Malone Service Learning - Poland

A very early start. We should be home in about 22 hours! At gate in Krakow.

Our original plan was to view a couple of cathedrals, perhaps the royal castle, maybe a walk through a dragon cave, and then spend the afternoon shopping. [caption id="attachment_567" align="alignleft" width="275"] Long climb[/caption] [caption id="attachment_566" align="aligncenter" width="246"] Make a wish...[/caption]   [caption id="attachment_565" align="aligncenter" width="552"] Roman ruins, castle side buildings[/caption] Well, the Wawel Cathedral made this list, and the rest (sans shopping) was shelved for a princess ride in a hosedrawn carriage for the four young women who have served so well these last few days.  We'll meet up again for dinner, ready for that 4:15 a.m. departure for the airport, and a long day of travel on tomorrow's itinerary. [caption id="attachment_570" align="aligncenter" width="401"] Princess ride[/caption]

Last night, we bid goodbye to Gosia, Julia, Martyna, and Jeremiaz.  Today, we said the rest of our goodbyes when Daniel and Tymo dropped us off at our Hotel in Krakow.  It is amazing how some people can enter our life deeply in such a short space of time, but the Masarczyk family certainly did just that, and it made parting quite sad, for us and for our wonderful hosts.  Rather than dwelling on that, though, here is a bit about our day. Our final service project was more English language classes at another school where the four women from Malone did presentations for middle school students about education in the US and their hometowns and students practiced English with them through interactive exercises and games.  Dr. E. spent time with younger students, doing games that helped them practice basic vocabulary and  tenses.  Of course, being anywhere in Poland also means that you have to have a nice meal before you can leave, so the school provided us with a very nice meal of a grilled ...

We started off our day with our usual breakfast of cold cuts, but as a special treat Dr. E got us donuts upon our request. After having breakfast we went to a mall where Dr. E had coffee with Daniel and two other Polish pastors while the four of us girls went shopping. We looked around for a little bit and then went to Auchan, a grocery store similar to Wal-Mart but in the middle of the mall. We got LOTS of chocolate to take home! Most of our day was spent at Wyższa Szkoła Biznesu w Dąbrowie Górniczej, where we were invited to be part of their International Day.  We represented the US, while other students from Turkey, Ukraine, Armenia, Nigeria, and Poland represented their countries.  The day began with the Turkish national anthem on lead guitar, followed by the Ukrainian national anthem on bass, and the Star Spangled Banner on alto sax. We watched a presentation from two Turkish students and then gave our own presentation focused on the education system in the U.S. as well as where w...

Today we spent most of the day in Tarnowskie Góry helping teach some of the children English.  After the usual cold cuts for breakfast at Daniel's church, we sped to Asia's house (we were running a tad late) and then followed her to the school.  Daniel dropped us off there and Asia gave us another rundown of what was going to happen.  Nothing really prepared us for what happened (which is basically always true when making plans that involve children).  When we walked into the main school building and there was a banner that read "American Day."  Talk about feeling like movie stars!  A lovely lady named Dominica was introduced to us and right away she gave us the itinerary, explained the activity, and then the kids arrived.  Karleigh, Sarah, and Jordyn were each assigned a group of kids and they were in charge of helping the students understand the words and teach them how to pronounce them correctly.  It was Carrie's job to listen to all of the children pronounce ...

The students are busy preparing their presentations that will be used for the next three days as we work with primary, middle school, and university students, so they asked me to write today’s blog.  Today was filled with fellowship, food, and laughter.  We left the hotel at 9:15 and headed to church, where we made our traditional Polish breakfast of cold cuts, cheese, bread, jam, coffee, tea, juice… and Karleigh’s staple of banana with crunchy peanut butter.  After cleaning up our dishes, we enjoyed the service at the church that Daniel leads.  About 80 people pack into a small room.  Everyone shakes hands with everyone else when they enter the small room used for worship.  Daniel and three other people led the music, some of it familiar in melody, but none of it familiar in words!  Carrie and Jordyn said that they could sing the English tunes to a few songs, and all four of them kind of stared at the to-us-largely-indecipherable Polish words. There are several parts of the service wh...

“For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.” - Elie Weisel,  Night Today we visited Auschwitz. It is hard to put into words what we felt and experienced. The Holocaust is something we have all learned about in school for a long time, and a couple of us have visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. and read memoirs written by survivors.  This experience, however, was much different because instead of learning about something that happened in another country before we were born, it was something that happened on the ground we were standing on. Going into the day, we expected the visit to be emotionally difficult but were surprised at how distant we felt. Even though it was right in front of us, what ha...

Happy Friday the 13th from Sosnowiec! We started off our day by eating breakfast at Kwadrat Bistro Art, a cute quaint cafe that was a close walk from our hostel. After breakfast, we left our hostel a bit later than planned, and sprinted to the train station with all of luggage. While crossing under the street, it is sometimes hard to tell which side of which street the stairs lead to, and we took the wrong one, making us run back down the stairs (with all of our luggage and no escallator) and up another set of stairs (again with no escallator).  After over 20 minutes of dashing along, we went down one more flight of stairs into the Warsawa Centralia train station, where we found an escallator to take us to our platform.  Despite all the chaos of getting to the station, we made it just in the nick of time, and quickly found our seats when the train pulled in.  About four minutes after boarding the train, we were pulling out of the station in a very comfortable, smooth, fast, modern trai...

