in any way to which I replied that I wasn’t. Then the police asked what I wanted them to do. I replied that I wanted them to come and secure the car and find the owners. I heard an exasperated sigh and an “ok, we’ll send somebody”. Once Misiu even tried to help a lady who was being accosted on the train, but it turned out that she didn’t want any help. The man accosting her was her husband. He was trying to give her money which she didn’t want to take so he was trying to slip the money into her bra. What a ruckus she was making!

I don’t have any pithy ending to my post about the truth, so I will leave you with a quote supporting my students’ assertion that there are many truths.

Say not, 'I have found the truth,' but rather, 'I have found a truth.'

Khalil Gibran

:)

Liquid modernity and wyrwa enroiczna

“Kiedy przestaję już ogarniać współczesność, kiedy świat mnie otoczający stawia bariery, który nie jestem w stania sforsować umysłem, gdy zdumienie nad zmieniającą się kulturą masową i obyczajowością przyjmuje już formę graniczną – wtedy sięgam po książki Zygmunta Baumana i w nich szukam wyjaśnień, szukam, mówiąc krótko, ratunku.”

Krzysztof Varga 14 LIPCA 2011 Duży Format GW

Whoa. This is the first line of Krzysztof Varga’s column entitled Lost in the Supermarket czyli ja wszystkożerca in Gazeta Wyborcza’s weekly supplement Duży Format. After that first line I not only wanted to immediately pick up a book, any book, by Zygmunt Bauman, but I also wanted to read Varga’s column beginning to end, which I have done - a few times actually. It was difficult for me. C’mon, liquid modernity is a difficult subject in any language, let alone a “foreign” one. Lucky for me, Bauman who was a Professor of sociology at the University of Leeds, published his many works in English. Oh empik, please, please, please be able to get me some of his books.

Wandering down the page, I decided to read the column by Wojciech Orliński entitled Wyrwa enroiczna. Yeah, I didn’t know what it meant either…but now I do. Thank you Mr. Orliński. You may have experienced wyrwa enroiczna (phrase coined by Anna Bednarczyk) if you have done translation of any kind.

For example, your client asks you for better price terms in the contract for the upcoming year asking, “We are interested in increasing our discount in the contract for next year.”

You reply, “Niestety nie jesteśmy w stanie panstwu przyznać wiekszy rabat w tym roku na takim poziomie zamówień.” (Unfortunately, we are not in a position to offer a larger discount at such a volume of orders.)

Your translator translates your statement as, “No discount.”

Get it?

Wyrwa enroiczna is the gap in meaning or eloquence from the original text to the translated text. It can be the fault of the translator (as in my example above) or just a product of the differences in languages. Orliński describes this phenomenon giving examples from the works of Stanisław Lem, famous Polish science fiction writer, from the book “Lem i tłumacze” a collaborative effort under the editorship of Elżbieta Skibińska and Jacek Rzeszotnik.

The phenomenon is not exactly “lost in translation” but at least “diminished in translation” – the assumption being that the translated text gets the short end of the stick. And that is every translator’s dilemma. For the translated version to be just that, a translated version, not a better version, not a worse version. I recently completed my first large translation (Polish to English, of course) completely on my own. It was a challenge for me, but the text was well-written without too many hearts or flowers if you get my drift. I feel that the English version is very loyal to the Polish version. My success!

To be a good translator, it is not enough to know the 2 languages. Some degree of creativity and imagination is necessary especially in works of literature. It is said that Stanisław Lem was a great poet. I have read his books in English and it never crossed my mind even once to describe his work as poetic, but Orliński has given me something to consider.

Take this line from Solaris (given as an example in Duży Format) of “Bezwzględna cisza wypełniała całą Stację” translated as “Nie słyszałem żadnych dźwięków”. I can see why we hold different opinions on Lem as poet. Orliński read the original book and I read another book entirely, a book free of poetic turns of phrase.

So how should we translate this line from Solaris?

Should it be…?

“The absolute silence filled the Station.”

or maybe…?

“The ruthless silence filled the Station.”

or…?

“The merciless silence filled the Station.”

or even…?

“The Station was filled with a cruel silence.”

or maybe as it was very dryly translated…?

“I couldn’t hear a sound.”

It’s not so easy.

