Easter in Krakow

Going to Krakow
For Easter, Becky, Karin and I decided to go to Krakow. We wanted to rent a car and drive, but didn't know you had to reserve a car at least a month in advance. So, we took the train instead. It was a nice six hour ride - lots of time for talking, reading and watching the countryside go by. It was actually a nice time of relaxing and rejuvenation.

Auschwitz
Krakow is just an hour bus ride from Oświęcim, the Polish town were the concentration camp Auschwitz is located. On the bus ride, they show a video about the history of the camp. It was a sobering ride. Words can not really express the feeling of being at Auschwitz. To be there, standing in a place where history happened. And such recent history. I stood there realizing that this place was a place I had read about in my history books, talked about in history class and yet, people who had suffered in Auschwitz were still alive. So many places in Europe are about ancient history. Not this place.
Our guide was a gentile lady who spoke very with a Polish accent and quietly showed us how important it was for this place never to be forgotten. Unlike most tourist locations, Auschwitz was full of silence. As we were walking through the camp, you could hear the sound of shoes on the gravel road. You can not take pictures inside any of the buildings, for which I was thankful. Because, instead of people focusing on getting a good shot, they were forced to really look at the things before them. The suffering, the pain, the despair.
It is not an easy place to go. It is not for everyone. Children under 14 years old are not allowed. And yet, it is a place that everyone should go. Because we can not forget. We can never forget and we must always remember.
"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. " - George Santayana

Auschwitz

Salt Mine
The next day, we went to the Salt mines. It is one of the oldest salt mines in the world and up until a few years ago was still operating. Now it is a tourist attraction. It has a depth of 327 meters (for you not into the metric system, 1073 feet). We had to walk down over 500 stairs just to get to the start of the tour, and many more stairs as we went along. All through the mine, everything is made of salt. There are statues showing the history of how salt was mined, famous storybook scenes (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) and famous people (The Pope). I am posting some pictures from the mine, but it is one place you have to see to appreciate. (Since it is all underground, the pictures are all kind of dark.) The coolest thing was that they have a huge cathedral underground, made of salt. Their are carvings on the wall depicting scenes from the life of Christ from his birth to his resurrection, including Da Vinci's Last Supper. The crystals on the chandeliers are made from salt and the tiles on the floor aren't tiles at all but salt. It is truly a sight to see and well worth the long walk down.

Salt Mines

Easter Markets in Krakow
Spending Easter in a country that is 95% Catholic (with 70% practicing) means that Easter is a huge holiday. Krakow had an Easter market, very similar to the Christmas market in Bratislava with lots of little trinkets, yummy food and neat people. We spent time each day wandering around, buying little treats and enjoying the sights and sounds. We bought dinner at the market one night, sausages and rolls, mushrooms and sauerkraut. So yummy.

Krakow

In the square, they were setting up a huge stage and on Saturday, at 9pm, the show started. Of course, it was in Polish, but that did not stop us from spending the next two hours standing (and freezing) watching the show. It was an Easter drama, that much we could tell, but we are not exactly sure what it was about. We are guessing that the majority of the drama was from the 1940's, based on the costumes, and that it may have had something to do with the Jews and WWII. There was a full orchestra and four talented singers, plus two dramatic readers. And near the end of the show they took a man in white (Jesus) and attached him to a crane and lifted him, arms outstretched into the midnight sky. Even though the words were in a foreign language, we could understand the emotion behind the scene. We left the drama cold, but touched and thankful that God loved us enough to send his Son to die for us.

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world (that's you and me!) that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life."

One Of Those Days...