Today was filled with museums, lots of walking, good food, and great company.  The group decided to go to a local cafe for breakfast.  Afterwards, we made our way to the Copernicus Science Center, which was not, as we thought, by the Copernicus Institute of Science.  But that let us walk by the Chopin Museum and one of Warsaw's many parks.  The Science Center was a lot of fun to tour and to be able to engage in the different interactive exhibits. From there, we walked through beautiful and scenic Old Town again.   We stopped for lunch and all ordered delicious types of Pierogis.  The four students decided to buy a lock to put on the railing overlooking the Vistula River, a common way of memorializing or "locking in" relationships and memories. The group then walked quite a distance to the Uprising Museum.  Touring this Museum was such a sobering experience.  We realized that we were not simply touring a museum, but we are witnessing something that took place in the city w...

We started our day eating a continental version of a traditional Polish breakfast of cold cut sandwiches, hot dogs, and yogurt.  We then were picked up by Dr. Entwistle's friendProfessor, Gasiul.   Dr. Entwistle gave a 2 1/2 hour lecture on Disaster Psychology.  The students were very interested and enjoyed the "American style" of teaching.  After the lecture, we ate lunch with Professor Gasiul, a priest, and two of the students, Kamil and Karolina. After returning to Hostel Oki Doki to freshen up, we went to a really nice Pottery store where everything is painted by hand.  Ceramic dinnerware in colorful blue patterns is one of the things for which Poland is well known.  The pieces were very beautiful and intricate. For the afternoon, Carrie, Jordyn, Sarah, and Karleigh got to go to Łazienki Park with five students from the university to enjoy the nature, learn more about Poland, eat ice cream, and get to know the students (and yes, the students did get a group selfie).  ...

After a much needed night of sleep, we woke up around 6:30 AM to be ready to head to the airport for our flight to Warsaw. We grabbed breakfast at the airport before boarding our plane, and then were in the air for about an hour and a half before landing in Warsaw around 11:30. After grabbing our bags we hopped in a taxi and headed to the hostel we'll be staying at until Friday morning. The room for the four of us girls wasn't quite ready yet, so we decided to try to find a pottery shop we had talked about in one of our meetings. On our way to the bus station, we stumbled upon a beautiful park called the Saxon Garden. There were lots of colorful flowers, a sun dial from 1863, and a large fountain. At one end of the park there was a large monument and at the other was Poland's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It was really cool to see another country's memorial for their unknown soldiers, but there were some very noticeable differences between theirs and ours in the US. The ...

We had a fantastic day in Amsterdam with Rens and Dini Filius, who showed us around Amsterdam, including the stunning paintings in the Rijksmuseum, walking through old towns and around windmills, a ferry ride across a river, watching a cobbler craft wooden shoes, and even dipping our toes in the North Sea.  We are all tired but well, and looking forward to getting up early for our flight to Warsaw!

Good flight   to Amsterdam.   No one slept very much, but we were able to get an early check in, so we are all freshening up before heading out on the town with Dr. Rens Filius and his wife Dini.  Dr. Filius and Dr. Entwistle attended grad school together, and will hopefully recognize each other after 25 years!

Delayed out of CAK, ready to board DET to AMS!

A few tears, but mostly excitement as we leave CAK.  Next stop DTW.

Tentative Itinerary, Malone University Poland SLT, May, 2016 Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday 8   Arrive at CAK at 12:00 noon   1:35 p.m. Depart CAK Delta 3771    2:33 p.m. Arrive DET   4:06 p.m. Depart DET KL 6018 9   6:00 a.m. Arrive AMS   Tour Amsterdam with Rens Filius   ibis Schiphol Amsterdam Airport DCZBTSKB 10 9:45 a.m. Depart AMS KL 1363 11:40 a.m. Arrive WAW   Hostel Oki Doki Plac Dabrowskiego 3, Corner of Marszalkowska and Swietokrzyska 11 9:30 a.m. meet Prof. Gasiul 10:00 Dr. E. presentation on Disaster Mental Health @ UKSW Institute of Psychology   Lunch at UKSW   Hostel Oki Doki 12   Old Town Warsaw           Hostel Oki Doki   13   10:50 a.m. Depart Warszawa Centralna   1:27 p.m. Arrive Katowice   Hostel Brooklyn   14   Sosnowiec   Hostel Brooklyn 15   Sosnowiec   Worship at Kościół Chrystusowy w RP, Sosnowiec     Hostel ...

Welcome to the blog of the 2016 Malone University Poland Service Learning Team!  We are a small group this year, led by Dr. David Entwistle, who has led many trips to Poland since 2004.  Please check back here for regular updates! Jordyn, Karleigh, Sarah, and Carrie at a Polish buffet in Cleveland.