I think we could coin another phrase here…let’s call it reverse wyrwa enroiczna meaning when the the translated text is shinier and more beautiful than the original. First of all, let me say that I like to listen to eloquent speakers just as much as the next guy, but I also appreciate the simple eloquence of plain talkers, for example Lech Wałęsa. However, my first contact with Wałęsa was during his visit to the U.S. and his address to the U.S. Congress. So eloquent was his speech that even the hardened, jaded U.S. congressmen and women were drawn to tears…as was I. Fast-forward to today…I know Polish…kind of…and while I enjoy the straightforward manner of Lech Wałęsa (in Polish), I now know that his moving speech in the U.S. was the combination of good speechwriting and reverse wyrwa enroicza – the translation being a polished version of the original.

Now, I gotta go. The match is on.

Or maybe it should be…

Teraz muszę się z wami pożegnać. Mecz jest transmitowany w telewizji.

or maybe…

Idę teraz. Mecz grają w telewizji.

or even…

Na ra. Spadam. Mecz jest.

:)

JP2

I know that everyone is very interested in the royal wedding but over here in Poland we’ve got bigger fish to fry. Bigger than a royal wedding? Yes! The beatification of the late Pope John Paul the Second.

Top that!

Here’s an excellent article from the NY Times by Maureen Dowd entitled Hold the Halo outlining an argument against the “fast-tracked” sainthood.

I would like to recommend another article in Polish from Gazeta Wyborcza’s magazine Duży Format entitled Sekrety pokolenia JP2. The article consists of interviews of people from the “John Paul II Generation” as it is called. I was a bit surprised by the piety of some of the young people interviewed and at the same time the hypocrisy some of them reveal in their answers –but back to that in a moment.

I barely remember when John Paul II became pope, but I do remember it. I shed a tear when he died.I have mixed feelings about JP2, but I do admire him for 2 things. I admire him for his unwavering stance on the beliefs of the Catholic church - saying something to the effect that the beliefs of the Catholic church are not like a buffet table to pick or choose from - a kind of ‘take it or leave it’ attitude. I also listened intently to his opinion on physical suffering and our duty to endure it. As a person who suffered from an illness whose main symptom was pain, I identified with that opinion, admired his strength in his suffering and tried to take some strength for myself from it.

Some folks condemn the late Pope for the same unwavering stance that I admire especially regarding such issues as birth control, homosexuality, women’s rights in the church, etc. I do not regard myself as a member of the church any longer so those issues don’t bother me. My mixed feelings stem not from these issues but from the late Pope’s lack of definitive action regarding child abuse in the church.

In case you haven’t heard, the late Pope John Paul II is due to be sainted - this Sunday to be exact. That seems like a pretty hot topic for folks here in Poland (Pope John Paul II was Polish), but just try to discuss it with some of them. And I mean really discuss it…not just say how great it is. It’s quite a difficult feat.

OK, I don’t want to exaggerate, a few people will discuss it with you in a rational way – turning over such topics as is the sainthood deserved, why it is so fast (compared to previous granting of sainthood), what it means for Poland and for the church, etc. Some other people, suffering from the JP2 media- blitz overkill, don’t want to discuss it anymore. They’ve just had enough. And then there are those who are unable to discuss it at all. They can certainly talk about it, talk in circles actually, but discuss it, no. Every question (intended with a sincere desire to discuss and in no way to mock the church) is answered with some form of the same answer…that it is a wonderful and magical event for Poland (why only for Poland?), that our pope deserves it (with no concrete reasons why), that those who wish to discuss it are only jealous of the faith of others, and so on.

On the radio, I heard a bit of a cabaret that was, well, practically identical to the real conversations you can have with some people about the beatification. In the end of the cabaret, the man who had extolled the virtues of JP2 was asked if he could cite at least one quotation of Pope John Paul II. After thinking for a moment, he shouted proudly, “We used to go there for kremówki!” Pope John Paul II’s famous quote while visiting his hometown of Wadowice where he pointed out for all the bakery where he and his friends used to go for a cake called kremówka. It’s actually delicious and you can buy the package mix from Gellwe for authentic papal kremówka.

Here’s the original quote: A tam była cukiernia. Po maturze chodziliśmy na kremówki. Że myśmy to wszystko wytrzymali, te kremówki po maturze.

