2007-07-11

A group of five girls show up at the school in the morning and spend the entire day with us. It’s a pity they’re only in their second year of high school; they’d make good candidates for the University. Everybody who participates in our event is too young. The kids we talked to yesterday at the basketball court didn’t come, of course.

I start the thing off with style. People gather, fascinated, as I’m hanging from a tree. I’m tied in, on climbing rope, and I’m embarrassed and exhausted and waves of heat and sweat are wafting off my body. I’m actually so tired that I’m beginning to smell, faintly. Chinese people don’t smell. (Mostly this is true, and even if it isn’t, I persist in saying it.) I can’t get up, can’t go down. What took Kamil five minutes is taking me twenty. I ask Paweł to leave me there and bring me french fries for dinner tomorrow. He says that provisions will be simple, bread and water only. I wonder if I will grow moss on my body if I stay up there forever. I could become an attraction in Janowiec, a basis for it to become the next great tourist destination: See the Asian American girl hanging from the maple tree in our park! She has moss growing behind her knees, between her toes, and under her armpits, but somebody climbs up once every six weeks to shave her head!

We ditch the tightrope because none of us can do it perfectly. We ditch the climbing rope because it took me so long to get up there. Instead, we concentrate on crate stacking. Somebody is tied in to the rope, with Paweł to belay. They’re handed plastic milk cartons (actually, soda and beer cartons) to stack on top of each other and climb up. It’s the little kids who are best at this; they’re lighter and it’s easier for them to fit their feet in the crate handles.

There’s singing too: Gypsy songs, Polish songs, but it’s the girls who have been with us all day who participate. Tomek demonstrates kung fu. I’m ridiculously bad, the same way I’m a terrible dancer, because I simply can’t coordinate my body, but it’s fun. I’m one of the lesser athletes of the world, but I love activities that make me hyperaware of my body and all its parts.

What qualifies a success? There are no young people who might be old enough to be candidates for our school. The ones who do look old enough slink on by, armed with beer and cigarettes, barely glance at the spectacle we’re putting on. I don’t suppose they’d be interested in attending a school where alcohol, nicotine, and sex are prohibited; where the focus is on arts, humanities, and community activism. They’re probably thinking about going abroad to earn money. Maybe they’re already with child.

The girls tell us about the teachers at their school. Some of them are alcoholics, and many of them don’t teach. Kamila tells me this is common in small towns in Poland, and it doesn’t surprise me.