The Polish Experience By Nicholas Westerby This ... - GetSab.Com

would be a crash. When we got stuck behind one of the innumerable delivery
trucks we had to play Russian roulette or sit patiently. There was no stereo in
the car so I decided I should sing for Elly and not being very good I made up a
few stupid songs. My favourite tune to make up songs to was Jarabe Tapatío,
the Mexican hat dance.
The traffic started to thin out and the fields grew larger. Elly was still nervous
and I was still learning how to give my birthday wishes. I didn’t feel nervous at
all. I saw this as a challenge to be overcome. If anything the most
uncomfortable part of this was going to be sitting down with that oaf Marvin.
Elly didn’t mention him to me and I wasn’t about to say anything to her.
“Who will be there then?” I asked.
“You, me, Mama, Marvin, Baba e J-ad-eck.” She replied.
I had learnt the ‘e’ meant ‘and’ and even though it sounded like ‘e’ it was
written as ‘i’.
Every time I heard it in Polish it confused me. Their ‘i’ sounded like English ‘e’
and vice versa. When I was on holiday in Greece I learnt that ‘oui’ was ‘no’ and
‘non’ was ‘yes’, very strange and when drunk it messed with my high school
French. I had never seen the point of learning a second language when I lived in
England but now I realised that communication, not just pointing at things to get
what you wanted in a shop, was essential to understanding. I knew that if I was