How I ended up in Poland in the first place....

There is an odd series of events that led me to Poland in the first place. I had received this email through my helpx account asking if I had ever thought about teaching English in Poland… To be honest, has anyone? It seemed like a bit of a scam but for some reason, probably due to a lack of anything better to do, and seeing as I would be unable to work thanks to my car accident, I signed up. Angloville became this amazing experience I got to be a part of. I had the absolute pleasure of being one of the 15 or so native English speakers participating in the program. I did three weeks of this program in total, and every week was completely different. I made friendships I hope will last a life time. I found people who were willing to talk history, religion, sex, and communism with me. You spend five full days with these incredible people, which really is a lot of time and you spend even more time with the ones you really connect with. I have no idea how many bottles of bison grass vodka we consumed but I do know I bought a litre of it leaving Poland so when I am missing the amazing people I spent that time with I can toast to them, na zdrowie! I’m not entirely sure why the last group was the one in which I connected with the most people, it might have had to do with being put in the “party house”. Being a host I felt it was my responsibility to make sure people felt welcome and that I had something to offer them when they came over, so the second day I found someone to take me out to the closest market so I could stock up on supplies. There is this funny thing in life, when you are generous it can go one way or the other, either people appreciate and reciprocate or nothing. I am naturally a person who is generous so it was amazing the third night when the girls showed up with all the same snacks we had out the night before. (because they knew we would like them) The last night they showed up with what was left in the store. We stayed up till 4am! When the last two Polish people left I called it a night, because in all honesty I never felt a connection with any of the other English speakers. When I went to bed that night I wrote in my notes on my phone “how lovely it felt to have the polish tell me how wonderful I am, and yet how bad the English people at the end of the night made me feel” It was a bizarre dynamic for me, and I don’t think they intended to make me feel that way it was just a shocking realization that I did not get on with that group of people. I guess sometimes age really does make a difference. Maybe I was getting on better with the Polish people because they were closer to my age. At the end of it all though, I met some truly amazing and lovely people, I learned a few words in Polish, and Tompers sure misses Elle.