Now back to the DF article . Here’s a quick summary in English.

The first interview is of Marzena, age 25, mother and wife, whose husband is a religion teacher. She states that what she liked best about JP2 was his openness and his humanity citing the example that JP2 went to confession too. She admits that she doesn’t agree with all the beliefs of the church, but that she does not use contraceptives and even her husband the religion teacher laughs at her for this. She expresses surprise when she explains how many of her Catholic friends are unaware that the church forbids contraceptives. She also admits that she and her husband, though they tried not to, did engage in pre-marital sex. Regarding the end of the world, she is sure it will happen in her lifetime. She was considering a career in the police force, but as her husband disapproves she says that she will probably give up that idea.

The next is Justyna, aged 27, mother and wife. She is a bit fed up with all the media coverage of JP2 and also doesn’t like that some people already pray to the late Pope. She and her husband did not engage in pre-marital sex and had a “real wedding night”. Now they dream of creating a close family for their son. She does feel that in the family the man has the last word because in her opinion and in the writings of the Bible, the man has a greater responsibility to the family than the woman.

My favorite is next, Andrzej a 26-year-old hairdresser who suffers from a painful illness of the spine. His attitude to the church is to suffer with dignity and try to help others (I can’t argue with that). He believes that faith is a personal thing separate from priests, the church, prayer and whatnot. He feels that his homosexuality is not a sin and that he lives in a committed and normal relationship, and although he would like to have the option of filing taxes jointly with his partner he would never agree to homosexual couples adopting children. He feels that children should not be exposed to such unnaturalness as homosexuality. The local priest did visit their apartment and although the priest did not wish to bless their apartment, he did take the envelope (with a donation) quite easily. Andrzej’s biggest fear is that he will die alone.

Next comes Aleksandra, a 22-year-old biology student. In Aleksandra’s interview I learned a new word in Polish świętokradztwa which is sacrilege in English but sounds a whole lot better in Polish (“holy stealing”). As a kid she felt uncomfortable confessing all her sins and held back some, hence the sacrilege until the guilt finally caught up with her and she asked her religion teacher to give her confession to clear her conscience. Aleksandra has interesting views on in vitro, homosexuality, AIDS and condom use in Africa that can only be chalked up to ignorance. Aleksandra does feel close to JP2 and even with her family had an opportunity to meet the late Pope. She, however, cannot agree with the stance that JP2 was infallible and that some hold him in higher regard (or as high regard) as God. Now, her greatest achievement is to overcome her fear of confession and stand bravely in the confession line.

Waldek is 31 years old, single and lives with his parents and younger sister. His biggest issue with his faith seems to be sex and that apparently he likes to have a lot of it with many different women. Lucky for him, he heard on Radio Józef that if something such as sex or masturbation became an addiction they no longer qualify as sins, so he is not worried.

Michał is 28 years old, married with a child and smiling throughout the whole interview. He takes from the teachings of JP2 the model of dealing with your problems head on, not trying to get out of them. He also liked that the late Pope set the bar high for youth and encouraged young people to do better and be better. My favorite part is when he says that he has personal contact with JP2 not from guessing what JP2 thought but from reading his teachings.

Last but not least is Edyta, age 29, music and cat lover. Edyta has one failed marriage behind her. What that failed marriage and unsuccessful stay abroad have given her, she says, is a greater tolerance and a knowledge that all things don’t depend solely on us.

Enjoy the beatification. Amen.

Ain’t no sunshine when you’re gone

I like to read the newspaper everyday, actually several if I can find the time, in Polish and in English. Spending a lot of time with two little kids, I need to keep in touch with the outside world for my own sanity. In Polish, I usually pick up Gazeta Wyborcza because it provides general news, and I like Thursday’s supplement Duży Format and Saturday’s magazine Wysokie Obcasy. You could say that I am regular reader. That said, I have never grabbed my copy, looked at the headline and thought oh my, I have to read that, until today (which was actually last week) with this headline: “Już nie kochamy Ameryki” (“We don’t love America anymore”). Why not, I ask, why not?

The article has data from a research study to back up the claims that, in fact, it is true (sniff, sniff).