Yesterday was one of those days. It just felt like everything was going wrong. It started out nice enough. I woke up refreshed (always a good thing on a Friday morning) and the sun was shining. When I got to school, the morning rush started. Copies to make, things to print and gathering everything I needed. Unfortunately, I couldn't teach in my classroom, as they were doing special testing in it. So, I was given one of the Rest Time rooms. A huge room, with no carpet, no furniture, no desks, no chairs, no white-boards. Now, I am flexible and adaptable, and having no desks didn't bother me, as I like to have my classes sit on the floor. The problem came when you put people in the room. There was nothing to absorb the sound, so it was like teaching in a cavern - even a whisper echoed across the room. None of my lessons went quite as I would have liked as it was impossible to keep the noise level bearable. My fourth lesson of the day is with 4th graders, and I have the head director's (think superintendent) daughter, the director's (think principal) son, the deputy director's (think vice-principal) son all in my class. So, when I got to my make shift classroom, there is the director with his wife. He asks if his wife can sit in on my class for a few minutes, as she is waiting for their other son to finish some testing. How can I say no. So, I say yes and in she comes. The lesson is fine, just incredibly noisy. I actually think that the kids are having fun. My only other problem with this room is that it has no clock and of course, yesterday was the one day I forgot my watch. So, I had brought my cell phone to class and was using it as my watch. My least favorite thing about Friday's is that my 4th lesson ends at 11:55 and my 5th lesson starts at 11:55. So, I have to be in two places at once. Usually, it is not that big of a deal, because I can just let the 4th graders walk to their classroom which is on the same hallway as my classroom. But since we are in a different room, I have to go with them. And I had asked my 5th graders to meet in the computer lab since we are working on a computer project. So, as I am trying to herd my 4th graders back to their room and race up the stairs to the computer lab, who do I find corraling my 5th graders? The head director. Great. Just great. He doesn't say anything, but I feel bad. The only good thing is that my 5th graders are good for my lesson and I feel like we accomplished something. Near the end of the lesson, one of my 5th graders stops me and asks, "Are we going to have lunch together?" She has invited me to have lunch with her and her friends every Friday. Now, I am feeling a little better. I buy my lunch in the cafeteria everyday, as it is very cheap, filling, warm and usually good. There are always 2 choices, a vegetarian and a meat. I saw that the vegetarian was a kind of potato paste with a hard boiled egg on top (not my favorite) while the meat option was rice with little pieces of meat in a sauce. So, I had the meat. As I was taking it to my table, I looked more closely at it and realized that it was kind of a funny color. Almost all the meat we have in the cafeteria is pork and this definitely was not pork. When I looked at it more closely, I noticed the texture looked strange. So, I decided just to eat my soup and the rice. My girls and I had a nice chat. They noticed that I wasn't eating my meat and told me that neither of them liked this meat either. They said it was black or purple meat and started pointing to their stomachs. "Liver?" I asked. "Yes!" they said. Yuck! So, I left lunch still a little hungry, but glad to have avoided the liver.

One of those days...

I went to my office and straightened up, getting ready for the next day. I checked my email and found out that some friends of ours in Hungary may have to leave the country 2 months early because of problems with their visas and plane tickets. So, I just was feeling really down. And like I hadn't done my best teaching. And wondering why I was coming back for another year. So, I packed up my things and decided to head home. But on the way, I stopped by the secretaries office (up 3 flights of stairs) to ask her something and ended up staying for 20 minutes or so. I went downstairs to sign out and ran into one of the rest time teachers who was brining a group of kids inside. I had wanted to ask her something, so I stopped and talked to her for a moment. Two of my third graders saw me and grabbed my hands, and started talking to me about čaj (tea). Then Andreka, the rest time teacher, said, "We welcome you to tea with us." My girls wanted me to come and have tea with them. So, of course I did. We talked in a strange mixture of Slovak and English. They wanted to sit by me and share their tea. One little girl, Maťa, even gave me some special tea to take home with me. And all of a sudden I knew why I was staying. This was why. I am building relationships, and with younger students, who don't have a lot of English, it takes more time. I am their teacher, and yet, much of the time, I don't understand what they are saying, and communicating with them is hard work. And yet, here they were, asking me to come to tea and sharing their snacks with me. So, as I left school, I took the opportunity as I was walking, to thank God for reminding me why I had come, why I was staying and for opening doors for me. Please, please, join me in praying that God will continue to open doors for me to build relationships with my students and share who I am and what I believe in with my students.
I serve an amazing God who promises that He will do abundantly more than we can ask. Now, all I have to do is ask....
(Ephesians 3:20 - Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us).