The article:

http://wyborcza.pl/1,75248,7018159,Juz_nie_kochamy_Ameryki.html

The research institution:

The German Marshall Fund of the United States http://www.transatlantictrends.org/trends/

President Barak Obama is said to be more popular than former president George W. Bush was, but considering that W. was hugely unpopular that is not saying much, and the general fall in support of the US which started during the George W. era remains in effect today. I think that maybe the fact that Poland and Polish soldiers have supported the US in Iraq and Afghanistan and have died there while Polish citizens still need a visa to visit the US may also have something to do with our weakened relations. Misiu says that being treated as a second class citizen/poor relation is getting a bit irritating. According to this article, military participation in Iraq and Afghanistan has also increased pacifist views among Poles. What, WW1 and WW2 weren’t enough? The article also suggests that the difficult negotiations between Poland and the US concerning the US’s request to build an anti-missile defense system on Polish land may have contributed to the worsening relations and that generally Poles (I almost wrote we!) are losing faith in both the US and in NATO.

I am American and I have a healthy patriotic attitude. I am not fanatical, but I am proud. I remember as a school girl praying to God (it was Catholic school) to give our thanks that we had not been born French or German or Spanish. Seriously.We thought that it must be just plain awful not to be American. After saying the daily Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, at my school we added the phrases “God Bless America and keep it safe”. That is a nice sentiment but it was a kind of “screw you” to the rest of the world, just keep us safe. Ok it was the cold war time, and I think our teachers were a bit revved up. We also had to do a lot drills at school like the fire drill (close all the windows before exiting the classroom), severe storm drill (under your desk and hug your knees), and nuclear war drill (under your desk and hug your knees…they forgot to add, kiss your arse good-bye). My husband who was a Polish school boy at the same time felt proud to be Polish, but he was aware that there was something wrong with the system, that they weren’t free. His small protest was to listen to the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe. They didn’t have fire drills or severe storm drill or even nuclear war drills. After the Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor meltdown, Misiu and all the kids of Poland were given Potassium iodide liquid to drink to protect their thyroids from the radiation and hopefully prevent thyroid cancer. Let’s pray that it worked.

If Poland has fallen out of love with America, that means that at one time Poland must have actually been in love with America, but why? Just because we think we are the best doesn’t mean that everyone else has to. Maybe it is because just about every Polish person has got a family member or members in America. According to wikipedia, there are about 10 million people in the US that identify themselves as Polish American, one of them being my father whose grandparents (my great-grandparents) came through Ellis Island in the early 20th century. Misiu says that it can be because America symbolized a true, free democracy when his country was not free. Maybe it was also the role of Ronald Reagan and his talks with Pope John Paul II (who was Polish) in helping to bring down communism in Poland. It can also be the idea of the American dream that through hard work you can achieve success because during PRL the best success was to be had by being clever not necessarily by working hard. Maybe it was because $20 was a whole months salary and when your wujek (uncle) from America sent you a ten-er you were a gość, a real somebody and you could go to Pewex (shop selling western goods paid for in western currency only) and buy yourself some jeans.

It can also be the soap opera view of America that we broadcast all over the world. Dynasty and other American soap operas were a window into an American life that for most American people did not exist. (Do you mud-wrestle your romantic rival in designer duds with humongous shoulder pads? You do? Oops, my mistake.) Polish soap operas also depict America as the promise land. A common plot thread is that you go to America for 6 months and come back mega rich and successful. Ok other plots have been that you go to America and get killed (quite possible) or that you go to America, get tricked into working in the porn industry and come back gay (difficult to blame that on America) and then later go to America a second time and become rich and successful and not gay anymore (hey, it could happen). Now I know why everyone is so disappointed to find out that my family’s life in America is less than soap-opera like. For example, my mother in her early 60’s has only 6 vacation days this year and my father at the height of his career had 2-weeks which means 10 days. They don't take exotic vacations around the world. They don't even come to Poland. My parents don’t know how we live, what are home looks like. They have never met our children, their grandchildren, because it is pretty difficult to do it in 6 days. The worst part is that they think that having basically no down-time is normal. You can gather that I disagree, but I’ll save that for another post.

I have felt the Polish love of America first hand. When I was teaching at high school in a small town, one nice young man from the town hunted me down to make me his own. It didn’t matter to him if I liked him or he liked me or that we could not communicate. The most important thing was that he had to have an American girlfriend. I declined even though he was cute and had a car. Come on, that was something back in the day. Misiu was only cute.

I felt the love, well, kind of, in the local government office when I was applying to renew my stay in Poland. I asked if my application would be accepted for sure. The reply, “You are American. Of course, it will be accepted. It’s not like you are Bulgarian and you came here to work at the bazaar.” If you are Bulgarian, I apologize on her behalf. At least she didn’t say brothel.

I also experienced it at the American Embassy of all places. After fighting my way in (One person waiting in line grabbed me and asked what right I had to go ahead of the line. I flashed my passport and said, “This gives me the right!” I know, it was stupid but I couldn’t resist.), I was surprised to find everyone speaking Russian to me. When the third person in the American Embassy started speaking Russian to me, I almost shouted, “Do I look Russian to you?” whatever it means to look Russian. Then I noticed a distinct lack of Polish or American people for that matter (in the waiting area). The American Embassy in Warsaw must have served part of Ukraine as well then. While waiting in line at the kasa (cashier) to pay for my husband’s immigrant visa, I observed the treatment of the Ukrainian people ahead of me. Shouts from the lady at the kasa, “Please do not ask me! Can’t you read? Kasa does not give information! Can’t you read? Only one at a time! Can’t you read? Stay behind the yellow line!” And then it was my turn. I was afraid. I stayed behind the yellow line. I approached the window alone and I didn’t ask for any information. What did I get? This, “Oh hello. Welcome to the American Embassy in Poland. Is this your first time in Poland, sunshine? (Yes, she really said sunshine. The other people were not Polish either but she didn’t ask them about their visit.) Are you adopting?” I answered, “Something like that. It’s for my husband.” The cashier replied, “Oh ho ho (fake laugh) here you are. Please take this card to window XYZ at 3:00 (this was the information asked for by the people before me) and have a nice day.” Come on, she had to say it - it was the American Embassy…which by the way has American toilet paper in the bathroom. That’s when I realized that that kind of love is just as arbitrary as hate. It is meaningless.

The American Consul official that we met with at the Embassy treated everyone politely and fairly. I did find it odd that she could speak neither Polish nor Russian and Misiu was perturbed by a neon-flashing error in English, her own language. I didn’t care about any of that. I was just waiting for her to stamp our papers which would allow my husband to become a US resident. I was especially worried because the Embassy had been sitting on our application for 2 years. That’s how we came to stay in Poland. We didn’t have a choice. When the official realized that the fault had been on the side of the Embassy, she immediately stamped everything and said to me with a beaming smile, “Now you can go to America!” There was no doubt that she was feeling the love for her country. I answered that I could always go to America because I am American but of course she meant that Misiu and I could finally go together. Next came the hard part. “What should we do if we don’t want to go?” I asked. Her face couldn’t hide her surprise and I’m sure that somewhere in her Embassy rented apartment she had a calendar with the days until she returned to America numbered in red. “Well, you kind of have to. The visa documents must be presented in person by the two of you,” she explained. So we did go to America a month or two later and then came back to Poland where we had jobs and a mortgage and everybody loved us (Did I go too far with that part?).

I also felt the love or maybe it was the sympathy on September 11th. I’ve never had so many phone calls in my life expressing concern and sympathy and asking if I am alright. Physically, I was alright. I was at my parents-in-law’s in a small town in Poland. I was probably the safest American girl on the planet that day. It was another story for my Polish brother-in-law and his son, my nephew (it’s weird to call him that ‘cause we are the same age) who were stranded in Manhattan and couldn’t figure out how to get home above ground. They usually hopped on the subway. (That’s why I like trams. I can see where I am going.) When the phone lines were finally opened, we tried to set them off (separately) in the right direction home among the crowd of people. Can you believe that they were able to find each other in that crowd of hundreds of thousands of people? If physically alright, mentally, I was not alright. While glued to the TV fighting off waves of nausea, I expected to see the next attack on London, then Paris, then Berlin. When I realized that it was an attack just on America, I was in greater disbelief. You see, despite my university education and travels, I was still very naive. Somewhere deep inside me, I believed that not only Poland loved America, but that everyone loved America. So now that Poland doesn’t love us anymore, who have we got left?